The people of the caravan were allowed to enter Wassanah in companies of twenty at a time. It is situated near the bank of the river, which passes it in about a southern direction between high mountains, but having a considerable space of meadow on either side. This river is called Zadi by the natives, but still retains the name of Zolibib with the people of Tombuctoo. The city appeared to Sidi to contain twice the population of Tombuctoo: the walls were more lofty, though built without any cement: but the houses internally were inferior to those at Tombuctoo, with the exception of the palace. The king rode on an elephant, (Ilfement,) and had a large army, which used guns as well as spears: his people were not Mussulmans, but Pagans: the country in the vicinity of the city was covered with barley, corn, rice, and other vegetables;' and few domestic animals were observed: indeed, Sidi perceived scarcely any.

The most remarkable circumstance attending this account of Wassanah is the support that it affords to the hypothesis. of Park, on which our government acted in the late expedition; we allude to the supposed termination of the Niger in the Zaire or Congo. Sidi Hamet was informed by the natives that they went down the river to the great water, by pursuing at first a southern and then a westerly direction; that the voyage occupied three moons; that the return by land was so tedious as to extend the length of their absence to twenty moons; and that their articles of traffic consisted chiefly in slaves, whom they sold to a pale people coming in large ships, for muskets, powder, blue cloth, &c. &c. It appears that an export of five hundred of these miserable human beings was about to set out when Sidi was at Wassanah. few remarks on the weather, which was rainy during his stay, (in March and April,) and on the natural productions, conclude his narrative.

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With those who are satisfied respecting the authenticity of this Moor's statement, no doubt can remain that the Niger does reach the sea by the mouth of the Congo: the general course of that river, as well as the information received at Wassanah, almost identifies the two waters; and those who are less inclined to give full credit will, at all events, allow that strong corroboration has been added to no vague probabilities.

The rest of the volume is occupied by Mr. Riley's own observations on the parts of the African continent which he himself saw, and which in the publication have been kept separate from his narrative of the calamities that he suffered during his captivity.

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ART.

ART. III. The History of the Propagation of Christianity among the Heathen, since the Reformation. By the Reverend William Brown, M.D. 8vo. 2 Vols. 11. 5s. Boards. Longman and Co.

THE

HE glowing language of Jewish prophecy, anticipating the establishment of a kingdom in the latter days, of which the Holy Land was to be the centre, and which should extend itself to the limits of the earth, having evidently failed of its accomplishment with respect to the temporal dominion of the Jews, has been very generally applied by Christian commentators to the triumphs of the Gospel. To us it appears very doubtful whether it really has any such reference; and we are disposed to build our faith in the progressive diffusion of Christianity, not on the language of prophecy, but on the simplicity of its own doctrines, when divested of the incumbrances which conceal its beauty and diminish its efficacy: on the general improvement of mankind, which must constantly tend to the substitution of a pure, benevolent, and intellectual religion, for the absurdities and abominations of superstition; and on the providence of God, which introduced the Christian dispensation into the world with so remarkable a display of power, and has preserved it through so many centuries. Perhaps, however, it may have been fortunate for mankind that an opinion has generally prevailed among Christians, that the conversion of the whole world to their faith is an event predicted in the Testament; and that they have applied to all who preached the Gospel to heathens, those promises of illumination and support which were made to our Saviour's immediate disciples. The duty of a missionary requires the most enthusiastic zeal and self-devotion, such as nothing but religious feeling could inspire; and even the little that has been effected might have been left unaccomplished, if benevolence had not been exalted and encouraged by a belief that the special favour and protection of Heaven were to be expected in such an undertaking. As to the causes of the slow diffusion of Christianity in later ages, they form a subject on which a really philosophical historian might employ his pen with advantage. It has almost disappeared from those countries which were the scene of our Lord's ministry and his apostles' preaching; and the great bulk of its present professors are the descendants of those barbarous tribes whose very existence was unknown at the time of the appearance of Christ, and who were sunken into the lowest depth of ignorance in the forests and morasses which they inhabited. All these people, when they came into contact with the declining empire of Rome, and obtained the knowlege of Christianity,

were

were successively converted, and Paganism was expelled from Europe. Yet how obstinately does it continue to resist the efforts which have been made to dislodge it from the other quarters of the world! It cannot be supposed that modern missionaries are less eloquent or less zealous than St. Augustine and St. Boniface; and we presume that few will be inclined to allege the power of working miracles as an advantage possessed by the apostles of England and Germany over their successors. Perhaps the cause may have been, that the barbarous nations of the north originally embraced Christianity at the command of their superiors, without much change. either of theory or practice: but that, when it was established in countries in which it had previously prevailed, and had adopted many of the institutions there existing, the traces of Pagan rites and opinions were gradually obliterated, and the descendants became really attached to a religion which their ancestors had carelessly assumed, or been compelled to profess without conviction.

