habit of disputing on religious subjects, ridicule the " superstitious fear of superstition," which many entertain, and the " reproach which has been cast upon devotional writers, that they are apt to run into the language of love." The remarks on the first of these causes are so forcible and just, that I should readily be pardoned, if pardon were needed, for inserting them. "In the first place, there is nothing more prejudicial to the feelings of a devout heart, than a habit of disputing on religious subjects. Free inquiry is undoubtedly necessary to establish a rational belief; but a disputatious spirit, and fondness for controversy, gives the mind a sceptical turn, with an aptness to call in question the most established truths. It is impossible to preserve that deep reverence for the Deity with which we ought to regard him, when all his attributes, and even his very existence, become the subject of familiar debate. Candour demands that a man allow his opponent an unlimited freedom of speech, and it is not easy, in the heat of discourse, to avoid falling into an indecent or a careless expression; hence those who think seldomer on religious subjects, often treat them with more respect than those whose profession keeps them constantly in their view." "As the ear loses its delicacy by being only obliged to hear coarse and vulgar language, so the veneration for religion wears off by hearing it treated with disregard, though we ourselves are employed in defending it; and to this it is owing that many who have confirmed themselves in the belief of religion, have never been able to recover that strong and affectionate sense of it which they had before they began to inquire, and have wondered to find their devotion weaker when their faith was better grounded." Having thus considered the various causes which contribute to deaden the spirit of devotion, our Authoress proceeds to inquire in what manner it is affected by the different modes of religion," and thus introduces her remarks on sects and establishments, which are so connected together, that it would be doing injustice to them to quote any part, and I shall therefore refer my readers to the Essay itself. Mrs. Barbauld has employed her pen in a most useful way in compiling the

devotional pieces which are placed at the end of the volume. They are taken from the Psalms and the Book of Job, the objectionable parts being omitted, and are thus in the highest degree adapted for family worship. It is much to be regretted that this valuable little volume is out of print, and I believe that I express the general wish wlien I beg for its republication. I must not quit this subject without stating that the Essay has not my entire approbation. I think that though it professes to treat of devotional taste, and not religious principle, it is still too imaginative. Though I do not believe that Mrs. Barbauld could approach such an awful subject with improper familiarity, yet there is too much of the language of poetry and romance, instead of that calm, though warm, that sedate, though animated tone of feeling, which the theme demands.

She

It is curious to observe the difference in the style of writing of Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. More. Both have the same end in view, both are forcible and eloquent, and yet this force and eloquence are of totally different kinds. Mrs. More awakens and impresses us, and we listen to her warnings with an awe which would make us believe that we are on no equality with her. We stand reproved under her solemn exhortations. But with Mrs. Barbauld it is different. meets our ideas, and seems to express what had passed through our own minds, much more forcibly than we ourselves could have done. We have a fellow-feeling with her in all that she says, and it is thus that we are carried away by her fervour of feeling, and are tempted to overlook all errors, and all that borders on extravagance, in consideration of the justice with which she paints our passions and emotions, and touches every chord of feeling in our bosoms. This is more especially to be said with respect to her poetry. Who has not felt in reading her sublime Address to the Deity, that he meets with his own aspirations, clothed in finer language than he could have found, and illustrated by loftier imagery than his own imagination could have furnished him with?

Before I conclude, I must take notice of one who, had she lived, would

recollect that we have among us men eminently qualified by their acquirements, as well as by their predilections for the cause of Nonconformity, who esteem it their duty, no less than their business, to undertake this branch of the legal profession.

Your correspondent "Edinburgensis," (p. 672,) will perhaps pardon me if I hint that the case he alludes to might be beneficially referred to a quarter of this kind, although it is readily conceived that English and Scotch law may differ on certain points. True it is that the question as to "the method of acquiring the rights of a member in a Christian congregation," is one which has given rise to a diversity of opinion. The rigid stickler for abstract rights will contend for the perfect equality of every worshiper, whilst those who look more to expediency, and to protection from the doubtful operation of legal contingencies, with greater prudence confine the privilege of voting, on occasions of emergency, to the subscribers of a pecuniary sum, the minimum being previously named in the Trust Deed. This is obviously a better Test than that founded, as your correspondent says, "on subscription to articles of faith," which must ever be repugnant to the feelings of

SIR,

A NON CON.

