the symptoms of disease were in many cases only sufficiently developed to shew their specific character, and in nearly every case yielded readily to the power of medicine. Many of the children and youth exhibit quite as much activity and muscular strength as the natives themselves; and the adults who have resided some time in the colony seem to acquire for the climate a peculiar predilection." The present valuable chief magistrate and physician, Governor Mechlin, in a letter to me a few months since, expressed his belief that the climate is as salubrious to the blacks as those of New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore; and Jos. R. Dailey, one of the coloured merchants of Monrovia, attributes most of the deaths which occur, to want of care and cleanliness, or to the undue use of tropical fruits. By recent advices from the United States, it is announced, that "late letters from the governor and Dr. Todsen, the colonial physician, state the health and prospects of the colony to be highly encouraging. Dr, T., out of a large number of patients for whom he had been called to prescribe, lost but one; and his death occurred in consequence of being six months among the natives, exposed to deadly nocturnal exhalations." Thine, very respectfully, ELLIOTT CRESSON,* Representative of the American Colonization Society. No. 19, Adam-street, Adelphi, 9 Mo. 12, 1831. TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES. Persons whose own temperate habits, and association with persons of similar habits, prevent their acquaintance with the extent to which intemperance spreads itself over the great mass of the lower orders of society, may doubt the necessity of Temperance Societies. To such persons, we would state one appalling fact, which must carry conviction to the mind, that the enormous increase of the *This gentleman, who gratuitously devotes his time and talents to the Christian and humane object of the American Colonization Society, has come over to this country to use his endeavours to aid its friends, that it may more effectually carry its object into effect: and we hope he will meet with the success that the benevolence of his mission merits. consumption of gin imperatively calls for some check to the growing evil. The fact to which we allude is, that, in 1827, the consumption of gin was twelve millions of gallons; in 1829 it was increased to twenty-four millions of gallons. And, if our limits allowed of it, we could produce a crowd of witnesses to the great benefit that has been conferred on society by the diminution of intemperance, and a corresponding increase of morality, of domestic happiness, and of religion, through the labours of the Temperance Societies; but these remarks will suffice to introduce to the reader the following Address of the Committee of the British and Foreign Temperance Society: "The Committee of the British and Foreign Temperance Society recommend the contents of this paper to all who feel interested in the prosperity of their neighbours, and of their country. They entreat more particularly the attention of Magistrates, Medical Professors, and those intrusted with the education of Children; and, most especially and earnestly, they solicit for its interesting object the calm and serious consideration of the Clergy. "To these to every Minister of the Christian religion-the Committee feel called to suggest the consideration of the responsibility which attaches to their important influence over the minds and habits of others, and their peculiar opportunities for enlightening the conscience upon the value of strict temperance. They who feel charged with the pastoral care and spiritual guidance of their fellowmen, have frequent evidence of the effects of intoxicating liquors in benumbing the moral sensibility, and producing that unfeeling habit of mind which opposes the most effectual obstruction to their benevolent labours. "If we take a view of the alarming progress of spirit-drinking among the classes which form the mass of the community, and observe, with unprejudiced mind, the delusion produced, by the example of the respectable drinker, upon the mind of the uninformed labourer, we shall at once perceive the direct countenance which the habit of moderate spirit-drinking gives to the practice of the self-destroying multichain, which connects the most measured tude; and we shall trace the unbroken and cautious indulgence, with the excesses of the brutalized mother who strips her shivering infant, to drink the produce of its scanty covering in gin. "The Committee doubt not, that Chris tian Ministers will readily perceive the value of their facilities for promoting the establishment and prosperity of Temperance Societies; institutions which tend obviously to the removal of vice, disorder, and misery; and which have been proved, by wide experiment, to be the faithful auxiliaries of religion. They rejoice to announce that, in places which afford the most ample experience of the effects of these Societies, large masses of people, who were in the uniform and total neglect of all religious observances, are now regularly attending on public worship; and that by the operations of these simple moral engines, a happy change is produced, obvious to the most superficial observers, and acknowledged by the most prejudiced opposers. "To Magistrates the Committee may confidently appeal. In the discharge of their arduous official duties, they have constant opportunities of tracing the dreadful agency of drinking, in weaken ing or obliterating the reproofs of conscience, in preparing for crime, and in supplying not only the proximate, but, in numerous instances, the sole cause of its perpetration. "They may allude, in the words of a professional writer, to the extraordinary situation of an enlightened community, professing the highest regard for morality and religion, making laws for the suppression and punishment of vice, and the promotion of virtue and good order; instituting societies to encourage