1

landers; and the printing of the New Testament is carrying on in some of the islands of the Southern Ocean. Copies of the Acts of the Apostles in the Tahitian language, have just been received in this country; the Gospels having been previously printed. We should be happy, did our limits al

low, to notice the operations carried on by similar institutions in foreign countries, which are closely connected with the British and Foreign Bible Society. We trust, however, enough has been already inserted to induce our readers to exclaim, "What hath God wrought?"

ANTI-SLAVERY

THE Annual Meeting of this Institution took place on June 25, at Freemasons' Hall, His R. H. the Duke of Gloucester, President, in the Chair. The attendance was most numerous, and a very lively degree of interest was excited by a series of most eloquent addresses.

The Meeting resolved, that the bondage in which eight hundred thousand of their fellow-subjects are held is repugnant to the spirit of Christianity, contrary to the Soundest maxims of policy, and a gross violation of the principles of humanity and justice; and pledged themselves to continue their exertions to wipe out this foul re

SOCIETY.

proach of the British name, until, by the blessing of God, they are enabled together to rejoice in the final accomplishment of their great work of mercy.

The Meeting expressed their sorrow and indignation at the gross violation of law and justice in the case of Mr. Smith; testified their sympathy with his widow, paid a tribute of applause and acknowledgment to Mr. Brougham and his associates, and their esteem and admiration of the Rev. W. S. Austin; and closed with a most cordial acknowledgment of the valuable services of His R. H. the Duke of Gloucester.

CHURCH MISSIONARY

DISPATCHES recently received from Madras bring the painful intelligence, that the Rev. Mr. Fenn's health is in a very precarious state. It is hoped, that one of the missionaries who have recently sailed from this country, may be able to render him assistance; and that the important undertaking at the Syrian College, may not be abandoned for want of help.

The Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson, and Miss Cortis, arrived safely at Calcutta in November last. Miss Cortis has since been married to the Rev. A. Jetter, one of the Society's missionaries.

The Rev. Samuel Marsden, with the Rev. Henry Williams and his family, embarked at Port Jackson for New Zealand, on board the Brampton, Captain Moore, on the 23d of July, and landed at Rangeehoo on the 3d of August. Mr. Marsden re-embarked on board the Brampton for New South Wales, on the 5th of September. The ship was wrecked in the Bay of Islands, on the 7th; but no lives were lost. Mr. Marsden was

ROMAN CATHOLIC INTERFERENCE,
CRUELTY, AND FOLLY.

SOCIETY.

detained till the 14th of November; when he embarked in the Dragon, with the Rev. John Butler and his family, and Mr. and Mrs. Cowell, and arrived in safety at Sydney, in the beginning of December.

Despatches have subsequently reached the Society from New Zealand, to the date of the 11th of February; at which period, the missionaries were well, and the natives peaceable.

Mrs. Lisk has returned from Sierra Leone, on account of ill health, in the Lively, Capt. Hodgson. She arrived in London on the 20th of June, improved by the voyage.

We trust the urgent cries for help, from every part of the world, will induce many suitable persons to devote themselves to the missionary work; and that those who cannot render personal service, will feel more and more the duty and privilege of contributing freely and largely to the temporal support of those who go forth in the service of Christ, taking nothing of the Gentiles for his name's sake.

IRELAND.

WE noticed in our last number a striking instance of Roman Catholic misrepresentation, in claiming persons as converts to their faith, who protested against the Romish errors as long as they retained their faculties; and we are now induced to select two extracts from the public journals, which show the extent of power the Popish priests at present possess, and the awful results proceeding from their exercise of this power.

The first is the interference of a Popish priest in a civil action. A Miss Keys had been illegally arrested, on account of a debt

which ber brother appears to have contracted, and very naturally brought an action against the parties for false imprisonment. One or two of the witnesses, on the trial, would scarcely give a direct answer; and, when the case for the prosecution was closed, in cross-examining a Popish priest of the name of Redmond, who appears to have interfered in consequence of a correspondence with another Popish priest of the name of Dunn, it was discovered that this said Redmond had told Miss Keys, that if she brought an improper action, he should withhold from her the rites of the church; and he avowed in court, that in such a case,

it would have been his duty, as a Romish priest, to withhold those rites from her, until she should have made restitution.

