ture as a mark of the predicted apostacy, as may be seen in Rev. xiii. 13. and in this prophecy now before us, wherein it is set forth as the last note or mark of "the man of sin," and his "mystery of iniquity !"-there is no need, however, to prove this farther, or to point out its application to the papacy, as the pretended miracles or " lying wonders" of Hohenlohe, must be too fresh in the recollection of J. D. S. to require any further evidence.

Now, while this is strictly applicable to the papacy, it is not in any way applicable to Mahometanism, or any of the more modern systems; for Mahomet never claimed the power of working miracles, and has even gone so far as to reject the claim in the Koran, and distinctly to say, that God gave him not the power because it was not necessary for his mission, so that this part of the prediction is not applicable to him; neither is it applicable to that foolish interpretation which makes infidelity the system alluded to, for it is a perfect paradox to say that infidelity would claim the power of working miracles, there being no two things more essentially opposite to each other then miracles and infidelity and as to the ludicrous idea of some of our millenarian friends, and some few others, that Bonaparte, young Napoleon, and a line of similar successors, are to be transubstantiated into "the man of sin," it is too laughable to require deliberate confutation, especially as it will be hard to prove that they were already working in the Apostle's days; and, which is more immediately to the point in hand, it is by no means a settled fact," that Bonaparte wrought miracles, or claimed the power of working "signs and lying wonders."

Such are the characteristics of the man of sin, as set forth in this prediction, and the Apostle informs us that this "wicked one," & avoμos, that is the lawless one, who has been held up above law and against law, and who thinketh to change times and laws, shall be destroyed-" the Lord shall consume him with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy him with the brightness of his coming." "The spirit of his mouth" is evidently a figurative expression, denoting that word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God, and which is the word of God;" and "the brightness of Bra his coming," must of course be figurative likewise, denoting the great spread of the Gospel light, caused by the spiritual coming of God to the souls of his people: and so we learn that the man of sin, that is, the papacy, will yet be destroyed by the increasing spread of the Gospel, and by the adoption of the principles of the word of God.

In conclusion I have only to observe, that as the several marks or characteristics of the man of sin are found most legibly written upon the very forehead of the papacy, so there never has been any other man or series of men, or any system, in which all these several marks and characteristics can be found; and I must say, that it seems passing strange that J. D. S. and his millenarian friends, who are pleased to style themselves so exclusively the students of prophecy, and who are able to discover their favourite millennium in every part of the prophetic Scriptures, are yet unable to discern the papacy in this clearest of all prophecies!certain I am that their peculiar views cannot be discerned in any one prophecy of Scripture, with one tithe of the clearness with which the papacy is revealed in this prediction of the Apostle, and I have no hesitation in saying that, if they prove the literal and personal reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years, and the resurrection of the saints at the commencement of that reign, with half the clearness with which the papacy can be proved to be the man of sin, I shall myself become a convert to their system-but this, I know,

cannot be effected-it is, in my mind, as easy to prove that popery is indeed the religion of the Scriptures, and not the invention of man, as to prove the modern millenarian views to be the doctrines of Scripture and not the mere imaginings of fanciful and creative minds-minds like those of Athens, ever disposed " either to tell or to hear some new thing." A CONNAUGHT CURATE.

THE THIRTY-FIRST OF DECEMBER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

IT was already late at night on the thirty-first of December, I suppose it matters little in what year. I was still ruminating beside my study fire; the book I had been reading declined gradually to the elbow of my chair, and became an additional support to my arm, and thus, though the fact is not of very great importance to the reader, did I enjoy the deep tranquillity of that most tranquil hour. Who can tell how flows on the current of thought during that half meditative, half dreaming state of the mind, from which we start to question, sometimes, whether we have employed or wasted the time that has quietly passed us by? I need not answer that question now: whatever it was that occupied my mind at the time I speak of, was not unaccordant, methinks, with the feelings more actively awakened when the clock outside my door struck, and I counted twelve slowly reverberated sounds. Yes, there it is-the last hour of another year-a year of existence of existence through cares, and fears, and hopes, and disappointments-sorrows, and sufferings, and bereavementsand, oh! far more than all-through sins, outnumbered only by mercies! But such are not the reflections I meant to transcribe on paper. Who would ask those who glanced back over the agitating record, that even one such year has left for their survey, to tell the contents of the page that met their eye, or the feelings with which they reviewed it? What heart would lay open to another, all that is known to itself only and its God? Both the secret thought of every man and the heart are deep; but the Lord trieth them both. Let not man judge his brother, nor venture to interpret things that he knoweth not of. It was only the after-thought of my mind, the questionings or imaginings it indulged, while I ruminated in the first hour of another year-it was only these I meant to note; yet why, I asked myself, as I pursued this train of thought-why should the midnight hour of the thirty-first of December excite any unusual feelings? Is it not true that "We take no note of time save by its flight?"

