mand. It may be necessary to observe, that at this time our relative situation with Jidda was extremely precarious, owing to the unprincipled character of its chief, who had very lately committed an act of great injustice against the British, in detaining some goods belonging to them, which had been landed under particular circumstances in his port.

This state of affairs rendered it incumbent on me to obtain, if possible, a communication with the Ras previously to my attempting to penetrate into Abyssinia, I therefore hired at Mocha a trusty servant, named Hadjee Alli, and sent him over immediately to the Abyssinian coast with letters for the Ras and Mr. Pearce, in a country boat belonging to Yunus Beralli, a faithful Somauli, who had before rendered important services to the English. In these letters I an nounced my arrival with his Majesty's letter and presents for the Emperor Ayto Egwala Sion, (or Ayto Gualo, as he is commonly called,) expressing my anxiety to advance as soon as possible to the presence; and requesting that the Ras would send down Mr. Pearce, with a proper number of mules and people, to whatever point of the coast he might judge it most advisable for me to land.'

This dispatch was sent off on the 14th of October; and while waiting at Mocha in expectation of an answer, Mr.S. incidentally picked up other information, of a nature that will, no doubt, be interesting to all whose curiosity is excited towards the subject of discoveries in the interior of Africa. It relates to the countries of Efat and Hurrur, situated to the south-east of Abyssinia, and is introduced by an account of Hadjee Abdelkauder, a respectable old man,' and commercial agent at Mocha for the Sultaun of the last-mentioned kingdom.

• This man was one of the best informed and most liberal minded Mahomedans I have ever been acquainted with, though he did not appear to be particularly fitted for the situation he held, owing to his possessing a strange carelessness with respect to pecuniary concerns, very uncommon among his countrymen. He had read a great deal for an Arab; his powers of comprehension and personal activity were very extraordinary for his years, (which I conceive must have bordered upon seventy,) and there was besides a certain vivacity and drollery in his manner that rendered his conversation singularly agreeable. I once began a sketch of his features, but before it could be completed he found out my intention, and ran away laughing and shaking his head, saying," he was too old and too ugly;" nor could he ever again be induced to sit quiet when he saw a pencil in my hand. At the time he became known to me he was suffering severely from ulcerations in his legs, a disease which very frequently occurs in this climate, but, by the daily use of a caustic application, which in the Red Sea is always found to be extremely beneficial, he received so much relief that his gratitude became unbounded.

From this man, and another person named Hadjee Belal, who had also acted as commercial agent to the Sultaun of Hurrur, and who afterwards attended me on my journey to Abyssinia, I learnt so

many

many curious particulars respecting the natives of the former country, as well as of the Galla and other tribes in its neighbourhood, that I resolved, from repeated assurances of its practicability, to send a person into that part of Africa by the way of Zeyla. It was my intention that he should direct his way through Hurrur into Efat, and thence proceed, if it could be effected, to join me in the neighbourhood of Gondar or Antalo, as circumstances might direct, while I determined, if possible, to return by the same route.

I was enabled to execute the former part of this scheme without putting the government to any great additional expence, through a power which the African Association had vested in me to draw upon it for a sum not exceeding five hundred pounds, and fortunately, there was a young man named Stuart, on board the Marian, who had joined us at the Cape, who appeared to me well qualified for such an employment. I accordingly engaged him to undertake the enterprise, and drew up a detail of instructions for his guidance, which has since been approved of by the Society in a manner highly gratifying to my feelings.'

Having allotted so much space to what we consider as necessary previous information, we must here pause before we resume our narrative.

[To be continued.]

ART. II. Sermons, chiefly on particular Occasions. By Archibald Alison, LL. B., Prebendary of Sarum, Rector of Rodington, Vicar of High Ercal, and Senior Minister of the Episcopal Chapel, Cowgate, Edinburgh. 8vo. pp. 466. 128. Boards. Constable and Co. Edinburgh; Longman and Co. London. 1814.

