tures and prayer." Besides a City Missionary," whose labours are directed to the preservation of the whole system in operation, many of the most eminent ministers in the metropolis have co-operated in "Lectures to Mechanics," on the most important subjects. Drs. Bennett and J. P. Smith, deserve the thanks of the nation for their popular and excellent publications against Infidelity, with its ignorance, impudence, and immorality. "TENT PREACHING" is an important branch of this Society's operations. The Tents formerly used by the Home Missionary Society have been transferred to the Christian Instruction Society, by which means thousands of wandering violators of the sabbath have heard the gospel of Christ, in the several vicinities of London: many, we have reason to believe, to the salvation of their souls. Valuable tracts, &c., are published by this Society, whose plans have been adopted in many cities and towns, not only in England, but in Ireland and Scotland. Its expenditure for the year ending May, 1832, was 1,1877. 128. 4d. Similar institutions have been formed by several worthy clergymen of the church of England: some in unison with the dissenters, and others in their own connections: but their canon laws will not allow prayer meetings" and "lay preachings." Still the most beneficial results have followed their operations in their "District Visiting Society," formed in 1829, and adopted in many of our large towns and vicinities. Surely the time is come when sectarian bigotry and party interests should be destroyed, or overlooked, in the adoption of those simple, broad, protestant, and scriptural principles, which are indispensable to the evangelization of our countrymen, and the salvation of our nation from the prevalence of intemperance, immorality, and crime. Magistrates and judges of the land are interested in the progress and influence of Christian Instruction Societies; and we cannot but rejoice that Lord Henley expressed himself honoured in being the chairman of the last anniversary of the Christian Instruction Society in London. SCRIPTURE BIOGRAPHY. ADAM. Sect. III.-The Piety of Adam. WE are not indulged with any inspired record of the rational, pious, and edifying conversations between our first parents. The sabbath was sanctified for their rest and happiness; and Adam and Eve observed it in special exercises of sacred worship. Every day, doubtless, as the evening drew near, they would give expression to their sentiments of habitual piety, and offer up their sincere acknowledgments to the gracious Author of their being and blessedness, in heartfelt thanksgiving and prayer. Milton has attempted a description of their devotional approaches to the throne of the heavenly grace. He represents Adam addressing his lovely Eve thus: 'Fair consort, th' hour Of night, and all things now retir'd to rest, Mind us of like repose other creatures all day long Thus talking, hand in hand alone they pass'd both stood, Both turn'd, and under open sky ador'd In this rational, devout, and elevated temper of mind, our first parents, in blissful innocence, worshipped their Creator, in the evening of the well-spent day. Refreshing sleep having been enjoyed by them, they awake, and rise with the early dawn, to pay their grateful homage to the LORD their God, the bounteous giver of all their blessings. "Lowly they bow'd adoring, and began they thus began: 'These are thy glorious works, Parent of good Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then! In these thy lowest works; yet these declare To hill, or valley, fountain, or fresh shade, PARADISE LOST. This, indeed, is the language of our great poet: but in such terms most certainly was the elevated piety of Adam expressed, on the ordinary days of the week, in Paradise. But in what sublime and lofty strains of devotion the sabbath was celebrated, we shall not know, until we shall hear him describe it to his redeemed descendants in the Paradise of God in heaven. (To be continued.) PEDESTRIAN EXPLOITS OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. THE Indians are very strong-limbed, and capable of enduring great fatigue. Their every-day pedestrian feats are truly astonishing. Guides perform a long journey at the rate of twenty or twenty-five leagues a day. Their usual pace is a jog trot. They take short steps, and carry their feet close to the ground. They go up and down mountain-sides quicker than a mule; and horsemen, whom they accompany as guides, have frequently occasion to call after them, to request them to slacken their pace. A battalion, eight hundred strong, has been known to march thirteen or fourteen leagues in one day, without leaving more than ten or a dozen stragglers on the road. The Indian subsists on a very small quantity of the simplest food. A leathern pouch containing coca, suspended from his neck, is worn next the breast. A handful or two of roasted maize is tied up in one corner of his poncho, and, in general, these are the only provisions for a very long day's journey. ON LOCAL