industry, enlighten the ignorant, reclaim the vicious, bring back the wanderer, protect the orphan, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bind up the broken-hearted, and restore domestic peace; at the same time creating and fostering those very means that carry idleness and ignorance, and vice and nakedness, and starvation and discord, into all ranks of society; that make wi dows and orphans; that sow the seeds of disease and death among us; that strike, indeed, at the foundation of all that is good and great.' By the general habits of society, by the nurseries of intemperance provided in every village and hamlet, we create paupers, and orphans, and convicts, whom we support, educate, or punish at an enormous expense. We seduce men to crime, and then arraign them at the bar of justice.' But the Committee need not attempt to estimate the vast burdens, pecuniary and moral, from which the public would be relieved by the general institution of Societies which not only appear calculated to check intoxication, but which have been practically found to make the habit of drinking infamous. "Physicians and Medical Men occupy a station in society which gives commanding advantages for correcting false opinions and ruinous practice in the use of stimulants, whether as diet or medicine. The opinion, the practice, and the example of some of the first rank of professors of this important science, encourage the Committee confidently to hope from the medical profession a powerful cooperating agency, which may bring down the blessings of unborn millions upon their memory.' "But the Committee rest, with unshaken confidence, their hope of ultimate success, under the Divine blessing, in the impression of sound and just principles, on the subject of Temperance, upon the minds of Children and Youth. All to whom these are intrusted, should reflect upon the deep responsibility of their situation; possessing, in a great degree, the power to mould the infant mind, and form the habits of the future man. "They trust that the day is fast approaching, when the implanting of correct notions upon the true effects and dangerous nature of alcoholic stimulants, will be deemed an indispensable part of the education of British youth of both sexes; when a just abhorrence of the degrading vice of inebriation, even in its inceptive and most insiduous stages, will be universally inculcated, as well in our Colleges as in our Sunday and Infant Schools; in every place destined to the public instruction of those who, in a few years, will stand in our places,-will constitute the British Nation. "The Committee desire only that every individual should approach this subject with candid mind, prepared, in Christian charity, to make some little sacrifice for the benefit of his fellow-creatures; and they cannot doubt of the most cheering support and effective cooperation." FRANCE. By dispatches received at the French embassy in London, it appears that M. Perier has carried his point in the Chamber of Deputies, and obtained a strong proof of the stability of his power. The point at issue was the pacific policy of France, and the conduct of the ministry in regard to Belgium and Poland, particularly the latter. In the course of the debate, M. Perier set the war party at defiance, and proclaimed boldly and manfully the necessity of peace, for the security of France, and the well-being of Europe. The decision of the Chamber, therefore, combines the adoption of the peace principle, with the stability of the present ministry. The following resolution was carried by a majority of eighty-five, there being 221 for, and 136 against it :-"The Chamber, satisfied with the explanations given by the ministers, and confiding in their solicitude for all which interests the honour and dignity of France, passes to the order of the day."-Atlas. LORD BROUGHAM.-In the House of Lords, Sept. 14, Lord Brougham expressed the following sentiments: "Now France was our neighbourpeace or war with the world depended on her. We should not truckle to France; but that statesman would deserve to lose his head who would needlessly plunge into a war with France, and involve Europe and the world in hostility.—I shall not regret having troubled your lordships, if my words give comfort to the party who are the friends of peace, of France, of England, and the world. I solemnly and in my conscience believe that the breaking of the peace of Europe will, over England, Ireland, and Scotland, be the most hated act that any government could be guilty of; that it would draw down universal, loud, and unsparing execrations on the government; and I do in my conscience believe that those execrations would not be more loud, universal, and unsparing, than, according to the soundest view of the interests of this country, and the honour of the crown which I serve-and which I think I the more faithfully serve the more I give utterance to these opinions-would be merited by the advisers of so insane and criminal a course."-Atlas. THE SUNDAY SCHOOL JUBILEE was celebrated on Sept. 14th, 1831, being the birthday of Robert Raikes, the benevolent founder of these institutions. The importance of conveying the light of education into the obscure cabins of the poor, and of imbuing the minds of their youth with Christian principles, is now a truth too self-evident to be disputed. shall not therefore enlarge upon it, but refer the reader to a good article from the Mechanics' Magazine, in page 179 of our present Number. Our limits, we regret, do not allow of even a compressed report of the proceedings on this interesting occasion. POETRY. On reading in the Herald of Peace, No. 36, page 519, an Anecdote of Sir G. Crewe, of Calke Abbey, reducing the Rents of his Tenants. Whilst some to deeds of blood attune the lyre And chaunt the conquering Hero's banished fame, Be mine the task to wake the trembling wire, And sing the praises of a Patriot name. Thee, Crewe, I hail as worthier of the meed Of Patriot feeling-dignity sublime, Than he whose vengeful thought and splendid deed Is born in Glory, and matured in Crime. In Glory born, said I ?