WE

E coincide not with the man who, even in the beaten province of theology, "can go from Dan to Beersheba, and say it is all barren." Glutted as the market is with sermons, and common-place and monotonous as they generally are, exceptions occasionally present themselves to relieve the dullness which pervades this species of composition; and a star of peculiar radiance will sometimes arise, not only to light but to cheer our way, and to make us some amends for the drudgery which is too generally imposed on us in this path of our duty. An instance of this kind is supplied in Mr. Alison's volume of sermons, which is a gem of no ordinary brilliancy, and which may probably be found even of more value than our appreciation of it will indicate. From Scotland our best sermons are said to come: but this remark is not now to be confined to the church of the Presbytery, since we have before us a set of discourses, preached indeed on the other side of the Tweed, but proceeding. from a clergyman of our episcopal

church.

church. Mr. Alison, with great animation and pathos, made the eulogy of the celebrated Dr. Hugh Blair on his ascent to the skies, and he has given full evidence of having caught his mantle as it fell. He seems to be inspired with the same all-pervading spirit of devotion, the same comprehensive mind, the same originality of reflection, and the same happy mode of displaying the beauties and enforcing the duties of religion, which have, rendered the sermons of Blair so universally acceptable; and, if he be not equal to the Professor, he has a right to stand next to him on the same shelf. High as this commendation is, we have no fear of establishing it. These sermons, indeed, though written, as we are informed in a short and modest preface, in the course of duty, were not prepared for a common audience. The author tells us that his congregation is of a peculiar kind, being ' composed almost entirely of persons in the higher ranks, or in the more respectable conditions of society; and that one very interesting part of it is formed by the young, who, in the course of academical education, are preparing themselves for the important stations or the liberal professions of future life.' This circumstance will account for the peculiar genius, novelty, and impressiveness of these sermons, and for the aim of the preacher at a mode of eliciting and of enforcing moral and religious truths somewhat out of the common way.

The discourses are said to be composed chiefly for particular occasions, and we find a large proportion of them to have been preached on Fasts and Thanksgiving-days: but, though sermons on political subjects generally offer little that is attractive to the pious reader, Mr. Alison has contrived in every instance so to view the miseries and contentions of nations through the medium of religious philosophy, as to convert political reflections to a serious purpose. By no preacher that we recollect have sermons of this kind been managed with so much ability. They are indeed models in this department of pulpit-eloquence. With all the warmth of patriotism, he indulges in no virulence and untempered malignity against the enemy;- with a full apprehension of our danger, and with a deep sense of the long subjugated and degraded state of Europe, he never yields to despair. A prophetic glance pierces through the gloom of the darkest hour, and he anticipated the return of a bright day even when the darkness of the political horizon almost appalled the brave. In the sermon on the General Fast, 1803, he endeavours to rouse all the energies of the country for the great contest in which we were engaged:

• We are summoned, in addition to the defence of our country, even to a nobler duty; and in the mighty designs of Providence, the same valour which is called to defend our land, is the great means by REV. DEC. 1814.

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which

which we can relieve the sufferings of the world around us. Amid that wreck which we have witnessed of social welfare- amid the dethronement of kings, and the subjugation of kingdoms, — amid the trembling neutrality of some, and the silent servility of others, this country alone hath remained independent and undismayed, and it is upon the valour of our arms, that Europe now reposes its last hope of returning liberty, and restored honour. Among the nations which surround us, whom either the force of the enemy has subdued, or their power intimidated, there is not one virtuous bosom that does not throb for our success, the prayers of millions will follow our banners into the field, and the arm of the soldier will be blessed by innumerable voices, which can never reach his ear. If we fail,-if the ancient prowess and intrepidity of our people is gone, then a long close to all the hopes and all the honours of humanity; over the fairest portion of the civilized earth, the tide of military despotism will roll, and bury, in its sanguinary flood, alike the monuments of former greatness, and the promises of future glory. But,if we prevail; if the hearts of our people are exalted to the sublimity of the contest; the mighty spell which has enthralled the world will be broken, the spirit of nature and of liberty will rekindle ; —and the same blow which prostrates the enemy of our land, will burst the fetters of nations, and set free the energies of an injured world.'