ATTACHMENTS. The instinct with which man is pre-eminently endued, the most beautiful, the most moral of instincts, is the love of country. If this law were not maintained by a never-ceasing miracle, all mankind would crowd together into the temperate zones, leaving the rest of the globe deserted. To prevent this calamity, Providence has affixed the feet of each individual to his native soil by an invincible magnet, so that neither the ices of Greenland nor the burning sands of Africa are destitute of inhabitants. Nay, farther, it is worthy of remark, that the more sterile the soil, and the more rude the climate of the country, or what is nearly analogous, the greater the injustice, and the more severe the persecution we have suffered in that country, the more strongly we are attached to it. Oh! strange and sublime effect, that misery should create attachment, and that those who have lost but a cottage should most feelingly regret the paternal habitation: every thing tends to confirm the truth of this. A savage is more powerfully attached to his hut than to the palace of a prince; and the mountaineer is more delighted with his native rocks than with the golden corn-fields of the plain. Ask a Scotch highlander if he would exchange his lot with the first potentate of the earth. When far removed from his beloved mountains, he carries with him their remembrance wherever he goes, he sighs for his flocks, his torrents, and his clouds. It is a mountain-plant which must be rooted among rocks; it cannot thrive unless it is battered by the winds and the rain; in the soil, the shelter, and the sunshine of the plain, it soon droops and dies. And who can be more happy than the Esquimaux in his inhospitable country? What to him are all the flowers of our climates, compared to the snows of Labrador, and all our palaces to his smoky cabin: he embarks in spring with his wife and family on a fragment of floating ice-hurried along by the currents he advances into the open sea on this throne of the god of tempests, amid tempestuous whirlwinds and driving snows he presses to his heart the wife whom God has given him, and finds with her unknown joys in this mixture of perils and of pleasures. Thus, in attaching us to our native land, Providence justifies its dealings towards us, and we have a thousand and a thousand reasons for loving our country. The Arab never forgets the well of the camels, the antelope, and the horse, the companion of his journeys in his native deserts. The Negro never ceases to remember his cottage, his banana, and the track of the tiger and of the elephant in his native lands. It is related that an English sailor boy had conceived such an attachment to the ship in which he was born, that he could never be induced to leave her for a single moment: the greatest punishment the captain could inflict, was to threaten to send him ashore; on these occasions he would run with loud cries and conceal himself in the hold. What inspired the little mariner with so extraordinary an affection for a plank?—was it a certain moral conformity between the destinies of man and those of a ship? or perhaps he found a pleasure in concentrating his joys and his sorrows in what we may justly denominate his cradle? An unknown passenger on the ocean of life, he beheld whole seas placed between him and our afflictions, happy in only viewing from a distance the melancholy shores of the world. Among civilized nations the love of country has performed prodigies. In the plans of God there is always an end; he has grounded upon nature this affection for the place of our nativity; the animal partakes in a certain degree of this instinct with man; but man carries it farther, and transforms into a virtue what was only a sentiment of universal conformity: thus the physical and moral laws of the universe are linked together in an admirable chain. We even doubt whether it be possible to possess one genuine virtue, one real talent, without the love of country. In war, this passion performs prodigies; in literature it produced a Homer and a Virgil. But it is the Christian religion which has imparted to the love of country its proper measure and its real beauty. This sentiment produced armies among the ancients, because it was carried to excess. Christianity has made it a principal love, and not an exclusive love; it enjoins us above all things to be just; it commands us to cherish the whole family of Adam, since we ourselves belong to it, though our countrymen have the first claim to our attachment. This morality was ur known before the mission of the Christian Legislator, who has been unjustly accused of attempting to extirpate the passions. God destroys not his own work: the gospel is not the death of the heart, but its rule. It is to our sentiments, what taste is to the fine arts-it retrenches all that is exaggerated and false, it leaves us all that is fair, good, and true. It is when we are at a distance from our country, that we feel the full force of the affection which attaches us to it-a