evening service announced at church to begin at early candle light. This want of precision would run away with all the spare hours in our country. Another thing which struck me in the valley was the large proportion of cleared land, and the absence of the stumps of trees, which are every where conspicuous amidst the crops in the countries settled within the last twenty years. On reaching East Tennessee, the sight of two fields in depth appeared so strange as to remind me strongly of England; cultivation seldom extending in a great part even of the cleared country above one field deep into the woods. A pair of stocks, which I saw on a village green in the valley, at last furnished a decisive proof that we were again within the pale of civilization. I was most interested, however, in observing a great alteration in the relative numbers of the White and Black population, and a corresponding increase of free labour engaged in agriculture. This is probably owing to the poverty of the early settlers, which has secured to their posterity a greater blessing than the richest inheritance of blood and muscles. Not that these lovely scenes are unpolluted by slavery: there is scarcely a family without slaves, and almost every tavern is branded with the most disgusting advertisements for runaways; but the heart is less frequently sickened at the sight of large gangs (excuse this hideous but technical term), broiling under a vertical sun, and goaded to preternatural labour by the brutal lash. Here their masters, or other White labourers, occasionally work among them; and the several productions of this part of the country are less powerful stimulants to the avarice of their owners, than the sugar, rice, or cotton of more southern states. I shall be truly glad when I can pass a day without seeing one fellow-creature in bondage. At pre su sent I do not recollect four places of all those at which I have stopped either to eat or sleep, since I left Washington in January, where there were no domestic slaves; and in two of these instances abject poverty was pleaded as an apology! At most even of the better houses of entertainment where you stay, you see black slovenly looking hovels round the yard, where the domestic Negroes live, and the young Black fry are crawling about the door, and, if the family are indulgent, about the house. The Black children are frequently quite naked, as sleek and glossy as may be; and I have often thought how you would laugh at their little rotund alderman-like figures. When very young, they seem to mix almost indiscriminately with the White children, who however occasionally demonstrate their assumed periority, though less frequently and less peevishly than I should have expected, at least as far as fell under my observation. The very youngest of them appear to me to view a White gentleman with some distrust, and to be daunted with any thing like attention. With the aid of my watch, however, I have gene rally succeeded in setting them a little at ease, and have often found them very arch little figures. Notwithstanding the painful feelings their situation must excite, there is something so very grotesque in the contour of these little Black cupids, that I cannot, to this moment, avoid smiling when I see them. When treated with kindness and confidence, as they often are, the older ones seem to make excellent and intelligent servants; and my first impressions of their well ordered manners and good language have been fully confirmed. Their desire to speak well, or rather their passion for it, and their love of long words, often lead them into humorous mistakes. A few mornings since, when I asked the ostler what time he generally opened the stables, he said he always slept there," in order to congratulate gentlemen on urgent business."-In the better kind of houses of entertainment, there are usually several juvenile slaves of different ages waiting on you at table, the little ones under the orders of the oldest. At this season of the year, one or two are employed in driving away the flies. At Mr. -'s at Natchez, I found they had adopted the Indian mode of keeping you cool and driving the flies away, having a large fan suspended from the top of the room, wafted by a little Negro in the adjoining hall, who pulled a string, We were several times amused to see him continue his see-saw operation when apparently fast asleep; only starting a little occasionally when he made too deep a vibration. On the 16th, about an hour before sun-set, I reached Waynesbro', a peaceful village at the foot of the Blue ridge, very like one of the little villages in the north of England. Here I began to ascend at Rock Fish Gap. After a steep ascent of two miles and a half we reached the summit, and had a fine view of the valley between the Blue ridge and the North mountain. A hundred paces brought us into another world, as we began to descend into the deeper valley on the eastern side; and for some time I enjoyed one of the most magnificent views which can well be conceived. I think I never shall forget the half hour I spent in contemplating this scene; first, gilded by the rays of a glowing sun" going down to the inhabitants of the valley while it was yet day," and then losing every feature of sublimity and beauty in the indistinctness and obscurity of night. I thought of you all; of our summer evenings, and our mountain views; and rode to a quiet inn at the foot of the Blue ridge, the retirement of which allowed me to indulge my home recollections till I went to bed. The next morning, at four o'clock, I proceeded to Grock's, an excellent inn, to breakfast, where I saw some journals containing recent British news; and among other articles of intelligence, the sentence pronounced on Thistlewood and his associates. We shortly afterwards passed through Charlottesville, where General Tarleton was nearly capturing Mr. Jefferson and the Legislature in the Revolutionary War, being prevented only by a private intimation from a female relation of one of the officers a few miles distant, at whose house the General and his suite had invited themselves to breakfast. Here we saw an extensive university, which the State