Newcastle-under-Lyme,
Dec. 10, 1822.

S your correspondent Euelpis

der at the dreadful alternative of attempting its destruction by physical force. In the nature of things, no great evil can be cured without time and labour, and, therefore, I cannot help deeming those the best friends to the Negroes, and even to the planters themselves, who advocate the principle of gradual emancipation. No person who has at all attended to the question, can for a moment believe it possible for the present order of things to exist for ever, and hence the palpable necessity of adopting measures which shall render the change as easy as possible. But the slaveholders dread the idea of innovation, apprehending that the greatest mischief would follow from any attempt to disturb the old fabric. I give them, as a body, the fullest credit for a desire to make the slaves as happy as they can be made in a state of complete servitude; and believe they would eagerly fall in with any plan of improvement which could be proved not to have a tendency to sow the seeds of insubordination. But to my mind, no attempt can be vainer than that to render Negro slavery compatible with human happiness. With a view, however, to this, many benevolent planters (for such, Mr. Editor, there undoubtedly are) have spent considerable sums of money, in addition to the cost of the supplies with which the law compels them to furnish the slaves. And yet there really appears no alternative for them, but either to throw

on their unwilling gangs, as a postboy does his hacks from mile to mile. If managers do not abuse that despotic authority with which it is absolutely necessary to invest them, those who justify slavery as a system can have no reason to complain. That individuals should, from passion or a want of judgment, occasionally inflict an unnecessary punishment, or administer many, where a few stripes would answer, are circumstances that will not excite surprise with any who have the least knowledge of our nature. In short, while we ought to acquit the planters of wanton cruelty, I am at a loss to conjecture how it is possible for them to wield their iron sceptre, otherwise than with the greatest severity. But Euelpis has made a quota

tion from the Report of the Wesleyan Missions to shew, that there is an estate in Antigua, upon which "the whip is not needful now ;" and another, where "the sound of the whip is now rarely heard." This, Sir, to a Jamaica-man, is truly astonishing; and I can venture to assure Euelpis, that if the Missionaries can perform such wonders, without creating in the minds of the Negroes the hope of freedom, they will, by going to Jamaica, meet with the most zealous support from the planters of that island, who, I am sure, would be glad to throw aside the whip, if they saw they could do it with safety. Besides all this, the Missionaries have schools, in which there are no less than 4227 children; and if I understand rightly, they are all Negro slaves. Euelpis must, however, pardon me, if I take leave to doubt, whether they are all of them actually Negro slaves; and if they are, whether any of them are taught the dangerous art of reading. As far as Jamaica is concerned, I am next to certain, that the Missionaries have no such things as schools, in which any thing in the shape of education is attended to. They may teach their victims the Lord's Prayer, a few hymns, &c., but, I believe, nothing further. With children of free condition they may act otherwise, but with such happy beings we have now nothing to do. As far as I could ascertain, my little school in Georgia was the only one ever known in the island, which had for its object the instruction of the Negro slaves in reading; and I have no reason to believe that any of the planters approved of my plans: many of them I am certain did not. I was even told by a clergyman, that I was training up those who would act as officers, at some future time, in the black army. I met with two of the Methodist Missionaries in Montego Bay, both of whom told me they had no opportunity of teaching the slaves to read. A Moravian Missionary,

with whom I met about the same time, bore the same testimony. There is, indeed, the strongest prejudice among the slave-holders to any thing which is in any way calculated to open the minds of their people. They allow the Negroes to be christened; but that makes them, if possible, ten-fold blind

