come its seat, and insensibly saps it of the vital springs of life. In its progress, it devours, like a vulture, peace, love, content, and all the social affections; introducing as substitutes, variance, hatred, discontent, and all the restlessness of inordinate self-love.

Thus drawing every thing within its own little circle, it settles down in a murmuring dulness, finding fault with every body and not half pleased with itself; tired of life, like the envious Saul, king of Israel, becomes its own destroyer. Well might the Apostle tell the Corinthians, that when he came to them, he feared he should find envyings among them, 2 Cor. xii. 20. And also rank it among the works of the flesh, Gal. v. 21.

But is there no remedy for this evil? It is presumed there is. Let the love of God, which is productive of love to all men, fill the heart, and pride, and jealousy, the parents of envy, will be destroyed. This spreads contentment through the soul; and quali fies us to rejoice in the prosperity of others, as well as in our own. Envy cannot feed upon divine love. This will enable its possessor to imitate his heavenly Father, who maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and unjust. Let then this heaven-born principle predominate in the heart, and envy cannot live there.This will serve as a criterion for us to examine ourselves by. Does jealousy boil in the heart when we hear or see another's prosperity? Do we envy the rich, or despise the poor? Are we discontented because another possesses gifts and excellencies which we do not? If we see another carressed, and ourselves apparently neglected, do we single out that person as an object of envy? If these things be so, all is not right. We yet need the purifying fire of divine love, to consume this fell foe of God and man. 66 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another," said the blessed Jesus. May this love be exemplified in the tempers of professing Christians.

ON THE DANGER OF SPECULATING IN RELIGION.

From "Lellers and Papers of the late REV. THOMAS SCOTT, never before published," I Do think many questions, asked and answered in the Magazine, relate to things absolutely beyond the limits of human knowledge; and have a powerful tendency to produce first a curious and then a sceptical spirit: and, if numbers do not speculate themselves and one another into infidelity, I am mistaken.-The Scriptures teach us that things are so and so, but they do not gratify our curiosity by explaining how they are so; and generally we are incapable of comprehending the manner, if it were explained. The nature of holiness, as conformity to the divine law, and to the divine image shown us through the incarnate Saviour, seems far more level to my apprehension, and more applicable to practice, than all that has been said of the nature of virtue, as VOL. VII.

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"love to being, proportioned to its greatness and goodness." The multiplication of such discussions, and attempts from reason to show the nature of holiness, has taken the attention of many from the plain word of God. In short, I feel myself more and more to be very ignorant, and liable to err where I thought myself most sure; I am thoroughly satisfied that the Bible is the word of God; my desire and aim are to understand, explain, and apply it to practical purposes. "Ye are complete in Christ,-in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.' I have no need to go to any other Teacher, any more than to any other Saviour. Self-wisdom seems to me as dangerous as self-righteousness. Mysteries could never have been known if not revealed, and can be understood no further than revealed. I am afraid of attempting to be wise above what is written, or of intruding into things not seen, vainly puffed up with a fleshly mind. I hear my Saviour say, "Except ye receive the kingdom of God as a little child, ye shall not enter therein;" and his Apostle adds, to the speculating Corinthians, "If any man among you seem to be wise, let him become a fool that he may be wise :" for "the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are vain." "Be not wise in your own conceits." These things render me more cautious than I used to be. The first temptation was, "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil;" and the tree of knowledge bore the forbidden fruit. "Vain man would be wise;" and thirst after knowledge is liable to excess, and needs restraining, as well as others of our natural propensities. When I am disposed to ask a question to which the Scriptures have not given an answer, I seem to hear Christ say to me, "What is that to thee? follow thou me:" The silence of Scripture is instructive, and teaches us that the subject concerning which nothing is said is not suited to our present condition.

From Papers relative to Wesleyan Missions.

STATE OF THE HEATHEN COUNTRIES.

