can vouch on our personal knowledge. In times like these, when the hierarchy is getting more rampant the better it is understood, we feel it to be our duty to mention such a circumstance, which is by no means a solitary instance, that we may not be imposed upon as to the real state of the case, so far as some of 'the Protestant missionaries of all denominations' are concerned. We hope that Mr. Campbell's emphatic warnings on this subject as well as his animating appeals, may be duly weighed in the proper quarters.

Towards the close of this energetic address to Protestant missionaries, with the whole of which we have been much struck our author contrasts two great authorities, Dr. Adam Smith and Dr. Samuel Johnson, in their respective views of the results of maritime discovery; showing how poor and low were the brightest anticipations of the economist; and how the missionares are actually realising what the moralist feared would never be attempted or regarded. We are not aware that these extracts have ever been presented in juxtaposition before. We quote the passage as a sample of the author's oratorical, not of his narrative, style. Mr. C. says the two illustrious men were "friends;" this, if we may believe Boswell, was by no means the case.

Had Adam Smith, the great founder of the School of true Political Philosophy in Europe, the magnitude of whose powers of comprehension, comparison, and analysis, was equalled only by his boundless subject-lived in our day, he would have seen in you the novel instrumentality appointed for realizing his own sublime and glorious anticipations respecting the results of Maritime Discovery, and the future harmony and felicity of our distracted world. His views are thus set forth in his immortal work:

"The discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind. Their consequences have already been great; but, in the short period of between two and three centuries, which has elapsed since these discoveries were made, it is impossible that the whole extent of their consequences can have been foreseen. What benefits or what misfortunes to mankind may hereafter result from those great events, no human wisdom can foresee. By uniting, in some measure, the most distant parts of the world, by enabling them to relieve one another's wants, to increase one another's enjoyments, and to encourage one another's industry, their general tendency would seem to be beneficial. To the natives, however, both of the East and West Indies, all the commercial benefits which can have resulted from those events have been sunk and lost in the dreadful misfortunes which they have occasioned. These misfortunes, however, seem to have arisen rather from accident than from anything in the nature of those events themselves. At the particular time when these discoveries were made, the superiority of force happened to be so great on the side of the Europeans, that they were enabled to commit

with impunity every sort of injustice in those remote countries. Hereafter, perhaps, the natives of those countries may grow stronger, as those of Europe may grow weaker, and the inhabitants of all the different quarters of the world may arrive at that equality of courage and force, which, by inspiring mutual fear, can alone overawe the injustice of independent nations into some sort of respect for the rights of one another. But nothing seems more likely to establish this equality of force, than that mutual communication of knowledge, and of all sorts of improvements, which an extensive commerce, from all countries to all countries, naturally, or rather necessarily, carries along with it.'

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In this profound passage, philosophical sagacity has done its utmost; it can go no further. Should these means fail, philosophy knows of nothing more by which the wounds of suffering humanity can be healed. But even this lofty flight of the eagle-eyed economist has made only a small discovery compared with the disclosures of God's word. How clear are its communications on the subject of the means! How bright and glorious are its anticipations and infallible predictions, in respect of the end! Oh! how feeble and purblind is the highest philosophy in comparison with the most meagre exhibition of true Christianity!

Where speculation ends, there revelation only begins. Having listened to the sage, let us now hear the prophet:-'The ends of the earth shall remember, and turn unto the Lord; the kindreds of the nations shall worship before him; for the kingdom is his, and he is the governor among the nations.' He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.' They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.' Oh! ye servants of the Most High, whom the Prince of Peace hath sent unto the Gentiles, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive the forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in him!' for you the gates of the ocean were opened, and the high-way of the waters, both to the west and to the east, explored by Columbus and De Gama. Those mighty men were your precursors. Their discoveries, at the appointed time, were of God as really as the appearance of John in the wilderness, or the conversion and appointment of the apostle of the Gentiles. Yours is the distinguished honour, to repair the wrongs of distant countries in former ages, and to recompense the dreadful misfortunes' which Smith truly declares to have been the accidental attendants of maritime discovery. Those nations of Europe which have so long robbed and oppressed the millions of other climes, shall not destroy for ever! The reign of their rapacity has even now approached its everlasting close! You, their Christian sons! have begun to atone for the inhuman barbarity of them, your cruel fathers! Europe-the emporium of the aggregated wealth of a plundered world-is becoming through you to that very world the fountain of life, and the source of celestial blessings!

