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Dark purple as the moorland-heath, when rain
Hangs in low vapours o'er th' autumnal plain :
Till the full Sun, resurgent from the flood,
Looks on the waves, and turns them into blood;
But quickly kindling, as his beams aspire,
The lambent billows play in forms of fire.
-Where is the Vessel ?-Shining through the light,
Like the white sea-fowl's horizontal flight,
Yonder she wings, and skims, and cleaves her way
Through refluent foam and iridescent spray.

Lo! on the deck, with patriarchal grace,
Heaven in his bosom opening o'er his face,
Stands Christian David-venerable name!
Bright in the records of celestial fame,

On earth obscure;-like some sequester'd star,
That rolls in its Creator's beams afar,

Unseen by man, till telescopic eye,
Sounding the blue abysses of the sky,
Draws forth its hidden beauty into light,
And adds a jewel to the crown of night.
Though hoary with the multitude of years,
Unshorn of strength, between his young compeers,
He towers;-with faith, whose boundless glance can see
Time's shadows brightening though eternity;
Love,-God's own love in his pure breast enshrined;
Love, love to man the magnet of his mind;
Sublimer schemes maturing in his thought
Than ever statesman plann'd, or warrior wrought;
While, with rejoicing tears, and rapturous sighs,
To heaven ascends their morning sacrifice.'

Whence are the pilgrims? whither would they roam? Greenland their port-Moravia was their home. Sprung from a race of martyrs, men who bore The cross on many a Golgotha of yore; When first Sclavonian tribes the truth received, And princes at the price of thrones believed; a

1 The names of the three first Moravian Missionaries to Greenland were, Christian David, Matthew Stach, and Christian Stach.

The

The Church of the United Brethren (first established under that name about the year 1466) traces its descent from the Sclavonian branch of the Greek Church, which was spread throughout Bohemia and Moravia, as well as the ancient Dalmatia. Bulgarians were once the most powerful tribe of the Sclavic nations; and among them the gospel was introduced in the ninth century.

The story of the introduction of Christianity among the Sclavonic tribes is interesting. The Bulgarians, being borderers on the Greek empire, frequently made predatory incursions on the Imperial territory. On one occasion the sister of Bogaris, King of the Bulgarians, was taken prisoner, and carried to Constantinople. Being a royal captive, she was treated with great honour, and diligently instructed in the doctrines of the gospel, of the truth of which she became so deeply convinced, that she desired to be baptized; and when, in 845, the Emperor Michael III made peace with the Bulgarians, she returned to her country a pious and zealous Christian. Being earnestly concerned for the conversion of her brother and his people, she wrote to Constantinople for teachers to instruct them in the way of righteousness. distinguished bishops of the Greek Church, Cyrillus and Methodius, were accordingly sent into Bulgaria. The king Bogaris, who heretofore had resisted conviction, conceived a particular affection for Methodius, who, being a skilful painter, was desired by him, in the spirit of a barbarian, to compose a picture exhibiting the most horrible devices. Methodius took a happy advantage of this strange request, and painted the day of judgment in a style so terrific, and explained its scenes to his royal master in language so awful and affecting, that Bogaris was awakened, made a profession of the true faith, and was baptized by the name of Michael, in honour of his benefactor, the Greek Emperor. His subjects,

Two

1

-When Waldo, flying from the apostate west,
In German wilds his righteous cause confess'd:
-When Wickliffe, like a rescuing Angel, found
The dungeon where the word of God lay bound,
Unloosed its chains, and led it by the hand,
In its own sunshine, through his native land: "
-When Iluss, the victim of perfidious foes,
To heaven upon a fiery chariot rose;

And ere he vanish'd, with a prophet's breath,
Foretold th' immortal triumphs of his death: 3

according to the fashion of the times, some by choice, and others from constraint, adopted their master's religion. To Cyrillus is attributed the translation of the Scriptures still in use among the descendants of the Sclavonian tribes, which adhere to the Greek Church; and this is probably the most ancient European version of the Bible in a living tongue.