confirmation of which is, the great value in which we estimate an object of perhaps little intrinsic worth, but which comes from our native land and has accompanied us into exile. The soul seems to cherish even the inanimate things which have shared our destiny-the wounds of the soul leave their impression upon whatever they touch. If it were to be asked, what are then those powerful ties by which we are bound to the place of our nativity-those ties which are such a strong proof of the goodness of God, and consequently of his existence? we confess we should be at a loss for a reply. It is perhaps the smile of a mother, of a father, of a sister-it is perhaps the recollection of the old preceptor who instructed us, and of the young companions of our childhood—it is circumstances the most simple-the village clock which appeared above the trees-the churchyard yew-the Gothic tomb. Yet the insignificance of these means demonstrates so much more clearly the reality of a Providence, as they could not possibly be the source of great patriotic virtues, unless by the ordination of the Almighty him. self.-Chateaubriand. THE KENTISH HUSBANDMAN. MR. EDITOR, If the following sketch of a character, not, I trust, very uncommon amongst our peasantry, should suit your Magazine, it is at your service, with my best wishes. The Kentish Husbandman, for so I shall call him, is one of the most truly distinguished individuals amongst us. Not indeed for wealth, for he possesses neither houses, nor land, nor funded property: nor for honorary title or rank, for he is a daily labourer: nor yet for literary acquirements, for he can neither write nor read! He is not poor, for " 'contentment is wealth;" and he evidently possesses that which infinite wisdom commends in saying, "Godliness with contentment is great gain." (1 Tim. vi, 6.) He is indeed to be considered, according to the inspired decision, "poor in this world, rich in faith, and an heir of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him." (James ii, 5.) The Kentish Husbandman is not an ignorant, though an unlearned man; for he is an acute observer of men and things, and would bear a comparison with the character of the wise peasant, as drawn by Mr. Gay, the poet, in hit : celebrated fiction of the Shepherd and the Philosopher. But this is the inferior portion of his experimental knowledge he has "known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make him wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. iii, 15), and the word of the Lord appears to "dwell in him richly in all wisdom." (Col. iii.) In person, the Kentish Husbandman is rather above the ordinary size, athletic and robust of habits the most temperate and industrious; and of manners the most modest, simple, and obliging. He appears to be nearly seventy years of age, more than forty of which he has lived in our village; he is well known to our most ancient and respectable families; and in no single instance, as I have yet learnt, has any one been able, for many years, to make a single reflection to the disadvantage of his moral character. I never had a lengthened interview with him till a short time ago, on his gradual recovery from an illness, by an attack of fever, of which I had not at first heard. Being solicitous to ascertain the state of his mind during his illness, in this respect, I was somewhat particular in iny inquiries. His statements were instructive, rational, and scriptural; equally remote from fanatical enthusiasm, and from licentious presumption. Among other things, he observed, that at one period of his illness, he thought he should soon die; and, reflecting upon his past life, a long black catalogue of sins appeared, rising to his condemnation before a just and holy God. For a while, his spirit sunk within him: but, recollecting the words of the apostle John, the peaceful influence of heaven tranquillized his inmost soul. He repeated the words,-"If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins: the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John i, 7, 21, 22.) Realizing the encouraging doctrine of these passages, he remarked, "I have not the least fear or care, either for life or death." The good opinion, which I had been led to entertain of this advanced believer, was not a little strengthened by our familiar intercourse. From his many judicious observations, I could not but reflect with admiration upon our Lord's assurance, in reference to the gracious promise in Isaiah, "And they shall be taught of God." (John vi.) Though unable to read, which, as he informed me, for a short time he attempted to correct, about ten years ago, yet he exercises his memory, in “comparing spiritual things with spiritual," and his improvement in divine knowledge corresponds with such an employinent of his mind. The case supposed by Bishop Horsley is not exactly the saine, it refers to one able to read: yet his understanding of the word of God reminded me of some passages in a volume of that Prelate's sermons. He says, "It is