I read Wilberforce "On the Abolition;" almost as much enchanted by Mr. Wilberforce's book as by his conduct. He is the very model of a reformer. Ardent without turbulence, mild without timidity or coldness, neither yielding to difficulties, nor disturbed or exasperated by them: patient and meek, yet intrepid: persisting for twenty years through good report and evil report; just and charitable to his most malignant enemies; unwearied in every experiment to disarm the prejudices of his more rational and disinterested opponents, and supporting the zeal, without dangerously exciting the passions of his adherents. Mackintosh's Life. REFORM. ALTHOUGH, uninfluenced by tenacity in retaining opinion, man would joyously abandon error the moment it was detected, yet the dominion of prejudice is so extensive and powerful, that it requires considerable knowledge of the laws of our nature to discover the proper mode of resisting and subduing it. It is therefore of great importance that the question to be investigated should be clearly understood. Hodges, in his travels in India, says, "while I was pursuing my professional labours in Benares, I received information of a ceremony which was to take place on the banks of the river, and which greatly excited my curiosity. I had often read and repeatedly heard of that most horrid custom amongst perhaps the most mild and gentle of the human race, the Hindoos, the sacrifice of the wife on the death of the husband, and that by means from which nature seems to shrink with the utmost abborrence, by burning. Upon my repairing to the spot on the banks of the river where the ceremony was to take place, I found the body of the man on a bier, and covered with linen already brought down, and laid at the edge of the river; at this time, about ten in the morning, only a few people were assembled. After waiting a considerable time, the wife appeared, attended by the Bramins and music, with some few relations. The procession was slow and solemn. The widow moved with a steady and firm step. She addressed those who were near her with composure and without the least trepidation of voice or change of countenance. She held in her left hand a cocoa nut, in which was a red colour, and, dipping in it the fore finger of her right hand, she, with a perfect composure of countenance, approached close to the body of her husband, where for some time she marked those near her to whom she wished to show the last act of attention. at this time I stood close to her, she observed me attentively and with the colour marked me on the forehead. She might be about twenty-four or five years of age, her figure was small but elegantly turned, and the form of her hands and arms was particularly beautiful; her dress was a loose robe of white flowing drapery that extended from her head to the feet. The place of sacrifice was higher up on the bank of the river, a hundred yards or more from the spot where we now stood. The pile was composed of dried branches of leaves and rushes, with a door on one side and arched and covered on the top. By the side of the door stood a man with a lighted brand. From the As time she appeared to the taking up the body to convey it into the pile, might occupy a space of half an hour, which was employed in prayer with the Bramins, in attentions to those who stood near her and conversation with her relations. When the body was taken up, she followed close to it, attended by the chief Bramin, and when it was deposited in the pile, she bowed to all around her and entered without speaking. The moment she entered, the door was closed, the fire was put to the combustibles which instantly flamed, and immense quantities of dried wood and other materials were thrown upon it. This last part of the ceremony was accompanied with the shouts of the multitude who now had become numerous, and the whole seemed a mass of confused rejoicing. The question is, "How ought a Reformer to act to destroy this abomination? How is the evil to be reformed?"-The Christian recoils from these victories of death. He meditates upon these errors.* He thinks of him who took the little children in his arms, put his hands upon them and blessed them.-How is the evil to be removed is the question? SENTENCE DE MORT.-Quelle voix sinistre et retentissante, emplissant les rues et les carrefours, se fait entendre jusqu'au sommet des maisons, et crie qu'un homme plein de jeunesse va périr, égorgé de sang froid par un autre homme, au nom de la société ? le colporteur en courant et hurlant |