evil work. May the Lord preserve you in the way that is good, in the way of his precepts, in the way of his ordinances, in the way of faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity;may he keep your tongues from evil, and your lips that they speak no guile; may he keep your thoughts, and desires, and affections supremely fixed upon him; may he keep you from anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, pride; from covetousnesss, which is idolatry; from backsliding from being lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God;may he keep you by his power through faith unto salvation ! Should you be visited this year with prosperity, may the Lord preserve you humble; or should you be called to endure adversity, may he keep you from repining! In a word, whatever be the circumstances in which you may be placed, the Lord keep you! It is further my heart's desire and prayer to God, that the Lord may make his face to shine upon you; or, in other words, that you may witness the tokens of his favour, and enjoy the evidences of his mercy, love, and grace in Jesus Christ. For it is to be remembered, that as those expressions, which speak of God as hiding his face, or frowning on men, denote his displeasure; so when we read of his making his face to shine upon them, it signifies his favour and approbation *. This is the spring of all true comfort. It was a sense of interest in the favour of God. which led the Psalmist to say, "Whom have I in Heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever +." May this, my dear readers, be the language of your souls; and for this purpose, the Lord make his face to shine upon you! And, May the Lord be gracious unto yon by accepting your persons, by fulfilling all your petitions, by supplying all your need, according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus, and doing exceedingly abundantly for yout above all you can ask or think. Are you ignorant? May the Lord instruct you. Are you impenitent, and in the road to ruin? May you be speedily brought to repentance, and saved from the wrath to come.Are you far from God and righteousness? May you be brought nigh by the blood or Christ; and be no longer strangers and foreigners, * Psalm xxx. 7. Isa. i 15. Psalm xxxi. 16.—lxvii. i-xxx. 3. 7 19. + Psalm Ixxiii. 25, 26. but -- but fellow-citizens of the saints, and the household of God.-Do fears and doubts perplex you? May the Lord be gracious to remove them. Are you cast into the furnace of affliction? May this prove the year of your deliverance. Through life, at death, and to all eternity, the Lord be gracious unto you! You have likewise my earnest wish, that the Lord may lift up his countenance upon you. This indeed includes the same ideas as that part of the benediction which says, "The Lord make his face to shine upon you;" or, the Lord grant you an interest in his favour, and bless you with the evidences of his mercy and love. Of all that is called pleasure, that is the noblest which flows from an experimental sense of the light of God's countenance upon the soul. Away with all the joys of the world! How little are they to be valued, when compared with the joy which springs from the favour of God! "If all the monarchs, whose command supreme I would not quit thy favour for them all; The world's a toy, while I can call thee mine." I conclude, by requesting, that through the whole of this year, the Lord may give you peace, - peace in your habitations,peace in all your transactions in the world,and especially that he may give you peace of conscience; that peace which is heavenly and divine, which is the purchase of the Saviour's blood, and flows through him as the glorious medium; which arises from an inward sense of pardoned guilt, which passeth all understanding, and which the most powerful exertions of earth and hell can never eradicate from your breasts: and should any part of this year be the termination of your mortal existence upon earth, may you enter into that rest which remains unto the people of God, and dwell in his presence; where there is fulness of joy, and at his right hand, where there are pleasures for ever more! Dominus sit cum omnibus nobis. Amen. J. K. VILLAGE DIALOGUES. THE Rev. Mr. Hill being engaged in writing another Volume of Village Dialogues, as the whole will be too long for our Magazine, has favoured us with the out line of his Plan, and the most interesting Scenes. Dialogue IX, which will begin the New Volume, is pointed against the Slave Trade; and the Subject is introduced at a Visit from 'Squire Worthy's Family, and Mr. Lovegood, to Grace-Hill Farm; where, after some previous Conversation, of a general Nature, Henry Littleworth, the Farmer's newly-converted Son, gives a pathetic Account of what he knew of the Treatment of the African Slaves in Antigua. The Conversation is thus introduced by Mr. Worthy. Worthy. THOUGH I have no doubt of the authenticity of the reports we have received from every quarter respecting the cruelties exercised over these miserable creatures, yet I should be glad of your information concerning the general state of the poor African slaves, so far as it has come within your personal knowledge. Henry. O Sir, the barbarous usage they receive from us is inexpressible. I have seen heaps of them myself bought and sold, like a set of beasts, in a common market. I believe, on an average, many more than 80,000 of these poor creatures are annually transported out of their own country, to be made objects of this abominable traffic; and it is amazing what a number of these, according to a most brutal expression, die in seasoning! And can any one wonder at it, when they are taken from a life of comparative ease and indolence to a life of the most cruel labour, and kept in perpetual terror, under the lash of their drivers all the time; with their hearts ready to break, having been lately torn from their dearest friends and connections, with no other hope than