Day after day passes unmarked. Why should the ending of a year cause any emotion in the general tenor of our lives? A year; it is not so small a segment of the circle that is comprised within the three-score years and ten of man's brief existence. It is gone; and who is there that notes its departure--that notes such departures repeated and repeated, separating segment after segment from the narrow and narrowing circle of mortal life, and bringing us nearer and nearer to that unknown state of being, in which these signals of time's progress shall not be observed, because time shall be no more"- -no more to those with whom it has lapsed into eternity!

Perhaps such contemplations as mine should have been more concentrated, less discursive in their nature. Perhaps the ruminator in the midnight hour of the finishing year had done better to have acted on the admonition of a poet

"Retire, the world shut out, thy thoughts call home,

Imagination's airy wing repress ;"

but a reflecting mind will sometimes wander far, yes, and willingly too, from itself, and in its excursive glances over and around a world like this, will find matter enough to dwell on. Even at this hour "imagination's airy wing" was not repressed; and, while I ruminated, it needs not to say bow, on the ideas, recollections, retrospections, and feelings, conjured up by the sounding of that hour, I could not forbear asking who else was there that listened to the voice it sounded in my fanciful ear.

While gazing into the low-burning fire, I saw, methought, the brilliant rooms where the young, the gay, or unreflecting had just danced that hour out of being, while the quickly sounded dirge of the departed year was scarcely heard amid the sounds of revelry. Now, what a change would pass over these mirth-lighted countenances, I thought, some of which, too, may only hide, for a little while, the heart's darkness-what a change would come over them, were the voice it has to me, heard by them. "Once more has your revolving world completed its circuit; ye are one year closer to the grave than ye were on the thirty-first of last December-one year nearer to the time when ye shall lie down in the dust, and leave all the pomps and vanities of this world, if they have not ere then left you." I saw, methought, the gamester, whose hand was momentarily suspended as he paused to count the strokes of that hour, and then the dice rattled on the board. Ah, had you heard the voice it might have addressed to your heart, you had surely paused a little longer!" Eternity is drawing on; its interests are the stake you play for; a little time, and the last hour of your last year shall come, and then the die is cast for ever." I saw the covetous man, heaping unto himself riches, and knowing not who should gather them, while he neglected the "one pearl of great price"-the lover of this world, inquiring "who will show us any good," and seeking it in the empty pelf of earth's fleeting treasures-and the dying note of the ending year brought to them a review of the profit and loss of the time that had passed, an anticipation of the speculations for that to come. "Oh, ye simple ones," it might have said," how long will ye love simplicity? With all your boasted prudence and forethought, were it not wise to consider one little question-What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' And if this has not entered into your calculations, you might start to hear that the sounding hour which breathes no warning to your ear, brings you, you know not how much nearer to the settling of that final account by which you will find what you have gained in exchange for your soul." I saw the man of science and of literature, with the sallow cheek, and the vivid eye, and the damp on his brow, and the sound of that midnight hour reached him in his still recess. He looked up, and partly sighed at the quick flight of time, and dived again into the laborious researches that were to make him a name upon the earth, when he should have mingled with its dust. His object may be attained; nor is it an ignoble one: but, would he scorn to hear that there is a wisdom not of this world, above the learning of its learned, and the wisdom of its wise onesa wisdom that maketh wise the simple, and is rejected by the proud—that lays man's pride beneath the cross of a Saviour, and exalts man's hopes, and desires, and prospects, above and beyond the extent of earth and time? If such words were scorned by him in the pride of nature's darkness, the last hour of the year might call on him to close the studies and researches death would prove to be useless to himself, and sound a warning which wisdom would take heed to-" Prepare to meet thy God."

I saw the man who had made himself an overseer of the flock-who had taken on himself to labour in the vineyard of the Lord, but not that he

might have "souls for his hire." Is his ear closed and his heart heavy, that he cannot hear and understand? "Thus saith the Lord God, Woe unto the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves; should not the shepherds feed the flock? The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; and they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and they became meat unto all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered. Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord God-Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my flock at their hand." And does he, that unfaithful pastor, pay no heed to the departure of years that bring him closer and closer to the time when the flock shall be required at his hands?