The jury gave damages 501. The question now is, will priest Redmond bow to the decision of the court, or compel Miss Keys to refund the damages and costs? If so, the verdict of the jury is of little avail. Or if he now lets the matter rest, is it not obvious, that his previous menace very much tended to interfere with substantial justice; while Miss Keys must unquestionably, as a Roman Catholic, have entertained serious apprehensions that spiritual wrongs would be superadded to personal violence; and little doubt can be entertained, that the same means used to prevent her bring ing the action, were also employed to prevent the witnesses giving that evidence, which was at length reluctantly wrung from them by careful examination.

The other instance is of a most awful nature, and has terminated fatally in one case at least, if not in more.

"In the county of Wexford, a Catholic priest, named John Carrol, having given notice that on a certain day he was to exercise the divine power of working miracles, and in pursuance of this notice, having committed several outrageous extravagances, seized upon a poor little child of three years old, under pretence that it was possessed by an evil spirit, trampled upon it, regardless of its cries for help, and-the mother assisting at the sacrifice, and the father being forcibly withheld from rescuing his child by the superstitious veneration of a number of bye-standers,-murdered the innocent by pressing the edge of a tub upon its neck.

The priest was doubtless mad; but what
HIBERNIAN

WHILE such is the tyranny and cruelty exercised by the Papists, we turn with pleasure to the beneficial effects producing in the sister country, by the divine blessing, on the instruction of the rising generation in the Word of God.-We insert, with pleasure, the following extracts, taken almost at random, from the Appendix to the Hibernian Society's Report:

"I now give an affecting account of the death of one of our female pupils, as related to me by the master of the school wherein she was educated. She had entered his school, in the alphabet class, about five years since; and early in the last month, he had the first intimation of her illness, from her brother, who had been sent by her to express her wish of seeing him. When le arrived, he found her surrounded by her weeping friends and relations, reduced to the lowest state of exhaustion. She told him, on his entrance, that her departure was at hand, that she wished much to see him, and would be happy if he would read

was the mother? what were the byestanders, of whom no less than two hundred were present, who could hear the child cry to her father for help, and yet, without the least sympathy, calmly bebeld and countenanced the horrid butchery? Now we fairly put it as a question, which we do not pretend to answer-Are the people, under the influence of such a dehasing superstition, free agents? Are they fit to govern themselves, much less others, against whom the whole weight of their superstitious prejudices would be directed? Might not that faith in miracles, which in this case was found strong enough to sever the strongest of all natural ties, prove too powerful for the artificial bonds of political duty?"

The Editor of the paper well remarks: "The instruction to be drawn from these recent transgressions of the Church of Rome, in Ireland, is sufficiently obvious. We are taught now something of the character and practice of that Church, with which it has been wildly and impiously proposed to incorporate the pure and enlightened Church of England. We have seen something, too, of the body of men to whom it has been madly proposed to confide, implicitly, the education of the Irish peasantry; and we have seen the effect of their teaching, and we have seen of what excesses the superstitious blindness of the Irish Roman Catholic Church is capable, even with the neighbouring example of an enlightened Protestant Church; from which it is more fearful, than difficult, to calculate the Cimmerian darkness which would follow the extinction or serious curtailment of the established religion-a darkness, doubtless, far exceeding the superstitious gloom of Spain and Portugal. SOCIETY.

the

to her out of her Testament; as, since her
illness, she found herself incapable of read-
ing, and longed again to hear those pas-
sages which she well knew were suitable to
her present situation. She then directed
him to the 8th chapter of Romans, and
the 14th of John. While he was reading
passage, 'Let not your heart be trou-
bled, I go to prepare a place for you,' she
burst out into praise and thanksgiving;
and, on her mother and friends weeping
aloud, she pathetically addressed them:
< Weep not for me, but for yourselves; I
go where the Lord has prepared a place.'
Her father, at this moment, concluding she
would shortly expire, renewed his request,
(which, it seems, she had before withstood,)
that she would allow the priest to be sent
for;
but this she resisted with such earnest-
ness, and with such power of testimony to
the fulness and all-sufficiency of the priest-
hood of Jesus, that the poor man acquiesced
in the wishes of his departing child, so far,
at least, as to ceasé from importuning her;

and joined with his wife in thanksgiving for her happy state. She had reached her fifteenth year."-Pp. 36, 37.