In preparing the earlier parts of the following volume, while sur

veying the globe as it stands before us, and casting a rapid glance over the expanded field of missionary enterprise, we have read with an emotion, in which you will doubtless participate, the remarkable declarations, the noble views, the withering censures, of the great moralist of England, in relation to missions. The expanded benevolence, and the stupendous intellect, of Johnson have dealt with the question of maritime discovery in its missionary bearings in a manner which will redound more to his honour, in the future and better ages of our world, than all the rest of his works, whether poetry, prose, history, or biography, combined. It is, moreover, interesting to compare the English moralist with the Scotch philosopher, and to see, in this case, the great superiority of the former, although he wrote long antecedently to the latter. Smith and Johnson were friends; but they were men in all points very differently constituted; the moralist, notwithstanding his ferocity, had in his heart greatly more tenderness and benevolence than the calm, but cold and calculating economist. The following are the declarations of Johnson:

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In 1463, in the third year of the reign of John II., died Prince Henry, the first encourager of remote navigation, by whose incitement, patronage, and example, distant nations have been made acquainted with each other, unknown countries have been brought into general view, and the power of Europe has been extended to the remotest parts of the world. What mankind has lost and gained by the genius and designs of this prince, it would be long to compare, and very difficult to estimate. Much knowledge has been acquired, and much cruelty committed; the belief of religion has been very little propagated, and its laws have been outrageously and enormously violated. The Europeans have scarcely visited any coast, but to gratify avarice, and extend corruption; to arrogate dominion without right, and practise cruelty without incentive. Happy had it then been for the oppressed, if the designs of Henry had slept in his bosom, and surely more happy for the oppressors. But there is reason to hope, that, out of so much evil, good may sometimes be produced; and that the light of the gospel will at last illuminate the sands of Africa, and the deserts of America, though its progress cannot but be slow, when it is so much obstructed by the lives of Christians.

The first propagators of Christianity recommended their doctrines. by their sufferings and virtues; they entered no defenceless territories with swords in their hands; they built no forts upon ground to which they had no right; nor polluted the purity of religion with the avarice of trade, or the insolence of power! What may still raise higher the indignation of a Christian mind, this purpose of propagating truth appears never to have been seriously pursued by any European nation; no means, whether lawful or unlawful, have been practised with diligence and perseverance for the conversion of savages. When a fort is built, and a factory established, there remains no other care than to grow rich. It is soon found that ignorance is most easily kept in subjection, and that by enlightening the mind with truth, fraud and usurpation would be made less practicable, and less secure.'

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Brethren and fathers! you can read these awful paragraphs of the

author of the Rambler, without a blush. Such, however, was his estimate of all missions known in his day; but the dust of Johnson had slumbered eleven years in Westminster Abbey, before the formation of the London Missionary Society-an institution against which not even one of the objections of the moralist can be raised-an institution wanting in nothing which he considered necessary to the efficient prosecution of the mighty enterprise. Nor is that, although among the first, the only institution of which these things may be safely affirmed. The question of missions, like every other appertaining to religion, and the kingdom of Christ, is now more clearly understood than in the days of Johnson; and that which nations' had failed to do, voluntary confederacies of believers are energetically and successfully accomplishing. Means have, for more than a whole generation, 'been practised with diligence and perseverance for the conversion of savages,' while the light of the gospel' has at last illuminated the sands of Africa, and the deserts of America.' The millions of India, and of Polynesia also, awake to the voice of love. The work of missions is at length happily wrested from the hands of blood and rapine, and carried on by the saints of the Most High; kings and commercial companies begin at length to understand more clearly their own province; and it only remains now for the churches of the living God to put on their strength, and to put forth their graces.'-Ded. vii.—xiii.

