to know their wrong, nor slow to ask forgiveness, except when designing men had wrought upon their prejudices, or excited their suspicions.

The language spoken is a very rude and broken patois; the articulation is so indistinct, and so very rapid, that persons unacquainted with the dialect would not understand one word in ten used in ordinary conversation. In the schools the children acquire the habit of slow, distinct enunciation, and thus the language is gradually approximating the standard English. The following speeches by a couple of ploughmen, at a recent ploughing match, are very fine illustrations of the language in common use.

"Dis is de day ob rejoice. I feel happy to hab de powa to peak. I hope all de estate may prospa, an God bless de plantas ob Jamaiké. We mus put han an hart togedder, peshally now in dis berry potlicka time, when de proparty no da pay de owna; but we mus try hard an do betta an betta, long as we lib in dis wol." "Peshally" and "potlicka," (especially, and particular,) are favorite words throughout the island, and are used in every possible connexion.

"I is a new 'prentis, dis cum fer try, an aldo I get nottin dis time, I hope fer betta luck nex time; an good helf to dem dat win, an dem no win, de same."

The religion of the slaves, so far as they had any, was a modified African heathenism, baptised into the names and forms of Christianity. Obicism and Mialism prevailed over the whole island; these are ancient African superstitions, and are some. times represented as antagonistic; Obii being the spirit of evil, and Mial the spirit of good; but it is of ten hard to distinguish between their deeds, and the hateful crimes and vices of their priests and believers. Obii men, and Mial men were "the great power of God." They wrought

all manner of miracles; caused, cured and foretold sicknesses, plagues, afflictions, losses-possessed and dispossessed houses of evil spirits, &c.

Their great method of curing diseases was by suction. They professed to look through the body of the patient, and having detected the cause of the sickness, which an enemy had caused to be placed there by the Obiiman, they commenced sucking from the neck, side, arms, &c., skeins of thread, pins, needles, dog's and cat's teeth, fish bones, glass, red rags, &c. &c. All this was done for money, and the fee was proportioned to the ability of the patient to pay. These men were often profane, licentious, intemperate, and grossly ignorant, yet by their rude juggleries they had obtained an ascendency over the minds of the people, as perfect as that of the idolatrous priests of Africa.

Another superstition, and an object of great terror, was "the rolling calf," which was represented as a bullkin with a clanking chain, prowling about at night, with eyeballs of fire, and breath of flame, destroying all he met. The original of this gross conception may be found in 1 Peter, v, 8.

The belief in ghosts was universal. The ghosts walked by day, as by night; they ate and drank, bought and sold, and worked. They had a currency, a "ghost money" of their own, which would stay with none but themselves; yet it was so much like the queen's good money, that many were deceived by it, and would have dealings with ghosts, without knowing it, till the ghost money would slip through their fingers and be off. They could not hold it fast; it would melt away or burn through their hands! Every child wore amulets to preserve it from being breathed upon by invisi ble ghosts, and from being carried off by visible ones. Every man and woman was guarded by the same charmed rag.

These superstitions are gradually yielding to the influence of truth and the light of freedom. Obicism and Mialism are now found only in the more ignorant and degraded neighborhoods. The "rolling calf," is becoming an exploded notion; charms and amulets are pretty generally dispensed with by the adults, though the children continue to wear them, merely, as their parents often aver, because it is "Jamaica fashion." They are extremely unwil. ling to avow the real object, till it is charged home to them; they will then excuse themselves thus: "Well minista, dem tell we from time mus do da pickny so. Me poor ignor. ance, me na know what me fer do. 'Posin da pickny him da sick an die, minista ?"

Three

The belief in ghosts is very much modified, but it is still quite general, even among many of the better informed and longer free. years ago, a house in the village of Morant Bay was said to be haunted; the noises and ghostly chatterings were heard by many very reputable persons. The facts were matter of public notoriety, and the best means of dispossessing or disposing of the haunted premises, was subject matter for several newspaper communications. The trick was never found out, and a great revival of superstitious belief and fear was the consequence.

Marriage, immersion and dreams, were the sum of all the religion of the slaves, and still constitute the staple of the native Baptist churches. The personal instruction, and enlightenment of "inquirers," was the duty of the "leaders," who had the great mass of chapel-going slaves under their control. The stereo. typed reply to the question, "what must I do to be saved," was, "you mus follow massa Jesus," which meant that as the Savior had been tempted of the devil in the wilderness, so the inquirers must go into the wilderness, or in Jamaica par

lance, "he must go to the bush.” The inquirer spends some hours of the night"in the bush," among the rank growth of an old field, or in the woods, if near by, and at the next meeting of the class, gives an account of the sights he saw, and sounds he heard, which if the candidate has any imagination at all, his fears will magnify to an altogether orthodox bulk, and he is forthwith commended to baptism. This going to the bush," is famil iarly termed "seeing the devil,” who is naturally a prominent personage in the conjurations of the poor, terrified, convicted sinner.