-ah, me! full soon The springing flow of Glory's tide may turn, We THE HERALD OF PEACE, FOR OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, AND DECEMBER, 1831. PEACE SOCIETIES. Anniversary of the Bath Auxilliary Peace Society. [From the Bath and Cheltenham Gazette.] WITHIN the last fifteen years a class of benevolent associations has sprung up in Great Britain and the United States of America, for the purpose of fairly investigating and exhibiting the practice of war by the light of Christianity, and of suggesting the most probable means by which peace might be rendered permanent and universal. The attempt to abolish a custom, the existence of which may be traced from the greatest modern destroyer, Buonaparte, even up to the first postdiluvian hero, Nimrod, may appear to many perfectly utopian. With reference to this subject, it has been triumphantly asked, "Why do you not found a society to regulate the winds?" as if the phenomena of nature were as much within our control as our moral propensities. Leaving, however, such objections as these to be answered by time, the friends of peace are abundantly encouraged to prosecute their design, from seeing the great results which have issued from the combined efforts of prudence and perseverance, in cases where secular interest or inveterate prejudice appeared to offer an insuperable bar to successful exertion. When they reflect, for instance, that that unrighteous traffic, the Slave Trade, received its final abolition by the gradual but unwearied endeavours of zealous and enlightened Christians,* they think they have good reason for hoping that the equally unjustifiable but more specious practice of war may, under the blessing of the God of Peace, ultimately give way before the like exertions of men of similar character, who, they rejoice to state, have engaged in this benign scheme of enlarged philanthropy. To occupy time in proving that war is a great evil, would seem to be purely supererogatory. A practice which, according to the calculations of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, and others, has swept from the stage of life more than thirty-five thousand millions!!! of human beings, by violent and premature deaths (an infinitely greater number than have been destroyed by all the superstitious and idolatrous practices of the heathen), can need no other argument to demonstrate its appalling magnitude. And it may be adduced, as a fearful aggravation of this miserable and guilty representation, that while some evils to which man is subject are One of these, Mr. Clarkson, is a memnber of the Committee of the London Peace Society. 2 D inseparably attendant upon his present state of being, in the instance of war no such palliation can be afforded. No moral or physical necessity can be shewn why men or nations should make war upon each other, unless we would reduce the human species below the brute creation: for it is a well-known fact, that "lions shew no fierceness to the lion race; the boar does not brandish his deadly tooth against his brother boar; the lynx lives in peace with the lynx; the serpent shews, no venom in his intercourse with his fellow serpent; and the loving-kindness of wolf to wolf is proverbial."* "O shame to men! devil with devil damn'd "Firm concord holds; men only disagree."+ It may appear like an anticlimax to descend from considering the waste of human life occasioned by war to any computation of its effects upon the fiscal resources of a state. Let it be just noticed, however, by way of illustration, that the difference of the whole military and naval expense to Great Britain in 1815, for instance (a year of war), compared with that of 1818 (a year of peace), was not less than forty-five millions sterling: in other words, this enormous sum constituted the expense of one year of war, or the annual saving by peace, to this nation! The civil expenses of the British Government, for the year 1815, appear to have been 4,461,0877. The cost of one year of war, therefore, to the British empire would defray ten years of its then civil expense. And with regard to the object sought by national contests, namely, a redress of wrongs, as Mr. Jefferson, late president of the United States, in a letter to Sir John Sinclair, truly says, "War is an instrument entirely inefficient towards redressing wrongs; it multiplies, instead of indemnifies losses." But a weightier argument than any that has been offered remains to be urged. The friends of peace broadly aver, that the custom of war is diametrically opposed to the spirit and the very letter of the law and gospel. And this ground they shall fearlessly occupy until it can be shewn that the prohibition of the Decalogue, "Thou shalt not kill," has been abrogated; and until it shall be proved that the following injunctions of the Author of Christianity have ceased to be obligatory:-"Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. Beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." This shews at least, says Archdeacon Paley, that " no two things can be more different than the heroic and the Christian character." But it is not sufficient that Christians come to this just conclusion. As such, it is submitted, they are imperatively called on to do all in their power to abolish this iniquitous and calamitous practice. The question is purely a religious one; and it would seem reasonable to expect that the supporters of Bible Societies and Missionary Institutions will readily co-operate in assisting to dispel the delusions which have so long beguiled the Christian world upon the subject of war. For are not the objects of those associations and of Peace Societies identical? while the attainment of those objects, according to the predictions of prophecy, shall be effected at the self-same period of time:-" They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." It is not attempted to be concealed, |