is erecting under Mr. Jefferson's auspices, and to which it is intended to invite the ablest professors which Europe can supply. We arrived at Monticello, three miles farther, at eleven o'clock, ascending the southwest mountain, on which the house is situated, by a winding carriageroad through the woods. I sent in my letter to Mr. Jefferson, who came out, and gave me a very polite reception; but of my interesting visit to this philosophic legislator, I must give you the particulars when we meet. Crossing the Rivannah, at the bottom of Mr. Jefferson's grounds, the water up to our saddle skirts, we proceeded to Mrs. Boyd's tavern, about eight miles distant. On the 19th (the 18th being Sunday), we resumed our journey; and on the 20th reached Richmond. We breakfasted that morning at a very comfortable inn, with a rich tobacco planter and his wife, who were going to Richmond. The lady's Black maid rode on horseback behind; and I suppose nothing would have induced them to admit her into the carriage. The Black servants who drive their masters or mistresses in gigs generally sit on the steps, which has a most unpleasant and unsafe appearance. I was particularly struck with this at Charleston and Savannah. Excuse a long rambling letter, written under a degree of heat more oppressive than I ever yet experienced. Yours, &c. (To be continued.) Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer, THE affecting exhibition of the pecuniary necessities of a very large portion of our national clergy, contained in your last Number, from the statements in Dr. Yates's recent publication, induces me to trouble you with a few lines on a subject which has of late been a matter of much conversation in ecclesiastical circles; I mean the formation of Clerical Provident Societies, either for the benefit of clergymen in want or old age, or for the benefit of their destitute families after their death. The clergy ought doubtless to be enabled to maintain themselves and their dependents comfortably and competently upon the emoluments of their profession: serving at the altar, they ought to be able to live by the altar. So far, however, is this from being generally the case, that a large portion of them might nearly starve, as far as public provision is concerned; their deficiency of clerical income being supplied either by their private fortune or by the arduous labours of tuition. Indeed, many even of those who hold ecclesiastical preferments sufficient for their support can hardly be said to live wholly by means of the church; since their livings have been bestowed upon them by friends or relations, as an outfit perhaps for life, to the exclusion of a share of property which would otherwise have ultimately fallen to their lot. Considering it unnecessary, from the notoriety of the fact, to prove that the widows and families of our clergy are often great sufferers from the want of a provision being made for their support-a provision the more necessary on account of their education and habits of life, which disqualify them no less in body than in mind for the ruder occupations of society, I wish to inquire whether it is not both possible and highly desirable to form one or more Clerical Provident Societies, the object of which would be for the clergy to insure each other, in such a way that their families would be entitled, in case of their death, to claim, not as a charitable boon, but a debt, a certain annuity or sum of money to be fixed by the rules of the institution. The most obvious plan would be, that every clergyman should invest annually, or at once, a certain sum in the proposed clerical insurance: the relief arising from which must of course be calculated according to the ordinary probabilities of mortality. To this, however, there is one very formidable objection; namely that those whose families, and themselves in old age, would most need assistance, could not generally subscribe sums sufficient to afford any thing like a suitable provision. Indeed, if they could do so, the best way would be at once to insure their lives in an ordinary insurance office. These offices, however, would not admit what are called "bad lives;" and what is then to be done in the case of those of the clergy who are sickly, and who constitute the very persons for whom, and for whose families, the projected relief is often most needed? It is clear also, that the admission of bad lives into a clerical mutual provident society would reduce the value of the assurance, and thus place a young and healthy clergyman subscribing, in a worse condition than if he had put out his money the common offices. in It seems then impracticable, on these and other grounds, to plan an efficient clerical provident institution on the mere principles of business. The advocates for the measure have therefore generally mixed up considerations of charity with their scheme; and have proposed that the more affluent of the clergy, and as many as should see fit of the laity also, should subscribe to the fund, but without any intention of receiving assistance from it either for themselves or their families. Now it is a grave question whether, generally speaking, this eleemosynary assistance could be secured on a scale sufficiently liberal and permanent to supply so large a demand as would inevitably arise; and even it could, this after all would be but another species of charitable society, in which the claim of each applicant if for assistance must be met, not as a matter of regular official demand, but according to the necessities of the case. In fact, the matter must always come to this; that a curate or small incumbent cannot possibly make a comfortable provision for his family out of his scanty income, except by enabling them to provide for themselves. A general clerical mutual insurance therefore, if enjoined by law, would be merely making the richer brother pay for the poorer. I do not say that a distant prospective measure of this kind would be altogether unjust, as the sums assessed would be taken out of the general church property in proportion to the magnitude of its parts; but this is certainly not what the projectors of the measure intend. On the other hand, if it were not enjoined by law, the scheme could not, it is feared, be carried into effect, unless, as before remarked, upon the principles of charity. The writer of a respectable little pamphlet just published, entitled "Proposal for the Formation of a Clerical Provident Fund, by aRector" (Oxford, 1823), but which did not issue from the press till some months after the substance of the foregoing remarks was committed to paper, strongly and justly protests against the proposed relief for the clergy partaking of the nature of a charitable institution. In this he is clearly in the right; but I do not comprehend, from his pamphlet, in what manner an arrangement can be made which CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 255. 