But notwithstanding this triumphant introduction of Christianity among these fierce nations (including the Bohemians and Moravians), multitudes adhered to idolatry, and among the nobles especially many continued Pagans, and in open or secret enmity against the new religion and its professors. In Bohemia, Duke Borziwog, having embraced the gospel, was expelled by his chieftains, and one Stogmirus, who had been thirteen years in exile, and who was believed to be a heathen, was chosen by them as their prince. He being, however, soon detected in Christian worship, was deposed, and Borziwog recalled. The latter died soon after his restoration, leaving his widow, Ludomilla, regent during the minority of her son Wratislaus, who married a noble lady, named Drahomira. The young duchess, to ingratiate herself with her busband and her mother-in-law, affected to embrace Christianity, while in her heart she remained an implacable enemy to it. Her husband dying early, left her with two infant boys. Venceslaus, the elder, was taken by his grandmother, the pious Ludomilla and carefully educated in Christian principles; the younger, Boleslas, was not less carefully educated in hostility against them by Drahomira; who, seizing the government during the minority of her children, shut up the churches, forbade the clergy either to preach or teach in schools, and imprisoned, banished, or put to death those who disobeyed her edicts against the gospel. But when her eldest son, Wenceslaus, became of age, he was persuaded by his grandmother and the principal Christian nobles to take possession of the government, which was his inheritance. He did so, and began his reign by removing his pagan mother and brother to a distance from the metropolis. Drahomira, transported with rage, resolved to rid herself of her mother-in-law, whose influence over Wenceslaus was predominant. She found two heathen assassins ready for her purpose, who, stealing unperceived into Ludomilla's oratory, fell upon her as she entered it for evening prayers, threw a rope round her neck, and strangled ber. The remorseless Drahomira next plotted against Wenceslaus, to deprive him of the government; but her intrigues miscarrying, she proposed to her heathen son to murder him. An opportunity soon offered. On the birth of a son, Boleslas invited bis Christian brother to visit him, and be present at a pretended ceremony of blessing the infant. Wenceslaus attended, and was treated with unwonted kindness; but suspecting treachery, he could not sleep in his brother's house. He therefore went to spend the night in the church. Here, as be lay defenceless in an imagined sanctuary, Bolestas, instigated by their unnatural mother, surprised and slew him with his sabre. The murderer immediately usurped the sovereignty, and commenced a cruel persecution against the Christians, which was terminated by the interference of the Roman Emperor Otto 1, who made war upon Bolestas, reduced him to the condition of a vassal, and gave peace to his persecuted subjects. This happened in the year 943.

With the Waldenses, the Bohemian and Moravian Churches, which never properly submitted to the authority of the Pope, held intimate communion for ages; and from Stephen, the last bishop of the Waldenses, in 1467, the United Brethren received their episcopacy. Almost immediately afterwards, those ancient confessors of the truth were dispersed by a cruel persecution, and Stephen himself suffered martyrdom, being burnt as a heretic at Vienna.

* Wickliffe's writings were early translated into the Bobemian tongue, and eagerly read by the devout and persecuted people, who never had given up the Bible in their own language, nor consented to perform their church service in Latin. Archbishop Shinek, of Prague, ordered the works of Wickliffe to be burnt by the hands of the bangman. He himself could scarcely read!

3 It is well known that John Huss (who might be called a disciple of our Wickliffe), though furnished with a safe-conduct by the em

-When Ziska, burning with fanatic zeal,
Exchanged the Spirit's sword for patriot steel,
And through the heart of Austria's thick array
To Tabor's summit stabb'd resistless way;
But there (as if transfigured on the spot
The world's Redeemer stood), his rage forgot;
Deposed his arms and trophies in the dust,
Wept like a babe, and placed in God his trust,
While prostrate warriors kiss'd the hallow'd ground,
And lay, like slain, in silent ranks around: '
-When mild Gregorius, in a lowlier field,
As brave a witness, as unwont to yield
As Ziska's self, with patient footsteps trod
A path of suffering, like the Son of God,
And nobler palms, by meek endurance won,
Than if his sword had blazed from sun to sun: 2
Though nature fail'd him on the racking wheel,
He felt the joys which parted spirits feel;
Rapt into bliss from ecstasy of pain,
Imagination wander'd o'er a plain :

peror Sigismund, was burnt by a decree of the council of Constance. Several sayings, predictive of retribution to the priests, and reformation in the Church, are recorded, as being uttered by him in bis last hours. Among others;- A hundred years hence," said he, addressing his judges, ye shall render an account of your doings to God and to me.-Luther appeared at the period thus indicated.

