what a blessed change has it been your privilege to witness! You have seen, after long watching, the green blade of hope breaking through the barren and arid wastes of hardened and depraved minds. The spirit of God has quickened into life sculs that seemed twice dead, plucked up by the roots, and beyond hope; ignorance the most dense has been penetrated by the rays of divine and saving light; the word of God in your hand has been as a fire, and as a hammer to break the hardest and most rocky hearts in pieces, and you have had singular and emphatic proof, in such glorious instances of conversion as Africaner's, of the power of the blood of Christ to cleanse from the foulest sins. O what delight must have thrilled through your heart, to behold among such a people, sunk in degradation so hopeless, all the process of christian renovation, of awakening inquiry, sorrow for sin, faith in the crucified Saviour, peace and joy in believing, and the production of the practical fruits of godliness and good works. We unite this evening with you in thankfulness to God, that such sights have blessed your eyes! And we moreover rejoice that, besides the goodly number of converted Bechuanas, who have triumphantly died in the faith, and are praising God that ever your steps were directed to their nation, the living converts are now formed and organized into churches, to perpetuate to posterity, and to spread around them the great salvation which they have received; that thus seeds of immortal truth are sown in the wilderness which shall multiply and diffuse themselves until the whole land be turned into the garden of the Lord. It is our firm belief, that, through your instrumentality, a great and glorious work has been fairly and auspiciously begun in South Africa, which will proceed augmenting in importance as time rolls on, and conveying unspeakable blessings to millions yet unborn. We congratulate you that you have been honoured of God to achieve such great results, and enjoy such eminent successes: while, we are sure, you will deem these an ample reward for all your sacrifices and labours, we would unite with you in giving the entire glory of them to the God of all grace.

Nor can we but mark the good hand of God in your welcome visit to this country. Reluctantly torn away from your beloved labours, in the midst of your richest successes, God had other work for you to do in your native land. The few years you

have spent in this country have not been lost. You have lived to see the realization of what once appeared but a pleasing dream, the actual printing of a large edition of the New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the book of Psalms, in the tongue of your beloved people: those scriptures, you have heard, have safely arrived at their destination; have been welcomed with an excess of joy and eagerly perused, and are now in some sense supplying the place of their absent teacher. Moreover, your anxieties have been allayed, and your heart often refreshed, by receiving time after time glad news of showers of blessing continuing to descend upon the church and station of the Kuruman. In attending the numerous and crowded meetings, which have been delighted and stimulated by your statements and appeals, you have been honoured to do an amount of good to the cause of Christ and of missions, beyond what is accomplished by the whole life of labour of many a minister at home; while the personal friends you have made among the most excellent of the earth, the recollection of your sweet intercourse with whom will frequently comfort you in your future toils; the deep and undying interest you have created in them and the public at large in the Bechuana mission, securing on your behalf the prayers of many righteous, may well be deemed an ample recompense for any loss the mission has sustained by your temporary absence. If, however, you had been enabled to do nothing more by the suspension of your missionary labours than produce your recent volume, so invaluable a contribution to our missionary literature—a work which will live and delight future ages when we are all laid in the dust-the judgment of such as have read that work would be, that your return to England would have been sufficiently rewarded by this single result.

We could not deny ourselves the gratification of thus glancing at your missionary labours and successes, that we may rejoice together, thank God, and take courage.

And now, dear and honoured servant of Christ, in the prospect of leaving your native land once more, and probably for ever, and separating yourself from friends dearer to your heart than country itself, to resume the retired, obscure, self-denying and laborious duties of the missionary in your beloved Africa, not knowing the things which shall befal you there, permit us to assure you of our affection for you, our sympathy with you, our

deep interest in you, and to commend you to the grace and care of your tried and Almighty protector.

We fervently pray that yourself, your admirable wife, who has been a meet companion and able coadjutor in all your labours, and your beloved family, may have a safe and prosperous issue to your voyage across the ocean and long travels in the dreary desert; that your eyes may once more be gladdened with the sight of the now celebrated Kuruman station—the beautiful picture of which, in your late published work, we shall often gaze upon that invigorated in health, refreshed in spirit strengthened in faith, matured in wisdom and experience, and, upheld by the prayers of thousands of British christians, you may address yourself once more to the work of the missionary. Our desire is that, if it be the will of God, you may live to complete the translation of the entire scriptures into the Sitchuana tongue, and yourself be the happy instrument of distributing multitudes of copies of them all over the interior. And should you carry into effect your intention of stretching forward into the regions beyond, of visiting the shores of that inland lake of which you have heard so much, and of conveying the glad tidings of salvation to tribes and people unknown even by name to Europeans, but swarming in countless numbers in the boundless countries to the northward; O! that God may preserve you from danger, and keep you from rash and needless exposure of your life, so that you may neither perish by the club of the savage, nor by the perils of the wilderness-and may your noble courage and christian enterprize be rewarded by seeing those lawless tribes, the objects of your benevolent solicitude, bow to the rightful and holy sceptre of the Prince of peace.