4 of your readers who have influence directly or indirectly in the business of our national legislation, to one most ominous feature of the recent irreverent multiplication of oaths Marriage Act-the injudicious and which it enjoins. In your review of its provisions, in your Number for September, 1822, you strongly pointed out this enormous evil; • "Independently," you remark, “of the minor objections that we entertain against the new Marriage Act, we cannot but avow two, that we think are of more than ordinary weight. The first is, the multiplication of oaths which it will occasion. Already is our statute-book grievously open to this objection. For purposes the most trivial, for offices the most ordinary, an oath is indispensable. A pound of tea cannot find its way to the consumer, without passing where oaths no less than seven have been administered. Now, unquestionably, if the sanction of an oath is justifiably required any where, it is in the article of marriage; but still we think the number far too great. A common marriage by banns now requires two oaths; that by licence, three at the least, in some instances four or five: and we can foresee cases where not less than six oaths will be necessary before a licence can be obtained, besides the inconvenience, the difficulty, and the delay, which all this will occasion. In all cases, both parties, the lady as well as the gentleman, are to make the affidavit. Surely this increase of oaths is not likely to revive that reverential feeling for the sacred obligation of an oath, which its hackneyed repetition, in compliance with the incessant demands of the Y but I fear that the subject has not hitherto sufficiently arrested the attention, either of the public or of those with whom it immediately lies to provide a remedy. The multiplication of oaths, particularly in matters of revenue, is among the most disgraceful parts of our national enactments. How such an abuse can have so long been tolerated in a Christian country, it is almost impossible to conceive. Its existence, indeed, can surely be accounted for on no other principle than the difficulty of exterminating an evil once incorporated in the system, and implicated with all its official forms. To call upon the High and Lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity, to witness the truth of the commonest assertions in the details of commercial life; in the hurry of distracting engagements, perpetually to invoke that Sacred Name which the Jews, in their solemnities, were scarcely permitted to pronounce, is in the highest degree irreverent, if not absolutely profane. If a merchant, in the discharge of his vessel, finds that, in consequence of some error in the documents received from abroad, he has paid the duty on a greater quantity of commodities than were actually in the ship, he is compelled to take an oath before he can recover the excess, although the custom-house officer, who attended the discharge, has certified that his statement is correct. If he is going to receive the drawback on goods shipped to foreign parts, he is compelled, after producing an official certificate that they have been landed at the destined port, to SWEAR that they have not been landed, nor intended to be relanded, in any part of Great Britain, &c.; and that they were, at the time of entry, the property of A. B. This oath is required, although the merchant may, at the same moment, inform the collector, that the goods statute-book has nearly extinguished."" Christian Observer for 1822, p. 591. have been relanded in Great Britain, in consequence of the vessel being stranded on her passage, but that they were subsequently reshipped, and arrived at the destined port. When the merchant is preparing to ship particular descriptions of goods, which he has received promiscuously from the interior of the country, he is compelled to swear that he believes the duties of excise to have been fully paid; although it is known that he has no precise information on the subject. If the commodities happen to be printed calicoes, he is compelled further to swear that they have been printed since the 10th May, 1787; if plateglass, that it has been made since the 5th July, 1812. Before he can recover the duty on particular goods, which he is going to re-export, he is compelled, in the first place, to obtain an oath from the parties by whom they were originally imported, and then an oath from all the intermediate persons through whose hands they may have passed. If an accident prevent him from shipping his goods by the vessel he intended, he must take an oath before he can enter them for another ship. But I will not proceed further in this long catalogue of oaths: the preceding statement is sufficient to prove that they are multiplied to a most lamentable excess. Now, sir, it cannot but be displeasing to the Governor of the Universe, to behold the Sacred Record of his Divine communication thus prostituted to the commonest purposes of life; degraded from the dignity of its high and awful errand, to rank among the instruments of official forms. Who that has learned to appreciate justly this depository of our brightest hopes-to discern in it a solution of the phenomena of human life, an antidote to the evils which press so heavily on our frail condition, and the only rational support in the fearful hour of our mysterious change-but must mourn to see it divested of all its sublime |