Let us now turn to the work itself; the contents of which may be thus briefly summed up. The events preparatory to maritime discovery are discussed in part I., in three chapters, on the effects of the Crusades, the progress of eastern travel, and the invention of the compass. Maritimė discovery in the East, under the auspices of Prince Henry of Portugal, and the subsequent discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, and India, occupy the five chapters of part II. The wondrous achievements of Columbus, with the events succeeding his discovery, are related in the six chapters of part III. The Fourth part embraces the history of discovery in the South. The remaining five "Parts" are occupied with the rise and progress of the spirit of missions in England and America (a series of chapters which certain sneerers at the qualifications of missionaries would do well to study); the two missionary voyages of the ship Duff to the South Seas; a most luminous and comprehensive review of society in the islands of the South Seas previous to the introduction of the gospel; and the biographical sketches of the principal founders of the London Missionary Society, conclude this admirable work.

The noble manner in which Mr. Campbell opens up the vast regions of the earth to the enterprises of commerce and piety, has been already hinted at. On no part of the volume has he bestowed more pains than upon this, which is comprised in the first 150 pages; although every portion of it is labored with extraordinary diligence, fulness, and accuracy. His object is simple, and his method logical; but, from the nature of the subject, he is not

compelled to wander from either in order to sustain attention, or excite admiration. While he rises with the inspiring theme, and narrates, analyses, condenses, moralizes, and combines, with all the plastic power of conscious energy, he preserves the straightforward-ad rem-business-like character throughout. He writes to instruct as well as to please for the many, not for the few. He writes like a man with the vigor of the olden time in his pen, which is rare to be met with in these days of sentimental affectation, and puling refinement. Our author's style is generally in accordance with his matter. If there be a fault about it, it is the fault of over much force, which earnest writers are most apt to run into; but this must not be confounded with the appearance of effort. The style seems only to want softening down a little, by the introduction of a more colloquial modulation, to be more continuously pleasing, and not one jot less effective. But, knowing well, that what is habitual is, for the most part, incorrigible, we do hereby assert, from our critical chair, that the hint we have given to this practised writer and speaker will be lost upon him. He has all the perfervidum genius Scotorum in his constitution.

Mr. Campbell asserts that the spirit of missions was the 'principal support' of the enterprises to Africa, India, and America. Is there, then, any such close connection between maritime discovery and Christian missions? That there ought to be 'mutual relations' cannot be doubted. Reasoning beforehand, upon probabilities, without reference to historical facts, any one duly considering of both, would say that the mutual relations' would be so intimate as to justify our regarding them as cause and effect. Speculating, a priori, it might be asked, With what under the sun can it be truly said that Christianity has nothing to do? No sooner can we suppose it to be proclaimed from heaven, than it would be absurd to conceive of any human effort, or any human interest, being exempted from its supernatural influence. A full and final revelation of the Eternal Will must mingle with every thing; it would fail in the evidence of its divinity, if it did not reflect the universality of its author. While the world shall continue to be a world of relations, so long must such a system continue to regulate, mould, and govern, with either more or less of visibility, all circumstances and all minds, and embrace the whole earth, with all her races, and all her affairs. The truth, like the primeval light, may have to do with a wide-spread chaos; but no sooner is it bade to spring forth, than it must move on the universal heart of this dark world. Its creative beam must expand and permeate, although the inquisitive eye of man may be as blind to its splendor, as his heart is insensible to its healing power. After admitting the gospel to have been sent from heaven, we shall believe that the God of Providence is the God of Grace as well;