"On Sunday I read to a number of Roman Catholics who were assembled. They paid the greatest attention; and after I bad read the third, fourth, and fifth chapters of Romans, one of the company observed, If people knew the good of the Testament, they would love it more than they do.' I asked him, whether he read it; to which he replied, That he was not taught to read in his youth, and now he was too old to learn; but, thank God,' said he, you may read any chapter in the Testament you please; and if you go one verse astray, I can discover it." I asked him how he acquired that

OBITUARY OF

DIED, on Monday June 28, aged 51, Lieut. Francis Collins, R. N. late Depositary to the Religious Tract Society, leaving a widow and five children to lament his loss, and in circumstances wholly inadequate for their support.

Mr. Collins was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in the Royal Navy in the year 1801, through the recommendation of the late Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, for his gallant behaviour with a division of boats at the landing of the British Troops, under the late Gen. Sir Ralph Abercromby, in Egypt; and Mr. C. received a wound on his head from a musket ball, which at the, time was considered mortal. On that occasion every officer and man in the boat was either killed or wounded; and though mercifully restored, he was compelled to seek a retreat on shore, after fifteen years service at sea, having first entered upon his maritime career at eleven years of age.

Mr. C. then undertook the superintendance of the Religious Tract Society Depository, in which he continued for fourteen years, and was consequently well known to the religious public, by whom he was highly esteemed. His zeal, activity, and piety were manifest to all around him. His unwearied exertions in visiting and re

knowledge; he answered, that about five years ago he sent bis children to one of our schools, one of whom received a Bible at the Inspection, for his proficiency, and explained the way in which they were inspected, viz. by reading verse and verse about; that he kept his ignorance from his children, who did not know whether he could read or not; and procuring plenty of bog fir to burn, instead of candles, he made them read to him during the winter nights; by means of which, he attained the knowledge of the greater part of the Testament by heart. 'Oh,' continued the poor man, while the tears ran down his cheeks, I bless the Lord that he put it into my heart to send my children to the Free School.""-P. 42. MR. COLLINS.

lieving very many of the sick and other poor in and about the metropolis, and bis readiness to engage in every good work in promoting the enlargement of the Redeemer's kingdom will long be remembered. His truly benevolent and kind disposition caused him to submit to very frequent and severe privations, in order to minister te the wants of the destitute. He was, indeed, indefatigable in his labours for the spiritual and temporal welfare of others. He aimed to follow the bright example of his Lord, "who went about doing good;" and it is therefore confidently hoped, that the religious public will not suffer his widow and children to experience those privations to which they are at present exposed from his utter inability to secure any adequate provision for them. To prevent such a calamity, a number of respectable gentlemen have formed themselves into a committee to solicit pecuniary aid on behalf of the bereaved family, and apply the sums received in the most beneficial manner. Subscriptions will be received by T. Pellatt, Esq. Treasurer, Ironmonger's Hall, Fenchurch Street; by Messrs. Seeley, Westley, Nesbitt, &c. and at the Depository of the Religious Tract Society, 5, Paternoster Row.

Notices and Acknowledgments.

RECEIVED and will be inserted, J. W. M.-S. T.-Litoreus.
Under consideration, J. E. J.-Harrowensis.

We do not, ourselves, clearly understand the remarks of Juvenis Cantabrigiensis, and shall therefore, most certainly, not insert them. In one part of his communication he censures us for only recommending, when we ought to have extolled and panegyrized; in another, he implies, that we ought to have exercised more critical discrimination; and in a third, expresses a wish that the age of critical usurpation was over.-If this young man really means, that the work in question is faultless-or, that a reviewer is, in all cases, bound to animadvert on every defect he discovers, he must be young indeed. He is very much mistaken, if he supposes the insertion of extracts from valuable, nay popular, works is useless. We venture to assert, that, at least, ten thousand persons have seen the extracts from the work, reviewed in our pages, who would never have met with the volume from which they are taken, notwithstanding its celebrity; which is, however, by no means so great as Juvenis supposes.

THE

CHRISTIAN GUARDIAN,

AND

Church of England Magazine.

SEPTEMBER 1824.

MEMOIRS OF THE REFORMERS.