free man, a man robbed of his hereditary possessions by colonial cupidity. He was not smuggled out of the colony by the Missionaries ; there was no need for such conduct: he was a free man, injured in a free colony, more free to remain at the Cape than the author. He had no masters east :-he left the colony in open day, and returned to it as openly. Though we are confident Dr. Philip's intellectual, moral, and religious character needs no advocacy of ours, yet as we have quoted the calumny of one officer in the company's service, we may be forgiven for quoting the opinions of another on the opposite side. Capt. Fawcett remarks, after hearing Dr. Philip preach, that "There was a boldness and manliness in his style, and an unction and impressiveness in his observations and appeals, that very much charmed me. Toward the close of his sermon he spoke to this effect. My friends, I have to ask you whether we are in the perilous days of which the Apostle here speaks. It will be well for us to make the inquiry. Paul here says, that in the latter days of the church a body of men shall arise who shall be lovers of their ownselves, but having a form of godliness: covetous, but with a form of godliness; boasters, proud, but very religious people; blasphemers, disobedient to parents, but a church-going people; unthankful, unholy, but hav ing this form of godliness; without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, but very religious men ; incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, but with this form of godliness; traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God,—having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. From such turn away.' I was resolved on forming his acquaintance, and called to pay my respects to him; and, if he had gained my heart by what I saw of him in the pulpit, this was more confirmed by the fascination of personal and private intercourse. I found him a man of large and enlightened views, and was particularly pleased with that part of his conversation which turned on the great and good men of my own country. I had heard of them, or read their works, before, and could not fail to admire them; but the special incidents and traits of character which he brought forward in connexion with them, threw a new charm and a new light, on their attractive excellences." Irrespective of the question in dispute, we have here the testimony of a man who knew Philip intimately, confronting one who perhaps never saw or heard the man he calumniates. We give him all the benefit of the comparison. This second visit to England issued in the recal of a second Governor, by a whig government. Surely the state of things must have been very paradisiacal to have induced both a whig and tory administration to listen to a despised and calumniated Missionary, and, on his testimony, merely recal two Governors-the one a noble, the other a knight !! Now it was after these statements had been made before the highest tribunal, and been disposed of, and in order to excite religious sympathy and prayer for Africa, that the "showy" speeches were made at Manchester and Sheffield. It was not with a view to give a political bias to the views of any man this would have been useless; for, unfortunately for the colonies, they possess with all their power and oppressions but too small a share in the feelings of the British people to influence them very materially in the selection of their representatives. A local cess would have much more interest with them than the Indian pilgrim tax, or a district affray than the Caffre war. There is one thing connected with this subject which affects the character of the Missionaries, and which we are not willing to pass over in silence. We refer to the apparently political character which the Missionaries of the London Society have assumed at the Cape. That character, however much they may dislike it has been forced upon them it is not a political character of whig, or tory, or radical, but a political character on one topic, the liberty of mankind. The Missionaries, after labouring in Africa for some years, were blessed with converts; these converts in common with other natives are oppressed; the Missionaries felt it their duty to shield and protect their flocks, and the representation of their wrougs, involved the advocacy of the whole injured population. Thus have the Baptists and Wesleyans become political in the West Indies, and thus would the Missionaries become political in this country, if the question of the goverment connection with idolatry, say, or the question of marriage amongst native converts, should be conducted in such a spirit as would oblige them to appeal from India to that land where no cry is heard in vain. It is on one point and one alone, that missionaries can be political. There may, and must be details, but the cause is one,--the freedom, civil and religious, of the human family. There is one expression in the singular tirade of Lieut. N. P. which calls for the especial notice of our readers. "But it rested with two classes to exhibit a dark contrast to the above christian-like conduct, &c." Being in some measure acquainted with the transactions of the Cape government we did most eagerly search the pages of Lieut. N. P. for a record of this most Christian conduct, and-will our readers believe in what it consisted?-we let him tell his tale himself: it was that "In consequence of this irruption of the Kafirs, troops were brought from Cape Town (for there were only 700 men on the frontier!) The inhabi tants of the Colony were armed, Kafirland invaded, and the enemy, after a very harassing warfare, brought to sue for peace, which was granted them by the Governor, Sir B. D'Urban, on the following terms; namely, that they should restore 50,000 head of cattle, 1000 horses, and give up the musquets they had got from the Colony !!! It was also found necessary to guard against the possible recurrence of such an irruption, by taking from the Kafirs the territory between the Keiskamma and Kei rivers, which afforded the nearest eligible line of frontier and the only tenable one. Subsequently however many of the Kafir tribes requested they might be re-admitted to those lands and acknowledged as subjects of His Britannic Majesty, which was accordingly done, and every thing promised fair for a continuance of peace and the gradual civilization of the Kafirs, whose character must by this time be sufficiently apparent to my readers."