incredible to any one, who has not in some degree made the experiment, what a proficiency may be made in that knowledge, which maketh wise unto salvation, by studying the Scriptures in this manner*, without any other comimentary or exposition than what the different parts of the sacred volume mutually furnish for each other. Let him↑ study them in the manner I recommend ; and let him never cease to pray for the illumination of that Spirit, by which these books were dictated; and the whole compass of abstruse philosophy, and recondite history, shall furnish no argument with which the perverse will of man shall be able to shake this learned Christian's faith." Scarcely any language could be more judicious, or theologically accurate, than the remarks which this * Comparing parallel passages. + The most illiterate Christian. Bishop Horsley's Nine Sermons, pages 223, 228. learned Christian made, upon several of the most important and peculiar doctrines of the gospel. In his replies to my inquiries, he gave me his thoughts on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, his Sonship, Incarnation, and Divinity: the office, duties, temptations, and successes, of the Christian ministry, with the various exercises and experience of more private believers. I was truly "astonished at his understanding and answers," and "glorified God in him." In the course of my observation and intercourse I have met with many, adorned with whatsoever a learned or polite education could impart, and some, of whose piety charity would not allow me to question, whose religious attainments were very far inferior to those of my humble friend. O may the God of all grace, who has called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after we have suffered awhile, make us perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle us. To Him be glory and dominion, for ever and ever" (1 Pet. v, 10), ascribed by unnumbered millions of such as the Kentish Husbandman. THOUGHTS OF HOME, IN INDIA. BY THE REV. J. LAWSON, MISSIONARY. O let them go-blest thoughts, away! Impress'd so bright and clear! I call you not, O long lov'd sweets! I call you not; but ye have power No more intrude, ye fairest forins And the wan primrose plant. For if in dreams ye charm the sense, One who hath left his HOME; THE LEECH BAROMETER. As connected with the habits of leeches, it may be remarked that they make very good barometers. They remain motionless at the bottom of the vessel when the weather is about to be serene and pleasant; before rain they come to the surface of the water, and remain there till the return of fine weather; before high winds they will continue to move about the water with great swiftness; before thunder and rain they will be found above the water and apparently agitated; before frost they remain at the bottom; whilst during snow or rain they are seen motionless in the neck of the vessel.-Haden's Medical Guide. NOTICES OF THE ELEPHANT. To give a history of the Elephant, or even a full description of this prodigious quadruped, is impossible within our limits. Nor is it necessary for us to attempt either, as both have been done with consummate talent and profound research, in a volume of the " Library of Entertaining Knowledge." It is in the "Menageries, vol. ii, of Quadrupeds, described and drawn from living subjects." As this work contains eightythree illustrative engravings, we know not a more entertaining book of the size on natural history. We can give only a few notices of this surprising animal, partly taken from that work. ELEPHAS MAXIMUS, the great elephant, is the largest of all land animals; unless as some believe, the MASTODON has recently been discovered by some natives in South America. The living species of elephants are two, the Indian and the African. 1. Size of the Elephant. Those magnificent animals which have been seen in England, or in other parts of Europe, have not been of the largest kind. It is believed that no one of more than ten feet in height, has ever been seen in these parts. But even an elephant of eight is an enormous creature, of which it is difficult to form a correct idea. A large ox, whose make is slender compared with an elephant, seldom exceeds five feet in height, and weighs when fat nearly 1000lbs., or nearly half a ton but a full-sized elephant, it is believed, weighs about 7000lbs., between three and four tons! The elephant, from the front to the origin of the tail, is about 16 feet long, from the end of the trunk 25 feet, and about 14 feet high. The circumference of the neck is about 17 feet, and the circumference of the body at the grossest part, 25 or 26 feet; the tail is about 6 feet long, and 2 feet in circumference. The circumference of the legs is about 6 feet. The trunk of an elephant is about 8 feet long and 5 feet in circumference near the mouth. These are of the largest dimensions of that majestic animal: but he differs in size in different countries. At first view, this creature appears to the spectator an enormous mass of flesh that