In conclusion, we cannot but notice what has occurred to many besides ourselves, the remarkable parallel your career presents to that of the lamented Williams. Called out to the service of Christ at the same time-ordained on the same day and in the same place of worship-receiving your destination, not to the same people indeed, but to people in many respects similar, to wild, romantic, untutored tribes of savages-passing years of obscure toil in your proper vocation of teachers of christianity, completely hidden from the public view-witnessing scenes of thrilling and exciting interest, and frequently exposed to imminent hazard of your lives-long and painfully tried in your

faith and patience by a thankless and unconverted people—then honored with a sudden burst of glorious success, when the harvest of many years' sowing seemed gathered all at once-visiting your native country within a short time of each other, in the prime of your days and maturity of your powers, creating in the minds of British christians an unprecedented interest in the cause of missions, and giving them an idea of the missionary character, such as they had not entertained before-awakening the attention even of the nobles of the land to an object that seemed to lie hopelessly beyond their sphere-producing each a book, after the manner of the Acts of the Apostles, which gives a history of the triumphs of christianity, interwoven with personal narrative, and combines all the charm of fiction with all the instructiveness of truth-then returning to the scene of your former services, laden with the benedictions of multitudes to whom you had become inexpressibly dear, intending not to confine your future labours to places where Christ had been preached before, whether by yourselves or others, but your breasts full of a high and noble ambition to penetrate to undiscovered regions, and to convey to unknown people, what has rarely ever occurred, a knowledge of the gospel and of the existence of the European race at one and the same time-the christian public approving of your purpose, and looking forward with enthusiastic hope to the results of your bold enterprize :-in all this we see a wonderful correspondence, amounting almost to identity in your two But here, the heart of this vast assembly prays—may the parallel cease-may your future course be a contrast to that of the martyred Williams! Though it was well that such high purposes were in his heart, the event has proved that his work was done. May your intentions and plans be approved of heaven! May you live to execute them; and, in a good old age, green and fruitful to the last, and enriched by the benedictions of millions of ransomed and renovated Africans, may you cease from your labours and enter into the joy of your Lord.

careers.

JOURNAL OF A CONGREGATIONAL SINGING

CLASS.

October 31st, 1842.-A notice of the following import, which was handed round among a few friends last week, was the origin of a singing class, which held its first meeting this evening; "Mr. X.* is desirous of forming a congregational singing class for ladies. Those ladies are invited who are accustomed to "sing at chapel," and are fond of it. The times of meeting will be every evening, for half an hour, commencing at six o'clock. Not more than eighteen lectures are at present contemplated. The only expense will be, one shilling to purchase the " copy book for the small letter sol-fa notation of music," which will be constantly used in the class. Each lady should bring a pencil with her."

We have had a very pleasant meeting this evening: but everything is new to us. It seems strange and mysterious at present. Some of us cannot quite understand it. We have learnt too much. Mr. X. first explained that the "method" by which he designed instructing us was one which had been practised for more than eight years, in the schools at Norwich, with astonishing success, under the superintendence of Miss Glover, the intelligent and pious lady by whom it was invented.†

He next described the " MODULATOR, or pointing board for teaching tunes," which was suspended on the wall before us. He said that it represented that MODE of arranging eight notes, which is commonly called a scale (a major scale) or key, and, pointing to Do as the lowest note of the MODE, or key-note, he made us notice the half distances which are represented between ME and FAH, the third and fourth, and between TE and DOH, the seventh and eighth of the MODE. These he called half TONES, or part-tones. A tone, it appears, is not a sound, but a distance between sounds.

Mr. X. sang up and down the mode—touching the notes with a pointer as he sang them, while we took notice of the part

* It will be remembered that X in Algebra is the sign for an unknown quantity.

+ See Independent Magazine for 1842, p. 214-" Miss Glover's School."