every effort to recommend the use of appointed means, for promoting the life of godliness, he evades every pressing exhortation, by the convenient subterfuge, I can do nothing. Miserable, deluded man! thy words are but too true! for thou hast drunk in those errors, which first intoxicate, and finally poison and paralyze the soul!

I can do nothing, in the mouth of a sound and sincere Christian, is self-annihilation, or genuine humility. With him, such language is not a cloak for avarice, prejudice, or indolence. He feels and owns his constant dependance on God, but refuses all servile subjection to fallible fellow men. Nay, the same sentiment which humbles him in devotion, animates in action. By my self I can do nothing; but I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me. Hence, Lord, I dedicate to thee my time, property, talents, and all I have and am. Thy service is perfect freedom; and I feel happy in proportion as I yield myself wholly to it. O, come, thou Spirit of wisdom and grace, enlighten my mind and warm my heart, and work in me to will and to do, of thy good pleasure; let me never grow weary in well-doing; for in due season I shall reap if I faint not.

Nov. 9, 1825. BILLERICAY.

ON INFANTICIDE. To the Editor.

SIR,

THE writer of the article, on page 541, of your last volume, has, I believe, given a rather too discouraging view of the success of the efforts of the British Government in India, to suppress in

fanticide.

It appears by the papers upon this subject, which were printed by order of the House of Commons in the Session of 1824, that two kinds of infanticide, which are prevalent in India, have been brought under the notice of the Govern ment.

The first is that effected by drowning and appears to have been practised by the Hindoos upon the annual festival of the Suaim Jattra, at the island of Sangor, and at other places on the margin of the river Ganges. It was altogether a religious observance, originating in vows, considered as pious by the deluded Hindoos; and was per

At

formed under the orders of a faqueer or priest, generally in the neighbourhood of a large pagoda, which stood at the head of an inlet, called pagoda creek, upon the island above-mentioned. this and other places, similarly appropriated, children, of all ages, under ten years, were brought during the festival, sometimes from a great distance, by their infatuated parents, who plunged them into the sea and drowned them. It was remarked that they generally became food for the sharks, who swarmed on the coast and in the river about the time of the festival.

This species of infanticide was suppressed by a regulation of the British Government, in the time of Lord Wellesley, who was Governor-General in 1802. The regulation declared it to be an act of murder, and denounced against it the utmost penalties of that crime. For the more effectual prevention of this kind of infanticide, a guard of soldiers continued during several years to be sent from Calcutta annually, at the time of the festival, with authority to proclaim and enforce the Government's regulation; and it appears by a report of the Sangor Island Society, dated the 26th Dec. 1821, that the practice had then "entirely ceased;" and that the annual festival, like many of the superstitious festivals of the days of popery in our own country, had been converted into a "fair."

The other species of Infanticide prevalent in India is not religious, but has 'its origin in pride of caste. It prevails among the Rajkoomars and Rajevansies, in the country about Benares, and other parts of the upper provinces of Bengal; and, on the Bombay side of India, among the Rajpoots, in the districts of Kutch and Kattywar, which are within the dominions of a native prince, called the Guicowar. Its subjects are exclusively female infants, which are never reared by these castes, lest their parents should not, afterwards, be able to match them suitably in marriage: but the children are destroyed, immediately upon their birth, either by poison, or by drowning them in milk. These murders are usually perpetrated by the midwives, under the orders of the fathers. It appears by the papers already referred to, that this species of infanticide has been probibited, in the East India Company's own provinces, by a regulation of the

Government, passed in the year 1795, which denounces against it the penalties of murder: but it may be easily imagined that an act so easy, and capable of being performed so secretly, as the destruction of a new-born infant in the house of a native Indian of rank, (and every individual of these tribes is of rank in the eyes of the Hindoos,) will often, perhaps most frequently, escape detection and consequent punishment. The British Government has, neverthe less, done what it could to suppress it, by subjecting the perpetrators of the crime, when detected and convicted, to the penalties of murder; which it is now the duty of the magistrates to enforce to the utmost of their ability.

The case does not appear to be exactly similar, with respect to the same practice among the Rajpoots. These tribes are subject to a native prince; at whose court Colonel Walker was for several years the British Resident. In that capacity he provoked discussion respecting it among the Rajpoot Chiefs, from whom, at length, he obtained a promise to abandon it, as the condition of the British Government's favour towards them: but it was only a promise that he could obtain, sanctioned, indeed, by a bond for pecuniary penalties in case of failure. This, however, appears by the papers to which I have referred, to have been effectual to a certain extent, during his own residence at the Guicowar's court. On pages 110 and 111 is a list, specifying the names and ages of sixty-three female children who were saved and reared in the families of Rajpoots, in consequence of Colonel Walker's exertions. The British Government appears in one instance to have conferred honours on a chief, upon the sole ground of his having reared two daughters.