In the work before us, the author promises by his title a History of the Propagation of Christianity since the Reformation, but we find from his preface that he means to treat only of Protestant missions. We have nothing to allege against the reasons of expediency which have prevented him from swelling his volumes to such a size as the comprehension of Catholic missions would have required: but his chief motive, it seems, was of another kind. If it be considered,' says he, that Popery is Antichristian in its nature, it will appear obvious that the extension of such a system had little or no claim to be introduced in a work, the object of which was to exhibit a view of the propagation of Christianity since the Reformation.' Why not, then, profess in the title-page that it was only the history of Protestant missions which the author meant to write; instead of leading those, who might not happen to remember that the Pope is Antichrist, into an error respecting the extent of the subject? That narrow spirit, which leads theological partizans to deny the name of Christianity to every thing but their own peculiar modification of it, will always meet with our decided reprobation, whether manifested by Catholics against Protestants or vice versâ. If no one can be called a Christian who does not believe and worship according to our creed and ritual, then, to be consistent, Dr. Brown should have confined his history of the propagation of Christianity to the labours of the Scotish Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowlege. The sentence which we have quoted is a curious instance of that extreme bitterness against Popery, which has been kept up in

Scot

Scotland; and which, till lately, rendered it unsafe for individuals of that religion to attempt the celebration of public worship.

Dr. Brown does not lay claim to the communication of original information presecting Protestant missions: nor does he enter much into discussion of the causes of their success or their failure; confining himself to the arrangement, under distinct heads, of the statements contained in books of voyages and travels, reports of missionary-societies, and individual biography. His work is necessarily unequal in execution, the materials being in some cases so much more copious than in others; and occasionally as in detailing the labours of David Brainerd among the American Indians, he enters so largely into the private life of an individual that he writes the history of the missionary rather than of the mission. The arrangement, however, is simple: separate chapters are devoted to the propagation of Christianity by different European nations, or by the principal societies instituted for this object; and an appendix contains an account of smaller associations for the same purpose.

The earliest Protestant mission appears to have been one which was sent out by the church of Geneva in the year 1556, with the design of planting the Christian faith in the newly discovered regions of America. It consisted of fourteen divines, whose names are preserved, though scarcely any trace is to be' found of their labours. Mosheim thinks that they must have been the same with those whom the Admiral Coligni invited into France, for the purpose of founding a Protestant colony in the Brazils. If they were really the same, the absence of all accounts of their labours is easily explained, because the colonists were all murdered by the Portuguese, who were jealous of settlers in a country which they claimed as their own. Had these Protestants obtained a permanent footing in America, their colony might have been of the same utility to their persecuted brethren in France which the North American colonies afforded to those who suffered from civil and ecclesiastical oppression in England; and, by offering an asylum to the Huguonots, it might have spared to France some of the horrors of her religious wars. The Dutch, at the commencement of their dominion in the East, appear to have manifested more zeal for the diffusion of Christianity than they have shewn in later times. The Portuguese, whom they dispossessed of the coast of Ceylon, had introduced Christianity under the form of Popery among the natives; and the Dutch, on their settlement, applied themselves very earnestly to reconvert those who had been made proselytes by the Papists,

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Papists, as well as to reclaim those who continued in Paganism. For this purpose they issued a proclamation, ordaining that no native should enjoy any rank or office without subscribing the Helvetic Confession, and professing himself a member of the Reformed Church. The effect of this order, both on the converted Papists and on the Heathens, was very great; every man who was ambitious of office readily forsaking the faith of his forefathers, or his former instructors, to declare his belief in the mysteries of election, reprobation, and the other dogmata of the Helvetic Confession. Satisfied with this profession, the Dutch were not very solicitous to ascertain its sincerity, or to afford the means of instruction in the doctrines of Christianity; and all that was required of the converts, previously to their baptism, was that they should have committed to memory the Lord's Prayer, the Commandments, a morning and evening prayer, and a grace before and after meat. The consequence was that the registers were filled with the names of thousands of Christians, of whom the great majority had really never renounced Heathenism, but continued the secret worshippers of Buddha; and that, when the overthrow of the Dutch removed the temptation to conformity, they threw off their nominal profession of Christianity. Even those who remained Christians very generally became Papists; and priests from Goa, according to Dr. Buchanan, Occupy most of the Protestant churches. The English government, which for the sake of a paltry annual saving of about 1800l., cut off the salaries of all the country-schoolmasters and catechists, is chargeable with a part of the blame of the wretched state into which the Christian religion appears to have fallen in this large island: but, as Ceylon has recently been placed entirely in the power of the British, we hope that the establishment of a liberal and effective system of religious instruction will be one of the measures that may help to atone for the act of usurpation by which they have come into possession of this colony. It should be mentioned, however, in justice to the Dutch, that they have been active in supplying the natives of the islands in which they have formed commercial establishments, with translations of the Scriptures into their respective languages.

Chapter IV. contains the history of the attempts to convert the Indians of North America to Christianity; which is a record of a series of failures, the less to be expected because some circumstances seem to point out these nations as peculiarly prepared for the reception of the Gospel. They generally believe in the unity and spirituality of the Divine Being; they are not idolaters; their religion is free from those ob

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