I saw the unwatchful Christian, too often negligent of his Lord's goods, too often improvident of his Lord's talents, too often forgetful of his Lord's coming. But here who will speak?-Let him that is without sin cast the first stone. I saw then what should place myself on my knees.

S. B.

MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

SLAVERY IN EAST INDIA.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

SIR-Public attention has been repeatedly turned to the situation of the Negro population in our West India colonies; and the miseries which, it is, alleged they endure, have been portrayed in glowing colours; whilst the more extensive and execrable slavery prevalent in Hindostan, seems scarcely to have excited the commiseration, or even the attention, of our politicians, moral philosophers, and philanthrophists. Permit me, Sir, to remark, that a British company possesses, in India, a territory containing within itself, about one hundred millions of subjects, probably a ninth part of the whole human race; and throughout the entire extent of its immense dominions, slavery exists in its most appalling form. Of this fact, I propose, (if you should be so kind as to afford me space in your valuable pages for the discussion of the subject,) to lay before you the most indubitable proofs.

In the year 1828, a Parliamentary document or report, styled "SLAVERY IN INDIA," comprising nearly one thousand folio pages, was published by order of the House of Commons, the inaterials of which were furnished by the Court of Directors of the East India Company, themselves. To the mass of information which it contains, the judges, the magistrates, and other official functionaries in Hindostan, largely contributed; and a more authentic and authoritative document cannot be found in the records of the literary world. From this immense volume, I shall draw the greater part of my quotations and my proofs.

First, then, as to the extent of slavery in Hindostan, we have the positive assertion of the excellent judge Richardson, that "it exists throughout their, (the East India Company's,) dominions."*

* Slavery in India, p. 117.

Of the sufferings endured by the unfortunate victims of tyranny, the Hindoo and other slaves, the following quotations will enable your readers to form a correct idea.

The illustrious Sir William Jones, states, in a charge delivered to the grand jury in Calcutta, the capital of Bengal, (a sugar district,) his belief that the condition of slaves within our jurisdiction is beyond imagination, deplorable; and that cruelties are daily practised on them, chiefly on those of the tenderest age and the weaker sex, which, if it would not give me pain to repeat and you to hear, yet for the honour of human nature, I should forbear to particularise." And, again- " Hardly a man or woman exists in a corner of this populous town, who hath not at least one slave child, either purchased at a trifling price, or saved, perhaps, from a death that might have been fortunate, for a life that seldom fails of being miserable. Many of you, I presume, have seen large boats filled with such children, coming down the river for open sale at Calcutta, nor can you be ignorant that most of them were stolen from their parents, or bought, perhaps, for a measure of rice, in a time of scarcity." &c.*

Again, in the Calcutta report made by H. Shakespeare, a chief magistrate, we find the following heart-rending passages:-"This great capital is at once the depôt of the commerce and riches of the east, and the mart in which the manacled African is sold like the beast of the field, to the highest bidder.". "We are informed that 150 eunuchs have been landed from the Arab ships, this season, to be sold as slaves in the capital of British India. It is known, too, that these ships are in the habit of carrying away many of the natives of this country, principally females, and disposing of them in Arabia, in barter for African slaves for the Calcutta market.' "Nature shudders at the thought of the barbarities practised by those abusers of God's noblest creature; who are led by an accursed thrist of gold, to brutalize the human species. Only one fact shall suffice to shew the savage and murderous barbarity resorted to by the wretches engaged in a traffic so revolting to humanity. A gentleman has informed us, that of two hundred African boys prepared for their cursed slavery at Judda, only ten survived the operation."+

By the Hindoo laws, the members of various casts or tribes are born slaves! Such are the Pooliars, Poorears, Parmues, Betivas, &c. "The Poliar, born in a state of bondage, must remain so, as well as his posterity." There are fifteen different sorts of male and female slaves, authorised by the Mahommedan or Gentoo codes, respectively.§

So immense is the number of slaves in India-so low the pecuniary price set on human beings, that in the sugar country of Gorruckpore, whole families have been purchased at the rate of £2 6s. 8d. for each individual !{ "The people who keep slaves in Arcot, most likely find it cheaper to buy them than to rear them; and the offspring, when left to their parents' charge, who have barely sufficient to support themselves, die of absolute. want "The master can lend his slaves out on hire he can sell the husband to one person and the wife to another." The usual rate for a strong young man, is from 12 to 25 rupees, £1 4s. Od. to £2 10s. Od.; a woman, from 12 to 24 rupees; a child never under 4 rupees. In page 302, ("Slavery in India,") it is stated by Judge Richardson, that "he

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**