there is

Even in the hour of triumph, the preacher forgets not his Christian character, nor suffers his mind to be elated by unhallowed exultation. For the splendid victory at Trafalgar, he endeavours to direct the national joy into the purest channels:

If,' says he, it were only to swell the note of public exultation, that assemblies of this kind were summoned, if it were to cherish national vanity by the sanguinary record of achievement, or to inflame national malignity by an inhuman triumph over the chains of the captive, or the ashes of the fallen, - I know not that human impiety could afford so dark a scene of profanation. In such assemblies no Christian spirit would breathe, and on such hearts no grace of Heaven could descend. It is for nobler ends, that, on days like these, the wise and the good follow the multitude into the House of God. It is to sanctify, with all the solemnity of religious impression, their love of their country. It is to recall to mind the blessings which the Providence of Heaven hath shed over their land. It is to weigh the obligations which these blessings create, and thus to prepare their minds for the discharge of those duties which their country may future demand of them, whether in peace or in war.'

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The Fast-Sermons for 1806 contain some very animated passages, which we must pass over, in order to make room for one extract from the discourse on the Jubilee appointed for the 50th Anniversary of the King's Accession, October 25. 1809, in which our constitutional Sovereign is happily delineated.

• Inheriting a constitutional throne, to which its former agitations have now lent almost the stability of nature, and wielding a sceptre which has been given, and not wrested from his people, the sovereign of

this country is invested, not with the vulgar terrors of power, but with the majesty and sanctity of law; and the character of his greatness, like that which reigns in the government of the universe, is to be discerned in the silence of order, and in the steadiness of regulated wisdom. Enthroned amid the waves of the ocean, and at a distance from the insults of every enemy, it is his prerogative to rest unmoved amid all the conflicts that may assail him; to delegate to the brave of his people the powers which he must not descend to employ him. self; and to make the winds and the waves the messengers of his justice or of his mercy to mankind.'

A preacher who had adapted his exhortations to seasons of mourning, for the miseries of a protracted warfare, could not hail the return of peace except in strains of animated gratitude; -in strains which must have reached the hearts of all who heard him. The General Thanksgiving, January 14. 1814, affords him an opportunity of reviewing the past, and of inviting his auditors to acknowlege their obligations to Providence for the manner in which the continental war has terminated :

Our first subject of thankfulness on this day, is for our country; that she has survived all the dangers which threatened her ; — that she has fulfilled the lofty duty to which the will of the Almighty has called her. Dear even to the savage heart is the land of his fathers;

dear to the citizen of civilized ages are the institutions of national wisdom, and the monuments of national glory;-but upon no hunian heart did the claims of his country ever fall so deep and so irresistible, as they now do upon the citizen of this country. Other nations have preceded her in the road of arts and arms; other nations have wreathed around their brows the laurels of science, and the palms of victory but the high destiny to which she has of late been called, no other nation has ever shared with her; and all the glories of former times fade before the moral splendour which now encircles her. She has been called to guard the fortunes of the human race; to preserve, amid her waves, the sacred flame that was to relume the world; and,. like the cherubim that watched the gates of paradise, to turn every way her flaming sword against the foes of God and man. These were her duties, and nobly has she fulfilled them. Through every, dark, and every disastrous year; while nation after nation sunk around her; while monarchs bent their imperial heads beneath the yoke, and the pulse of moral nature seemed to stand still in ignominious terror, she alone hath stood, insensible to fear, and incapable of submission. It is her hand, that, amid the darkness of the storm, hath still stedfastly pointed the road to liberty; it is her treasures which have clothed every trembling people with armour for the com bat; it is her sons, (her gallant sons!) who have rushed into the van of battle, and first broke the spell that paralyzed the world;" and, in these recent days, it is her commanding voice that has wakened the slumbering nations of mankind, and sent them on their glorious march, conquering and to conquer. And now, my brethren, in the hour of her triumph,-now, when all that is brave or generous A a 2 in