After the martyrdom of John Huss, his followers and countrymen took up arms for the maintenance of their civil and religious liberties. The first and most distinguished of their leaders was John Ziska. He seized possession of a high mountain, which he fortified, and called Tabor. Here he and his people (who were bence called Taborites) worshipped God according to their consciences and his holy word; while in the plains they fought and conquered their persecutors and enemies.

charch.

The genuine followers of John Huss never approved of the war for religion carried on by Ziska, though many of them were ineidentally involved in it. Rokyzan, a Calixtine, having with his party made a compromise with their sovereign and the priests, by which they were allowed the use of the cup in the sacrament, was made archbishop of Prague in the year 1435; and thenceforward, though he had been fully convinced of the truth of the doctrines promulgated by Huss, be became a treacherous friend or an open enemy of his followers, as it happened to serve the purposes of his ambition. The Pope, however, refused to confirm him in his new dignity, unless he would relinquish the cup; on which, for a time, be made great pretensions of undertaking a thorough reform in the All who hoped any thing good of him were disappointed, and none more than his pious nephew Gregorius, who in vain, on behalf of the peace-loving Hussites, besought him to proceed in the work of church-regeneration. He refused peremptorily, at length, after having greatly dissimulated and temporized. His refusal was the immediate cause of the commencement of the Church of the United Brethren, in that form in which it has been recognised for nearly 400 years. They were no sooner known, however, as - Fratres legis Christi, Brethren according to the rule of Christ, than they were persecuted as heretics. Among others, Gregorias, who is styled the Patriarch of the Brethren," was apprebended at a private meeting with a number of his people. The judge who executed the royal authority, on entering the room, used these remarkable words: It is written, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer perser tion; therefore follow me, by command of the higher powers. They followed, and were sentenced to the torture. On the rack, Gregorius fell into a swoon, and all present supposed him to be dead. Hereupon his apostate uncle Rokyzan hastened to the spot, and falling upon his neck, with tears and loud lamentations bewailed him, exclaiming- O, my dear Gregories! would to God I were where thou art! Ilis nephew, lowever, revived, and was set at liberty. He afterwards, according to tradition, declared that in his trance he had seen a vision;-a tree, covered with leaves and blossoms and fruits, on which many beautiful birds were feeding and melodiously singing. Under it, was a shepherd's boy, and near at hand, three venerable old men (as guardians of the tree), whose habiliments and countenances were those of the three persons who, several years afterwards, were consecrated the first bishops of the Church of the United Brethren, by Stephen, the last bishop of the Waldenses.

Fair in the midst, beneath a morning sky,
A tree its ample branches bore on high,
With fragrant bloom, and fruit delicious hung,
While birds beneath the foliage fed and sung;
All glittering to the sun with diamond dew,
O'er sheep and kine a breezy shade it threw;
A lovely boy, the child of hope and prayer,
With crook and shepherd's pipe, was watching there;
At hand three venerable forms were seen,

In simple garb, with apostolic mien,

Who mark'd the distant fields convulsed with strife,
-The guardian Cherubs of that Tree of Life;
Not arm'd, like Eden's host, with flaming brands,
Alike to friends and foes they stretch'd their hands,
In sign of peace; and while Destruction spread
His path with carnage, welcomed all who fled:
- When poor Comenius, with his little flock,
Escaped the wolves, and from the boundary rock,
Cast o'er Moravian hills a look of woe,
Saw the green vales expand, the waters flow,
And happier years revolving in his mind,
Caught every sound that murmur'd on the wind,
As if his eye could never thence depart,
As if his ear was seated in his heart,
And his full soul would thence a passage break,
To leave the body, for his country's sake;
While on his knees he pour'd the fervent prayer,
That God would make that martyr-land his care,
And nourish in its ravaged soil a root
Of Gregor's Tree, to bear perennial fruit.'

