mere words to those ignorant of the relative position, and the past and present state of those countries. Even when we come to the life of our blessed Saviour, how minute are the points of geographical knowledge required for a full understanding of many things. We have not time to enter upon the consideration of them, but we hope each of our readers will observe them for themselves. And how much comfort is to be derived when we thus look upon events and places as not standing alone, but as being all included in one great scheme of administration.

It is no longer mere matter of history, even to the youngest amongst us, that thrones may be shaken and kingdoms pass away. In times of universal peace we naturally think that such occurrences only belong to a former state of things with which we have nothing to do. But when nation after nation is trembling to its very foundations, and when all thoughtful persons see in what is passing in other countries but the prefiguration of what may ere long happen among ourselves, then is the time to realize that the Most High does indeed rule among the kingdoms of man, and giveth them to whom he will.

Never has poet drawn a more striking comparison, than that which likens the rage of the people to the roaring of the sea.wild, turbulent, unrestrained: but we may rejoice our hearts with the words of the Royal Psalmist, that "the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea !" If they advance, it is only by permission, and we have the comfort of knowing, that without that, they do but rage in vain.

Thus the study of geography becomes no longer a dry record of names of places, but may be made subservient to the formation of the christian character, by strengthening the foundations of our faith and trust in Him whose dominion is over all.

L. N.

IDOLATRY AND MISSIONS.

OUR attention has been called to this subject by the receipt of an elegant little tract, entitled" Idolatry, a Lecture to the Young;"* by our esteemed friend, Mr. W. B. Gurney. In this age of cheap books, we know of none better worth the price than this. It

* London: Houlston and Co.; and John Snow.

contains, in addition to its forty-eight pages of letter press, no less than thirty wood engravings, and its getting up is altogether of a very superior character. It has, moreover, especial claims on our notice, as having been "delivered to many thousand children and youth in various parts of the kingdom," and as emanating from the pen of an individual so prominently connected with one of our most active and useful missionary societies.

We are indeed indebted to our missionaries, for an entirely new theory of idolatry and mythology. Scarcely half a century since, the subject was fearfully misunderstood, or at all events, strangely misrepresented. Philosophy and intellectuality, and a deep knowledge of the mysteries of physics and metaphysics were then supposed to be involved in the multiform systems of Paganism abroad in the world, and every kind of absurdity in creed, and of impropriety, or folly, or indecency, in practice, found its apologists amongst the highly educated and acute writers of the day. But missionary enterprise has drawn aside the veil, and shewn us the true character of idolatry as earthly, sensual, devilish."

And it was high time the public mind should be disabused. The case is strongly put, in the little tract before us.

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Suppose that in going home you saw a house on fire; the flames just beginning to burst out, and you were aware that there were people in it who were asleep; you would not go home and go to bed! Oh no! you could not sleep while you had suffered them to be burnt in their beds, when you might have prevented it. You would run and call under the windows, and knock, and make such a noise as you had never made in your life before, sooner than let them be burnt; and when you saw them all out, how would your hearts rejoice in having been the means of saving them from destruction. Now this is very right; it is just what every good child would do. He never could be happy so long as he lived if he had omitted to do so, and evil came upon them in consequence.

Or, suppose that in the village in which you live a disease was raging, which would be fatal unless it was removed; that you had been affected by it, and brought near the gates of death; and that your father and mother had been affected by it; and

that you had been directed to a physician at some neighbouring town, who had cured you, made you quite sound, and told you that if you knew any one affected with the same disease, you had only to send them to him and he would cure them without money and without price; that it was a pleasure to him to cure all who came, and you knew that he never failed. Suppose, when you rose in the morning, you found your next neighbour or your school-fellow very ill, and at a little distance further off, another neighbour very ill; what would you do? Would you go to work, or go to school, and say, 'I am sorry for them, but it is not for me to interfere?' No, you would go and tell them of this kind physician. You would entreat them, as they valued their lives, to go to him; and you would not be satisfied till you had seen them on their way, and then you would be happy in knowing that you had been the means of saving them from death. Now this is just what we are doing in a more important

sense.

These persons if they died, might go to heaven; but we have to do with those who are dying of the disease of sin, and who when they die will be eternally lost."