to drag on a most miserable existence, till, by the hand of death itself (which many of them most anxiously desire) they escape the clutches of their tormentors! Worthy. Did you say more than 80,000? Mr. Henry, are you correct in your information? I thought it was about half that number. Henry. Sir, upwards of half that number were cruelly exported from their own country, for the use of the British islands alone, but a 'few years ago; and as many more, at least, must be wanted to supply other islands. Worthy. What horrid robbery on the persons of our fellow-creatures, and what dreadful murder of human lives! For the conclusion certainly is, that not less (if not more) than all that number of our içllow-mortals are wanted to keep up the stock, to succeed those who lose their lives by their cruel banishment, or who have been killed off by barbarous treatment and hard labour: for it seems, the calculation has has been reduced to a nicety, how far it may be most profitable to work them down, as you would a set of beasts, and buy fresh ones, or let them breed among themselves; and it is well known, that if it were not for the effects of oppression and war, the human race, in every part of the globe, would rapidly increase. Henry. Yes, Sir, and on all the plantations, where these poor creatures are treated with any degree of mercy, they never find themselves under the necessity of resorting to those horrid markets. [Mr. Henry goes on in the course of the dialogue, to relate the farther cruelties practised in the procurement of slaves,— in exciting them to war among themselves; in selling them, by way of punishment for witchcraft; and particularly the horrid practice of kidnapping children who can just go alone; and their parents are described as remarkably fond and attentive to their offspring. As to their general disposition, he gives the following account :] Henry. As far as ever I could discover, when they are used ill, they become dark, sulky, and resentful, to a high degree; but if treated affectionately, and with friendship, they are the most affectionate and kind:-a proof of this you have in a variety of instances. Where a planter uses them with lenity, as a family of his fellow-creatures, though still his slaves, they would fight and die for him. I heard of an instance of a worthy gentleman who bought a young slave for his travelling-servant, designing when he came of age to give him his liberty:-and when he told him he was no longer his slave, and that he was at liberty to leave him as soon as he pleased, he cried out, with many tears, "Me leave you, my dear Massey! me no leave you, no never, never! me want no better wages than to serve my dear Massey. If you turn me out at one dore, me come in at de odder. Me never leave my dear Massey, no never, never!" Wor. What brutish cruelty in the extreme, to injure and enslave a race of our fellow-creatures, whose minds are capable of such noble and generous sensations! Hen. Yes; and further evidence we have of this in the love they bear towards their ministers, who, with remarkable affection and attention, preach to them the merciful love of God our Saviour towards mankind, and the tender love we ought to shew towards each other for the Saviour's sake. In their public meetings, they always represented to me a swarm of bees fixing round the Queen-bee of the hive, all hanging upon her. Her life is their life, and her death death is their death. They have an uncommon attaché ment to their ministers; and all of them seem to be drawn by a sort of silken cord of affection, which they have neither will nor inclination to resist. They, and their ministers with them, give you quite the idea of artless shepherds with their harmless flocks. To be sure, there is a difference evidently between them; but it is amazing the good that has been done among them by the introduction of the Gospel: and many of the planters see so much of the good effects of it, that they do all in their power to encourage and promote such preaching on their plantations. Lovegood. Well, Mr. Henry, and just so we should all cleave around the blessed Person of the Chief Shepherd, and then we should prove the truth of that proverb, "They are well kept whom the Lord keeps;" but some people will say, in vindication of this trade, that the negroes are better off in a state of slavery in the West Indies, than in a state of freedom among themselves; though we have but little proof of it from what has hitherto been noticed. Henry. Under some accidental circumstances, where their owners are merciful and humane, I confess their situation may not be worse than our own peasantry in this country; but they have minds as well as ourselves; and they must still feel they are slaves, and that all their happiness rests merely on the uncertain circumstance, whether their master be a map or a brute. In many instances, to my certain knowledge, their situation is rendered far more miserable than if they were brutes themselves. Their food is so coarse and bad, that nothing but necessity can compel them to eat it; while their labourand their punishments are most cruelly severe. Wer. Why then, the very best that can be said is, that they are taken out of a bad state, and put into another, by ns Christians, as we are called, a thousand times worse. But what farther proof need we of this, than that after they have been conquered or kidnapped, they are torn from their families and tenderest connections, and shipped on board these horrid prisons provided for their transportation, and there chained man to man, and so closely confined to each other, that many of them are positively killed by their horrid confinement, or die of broken hearts; while the survivors have nothing before them but perpetual slavery; there to receive, perhaps, no better treatment than what you, Mr. Littleworth, would give to an ox, or a horse, because you are afraid of losing your profits by losing your beast. Littlew |