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Since the decree of emancipation, the missionary bodies of England have vied with each other in their efforts for the moral elevation of the freedmen. In 1824, there were perhaps forty-five ministers of reli gion in Jamaica; some of these were state paid hirelings-seventeen were dissenting missionaries. In 1831, there were nearly one hundred ministers, forty-four of whom were dissenters. There are now not less than two hundred and ten min isters, of whom about one hundred are of the established churches of England and Scotland, thirty are Wesleyans, twenty-six Baptists, sixteen Presbyterians, thirteen Independents, fifteen Moravians, five

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Wesleyan New-Connexion," four American Congregationalists. Besides these there are Jews three, Catholics five, Native Baptists twenty-five.

So large a band of missionaries, acting in concert, might carry the gospel to the inmost recesses of the island; and indeed, it has been heard in its most hidden fastnesses, but its echoes have died upon the ear of the demented negro, as its herald has passed from his view. The missionaries long since learned from experience, that the only efficient mode of labor was to establish them. selves at given points, and, attract. ing the people around them, by the

patient repetition of "line upon line, precept upon precept," revive the paralyzed powers of their hearers, and impress upon them the words of eternal life. Allowing to each of these stations, an average of twelve hundred persons, young and old-a large average-there are two hundred and fifty thousand, receiving in some sort, religious instruction. And admitting that it is adapted to make them wise unto salvationwhich certainly some of it is notthere are yet two hundred thousand persons on the island, who have no means of grace, no virtuous religious instruction whatever. Of these, about fifteen hundred are Catholics, five thousand are Jews, and twenty-five thousand are native Baptists.

The influences of the emancipa pation upon the religious condition of the freedmen, is by far its most interesting and important aspect. It excited in them strong feelings of gratitude, and with one voice they ascribed the praise to God, whom they were taught to regard as their new master, and to whom they transferred much of the servility they had shown to their old ones. The chapels were thronged, and multitudes earnestly sought admission to the bosom of the church. This exuberance of constitutional feeling, was regarded as the special bestowment of the Holy Spirit; a kind of compensation for the wrongs of the past. They were perfectly plastic under the hands of the ministry; they acquiesced in every thing, did every thing; but it was all external; there was no thought, no reflection among them, and scarcely the power of thought and reflection. As slaves they were ignorant of the value and uses of money, and now they as readily yield. ed their earnings for the erection of chapels, and the promotion of the gospel, as they did their persons to the externals of religion. This was regarded as high evidence of

religious devotion, and was proclaimed as such to Christendom. These persons were admitted to the church in incredible numbers. The adult baptisms by the missionaries of the London Baptist Missionary Society from 1835 to 1842, inclusive, were reported at twenty-five thousand, and by all other denominations there were probably forty thousand more, much the largest portion of whom were by the Wesleyans. Upwards of seven hundred members have been admitted by one minister in the course of a single year.

A great evil attending the religious effort in the island has been the neglect, on the part of many ministers, of simple, definite, elementary instruction. Their audiences have been large, their object the immediate conversion of the professedly impenitent; and forgetful of the degradation that slavery had wrought, they have inferred on the part of the people, a knowledge and a power of mental combination they do not possess. They have therefore been unintelligible to them, and their tone and manner, with frequent impassioned appeals, and the repetition of names with which they as sociate temporal freedom and eternal blessedness, have wrought upon excited feelings, and sometimes produced demonstrations as violent as they were irrational and evanescent. Some few ministers have purposely preached thus, with the view of gradually bringing the people up to themselves, rather than descend to their capacity; and to avoid losing an easy, fluent style, which on their return to England will render them acceptable preachers. Some of these have read their sermons, and in one instance, quoted Homer and Tacitus, to a congregation, the only intelligent person in which was our informant, and not one in ten of whom could read their own names. Yet a powerful revival and large accession were the results of his la

bors, but its subjects did not abandon their iniquities.

The standard of piety is very low, throughout the island, and especially in the larger churches. So hastily gathered, from such materials, it can not be expected that the life of godliness should be manifested by them, nor is it. The enthusiasm of grateful feeling has subsided. The influence of the missionary, as the protector and friend of the oppressed, is gone. The people have acquired many artificial wants, and these have taught them the value and uses of money. The restraints of religion have become irksome general worldliness and selfish gratification, that were held in abeyance by the first gushings of free feeling, have resumed their sway. The progressive intelligence of the people enables them to perceive that paying a monthly "duty," and tak ing a ticket; marriage, joining the church, baptism, and the Lord's Supper, are not the seals of grace, nor passports to heaven. These, with the depressed state of the island, rendering it difficult to obtain continuous employment for fair wages, and the increasing use of intoxicating liquors, have produced a reaction, which may yet scatter in fragments many of the large churches.