John Amos Comenius, one of the most learned as well as pious men of his age, was minister of the Brethren's congregation at Fulneck, in Moravia, from 1618 to 1627, when the Protestant nobility and clergy being expatriated, he fled with a part of his people through Silesia into Poland. forming the boundary, he turned his sorrowful eyes towards Bobemia and Moravia, and kneeling down with his brethren there, implored God, with many tears, that he would not take away the light of his holy word from those two provinces, but preserve in them a remnant for himself. A remnant was saved.

On the summit of the mountains

Comenius afterwards visited and resided in various parts of Germany, Holland, and England; every where, on his travels, recommending, with earnestness and importunity, the case of his oppressed brethren in Bohemia and Moravia to men in power. But his appeals were in vain; and when, at the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, he found that nothing was provided for their protection in the free exercise of their religion, he published an affecting representation of the peculiar hardships of their church, in which be observed: We justly, indeed, deserve to bear the wrath of Almighty God; but will such men (alluding to the Protestant diplomatists and their constituent authorities) e able to justify their actions before God, who, forgetting the common cause of all Protestants, and the old covenants amongst us, neglect to assist those who are oppressed in the same engagements? Having made peace for themselves, they never gave it a thought, that the Bohemians and Moravians, who at the first, and for so many centuries, asserted the truth in opposition to Popery, were likewise worthy to be mutually considered by them; that the light of the gospel, which first was enkindled and put upon the candlestick in the Brethren's church, might not now be extinguished, as it appears to be. This afflicted people, therefore, which on account of its faithful adherence to the apostolic doctrines, following the footsteps of the primitive church, and the instructions of the holy fathers, has been so much hated, persecuted, tossed to and fro, and even forsaken by those of its own household, and now finds mercy from no man;this afflicted people has nothing left, but to cast itself upon the aid of the eternally merciful Lord God, and with the ancient prophet, when his nation was overthrown by its enemies, to exclaimFor these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the Comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me.' Lam. i, 16.But Thou, O Lord God! who abidest for ever and ever, and whose throne is eternal, why wilt Thou forget us, and even forsake us in this extremity? O bring us Lord, again to Thyself, that we may return to our homes. Renow

Ilis prayer was heard :—that Church, through ages past Assail'd and rent by persecution's blast ;

Whose sons no yoke could crush, no burthen tire,
Unawed by dungeons, tortures, sword, and fire
(Less proof against the world's alluring wiles,
Whose frowns have weaker terrors than its smiles);
-That Church o'erthrown, dispersed, unpeopled, dead,
Oft from the dust of ruin raised her head,
And rallying round her feet, as from their graves,
Her exiled orphans, hid in forest-caves;
Where, midst the fastnesses of rocks and glens,
Banded like robbers, stealing from their dens,
By night they met, their holiest vows to pay,
As if their deeds were dark, and shunn'd the day;
While Christ's revilers, in his seamless robe,
And parted garments, flaunted round the globe;
From east to west while priesteraft's banners flew,
And harness'd kings his iron chariot drew,
-That Church advanced triumphant, o'er the ground,
Where all her conquering martyrs had been crown'd,
Fearless her foe's whole malice to defy,
And worship God in liberty,-or die:
For truth and conscience oft she pour'd her blood,
And firmest in the fiercest conflict stood,
Wresting from bigotry the proud controul
Claim'd o'er the sacred empire of the soul,
Where God, the judge of all, should fill the throne,
And reign, as in his universe, alone.

our days as of old." In 1649, Comenius published a History of the Brethren's Church, which he dedicated, as his last will and testament, to the Church of England, to preserve for the successors of the brethren in future ages, as to the last hour of his life be

cherished the hope of their revival and establishment in peace and freedom. This work was translated from the original Latin, and published in London in 1661.