seems scarcely animated. Its eyes are small in proportion to the size of the head, and the muzzle is very different from that of any other quadruped: it is nothing but the origin of a long trunk which hangs between the two huge tusks: the mouth appears behind the trunk, which serves in place of an upper lip, and the underlip terminates in a point, which from its flexibility and use is denominated a finger. The feet are short, round, clumsy, and distinguishable only by the toes. The trunk is, properly speaking, the nose extended, and terminated by a couple of nostrils. The elephant can move the trunk in all directions: he can extend or shorten it at pleasure, without altering the diameters of the two canals within. By this means respiration is not interrupted, whatever be the situation of the trunk, and the water is allowed to remain till the aniinal chooses to throw it out by an expiration. It is by this organ that the animal lays hold of food or other substances; which he manages with as much dexterity as a man does his hand, taking up grains of corn, or the smallest piles of grass, and conveying them to his mouth. 66 The East India Company's standard, for serviceable elephants, is 7 feet and upwards, measured at the shoulder, in the same manner that horses are measured. The height of a living elephant is exceedingly deceptive, even to those who are most accustomed to the ani mal. Mr. Corn measured a celebrated elephant of the Naboh of Dacca, which was generally stated to be 14 feet high, and which he considered to be 12; it was found not to exceed 10 feet. The elephants of Hindostan are however the smallest of the Asiatic species. Those from Pegu and Ava are much larger; and the skeleton of the elephant at the Museum at Petersburgh, which was sent to the Czar Peter by the King of Persia, measures 16 feet in height." "The African species is generally larger than the Indian. Mr. Pringle informs us, that he met with an enormous bull elephant, (the Hottentots called him a big terrible fellow, plenty, plenty big') which two engineer officers agreed was 14 feet high. Major Denham, on his expedition to the (lake) Tchad, fell in with elephants which he guessed to be 16 feet in height; but one which was killed in his presence, and which he describes as an immense fellow, measured 9 feet 6 inches from the foot to the hip-bone, and 3 feet from the hip-bone to the back, making a height of 12 feet 6 inches." Such are some of the notices of this enormous creature. 2. Where found. The Indian Elephant is found in all the countries of Southern Asia; that is, in Cochin China; in the kingdoms of Siam, Pegu, and Ava; in Hindostan, and the adjacent islands, particularly in Ceylon. The African Elephant inhabits the south and west of Africa, from the rivers Niger and Senegal to the Cape of Good Hope, and thence through the centre of the country by Lake Tchad eastward to Ethiopia. 3. Number of Elephants. From the immense quantity of food consumed and destroyed by a single elephant, we might imagine that there could be but few in existence; and probably there are but few compared with their number in former ages. Still they are said to swarm in some parts of Central Africa, in the luxuriant swamps and prairies near to the celebrated rivers above mentioned, so that the negroes are obliged to make their habitations under ground. On the banks of those rivers, as Mr. Southey beautifully describes, "Trampling his path through wood and brake, And canes, which crackling, fall before his way, On comes the ELEPHANT, to slake His thirst at noon, in yon pellucid springs. Lo! from his trunk upturn'd, aloft he flings He waves it to and fro. CURSE OF KEHAMA. The entertaining volume before mentioned observes, "immense numbers still ranging over the uncultivated portions of India and Africa, offer one of the many wonderful examples of the care with which the maintenance of every living thing is provided for. Destroying as much vegetable food as he consumes, by the broad feet which sustain his prodigious weight, and unfitted to endure any long privations, as the camel does, the elephant is the natural inhabitant of those regions, where there is a wild luxuriousness of vegetation. Civilization, partial as it is in Africa, is driving the elephant farther and farther from the haunts of men; but they are still seen by travellers in great numbers. In his journey from Mourzouk to Kouka, in Bornou, Major Denham came upon elephants' footmarks, of an immense size, and only a few hours old. 