— Had even this been the real case, it would have been comparative mercy when contrasted with the actual state of things-heavenly when compared with Sir B. D'Urban's official account of the matter, which we give in order to afford an additional opportunity of judging of the whole affair. "In the course of the Commissioners' progress in the census of the tribes of Gaika and T'Slambie, they have ascertained that their loss during our operations against them, has amounted to 4,000 of their warriors or fighting men, and among them many captains. Ours, fortunately, has not in the whole amounted to 100, and of these only two officers. There have been taken from them also, besides the conquest and alienation of their country, about 60,000 head of cattle, almost all their goats, their habitations are every where destroyed, and their gardens and corn-fields laid waste. They have, therefore, been chastised, not extremely, but sufficiently." "Amongst many passages illustrative of the manner in which the war was conducted by the British troops, I select for illustration the following, from a letter addressed by Colonel Smith to yourself on the 11th of June. The enemy, although his traces were numerous, fled so rapidly, that few were killed, and only three shots fired at the troops. The whole of the country has been most thoroughly traversed; upwards of 1,200 huts, new and old have been burnt; immense stores of corn in every direction destroyed; 215 head of cattle of all sorts captured; several horses, and nearly 2,000 goats, have fallen into our hands. The women were very numerous; and I therefore caused them to be amply supplied with beef and biscuit, and dismissed them with the assurance that the atrocities of their husbands had made them forfeit their homes, and that they must move over the Kye. They all stated that they were anxious to do so. It is most gratifying to know that the savages being the unprovoked aggressors, have brought down all the misery with which they are now visited upon the heads of themselves and their families; and that the great day of retribution, and the punishment of the unprovoked atrocities committed by these murderous savages on our colonists, had arrived.' " As nothing we could say could possibly brand, with the infamy it deserves, such inhuman conduct better than Lord Glenelg's own comment, we quote it entire. 66 Reading those statements at this distance from the scene of action, I must own that I am affected by them in a manner the most remote from that which the writer contemplated. In the civilized warfare of Europe, this desolation of an enemy's country, not in aid of any military opera tions, nor for the security of the invading force, but simply and confessedly as an act of vengeance, has rarely occurred, and the occurrence of it has been invariably followed by universal reprobation. I I doubt, indeed, whether the history of modern Europe affords an example even of a single case, in which, without some better pretext than that of mere retribution, any invaded people were ever subjected to the calamities which Colonel Smith here describes the loss of their food, the spoiling of their cattle, the burning of their dwellings; the expulsion of their wives and families from their homes, the confiscation of their property, and the forfeiture of their native country. I am, of course, aware that the laws of civilized nations cannot be rigidly applied in our contests with barbarous men; for those laws pre-suppose a reciprocity, which cannot subsist between parties of whom the one is ignorant of the usages, maxims, and religion of the other. But the great principles of morality are of immutable and universal obligation, and from them are deduced the laws of war. Of these laws the first and cardinal rule relating to a state of hostility is, that the belligerent must inflict no injury on his enemy which is not indispensably requisite to ensure the safety of him by whom it is inflicted, or to promote the attainment of the legitimate ends of the warfare. Whether we contend with a civilized or a barbarous enemy, the gratuitous aggravation of the horrors of war, on the plea of vengeance or retribution, or on any similar grounds, is alike indefensible. "I am bound to record the very deep regret with which I have perused this passage. In a conflict between regular troops and hordes of barba rous men, it is almost a matter of course that there should exist an enor mous disproportion between the loss of life on either side. But to consign an entire country to desolation, and a whole people to famine, is an aggra vation of the necessary horrors of war, so repugnant to every just feeling and so totally at variance with the habits of civilized nations, that I should not be justified in receiving such a statement without calling upon you for further explanations. The honor of the British name is deeply interested in obtaining and giving publicity to the proofs that the safety of the King's subjects really demanded so fearful an exercise of the irresistible powers of His Majesty's forces." If this was the christianity of the Cape Government-if these were its acts of clemency-if these its exhibitions of mercy—what must have been its acts of retribution, its displays of penal power, its days of chastisement and oppression? What they were, let the sighs of the widow, the cries of the orphan, the wailings of the destitute, the blood of the brave Hintza and his companions-let these tell the amount of suffering, oppression, and wrong, which have been heaped upon the aborigines of South Africa by a professedly Christian Government. φιλος. IV.