That greater progress has not been made in this benevolent work, which reflects such high honour upon the exercise of the British power in India, will be a subject of regret to every humane man, and more especially so to every sincere believer in the Gospel, who will desire and long for the establishment, over all the nations of the world, of the kingdom of the Redeemer, whose kingdom is characterized by love and mercy, and directly opposed to violence and bloodshed: but at the same time there is some ground for

congratulation upon what has been already effected, and some encouragement for the future to be derived from the experience of the past.

As some of your readers may be desirous of more extensive information, upon this interesting subject, I beg leave to refer them to the papers already quoted, if they can procure a sight of them; also to Moore's Hindu Infanticide, 9s.; and Cormac's octavo volume, on the same subject.

THO. FISHER.

ON PETITIONING FOR THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. To the Editor.

SIR,

IN reply to the benevolent and wellintended suggestions of your Correspondent, (p. 542 of your last volume,) it may be proper to inform him and your readers, that the hostility of the Colonial Legislatures to all plans of amelioration, and to every measure, which has even remotely in view the abolition of slavery, is the evil, for the correction of which it appears to be the incumbent duty of Christians of all denominations to strengthen the hands of Government, by petitioning the King and the two Houses of Parliament.

The cruelty and oppression, which the Slaves in the West Indies still suffer at the hands of their masters, require only to be known, to convince every candid and benevolent individual, that there is a loud and imperative call from the colonies, for authoritative interference on the part of the mother country.

The fact is, the Colonists, unhappily, manifest the utmost disinclination to permit the education of the negroes, with a view even to an eventual change of system; and the laws of the Colonies, in general, are framed, and administered with an evident aim to discountenance emancipation. In proof of this assertion it may be sufficient to state one circumstance, with which all readers of West India newspapers must be well acquainted, viz. that, in all the Colonies, every black-man and even every Creole is presumed to be a slave, unless he can produce proofs which will convince a West India court, of his having been emancipated. Hence it

has arisen that many poor negroes, and whole families descended from negroes, who have been emancipated either by will, or by spontaneous grant, in the West Indies or America, and removed from the places of their birth, have been subsequently re-enslaved for the want of the means of proving the fact of their emancipation: the laws of the Colonies, most unjustly, throwing upon the poor and illiterate negro the onus of proof, instead of assigning it to the educated and wealthy master. The West India newspapers, accordingly, abound with advertisements, containing descriptions of negroes or Creoles, sometimes maimed and branded, and described by the marks of these injuries, who have been apprehended by the police, for merely being at large, and lodged in the workhouses of the islands. These advertisements call upon owners, if such exist, to claim the negroes or Creoles therein described, within a given time, and if not so claimed, they are (can you believe it, Mr. Editor?) not to be liberated, as free blacks or Creoles, over whom no one has the right to claim the authority of an owner, but ordered to be sold as slaves to defray expenses.

The uncultivated state of the negroes is, on the one hand, pleaded by the masters, in excuse for discouraging every plan for a general emancipation; they alleging that an emancipated negro would be idle and nearly worthless as a labourer, and on this plea grounding a claim for large compensation, as for property lost or foregone, in the event of a general emancipation: while on the other hand the masters oppose all benevolent attempts to raise the negroes, on the scale of intellect, to a susceptibility of moral motives to industry.

That some of the excellent plans of progressive emancipation, noticed by your correspondent, as well as others which have been suggested for present amelioration, might have been carried into effect long since, had the colonists acquiesced, there can be no doubt: but, as the case at present stands, there appears to be the most urgent occasion for the exertion of Parliamentary authority to effect that, which, there is no good reason to believe, the Colonists themselves will ever effect. I will only add, that the present being a time of profound peace, appears to be a fa

vourable opportunity for the accom, plishment of such an object.

T. F.

UNCERTAIN RICHES.

It is universally known, that, within a few weeks past, there has been an uncommon agitation in the commercial world, occasioned by the embarrassment of many wealthy and confidential persons, whose unexpected failure has spread alarm and dismay throughout the country, and involved multitudes of tradesmen in difficulty and distress. Seldom, if ever, have riches been bet ter entitled to the epithet uncer. tain ;" seldom has there been more occasion to exhort men "not to trust in uncertain riches, but to trust in tha living God."-1 Tim. vi. 17.