Previous to the Reformation, for about fifty years, the prisons in Bobemia, and especially at Prague, were filled, from time to time, in consequence of special decrees, with membres of the Brethren's Church. Michael, one of their first bishops, was long under rigorous confinement. Many perished in deen dungeons, with cold and hunger; others were cruelly tortured. The remainder were obliged to seek refuge in thick forests, and to hide themselves by day in caverns and recesses among the rocks. Fearing to be betrayed in the day-time by the smoke, they kindled their fires only at night, around which they employed their time in reading the Scriptures, and in prayer. If they were under the necessity of going out in the snow, either to seek provisions or to visit their neighbours, they always walked behind one another, each in his turn treading in the footsteps of the first, and the last dragging a piece of brushwood after him, to obliterate the track, or to make it appear as if some poor peasant had been to the woods to fetch a bundle of sticks. With the Reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zwinglius, Melancthon, Bucer, and Capito, the Brethren held the most friendly correspondence, and by all were acknowledged to be a true apostolical church. The strictness of their church-discipline, however, and the difference which subsisted among these great men themselves on that general subject, as well as the insulated locality of the Brethren, probably were the causes why they remained still totally distinct from any of the new Christian societies which were then iustituted. After the Reformation, especially about the beginning and till the middle of the seventeenth century, they were exposed to the same kind of persecutions and proscriptions which their ancestors bad suffered. After the death of the Emperor Rudolph, in 1612, the resolutions of the Council of Trent were decreed to be put in force against all Protestants in Bohemia. This occasioned a civil war, like that of the Hussites. The Brethren, though they are understood to have taken very little share in this defence of the truth, by weapons of carnal warfare, were nevertheless exposed to all the vindictive cruelty, by which the Protestants in Bohemia were nearly extirpated, after their defeat by the Imperialists, on the White Mountain, near Prague, in 1610. On the 21st June 1611, no less than twenty-seven of the Patrons (Defensores) of the Protestant cause, principally nobles and men of distinction, were beheaded, who all died as faithful witnesses and

T was thus through centuries she rose and fell:
At length victorious seem'd the gates of hell;
But founded on a rock, which cannot move-
Th' eternal rock of her Redeemer's love-
That Church, which Satan's legions thought destroy'd,
Her name extinct, her place for ever void,
Alive once more, respired her native air,

But found no freedom for the voice of prayer:
Again the cowl'd oppressor clank'd his chains,
Flourish'd his scourge, and threaten'd bonds and pains
(His arm enfeebled could no longer kill,
But in his heart he was a murderer still):
Then Christian David, strengthen'd from above,
Wise as the serpent, harmless as the dove;
Bold as a lion on his Master's part,
In zeal a seraph, and a child in heart;
Pluck'd from the gripe of antiquated laws
(-Even as a mother from the felon-jaws
Of a lean wolf, that bears her babe away,
With courage beyond nature, rends the prey),
The little remnant of that ancient race:
-Far in Lusatian woods they found a place;
There,-where the sparrow builds her busy nest,
And the clime-changing swallow loves to rest,
Thine altar, God of Hosts!-there still appear
The tribes to worship, unassail'd by fear;
Not like their fathers, vex'd from age to age
By blatant Bigotry's insensate rage,
Abroad in every place,-in every hour
Awake, alert, and ramping to devour.
No; peaceful as the spot where Jacob slept,
And guard all night the journeying angels kept,
Herrnhut yet stands amidst her shelter'd bowers;
-The Lord hath set his watch upon her towers.'

martyrs to the religion of Christ. This execution was followed by a decree of banishment against all ministers of the Brethren's churches in B hemia and Moravia. Many hundred families, both noble and plebeian, fled into the neighbouring provinces. Emigration, however, was rendered as difficult as possible to the common people, who were strictly watched by the emissaries of persecution. Many thousands, notwithstanding, gradually made their escape, and joined their ministers in exile; others, who from age, infirmity, or the burthen of large families, could not do the same, remained in their country, but were compelled to worship God, after the manner of their forefathers, in secret only; for thenceforward neither churches nor schools for Protestants were allowed to exist in Bohemia and Moravia. Search was made for their Bibles and religious books, which were burnt in piles, and in some places under the gallows.