There are exceptions to these remarks. Among much of "wood, hay, stubble," there are many truly pious, devoted persons, who can give a reason for the faith that is in them. They will be found to be, both in number and intelligence, rather in the inverse ratio of the size of the churches to which they be long; for, where a charge of several thousand ignorant people is committed to a single missionary, it is impossible to give particular instruction to any of them.

We do not, in these statements, charge the missionaries with designed delinquency, or want of faithfulness. There was an earnest desire manifested by the English com

munity to witness immediate results from their labors and sacrifices; and the glad news of extensive revivals, and of pentecostal admissions, was hailed by the whole nation with unbounded joy. Peculiar sanctity was inferred in the case of those mis-sionaries, who rapidly gathered large churches, and the reverse—a want of zeal and holiness, feared for, and, in some instances, attributed to others, who, by a more careful and judicious process-by restraining the fervor of feeling, and requiring some intelligent views of the gospel, and a holy life, as well as strong professions of love to "Massa Jesus" prior to admission, built up smaller, but purer churches. This, no doubt, acted as a stimulus to gather large bodies. Add to this, the sympathy of the missionaries for the newly emancipated people; the readiness with which they yielded themselves to all the external observances of religion; the impossibility of knowing any thing of the daily walk of individuals among thousands; with the servility and hypocrisy of the people; their unconquerable repugnance to disclosing each other's faults; their great earnestness to gain admission to church fellowship, and the facility with which it is gained in some of the large denomi nations; and the wonder will rather be, that the churches are not larger and more numerous. The most lax disciplinarians have rejected many applicants.

The question is often asked, "What will be the influence of the present embarrassments, upon the future history of Jamaica? Can the island recover from them?"

We may hazard an opinion, that its future history will be its most fruitful, most peaceful, and most happy. The estates must pass from the absentees, who now hold them for a mere moiety of their estimated value under the colonial system, when they enjoyed the monopoly of

the English market, and come into the possession of thrifty resident proprietors, who will manage them without the intervention of attorneys, and overseers. The enormous gov. ernmental expenditure and weight of taxation will be greatly reduced by the action of the rising yeomanry, at the ballot-box or hustings. Competition will reduce the price of living, and the thrift and economy that have already been induced by the spirit of freedom, will rid the island of its greatest curse, the recklessness and extravagance of slavery.

These very desirable reforms are entirely feasible; and, once accomplished, Jamaica can not but be prosperous.

Within the past five years the temptations to intemperance have increased rapidly. Rum shops have multiplied in every direction; and, unless their influence can be destroyed, all the horrors of drunkenness lie directly in the pathway of the peasantry. Unhappily the missionaries, at the time of the emancipation, generally used intoxicating liquors themselves, and thus lost the fairest opportunity of turning the people from this snare. Since that time, many dissenters have become total abstainers, and there are flour

ishing total abstinence societies at their several stations; but their influence is local, and the tremendous disturbing force of the established church, seems to blast every attempt to coalesce for any general reform. Efforts have been made, but they have failed; and they will continue to fail, till the missionaries shall abandon wine and malt, and fancied dignity, and heartily unite their influences against this vice. The suc cessful result of such a union is not doubtful.

There are other vices to which the peasantry are peculiarly exposed; but they sink into insignificance, when compared with intemperance, and some of them live only by the rum bottle. There are cheering indications of a revival of total abstinence principles and zeal, and there is ground of hope, that ere long the various bodies of dissenters, with their churches, will organize a general total abstinence movement, and earnestly labor to rid the island of this moral pestilence. Should they originate such a movement, and conduct it to a happy issue, the time is not distant when the arguments for freedom will find illustration in an intelligent, industrious, and happy community of emancipated slaves.

THE hardest problem man has to deal with, is out of many to make one. But it is a problem nature is ever gloriously resolving; for organization, which separates by an intelligible boundary the worlds of life and death, is her great mystery and work. The formation of a mass by the aggregation of particles, (as many rocks have been composed, each of which is a confused, cemented heap,) is quite a different thing from the production of a plant. In the one case, there is mere acciVOL. VI.

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dental juxta-position, an accumulation of chance-gathered materials, without any principle of arrangement; in the other, growth from a seed, which has life within itself, involving potentially all that is afterwards unfolded. When this seed is quickened, and germination takes place, there is a process of assimilation begun, in which the plant gathers its nourishment from the earth, and air, and light, and incorporates the foreign substance with itself as a living, homogeneous part