'Whole trees were broken down where they had fed; and where they had reposed their ponderous bodies, young trees, shrubs, and underwood had been crushed beneath their weight.' Four days after, he saw a herd in grounds annually overflowed by the waters of a lake, where the coarse grass is twice the height of a man. They seemed to cover the face of the country.'" Mr. Rose, an officer of engineers, who recently accompanied some elephant hunters in South Africa, was told by an experienced hunter, that he had seen as many as 3,000 in a troop, on the bank of the Fish river; and that he and his Hottentots had killed eight hundred iu twenty months. Mr. Pringle has favoured us with a description of a herd of wild elephants, presenting a vivid picture of a scene, which must be one of the most remarkable that can be presented to the eye in the deep solitudes of a tropical wilderness : "A herd of elephants, browsing in majestic tranquillity amidst the wild magnificence of an African landscape, is a very noble sight, and one of which I shall never forget the impression. It is difficult to convey in a brief notice an adequate idea of such a scene. During my residence on the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony, I accompanied a party of English officers on a little exploratory excursion, into a tract of country then termed the Neutral Territory, immediately joining to the location of the Scottish settlers at Bavian's river. This territory, which comprises an irregular area of about 2,000,000 of acres, had remained for several years entirely without inhabitants; for its native possessors, the Caffres and Ghonaquas, had been expelled from it in 1819 by the colonial forces, and no other permanent inhabitants had yet been allowed to occupy it. The colonists were even forbidden to hunt in it under severe penalties; and, in consequence of this, the wild animals had resorted thither in considerable numbers. During our first day's journey, although we saw many herds of large game, such as quaghas, gnoos, hartebeests, koodoos, with a variety of the smaller antelopes, there was no appearance of elephants but in the course of the second day, as we pursued our route down the valley of the Koonap river, we became aware that a numerous troop of these gigantic animals had recently preceded us. Foot prints of all dimensions, from eight to fifteen inches in diameter, were everywhere visible. Among the groves of mimosa trees, which were thinly sprinkled over the grassy meadows along the river margins, the traces of elephants were not less apparent. Immense numbers of these trees had been torn out of the ground, to enable the animals to browse at their ease on the soft and juicy roots, which form a favourite part of their food. While we were admiring these and other indications of the elephant's strength and sagacity, we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a numerous herd of these animals. None of them, however, were very close upon us; but they were seen scattered in little clumps over the bottom and sides of a valley two or three miles in length; some browsing on the succulent spekboom (Postulacaria afra) which clothed the skirts cf the hills on either side; others at work among the mimosa trees sprinkled over the low and grassy savannah. As we proceeded cautiously onward, and some of these parties came more distinctly into view (consisting, apparently, in many instances, of separate families, the males, the females, and he young of different sizes), the gigantic magnitude of the leaders became more and more striking. The calm and stately tranquillity of their deportment, too, was remarkable: though we were a band of about a dozen horsemen, including our Hottentot attendants, they seemed either not to observe, or altogether to disregard our march down the valley. Mahmood of Ghinzi, who invaded Hindostan in A. D. 1024, had 1,300 elephants in his army. When Timour, or Tamerlane, about A. D. 1400, built his great mosque at Samarcand, ninety-five elephants were engaged in drawing the stones. As recently as A D. 1794, the Nabob of Oude went upon a hunting expedition with 1,000 elephants. At Vizier Ally's wedding, in 1795, the procession was grand beyond conception; it consisted of about 1,200 elephants, richly caparisoned, drawn up in a regular line like a regiment of soldiers. In 1827, there were imported 364,784 lbs. of ivory, equal to 6,080 tusks at 60lbs. each; to procure which, assuming that every elephant slain had tusks, there must have been slaughtered at least 3,040 of these gigantic animals: but the actual slaughter was probably double, or treble, as all have not tusks, and some of them but small ones. "William Clarke, which served the Mogul divers years in his wars, saith, that he hath seen in one army 20,000 elephants, whereof 4,000 for war; the rest, females for burthens, young, &c." "Captain Hawkins, who was at Agra in 1607, says that Jehanghir had 12,000 elephants." 4. The Age of Elephants. In general Providence has ordained that animals should live to an age corresponding to the magnitude of their bodies; the elephant therefore must be long-lived. The Romans, in the time of Gordian, in the spirit of poetical exaggeration, chose an elephant for the symbol of eternity. Elephants have been known in India which have been in captivity one hundred and fifty years; and it is believed that this creature will live at least four hundred years. We pass over the prodigious tusks of the elephant, as we purpose devoting an article in our next to the subject of IVORY. |