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Every station in human life has its pravity of human nature, that we can appropriate snares; for such is the deextract evil as well from prosperity as adversity. How wise and good, therefore, was the prayer of Agar, Poverty is so frightful a thing, that "Give me neither poverty nor riches." every one is ready to pray against it; riches; and yet they are equally dan but few, it is supposed, pray against gerous. They are, as one called them, dangerous mercies ;" and one of the dangers annexed to them is our proneness to trust in them. Hence, when our Lord declared that it was as difficult for a rich man to be saved, as for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, he explained his meaning to the disciples, who expressed great astonishment, saying, "Who then can be saved?" (for they hoped to be rich) by adding, "How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the

kingdom of God!"-Mark x. 28, &c.

And O, how, generally are the rich disposed to trust in their wealth! In days of Job, they did so. Hence, when an early period of the world, in the that holy man defends himself against the false imputations and injurious presumptions of his friends, he asserts that he did not make gold his hope," nor say to the fine gold, Thou art my

• Or, if I have made gold my wife, or, married gold; so the Septuagint. Thus we correctly say of a carnal man, he is wedded to the world,-See Dr. Lawson, in loc.

confidence; he did not exult because his wealth was great, and because his hand had gotten much." Job xxxi. 24. The rich man, too frequently, "sets his heart upon his wealth,”—"boasts himself in the multitude of his riches," and accounts them "his strong city;" not aware that thus "loving the world, and the things of the world," he awfully proves that "the love of God is not in him ;" and that with all his pretensions to Christian piety, he is, in fact, on a level with the "idolater."

Well then, might St. Paul direct his son Timothy, to charge those Christians, who were rich, (and a few such there were in Ephesus) "not to trust in their riches ;" and for this good reason, because they were uncertain possessions. Those who possess them cannot be sure of retaining them. This is strikingly expressed by Solomon, (Prov. xxiii. 5.) “Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?" upon a mere nothing for riches are only "glittering nothings, or like bubbles on the water, which glare for a moment and vanish." He compares them also to birds" they make themselves wings." Whilst the miser broods on his golden eggs, before he is aware, they are hatched, they are fledged, and away they fly, with all the rapidity of the eagle. "In vain he tries, by bills and bonds, and bars, and bolts, to clip their wings; he will not be able to hinder their elopement; and when, by some desperate adventurous effort, or speculation, he tries to recover them, he makes wings for the little portion that remained."

Thus rapidly fled the wealth of Job, "the greatest of all the men of the East," and left him the poorest creature in the country, yet still, "rich in faith," he resolves the mighty and sudden change into the sovereign will of God, and says, with a holy magnanimity of soul, "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

But the vanity of riches appears, not only in the uncertainty of retaining them, but in the uncertainty of enjoy ing them, or deriving satisfaction from them whilst retained; for what Solomon asserted is frequently proved by experience, "He that loveth silver, shall not be satisfied with silver, not he

that loveth abundance with increase,' and this he emphatically adds,..." this also is vanity."--Eccl. v. 10,

The uncertainty of riches is obvious from another consideration---If they do not leave us, we shall assuredly leave them. "We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out of it, so that he is termed, in the gospel, a fool, who, having amassed great substance, made sure of enjoying it many years, for suddenly was his soul required of him, and his riches passed into other hands. Let not the wealthy man then, trust in uncertain riches, "because as a flower of the grass shall he pass away."

But turn your eyes Christian Reader, to another and a better object, even to "the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy." Those who rely on their wealth, too often forget God; they are forget God; they are "full, and deny him," or rest in the gifts, forgetful of the giver. Can we wonder, then, if God resume his gifts, and deprive men of the idol in which they trusted?

Turn away your eyes, then, from beholding vanity, and direct them to the ever-living God, reconciled in Christ to every believer, and make him your only trust and confidence. Reflect on his glorious perfections, and you will find abundant encouragement to repose on him.

God is love. He has given you his Son. What, then, can he withhold? "As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." "Cast your burden on the Lord:" leave all your cares with him for he careth for you.

God is power. Our confidence in men is usually proportioned to their ability to help us; this led the father of the faithful to trust in his Almighty Friend, "being fully persuaded, that what he had promised he was able to perform."

Riches

God is truth. He cannot lie. are uncertain; but he is faithful who hath promised, and there is an absolute certainty of receiving what he hath engaged to bestow.

These plain thoughts are suggested by the events of the day. They are painful, but instructive events; and those who are sufferers by the occurrences of the times, will do well to lay them to heart. Then will your worldly losses become spiritual gains.

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