er than they were before. That the Missionaries have 22,925 persons under their care, I am not disposed to question, while I must add, that if they are all in a state of slavery, and yet under a course of real religious instruction, they are, in my opinion, in the road to freedom. This I know is not the general opinion, and I have reason to believe it is not the opinion of the Methodist Missionaries, or of those planters who give them encou ragement; for the latter seem to flatter themselves that the Christian religion will, virtually, add a new rivet to the fetters of their captives, by bringing into action the doctrine of "passive obedience." It is, I believe, very commonly supposed in Jamaica, that the Negroes are an inferior species of the human race, and of the truth of the doctrine the poor creatures themselves seem not to entertain the slightest doubt. Now, this circumstance has certainly a most powerful tendency to keep them in obedience, and therefore no one thinks of removing it. Ig norance, gross ignorance, is the grand prop of Negro slavery, and that which has a tendency to remove the one, has a tendency to remove the other. The most complete slave is he or she who has no knowledge beyond that of yielding the most entire obedience to the, mandate of the master. On this ground, I repeat, that the master who is not prepared for the ultimate freedom of his slave, cannot consistently allow him to be taught Christianity, if Christianity be at all calculated to enlarge the mind as well as to touch the feelings. The picture which Euelpis has given of the moral and mental condition of the slaves in Tobago, would, with a very little alteration, represent that of the slaves in Jamaica. Of the Obiah professors, the Jamaica Negroes still entertain the most dreadful apprehensions:—indeed, so dreadful, that even christening, once a sovereign remedy for this destructive malady, begins to lose its efficacy. In proof of which, I might remark, that the day before I left the island, I attended the trial of a black man and his wife, (or rather house-keeper,) who stood charged with this crime. They were found guilty, and transported for life. They had both been christened, as well as the unfortunate people on

whom they practised. Not many months before this, a man was tried for the same crime, found guilty and hung; but whether he had been christened, I cannot say. This disease may have no cause" but their own superstitious fears," which fears, however, spring from ignorance, which nothing, I imagine, but education can cure. They maintain, naturally enough, that the white man believes in Obiah as firmly as themselves; because, while he affects to call it a mere superstition, he punishes its professors either with death or transportation. I am no advocate for the postponement of Negro improvement, as Euelpis appears to think; on the contrary, if he will turn to my second letter, (pp. 297-299,) he will see that I allow something to the exertions of the Missionaries; and, I think, produce sufficient proof to shew that even my own labours were not wholly unproductive. I own, however, that I am of opinion that all that progress is not made which people in general are apt to imagine. The Missionaries undoubtedly create a high degree of religious fervour in the minds of their converts, the tendency of which is on the whole beneficial; but they give them no knowledge and if they did, they would be unfitting them for that station in life which they are born to fill. Get the government and the planters to admit of the poor creatures being made free as speedily as they can be prepared for it, and education and evangelization will become sound policy, and be sure to gain the prompt and zealous patronage of all the best friends to the Blacks. But before this can be expected, the public must be furnished with a full and caudid statement of affairs as they now exist in the West Indies. The Missionaries talk about marrying the slaves, but, in point of fact, they do no such thing they may, by a religious service, add a degree of solemnity to the bargain which is made between Quamina and Quasheba; but they can do no more: the bargain, not being legal, may be broken by a third person as soon as it is formed. The falsely called wife may be abused in a thousand ways, and the pretended husband could get no redress; for, properly speaking, he has no right to her, she is the property of another

VOL. XVII.

person, and so will all her offspring be. The person of the man is, of course, in the same predicament with that of the woman. I well remember hearing an overseer threaten to flog a Negro slave for presuming to send the woman, whom he called his wife, to his ground in her master's time. Now, however hard this case may seem to a person altogether unacquainted with the management of a sugar estate, the overseer did nothing more than what he was compelled to do; and had he actually punished the man, I see not how his employer could have complained. Persons, whose senses are paralyzed, and whose understandings are stupified, may put up with the above treatment, with a little grumbling, but if they were properly enlightened by education and Christianity, what would their feelings be? It should never be forgotten, that the converted Negroes are, unless they use violence, as far from freedom as the unconverted: I might say farther, for if their religion has the effect of rendering them more attentive to their master's work, he will, for a very obvious reason, be the less willing to let them go. In the towns, in which the Methodist chapels are chiefly situated, there are a great number of Blacks and Browns of free condition, amongst whom the Missionaries may undoubtedly make themselves very useful: but as to the slaves on estates, I cannot see of what avail their presence in the island can be to them. I can, indeed, assure Euelpis, that when I was in Jamaica this difficulty was felt by the Missionaries themselves, one of whom confessed to me, that he saw no prospect of gaining any ground on estates. He mentioned one in particular, which he was in the habit of visiting, where he owned that he had no hope of his labours turning to any good account unless they should have the effect of inducing a few individuals to attend the chapel in the town. He said he had known an instance of a Dissenting Minister's settling on an estate, not far from Kingston, for the sole purpose of promoting the religious welfare of the slaves; but that the minister soon saw the necessity of resigning his post, his labours proving almost, if not altogether, in vain. I then informed him that I intended to

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