becoming a Christian; and he has been educated for the ministry, ordained as a clergyman, and is now labouring successfully and happily among his fellow-countrymen. He is not the only instance of an African missionary and preacher; and as years roll on, we may hope that many many more will join him in the work; and labour, as black clergymen, under the direction of our own English Bishop, established now in the new diocese of Sierra Leone.

Oh, how different all this is, from the scene we were contemplating of Western Africa, some sixty or seventy years ago! And how, you will ask, has this wonderful change been effected? The exertions made for the abolition of the Slave Trade, the establishment of missionary societies, the efforts of the Christian ministers who have from time to time gone out, and laboured, and sickened, and died, one after another, in that unhealthy climate, --these have been the principal means employed. And we may look farther back still, to that time when the poor oppressed negroes first attracted the notice of their early friends in our own country, as the beginning of this happy change. The men who commenced that work of love, are no longer here; and many a Christian slave made free,-free in the highest and best sense of the word,-through

their efforts and their prayers, has gone to join them in a happier land above. The grand cause of all these glorious results, we must remember, is the gospel; that alone it is which can really civilize the human heart, and change the ignorant negro, the wild heathen savage, into the gentle and the intelligent christian. Then, as we leave the African coast with its schools and its churches, its missionaries and its converts, its sad recollections of the past, and its bright hopes for the future, - let us thank God for the success He has given to the efforts made to obtain liberty for the poor slave;-to gain for him not only freedom of body, but of mind and of spirit too, by teaching him to know that truth which has made him "free indeed."

And now, as we began this chapter with "the Negro's Complaint," we will end it with some lines of a very different kind, but written by the same Christian poet,-one who, though he took no part in public affairs, was yet a deeply interested observer of this great work, and who loved in the retirement of his own study, to watch the progress, and to serve the cause of truth and freedom.

'Twas in the glad season of spring,
Asleep at the dawn of the day,
I dream'd what I cannot but sing,
So pleasant it seen'd as I lay.

I dream'd that, on ocean afloat,

Far hence to the westward I sail'd, While the billows high lifted the boat, And the fresh blowing breeze never fail'd.

In the steerage a woman I saw,

Such at least was the form that she wore, Whose beauty impressed me with awe, Ne'er taught me by woman before. She sat, and a shield by her side Shed light, like a sun on the waves, And smiling divinely, she cried-"I go to make freemen of slaves."

Then raising her voice to a strain,

The sweetest that ear ever heard,
She sung of the slave's broken chain,
Wherever her glory appear'd.
Some clouds which had over us hung,
Fled, chas'd by her melody clear,
And methought, while she liberty sung,
'Twas liberty only to hear.

Thus swiftly dividing the flood,

To a slave-cultur'd island we came, Where a demon, her enemy, stood, Oppression his terrible name.

In his hand, as the sign of his sway,

A scourge hung with lashes he bore, And stood looking out for his prey, From Africa's sorrowful shore.

But soon, as approaching the land
That goddess-like woman he view'd,
The scourge he let fall from his hand,
With the blood of his subjects imbru'd.
I saw him both sicken and die,

And the moment the monster expir'd,
Heard shouts that ascended the sky
From thousands with rapture inspir'd.

Awaking, how could I but muse

At what such a dream should betide: But soon my ear caught the glad news, What serv'd my weak thought for a guide ;That Britannia, renown'd o'er the waves

For the hatred she ever has shown To the black-sceptr'd rulers of slaves, Resolves to have none of her own.

XXXIX. MODERN TIMES.

A.D. 1820-1853.

Clime of the unforgotten brave!
Whose land, from plain to mountain cave,
Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!

Shrine of the mighty! can it be,

That this is all remains of thee?-BYRON.

In the history of the abolition of slavery which I gave you in the last chapter, I was obliged to anticipate the order of time by some few years, that the narrative might not be interrupted. We must now go back therefore to the commencement of the reign of George IV. This king was, in habits and disposition, very different from his father. He was a man of excellent abilities and education, and fond of every thing connected with elegance, and taste, and the fine arts; so that he was considered the most accomplished gentleman in Europe. But he did not possess those more sterling and valuable qualities which had rendered George III. so much beloved by his people; nor that