In 1731 (ninety-four years after the flight of Comenius), the Church of the United Brethren was revived by the persecuted refugees from Moravia (descendants of the old confessors of that name), who were led from time to time by Christian David (himself a Moravian, but educated in the Lutheran persuasion), to settle on an uncultivated piece of land, on an estate belonging to Count Zinzendorf, in Lusatia. Christian David, who was a carpenter, began the work of building a church in this wilderness, by striking his axe into a tree, and exclaiming Here hath the sparrow found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself; even thine altars, O Lord God of Hosts! They named the settlement Herrnhut, or The Lord's Watch.

After the lapse of nearly a century, during which the refugees of the Brethren's churches, in Saxony, Poland, and Prussia, were nearly lost among the people with whom they associated, and the small remnant that continued in Moravia kept up the fire on their family-altars, while in their churches it was utterly extinct, a new persecution against this small remnant drove many of them from their homes, who, under the conduct of Christian David, finding an asylum on the estates of Count Zinzendorf, founded near Bertholsdorf the first congregation of the revived church of the United Brethren. On the 8th of June 1722, Christian David, with four of the first fugitives that arrived in Lusatia, were presented to Couns Zinzendorf's grandmother, who instantly gave them protection, and

Soon, homes of humble form, and structure rude, Raised sweet society in solitude:

And the lorn traveller there, at fall of night,
Could trace from distant hills the spangled light,
Which now from many a cottage window stream'd,
Or in full glory round the chapel beam'd;
While hymning voices, in the silent shade,
Music of all his soul's affections made:
Where through the trackless wilderness erewhile,
No hospitable ray was known to smile;
Or if a sudden splendor kindled joy,
'T was but a meteor dazzling to destroy :
While the wood echoed to the hollow owl,
The fox's cry, or wolf's lugubrious howl.

Unwearied as the camel, day by day, Tracks through unwater'd wilds his doleful way, Yet in his breast a cherish'd draught retains, To cool the fervid current in his veins, While from the sun's meridian realms he brings The gold and gems of Ethiopian Kings: So Christian David, spending yet unspent, On many a pilgrimage of mercy went;

O'er Greenland next two youths in secret wept :
And where the sabbath of the dead was kept,
With pious forethought, while their hands prepare
Beds which the living and unborn shall share
(For man so surely to the dust is brought,
His grave before his cradle may be wrought),
They told their purpose, each o'erjoy'd to find
His own idea in his brother's mind.
For counsel in simplicity they pray'd,

And vows of ardent consecration made:
-Vows heard in heaven; from that accepted hour,
Their souls were clothed with confidence and power,
Nor hope deferr'd could quell their hearts' desire;
The bush once kindled grew amidst the fire;
But ere its shoots a tree of life became,
Congenial spirits caught th' electric flame;
And for that holy service, young and old,
Their plighted faith and willing names enroll'd;
Eager to change the rest, so lately found,
For life-long labours on barbarian ground;
To break, through barriers of eternal ice,
A vista to the gates of Paradise;

And light beneath the shadow of the pole

Through all their haunts his suffering brethren sought, The tenfold darkness of the human soul;

And safely to that land of promise brought; While in his bosom, on the toilsome road, A secret well of consolation flow'd,

Fed from the fountain near th' eternal throne, -Bliss to the world unyielded and unknown.

