self by [saying] I have bought her once for all." The wife is of course a slave and does all the work: when her labors have increased the stock of cattle, another is bought and still another. And so the daughter of each new additional wife goes to purchase cattle, and the cattle to buy more wives. Thus there are those who own a number, and others too poor to purchase one. "There are three or four young men now belonging to my station," says Mr. Grout, "professors of religion, seeking for wives and thus far unsuccessful; first, because they cannot find Christian girls; secondly, because they cannot pay so high for a heathen girl, as some old polygamist who is enriched by his other wives and the sale of his daughters; and thirdly, because most of the heathen natives, wishing to keep up their polygamic system, are unwilling to give the monogamic Christian law any such sanction and success as would be involved in their allowing their girls to marry Christians."

In this system of domestic slavery, there is "among most of the tribes, a grade of subordination running through the whole company of wives. The husband sets one, generally the first, over the rest. These, the rest, are mere common women, serviles not only to the husband, but also to the superior wife. The second, also, in some tribes, is over the third, the third over the fourth, and so on. Hence while on the one hand, the whole system of polygamy is one of grinding oppression to the entire female sex, yet we see that every wife is more or less interested in having the number multiplied, as every new wife becomes a sort of slave to the rest."

The polygamy of South Africa disregards the sacred laws of kindred. "A man may marry several sisters, all daughters of the same father or mother, and all constituting the wives of the same man alone and at the same time." This is allowed among the Zulus of Natal, according to Mr. Grout. Another missionary, whom he quotes, says: "As we go inland, we meet with tribes among which it is lawful for the son to inherit, as his own, the wives of his own father; and it is no uncommon thing for a household of children to belong by birth to two individuals, who stood to each other in the relation of father and son; no uncommon thing for a woman to bear one child to a man, and afterwards to the eldest son of that man,

to both of whom she stood at different times in the relation of wife, according to the polygamic ties of that people."

In this case, property in wives descends by inheritance. "Another iniquitous characteristic of polygamy, at least among the natives of Natal, is a law and custom for the younger brother to take over as his own the wives of his deceased elder brother. This greatly magnifies the evils of the more simple form of polygamy among them, and not unfrequently becomes a bane to that small amount of natural affection which might otherwise have had an existence." So says Mr. Grout, and proceeds to cite on the authority of another missionary the case of a boy twelve or thirteen years old, who thus became the husband of his brother's widows. They refused to marry him, and the first wife ran away but was brought back by force. When at length a child was born, it died in circumstances which pointed strongly to infanticide.

But though the wife is the husband's property, he can on various pretexts get rid of her, by sending her back to her relations. On this point we will let another of the missionaries speak.*

"The Kafir has no idea of any such thing as 'injustice' or 'wrong' in discontinuing the connection which he has formed with any woman. He feels at perfect liberty to dismiss any of his wives, if she does not please him in every respect; and he does so-puts her away-and that, too, on the main ground that he has bought her, and bought her under no condition whatever, except that according to the custom of his country, he has a right to send her back from whence she came. Under the meanest pretexts can he send her back, and none can compel him to receive her again. If he can find the least fault in her, he can reclaim the cattle. Or, if the woman's relatives force him to take her back, by refusing to restore the cattle, they must stand the consequences; and awful is the condition of that female! I know of cases where women have left their husband, conscious of having given offense; and though the husband entreated them to return, they could not be persuaded, and would rather have suffered death; for death, they said, was their destination if they returned,-not, perhaps, from the husband, but from his other wives! Such a case has occurred in my neighborhood."

Such is Kafir polygamy, so far as its legal state and the laws of the people are concerned. But who shall fathom its moral pollutions? Mr. Grout shrinks from the task. Being compelled to enter into its evils, he still declines "to name some

* An Answer to Dr. Colenso's 'Letter' on Polygamy, by Rev. Lewis Grout, an American Missionary. Pietermaritzburg, 1856,—p. 98.

of the more offensive and revolting characteristics and attendants of this unseemly practice." It is enough to say in a word that while it degrades and defiles marriage, it is far from concentrating within that institution the sensuality of the people : on the contrary the door is open to the gratification of every sensual desire, both among the young and between married men and unmarried women. Thus the loss of the true idea of marriage demoralizes all the parts of the family, degrades the woman, brutalizes the man, destroys family happiness, spreads its curse over the young, and is in truth the principal obstacle which Christianity has to encounter.

