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receiving instruction from a number of teachers of the same complexion; the only white man was the superintendent, who was also the day-school teacher.

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I have used the term black and coloured, and must here explain that though commonly, especially in America, the term "coloured people" is applied to blacks, as well as to the intermediate shades between black and white, it is not so in the West Indies. The blacks are never called coloured people" there, but there is an intermediate mixed race; to these the term coloured people is exclusively applied. Here there was a new sight for us. Ten years before these children would all of them have been slaves; many of them had actually been so, for only about six years had passed since the Act of Emancipation. Our hearts glowed with thankfulness to God as we saw them now as free, as well dressed, as attentive, and as well behaved as the children of our English Sunday-schools. Their teachers, who but a few years before were only marketable chattels, were now earnestly, intelligently, and lovingly teaching them to read, and expounding to them the "Holy Scriptures, which are able to make wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus."

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But now the congregation began to arrive, and our attention was speedily arrested by another most glorious spectacle. The chapel is beautifully situated on the side of a hill at the foot of a range of mountains. road could be traced for miles as it wound its way, now amid steep, jagged rocks, then through long lines of the feathery bamboo, whose graceful tops met, forming a splendid Gothic archway, through which the sunlight poured like a river of molten gold, and at length hid itself from our view in the deep recesses of a dark wood, which stood out in grand relief against the background of brilliant azure sky in the distance. The free village occupied the lovely valley beneath us, and lay in peaceful beauty, embosomed amid clumps of mango trees, tall clustering palms, huge cotton trees, and wide-spreading, deep-hued cedars. Along the little winding pathways which led from the village, and up and down the main road poured a living stream-men and women were proceeding to the house of their God. Many rode horses, others mules; these had come from distant settlements, from five to ten miles away; many had walked those distances; all came joyously on, exchanging glad and kindly greetings, or

engaged in earnest converse, or singing together, edifying one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs; singing and making melody in their hearts unto the Lord. It was, indeed, a lovely sight, and it was brilliant and picturesque withal. Many of the men wore black or coloured cloth coats, satin vests, and white or coloured trousers; others were dressed entirely in white. Among the women there was far greater variety; some of them had white muslin dresses, others light prints, and a few wore silks. The men had, for head-dresses, every variety of hat, from the ugly, black, English chimney-pot, up through the various grades of soft felt, straw, and Panama. The women wore English bonnets of every description, men's hats, or coloured handkerchiefs, which they put on turban fashion. The older women still clung to the antique cut, and gaudy colours, of the slave time; but the younger ones evidently strove to approach as nearly as possible to the neatness and quiet elegance of style and colour which distinguished the wife of the missionary, whom they called "buckra missis."

As the new minister, it of course devolved on me to conduct the service and preach to the people. I cannot describe my feelings as I stood for the first time before this large congregation of black and coloured people. I had heard them spoken of as a debased and filthy people, rude, ignorant, and incapable of improvement. I saw before me a congregation, numbering upwards of one thousand; clean in person, as decently and well dressed as any congregation of the same class of people in England-quiet, orderly, devout, and attentive. Neither in their singing nor during the prayers, and lessons, was there any of that extravagance or impropriety of demeanour which I had been led to expect; and during sermon the stedfast attention, the sparkling eye, the occasionally dropping tear, or the gentle smile which expressed approval of some statement made by the preacher, proved that there was no lack of intellect to comprehend the truth, and that in many a heart that truth had been received in the love of it, and had begotten a blessed and glorious hope. I felt that these were indeed “ men and brethren "brethren not only in humanity, but very many of them brethren in Christ. I was now entering on the work to which I had given my life, was speaking for the first time to a congregation of negroes; and I felt that

I could come to that work with hope and gladness, and that it was a blessed privilege to be permitted to preach "the glorious gospel of the blessed God" to these once down-trodden but now freed, sons and daughters of Africa. The service, with catechetical exercises and other engagements, continued for nearly three hours; and then the joyful multitude returned to the neighbouring village, and their more distant homes, where, I was told, they would meet in the evening in small companies in their various" class-houses" for praise and prayer, and to recapitulate the various points of the morning's sermon.

What a delightful contrast this Lord's day presented to the Sundays to which these same people had been accustomed during slavery. That day was one of the holidays of the black people, but, alas! not a holy day. It was the market-day, on which they would have been seen, not peacefully wending their way to the house of God, but wearily plodding along the road to the market town to sell the provisions they were permitted to cultivate on the plots of ground assigned to them for this purpose by their owners. Those markets were not only the scenes of busy traffic, but of confusion and drunken revelry. Nor was it much better in the "negro villages." Those who did not go to market would spend the day at home in listless indolence or licentious orgies; with few exceptions the children would be seen running or lying about without clothing; the younger men and women dancing to the sound of the fiddle and the banjo; and everywhere practices indulged, scarcely in secret, of which it is a shame even to speak. What wonder that these people were degraded and vicious? Were they not told they were not human, in the same sense as the white man was? Were they not chattels, rated as property on the estate's books with the tools and cattle? Did not the white man, whom they were taught to look upon as a being of a superior order, often set them the example of vice and debauchery? Thank God that the curse of slavery is removed from the British dominions, and that under the influence of Christian truth hundreds of thousands who were once in this degraded condition have been lifted up to the position of men and women; nay more, have, by the grace of Christ, entered into the enjoyment of that glorious liberty wherewith he makes his people free.

"HOLD FORTH THE WORD OF LIFE."

WE remember, says one, to have read a traveller's conversation with the keeper of the lighthouse at Calais. The watchman was boasting of the brilliancy of his lantern, which can be seen ten leagues at sea, when the visitor said to him, "What if one of the lights should go out ?"

"Never; impossible!" he cried, with a sort of consternation at the bare hypothesis. "Sir," said he, pointing to the ocean, 66 'yonder, where nothing can be seen, there are ships going by to every part of the world. If to-night one of my burners were out, within six months would come a letter-perhaps from India, perhaps from America, perhaps from some place I never heard of-saying, such a night, at such an hour, the light of Calais burned dim, the watchman neglected his post, and vessels were in danger. Ah! sir, sometimes in the dark nights, in stormy weather, I look out to sea, and I feel as if the whole world were looking at my light. Go out? burn dim? Oh, never!"

Was the keeper of this lighthouse so vigilant; did he feel so deeply the importance of his work and its responsibility; and shall Christians neglect their light, and suffer it to grow dim--grow dim when, for need of its bright shining, some poor soul, struggling amid the waves of temptation, may be dashed upon the rocks of destruction? No. "Hold forth the word of life." This is the way to save souls. "Holding forth the word of life," says the apostle: why? “that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, nor laboured in vain :”

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BELIEVE and you shall love. Believe much and you shall love much. Labour for strong and deep persuasion of the glorious things which are spoken of Christ, and this will command love. Certainly, did men indeed believe his worth, they would accordingly love him; for the reason cannot but love that which it firmly believes to be worthiest of affection. Oh! this mischievous unbelief is that which makes the heart cold and dead towards God. Seek, then, to believe Christ's excellency in himself, and his love to us, and our interest in him, and this will kindle such a fire in the heart as will make it ascend in a sacrifice of love to him.-Jeremy Taylor.

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"I WILL now tell you, Mary," said Mr. Leverson, "of the trial which befell me, and which-though I have no doubt it was overruled for good-was the cause of much present suffering.

"First of all, however, let me say that, next to the spiritual support I derived from communion with God at the commencement of my work in the ministry of the gospel, was the encouragement I received in the genial and wise character of my future wife's correspondence.

AUGUST, 196.

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