In stillness thus the little Zion rose; But scarcely found those fugitives repose, Ere to the west with pitying eyes they turn'd; Their love to Christ beyond the' Atlantic burn'd. Forth sped their messengers, content to be Captives themselves, to cheer captivity: Soothe the poor Negro with fraternal smiles, And preach deliverance in those prison-isles, Where man's most hateful forms of being meet, -The tyrant and the slave that licks his feet.1 promised to furnish them with the means of establishing themselves on one of her family-estates. Count Zinzendorf himself gives the following account of the circumstances under which he fixed upon the situation for these settlers. He proposel a district called the Hutberg, near the high road to Zittau. It was objected, by some who knew the place, that there was no water there: he answered, God is able to help; and the following morning early be repaired thither to observe the rising of the vapours, that he might determine where a well might be dug. The next morning he again visited the place alone, and satisfied himself of its eligibility for a settlement. He adds, I laid the misery and desire of these people before God with many tears; beseeching Him, that his hand might be with me and frustrate my measures, if they were in any way displeasing to Him. I said further to the Lord: Upon this spot i will, in thy name, build the first house for them. In the meantime the Moravians returned to the farm-house (where they had been

previously lodged), having brought their families thither out of their native country. These I assisted to the best of my power, and then went to Hennersdorf to acquaint my lady (his grandmother aforementioned) with the resolution I bad taken. She made no objection, and immediately sent the poor strangers a cow, that they might be furnished with milk for their little children; and she ordered me to show them the trees to be cut down for their building.

In 1732, when the congregation at Herrnhut consisted of about six hundred persons, including children, the two first missionaries sailed for the Danish island of St Thomas, to preach the gospel to the negroes; and such was their devotion to the good work, that being told that they could not have intercourse otherwise with the objects of their Christian compassion, they determined to sell themselves for slaves on their arrival, and work with the blacks in the plantations. But this sacrifice was not required. Many

To man, a task more hopeless than to bless
With Indian fruits that arctic wilderness;
With God, as possible when unbegun
As though the destined miracle were done.

Three chosen candidates at length went forth, Heralds of mercy to the frozen north; Like mariners with seal'd instructions sent, They went in faith, (as childless Abram went To dwell by sufferance in a land, decreed The future birthright of his promised seed), Unknowing whither;-uninquiring why Their lot was cast beneath so strange a sky, Where cloud nor star appear'd, to mortal sense Pointing the hidden path of Providence, And all around was darkness to be felt; -Yet in that darkness light eternal dwelt : They knew,-and 't was enough for them to know, The still small voice that whisper'd them to go; For lie, who spake by that mysterious voice, Inspired their will, and made His call their choice.

See the swift vessel bounding o'er the tide, That wafts, with Christian David for their guide, Two young Apostles on their joyful way To regions in the twilight verge of day; Freely they quit the clime that gave them birth, Home, kindred, friendship, all they loved on earth; What things were gain before, accounting loss, And glorying in the shame, they bear the cross;

thousand negroes have since been truly converted in the West Indies.

1 Matthew Stach and Frederick Boenisch, two young men, being at work together, preparing a piece of ground for a burial-place at Herrnhut, disclosed to each other their distinct desires to offer themselves to the congregation as missionaries to Greenland. They therefore became joint candidates. Considerable delay, however, occurred; and when it was at length determined to attempt the preaching of the gospel there, Frederick Boenisch Leing on a distant journey, Christian David was appointed to conduct thither Matthew Stach and his cousin, Christian Stack, who sailed from Copenhagen on the 10th of April 1733, and landed In Ball's River on the 20th of May following.

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WHAT are thine hopes, Humanity?-thy fears?
Poor voyager, upon this flood of years,
Whose tide, unturning, hurries to the sea
Of dark unsearchable eternity,

The fragile skiffs, in which thy children sail
A day, an hour, a moment, with the gale,
Then vanish ;-gone like eagles on the wind,
Or fish in waves, that yield and close behind?
Thine hopes,-lost anchors buried in the deep,
That rust, through storm and calm, in iron sleep;
Whose cables, loose aloft and fix'd below,
Rot with the sea-weed, floating to and fro!
Thy fears-are wrecks that strew the fatal surge,
Whose whirlpools swallow, or whose currents urge
Adventurous barks on rocks, that lurk at rest,
Where the blue halcyon builds her foam-light nest;
Or strand them on illumined shoals, that gleam
Like drifted gold in summer's cloudless beam.
Thus would thy race, beneath their parent's eye,
Live without knowledge, without prospect die.