THE miseries which Pagan Superstition inflicts upon millions, in various parts of the world, and especially in India, require to be extensively known among Christians, and demand our serious and sympathising attention. We cannot advert to them without feeling more deeply the force of that declaration of Scripture," their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another God:" for sorrows they are;—age abandoned to perish, infants cast out, youth and health consigned to horrid flames or a living burial; deluded votaries of their grim and sanguinary idols, male and female, crushed beneath the wheels of their ponderous Cars; with all the daily and innumerable sufferings, which, either directly or indirectly, a dark and gloomy superstition inflicts, without intermission, upon both the minds and bodies of these unhappy and delu

* In a postscript MR. SCOTT observes, "Even when I have no objection to the sentiment, I seem to hear men speak in a strange tongue, very different from that of the Sacred. Oracles."

ded people. If the number of these victims were small, they ought to awaken our compassion; how then ought we to feel, and how to act, when the evil is so general, and when Satan leads so many myriads captive at his will-to violate the charities of life,—to extinguish even selflove, by producing an infatuated passion for voluntary murder-or to turn the affections of the nearest relations into a sanguinary obduracy, whilst they force the unwilling victims, sisters, daughters, and even mothers, to consume themselves in fires, or be interred alive with the dead corpse! From the official returns, it appears, that, in British India alone, so many widows are annually burnt alive, as to amount to one in every twelve hours. Taking India generally, however, it has been stated, on good authority, that one poor widow is thus destroyed every four hours throughout the year! And this has been continued through ages past! In this view, the evil is appalling. The heart is rent in reverting to the past, and in recollecting that these atrocities are inflicting misery, pain, and death abroad through every one of those peaceful and happy days in which we sit at home enjoying the happiness of domestic society, or go forth, to witness the happiness and security of others. The remedy for this we know to be the Gospel; it has already protected widows, children, and age, in India, wherever it has prevailed: they are "the living, the living," to praise God, as they do at this day; and, but for that Gospel, many of them would have been the victims of the same awful and cruel superstitions. That remedy we have it in our power more extensively to apply: and the contents of this Paper will, it is hoped, excite a deeper concern, and a more earnest activity to promote that blessed religion, all whose "ways are ways of pleasantness," and whose 66 paths are paths of peace;" which forms so glorious a contrast to the superstitions of the Heathen; which delights in mercy, stoops to the most wretched, binds up the broken-hearted, gives deliverance to the captives, and declares the acceptable year of the Lord. We subjoin a relation by Capt. KEMP, an eye-witness, of one of these transactions, which occurred at Gondulpara, twenty miles north of Calcutta, March 18, 1813.

"On Thursday last, at nine in the morning, Vishwŭnat'hŭ, one of our best workmen, who had been sick but a short time, was brought down to the river side to expire: he was placed, as is customary, on the bank, and a consultation held respecting the time he would die: the astrologer predicted, that his dissolution was near at hand. The sick man was then immersed up to the middle in the river, and there kept for some time; but death not being so near as was predicted, he was again placed on the beach, extended at full length, and exposed to a hot sun, where he continued the whole of the day, excepting at those intervals when it was supposed he was dying, when he was again immersed in the sacred stream. I visited him in the evening; he was sensible but had not the power of utterance; he however was able to make signs with his hand, that he did not wish to drink the river water, which they kept almost continually pouring into his mouth by means of a small shell. He remained in this situation during the night in the morning the immersions commenced, and were continued at intervals till about five in the evening, when he expired, or was literally murdered. His wife, a young woman about sixteen years of age, hearing of his death, came to the desperate resolution of being buried alive with the corpse. She was accompanied by her friends down to the beach where the body lay, where