Could not a Christian church be justified, then, if it had no rules relating to this subject laid down by Christ, in enacting them, and in controlling by them admission to the ordinances of the Gospel? Is there anything in caste, or in many of the superstitions of our Saxon ancestors-such as those attending the eating of horse-flesh, which believers were obliged to renounce-as corrupting as this practice would be, if tolerated in the new converts of the church? And yet, Bishop Colenso, with his views of duty, has given the chiefs of the Zulus an 'assurance, that he will not interfere with their married life as already constituted.' We respect his independence in coming out boldly with his opinions, but they will, without doubt, be disastrous, if persevered in, to the whole cause of missions in Africa. We rejoice to see the English church putting on new zeal as well for the religious improvement of the degraded at home, as for the conversion of the heathen. Surely, no church, if animated by the spirit of apostolic times, could do so much, for it has more wealth, easier access to every part of the world, more power to support it, than any other church in Christendom. But if its missionaries should adopt but this single baleful principle of allowing polygamist converts to become members of the Christian body as they are, it were better for the world that it should confine itself to its own long-neglected population, better that it should leave the heathen to dissenters, and Americans, and Germans, better for the future prospects of Christianity, that it should draw off its future missionaries from every field, than that it should give a temporary support to polygamy.

ART. VIII. PROF. FISHER'S HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN YALE COLLEGE DURING THE FIRST CENTURY OF ITS EXISTENCE.

A Discourse, commemorative of the History of the Church of Christ in Yale College, during the First Century of its existence, preached in the College Chapel, November 22, 1857. With Notes and an Appendix. By GEORGE P. FISHER, A. M., Livingston Professor of Divinity. New Haven Thomas H. Pease. 1858.

THE Church of Christ in Yale College! How many dear memories and sacred associations does its name quicken in thousands of hearts in all parts of our country, and indeed of the world! The Church of Christ in Yale College! What a blessed power it has been in the earth, according to the design and hopes of its founders, yet far beyond their hopes!

At the expiration of the first century of the existence of that church, Professor Fisher, its present pastor, has done an appropriate and important work in giving to the public its history in the commemorative discourse before us. And he has done that work well. He has carefully collected, and thoroughly digested, the materials for such a history; and with an appreciative and enthusiastic spirit, and with just discrimination, fair judgment, orderly arrangement, and in a lucid and felicitous style, he has given us, in this discourse and its appendix, the condensed results.

Professor Fisher shows that the church, which was formed fifty-seven years after the foundation of the college, had its origin in two causes. One cause was intrinsic and permanent; -the peculiar nature of a community in college, requiring preaching especially adapted to it, and a church within itself. The other cause was outward and temporary, consisting in the peculiar religious condition of New England

at that time, and in the unsatisfactory opinions and services of the pastor of the First Church, with which the faculty and students had hitherto worshiped. The first cause alone, would not have effected the formation of a distinct church in the college at so early a period.

In setting forth the second cause mentioned, Prof. Fisher sketches briefly but lucidly, the low condition of piety and the divisions in theological opinion at the commencement of the eighteenth century. The decline of piety began with the first generation that followed the original settlers; and was caused partly by their situation in the wilderness, remote from the seats of civilization and religion, and by their frequent wars with the savages, but especially by the union of church and state, which prevailed in Massachusetts, and in the New Haven colony. This union, excluding from civil office and the elective franchise, those who were not members of the church, led, through the desire of these civil privileges, to the recognition as church members of all persons baptized in infancy, and then to the half-way covenant by which baptized non-communicants could have their children baptized, and so made church members and voters; and thus had multiplied unconverted persons among nominal church members; and so had obliterated, in a great degree, the vital distinction between the church and the world. This decline of piety, and disregard of the principle that the church should be composed only of regenerated souls, had gradually produced a class of persons in the ministry, not very definitely known or numbered, who had departed more or less widely from orthodox opinions, and were accustomed either to be silent respecting the distinguishing truths of the gospel, or to preach on them vaguely and ineffectively. These were called by their opponents, without proper discrimination, Arminians. In opposition to these had arisen a class, of which the elder Edwards may be considered the leader, who had supplemented and modified the Calvinism of the Westminster divines, by views which were then termed New Divinity, and which, with additional variations and 'improvements,' have been called in later times New