But when Religion bids her spirit breathe,
And opens bliss above and woe beneath;
When God reveals his march through Nature's night,
His steps are beauty, and his presence light,
His voice is life:-the dead in conscience start;
They feel a new creation in the heart.
Ah! then, Humanity, thy hopes, thy fears,

How changed, how wond'rous!-On this tide of years,
Though the frail barks, in which thine offspring sail
Their day, their hour, their moment, with the gale,
Must perish-Shipwreck only sets them free;
With joys unmeasured as eternity,
They ply on seas of glass their golden oars,
And pluck immortal fruits along the shores;
Nor shall their cables fail, their anchors rust,
Who wait the resurrection of the just:
Moor'd on the rock of ages, though decay
Moulder the weak terrestrial frame away,
The trumpet sounds, -and lo! wherever spread,
Earth, air, and ocean render back their dead,
And souls with bodies, spiritual and divine,
In the new heavens, like stars for ever shine.
These are thine Hopes;-thy Fears what tongue can tell?
Behold them graven on the gates of Hell:

The wrath of God abideth here: his breath
Kindled the flames-this is the second death

'T was Mercy wrote the lines of judgment there;
None who from earth can read them may despair;
Man!-let the warning strike presumption dumb;-
Awake, arise, escape the wrath to come;
No resurrection from that grave shall be ;
The worm within is-immortality.

The terrors of Jehovah, and his grace,
The Brethren bear to earth's remotest race.
And now, exulting on their swift career,
The northern waters narrowing in the rear,
They rise upon th' Atlantic flood, that rolls
Shoreless and fathomless between the poles,
Whose waves the east and western world divide,
Then gird the globe with one circumfluent tide;
For mighty Ocean, by whatever name
Known to vain man, is every where the same,
And deems all regions by his gulfs embraced
But vassal tenures of his sovereign waste.
Clear shines the sun; the surge, intensely blue,
Assumes by day heaven's own aerial hue:
Buoyant and beautiful, as through a sky,
On balanced wings, behold the vessel fly;
Invisibly impell'd, as though it felt

A soul, within its heart of oak that dwelt,
Which broke the billows with spontaneous force,
Ruled the free elements, and chose its course.
Not so:-and yet along the trackless realm,
A hand unseen directs th' unconscious helm;
The power that sojourn'd in the cloud by day,
And fire by night, on Israel's desert way;
That Power the obedient vessel owns:-His will,
Tempest and calm, and death and life fulfil.

Day following day the current smoothly flows;
Labour is but refreshment from repose;
Perils are vanish'd; every fear resign'd;
Peace walks the waves, Hope carols on the wind;
And Time so sweetly travels o'er the deep,
They feel his motion like the fall of sleep
On weary limbs, that, stretch'd in stillness, seem
To float upon the eddy of a stream,

Then sink,-to wake in some transporting dream.
Thus, while the Brethren far in exile roam,
Visions of Greenland show their future home.
-Now a dark speck, but brightening as it flies,
A vagrant sea-fowl glads their eager eyes;
How lovely, from the narrow deck to see
The meanest link of nature's family,
Which makes us feel, in dreariest solitude,
Affinity with all that breathe renew'd:
At once a thousand kind emotions start,
And the blood warms and mantles round the heart!
-O'er the ship's lee, the waves, in shadow seen,
Change from deep indigo to beryl green,
And wreaths of frequent weed, that slowly float,
Land to the watchful mariner denote:

Ere long the pulse beats quicker through his breast,
When, like a range of evening clouds at rest,
Iceland's grey cliffs and ragged coast he sees,
But shuns them, leaning on the southern breeze;
And while they vanish far in distance, tells
Of lakes of fire and necromancers' spells.

Strange Isle! a moment to poetic gaze Rise in thy majesty of rocks and bays,

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