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a small branch of the mango tree was presented to her, which, as I understood, was setting a seal to her determination; from which, after having accepted the branch, she could not retreat. I went to her, and questioned her with respect to the horrid act she was about to perform, whether it was voluntary or from persuasion: nothing of the latter appeared; it was entirely her own desire. I spoke to her relations on the heinousness of the crime they were guilty of, in allowing the young creature thus to precipitate herself into the presence of her Creator uncalled for. Mrs. K. spoke both to the mother and daughter a good deal, but all to no purpose. The mother declared that it was her daughter's choice, who added, that she was determined to go the road her husband had gone.' There was not the least appearance of regret observable in the mother's countenance, or conduct. A woman, then, can 'forget her suckling child, and forsake the child of her womb.' The Prophet seemed to think it only possible that there might exist such a monster, but here it was realized: here was a monster of a mother, that could resign her child, the gift of a gracious Providence, and designed to be the comfort and support of her old age; could, without the least apparent emotion, consign this child alive to the tomb, and herself continue an unmoved spectator of the horrid deed. At eight P. M. the corpse, accompanied by this self-devoted victim, was conveyed to a place a little below our grounds; where I repaired, to behold the perpetration of a crime which I could scarcely believe possible to be committed by any human being. The corpse was laid on the earth by the river, till a circular grave of about fifteen feet in circumference, and five or six feet deep, was prepared; and was then (after some formulas had been read) placed at the bottom of the grave in a sitting posture, with the face to the North; the nearest relation applying a lighted wisp of straw to the top of the head. The young widow now came forward, and having circumambulated the grave seven times, calling out Hŭree Bul! Hŭree Bul!' in which she was joined by the surrounding crowd, descended into it. I then approached within a foot of the grave, to observe if any reluctance appeared in her countenance, or sorrow in that of her relations: in hers, no alteration was perceptible; in theirs, there was the appearance of exultation. She placed herself in a sitting posture, with her face to the back of her husband, embracing the corpse with her left arm, and reclining her head on his shoulders; the other hand she placed over her own head, with her fore-finger erect, which she moved in a circular direction. The earth was then deliberately put round them, two men being in the grave for the purpose of stamping it round the living and the dead, which they did as a gardener does around a plant newly transplanted, till the earth rose to a level with the surface, or two or three feet above the heads of the entombed. As her head was covered some time before the finger of her right hand, I had an opportunity of observing whether any regret was manifested; but the finger moved round in the same manner as at first, till the earth closed the scene. Not a parting tear was observed to be shed by any of her relations, till the crowd began to disperse, when the usual lamentations and howling commenced without sorrow."

The following relation of a Suttee, or the Burning of a Widow, is taken from a Letter which appeared in the Bombay Courier, and is one of the most recent accounts received in this country.

"Poonah, 29th Sept. 1823.

"Sir-I think an account of a Suttee, which took place in this city two evenings ago, will show you, in a most striking manner, with what cruelty they are sometimes accompanied; and will make you shudder with horror, at the sufferings of the wretched victim of superstition, and at the savage barbarity of, I may say, her murderers. The unfortunate Brahminee, of her own accord, had ascended the funeral pile of her husband's bones (for he had died at a distance,) but finding the torture of the fire more than she could bear, by a violent struggle she threw herself from the flames, and tottering to a short distance, fell down: some Gentlemen who were present, immediately plunged her into the river, which was close by; and thereby saved her from being much burnt. She retained her senses completely, and complained of the badness of the Pile, which she said consumed her so slowly that she could not bear it, but expressed her willingness to again try it, if they would improve it: they would not do so, and the poor creature shrunk with dread from the flames, which were now burning most intensely, and refused to go on. When the inhuman relations saw this, they took her up by the head and heels, and threw her on the fire, and held her there till they were driven away by the heat: they also took up large blocks of wood, with which they struck her, in order to deprive her of her senses, but she again made her escape, and without any help ran directly into the river: the people of her house followed her here and tried to drown her, by pressing her under the water; but a Gentleman, who was present, rescued her from them, and she immediately ran into his arms and cried to him to save her. I arrived at the ground as they were bringing her this second time from the river; and I cannot describe to you the horror I felt on seeing the mangled condition she was in: almost every inch of skin on her body had been burnt off; her legs and thighs, her arms and back were completely raw; her breasts were dreadfully torn, and the skin hanging from them in shreds; the skin and nails of her fingers had peeled wholly off and were hanging to the back off her hands. In fact, Sir, I never saw or even read of so entire a picture of misery as this poor woman displayed. She seemed to dread being again taken to the fire, and called out to the Acha Sahib,' as she feelingly denominated them, to save her. Her friends seemed no longer inclined to force her; and one of her relations at our instigation sat down beside her, and gave her some clothes, and told her they would not. We had her sent to the Hospital, where every medical assistance was immediately given her, but without hope of her recovery. She lingered in the most excruciating pain, for about twenty hours, and then died."

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The following is from a late India Newspaper.

"Suttee.-A Suttee took place about eight o'clock on Friday morning, at Koonaghur Ghaut, where four women, from the age of thirty to fifty, sacrificed themselves on the same pile with the corpse of their dead husband, Kummell Chattiyer, a Coolin Brahmin of Koonaghur, who was not only permitted, but paid for marrying thirty-two wives; and who departed this life on the evening of the 5th instant. Immediate information was sent to his different wives, who were in general living at their father's houses (only two of them being with him ;) and four of these determined on eating fire, as the Natives call it; two who were living