Now this, trite and simple as many may esteem it, constitutes the whole philosophy of missions. Whilst the wise and learned of the world were speculating on the occult import of these false creeds and systems, and endeavoring to find more meaning in them than their inventors and propagators ever dreamed of, the philanthropist and the Christian could not get over the fact, that they deceived, demoralized, brutalized, and ruined the people. And this naturally put them upon the enquiry, "Can there be anything of truth, or reason, or intellectuality, in a scheme so apparently silly, and so really gross, cruel, and sensual?" The result has proved these " innovators" on the old philosophy to be right; let the following little incident given by Mr. Gurney, speak for itself.

"The priests," says he, " tell the people that Juggernaut likes human sacrifices; they say he smiles when blood is offered to him, so, as the car advances, some persons to please him, and to obtain the pardon of their sins, throw themselves in front of the wheels of the car while it is being drawn along, and are crushed to death. This, I have said, is to obtain the pardon of their sins, for like the ancient idolaters, they are aware that they are

sinners, and they are very unhappy in consequence; and some of them go to a great expense in pilgrimages and offerings to the false gods, in order to satisfy their consciences; but they remain as much sinners as ever, and as far from happiness; and dying as they do, strangers to God, they have no good hope of eternal life. I have said they remain as much sinners as ever; in general they become more so, in consequence of their idolatrous practices, for they are impure and corrupting, and the people become worse in imitation of their gods; and that which was once expressed by a Hindoo, when he was reproved for his wickedness, is felt by all, ' I may do as the gods do; they sin, and 80 may I."

Perhaps it may be urged that every one must look at this question in the same light; that all must see and abhor the debasing character of the Hindoo mythology. But how stands the fact. They never thought of doing so till the missionary spirit woke up in England. We could point out a variety of testimonies from men of high standing in the literary and intellectual world, attributing a wonderfully recondite and sublime meaning, not only to the fooleries of mythology generally, but especially to those of Hindooism. It was indeed generally believed, that by the ridiculous and disgusting rites of heathenism, certain moral or physical truths were adumbrated; whereas the very opposite appears to have been the fact. When the priest found the people inclined to laugh at these superstitions, he cast about to find some specious excuse for his folly, or his exactions; so that what he wished them to believe was really the philosophy of his system, was in truth nothing more than an apology, called for by its gross and palpable absurdities. Well is it observed in the little work before us, with reference to this part of our subject.

Among the stories which they invented, was one, that Ram or Ramu (another Hindoo god,) after he had conquered the giants, became very great, and that he was four hundred miles high. I mention this in order to shew you the importance of schools giving to the young, the means of detecting these impostures. There was a boy in one of the schools in Ceylon, who found out that this was clearly impossible in the nature of things; and one morning, going to his goroo or teacher, with his book under his arm, he said, 'Goroo, did you not tell me that Ram

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was four hundred miles high?' 'Yes,' said the goroo, and so he was.' 'Now,' said the boy,' that cannot be true, for the island of Ceylon is only three hundred miles long.' Oh,' said the goroo, that must be a mistake.' 'Oh no,' said the boy, it is no mistake, here is my geography book, and here it isCeylon, three hundred miles long, from forty to one hundred miles broad.'-Now, Mr. Goroo, how do you get out of that?' Mr. Goroo was puzzled for some time, but at last he said, 'Oh, I recollect how it is-they made a hole at one end of the island one hundred miles deep, for him to put his legs into.'No, no,' said the boy, that is an invention of yours, and it is clear that it is all invention, and having discovered this, I have done with you and all your false gods,' and he put himself from that time under the instructions of the missionaries."

Of the tender mercies of heathenism, take this picture, "We have very lately received from the Scottish missionaries in Old Calabar a distressing account of the destruction of life which took place immediately on the death of the late king. On the same night above one hundred of his subjects, some of them his wives and others his officers, were put to death, to go and attend him in the unseen world; these were knocked on the head immediately on the king's death being announced, and it was feared that a much larger number would be put to death previous to his funeral, and that the bodies of some of his wives, and some twenty or thirty others, would be thrown into the large grave in which he was buried, and that others would be killed on the day of the coronation of the new king. In Ashantee, the number put to death on a like occasion appears to have been not less than 3,000. Mr. Freeman, the Wesleyan missionary, informs us, that after a custom, as they call it, or a sacrifice of victims, it is impossible to walk through a place without seeing parts of human bodies exposed to the jackals or the vultures; and when he was admitted to an audience with the king of Ashantee, he passed over a path which had been recently turned up. He found afterwards that two women had been killed and buried under that path immediately before he came, in order to appease the false gods, and prevent any injury to the king in consequence of his admitting a foreigner into his presence. All their religion,