-Chapter of Correspondence. 1.-NATIVE COMMENTARIES-ROMAN CHARACTER. MY DEAR FRIENDS, Among the various departments of labour which press upon the attention of Christians in this country, there is one which, in my view, begins to require more attention. It is the preparation of suitable Commentaries for the help of Native preachers and catechists, &c. It is generally felt, yet I think it needs to be more strongly felt, that Native preachers form one of the most important agencies that we have, for giving currency to Christianity in this country. Now this instrumentality never can be brought to bear with any thing like its natural power until such helps are brought within the reach of this class. In the present state of things Native preachers are very important auxiliaries. But they have generally no means of storing their minds with such knowledge of the Bible as will give fulness, and depth, and solidity to their religious instructions, nor such as will give full development to their own piety. They generally become very familiar with the methods pursued by Musalmans and Hindus in opposing the Bible, and acquire expertness in replying to their objections, but then their own minds remain empty-void of that knowledge which would produce a vigorous growth of Christianity around them. It is true that Native preachers are generally in the immediate neighbourhood of some Missionary or other person capa. ble of giving them instructions. But a Missionary seldom feels that he has time to spend in giving that full and copious knowledge of the Scripture history, geography, manners and customs of the times, character of the then popular systems of idolatry, &c. &c. which the other ought to pos sess. And if he does take the time for this, there is a great waste of power; for if he would appropriate about the same amount of time that is necessa ry to instruct one, he could prepare a well adapted commentary that would furnish the means of self-instruction to hundreds. Besides, if he sit down VII. 2 z with one and instruct him fully in these important matters, he makes him a mere passive recipient of knowledge; on the contrary, if he put a volume into his hand, which discusses these and furnishes a storehouse for him, it gives elasticity and enlargement to his mind. He then feels that he has in his own hands the means of self-improvement, of employing usefully his leisure hours, and of giving more fulness and force to his preaching to others. If they possessed these means they would be so much more able to edify and bring forward the dwarfish and almost famished specimens of Christianity which gather around them. Now this work of preparing such a commentary would, in the hands of an individual, be very laborious. But if an arrangement were entered into by a number of individuals who are qualified for such a work, and each one take a part, somewhat after the example of the different parties who prepared the current English trans. lation of the Bible, the labour of each individual would not be great-the time and labour would not be much greater than each one ought to give to the instructing of the Native preacher or catechist, who is in a measure dependant on him; and the result of these combined labours would, in the course of a few years, furnish Native preachers and Native christians with much invaluable assistance. I rejoice to know that the Rev. Mr. Wilkinson has prepared a commen. tary on Genesis, and hope that that work will soon shew the importance of having others of the same kind embracing all the other parts of the Bible. The details of such an arrangement will have to be suggested when it shall be ascertained whether the public mind is ripe for such an undertaking. The consideration of this subject throws the mind almost instinctively on another question of immeasurable importance, and of great perplexity, i. e. in what character should such a work be published? If the views of your friend"CINSURENSIS" in the February No. of the Observer be cor. rect, then this work ought to be published in the Bengali and Nágari and Persian characters. But if otherwise, then such a work might be published with great advantage in the Roman character. Let us compare the rela tive economy in the use of these respective characters; and economy, in a country like this, and for the use of so many generations of men as we suppose will live after us, is no unimportant consideration. We see that the whole Bible and Testament can be printed in the Roman character, and bound in one convenient pocket volume, and be perfectly distinct and legible. Whereas, with the best improvement of Nagari types, the single part of the Old Testament which has been published, fills a large unwieldy vo lume. The Bible complete, then, will fill at the least three large volumes; and the same, in the Persian character, still larger. Now, suppose a Native preacher be even able to purchase a whole Bible; when he goes out to preach he will of course desire to have the whole of that blessed volume, which is his treasure-house, with him. Then he must fill his arms or load a servant to carry it for him, or do without; when, in the other character, he could carry it in his pocket without parade or trouble. Henry's or Scott's Commentary in the Roman character, forms six pretty large volumes. In either of the other characters it would make, at the very least, 18 or perhaps more very large volumes. Then to procure a Bible and a single Commentary, the Native preacher must purchase at least 21 large and expensive volumes!-and where is he to get the means? Now suppose that Christianity had made a little further advance in this country, and the Native preacher will need to have his library furnished at least with such works as the following; viz. "Horne's Introduction," which will be, in this character, 12 large volumes; " Mosheim's Church History," |