The fiendish herald, where a gath'ring mist
Mounted the adamantine steps. He said
To one that stood anear him: Thinkest thou
That Satan comes so soon? doth yonder cloud
Of lurid mists the glad return portend
Which hell's divinities await so long?

While yet he spake, th' o'er-arching vapour fled
Amid the air, and render'd visible

The front. wrath beaming, of that awful king!
Trembling the herald saw, and hasten'd forth
On rapid wings to those fire mounts, whose heads
Eruct forth floods of flame upon the rocks
O'erhanging, and the precipice below,

To welcome in their monarch.

Thro' the clefts

Of these awe-darting mountains, went Zophiel

On toward the smould'ring mouth; and, as he reach'd it,
Sudden the fiery stream pour'd o'er that orb

Of darkness; and each subject view'd his king
Frowning amid the distance! each one came,
Ev'n those among the mightiest, and sat
Humble upon the throne's dark steps below him.
O Sionitinn, thou, who look'st upon

The depths of hell with tranquil earnestness,
Because thou, too, mayst view the front serene
Of thy Creator, as he chastiseth

Sinners with pitying hand; O show to me,
Thy votary, the deep profound; and tell,
With voice deep-rolling like the stormy blast,
What wildest spirits of th' abyss were there!

First Adramelech came. Still more was he
Than Satan arm'd with wickedness; still more
Than he, could he conceal. His heart long since
Had burnt with fury 'gainst his hellish lord,
At the corroding thought, how first of all
Satan had rais'd the signal of revolt;

For long, himself had plann'd to arm the train
Of spirits 'gainst th' Eternal. Ne'er thought he
To serve his rival's power. Whate'er he did,
'Twas for himself, or good or evil act.
Since years long past, had he revolv'd beneath
His baleful bosom, how he might obtain
Hell's lurid kingdom; if its king to inflame
Anew to prosecute the war 'gainst heaven;
Or, plunge him down beneath unending space;
Or, yet again, should all else fail, in arms
To subjugate, and blot him out for ever.
When first hell saw th' infernal bands arrive
All terrour-striken, Adramelech sole

Came last; and bore above his arms of war
A golden-radiant tablet and exclaim'd:
Why flee ye thus. O kings? 'Tis yours to greet
With songs triumphant this new dwelling place.
Of pomp and immortality, prepar'd

For our defended liberties. When late
In new-form'd thunders arm'd, the Mighty One
And his Messiah follow'd ye, I sought

His holiest place; and there this tablet found,
Big with your future fates. Assemble all
And hear the words of fate.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

FOREIGN.

(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 104.)

FROM the Journal of the Rev. Mr. Burnyeat, the visiting missionary in the diocese of Nova Scotia, we select the following interesting ex

tracts.

"At Tracadie is a settlement of negroes, consisting of thirty-three families, who were once members of the national Church, although of late a few of them have renounced their religion, and now profess the Roman Catholick faith.

"Of their moral condition, in the estimation of their neighbours, it is pleasing to me to be able to report favourably. 1. They are industrious. Their little farms are in a state of tolerable cultivation. Most of them have a few cattle, and a small flock of sheep, and their huts assume an air of decency. 2. They are not only industrious, but temperate. Their little surplus produce is not exchanged for spirituous liquors, but bartered for such articles as contribute to the comfort and respectability of their families.

"It was extremely gratifying to me to find that the black population of Tracadie are objects of the society's consideration. The pecuniary allowance made to Demsy Jourdie is the means of greatly benefiting the settlement. Persons of all ages are punctual attendants on the performance of the services of this catechist. Several of them

have the Book of Common Prayer, and are able to join in reading the liturgy I administered the sacrament of baptism to some of their children. The sponsors, from memory, made the answers, prescribed by the rubrick, with promptitude and correctness. In short, a great part of the congregation are well acquainted with the Church service. Their familiarity with it is to be attributed, in a great degree, to the provision made for their instruction by the society. Demsy Jourdie is well qualified for the trust which he holds, and is faithful in the discharge of its duties.

"The room which forms the scene of their weekly devotions, is not large enough to contain the whole of them; and to remedy this inconvenience, to which they are consequently subjected, they are

about to build a small church, the timber for the frame of which is already prepared. The dimensions will be 35 feet by 25. One John Devoyce has allotted an acre and a half of land for the site.

"They begged of me to make the society acquainted with what they are doing, and to implore for them a little assistance. £25 will be sufficient to enable them to purchase all the necessary materials that can only be obtained for money, which is a scarce article among them. The society have, in innumerable instances, assisted people of European descent in building churches; but this is probably the first time they have been applied to for aid for a similar undertaking in behalf of any part of the African race in the diocese.”

"To reach Sheet Harbour, which had never before been visited by a clergyman of our Church, I have been under the necessity of travelling ninety miles, through a dreary forest, wherein but few houses are scattered. One evening I was benighted before I could reach any habitation, and being unable either to proceed or to return, on account of the trees lying across the path, I was necessitated to pass the night in the open air. Not having anticipated such an adventure, which is not unfrequent in Nova Scotia, I had taken no precautions to provide materials for lighting a fire. But notwithstanding the very delicate state of my health, I have felt no inconvenience from having been thus exposed to the open air. The night was fine, and through the kindness of some friends at Manchester, I had been amply provided with refreshments

There is no occasion to lament here, as at Country Harbour, the neglect of all publick observance of religion. A person of the name of John Jackson reads the service of the Church of England successively at the different houses in the place, which are in number between twenty and thirty. He has continued this pious employment about eleven years, from the time that the society's school became vacant. The sermons which he uses are broken sets of Tillotson's and Sherlock's; he has read them so frequently, that they are quite familiar to his audience. A few volumes of fresh authors would tend much to their instruction. He expressed to me an earnest desire to be furnished with such a supply His labours are not confined to the reading of the Church service on Sundays. In the interment of the dead he reads the funeral service. The only remuneration he has received for this dedication of his time has been a few potatoes for the last two years, to the value of about forty or fifty shillings."

27

"The population of Argyle, in number about four or five hundred, is entirely destitute of the stated celebration of Christian worship. They are indeed casually visited by ministers of different religious persuasions. The destitute state of the parish as to religion was exemplified, by my meeting on the road from Yarmouth, a person travelling thither, in quest of a clergyman to perform the last sad rites over the remains of a near relative, who had paid the debt of nature on the preceding day. The distance of the place of his destination from home, could not be less than thirty or forty miles. On ascertaining my profession, he immediately bespoke my assist

ance. I did not, however, follow the corpse to the grave, situated in an unconsecrated and remote spot of ground, difficult of access; but, according to the general practice on similar occasions in this colony, I read the burial service, and preached, before the corpse was removed from the habitation of the deceased.

"An Irish emigrant was at the funeral, and perceiving, from the prayers that were used, that I belonged to the Established Church, came up to me to give vent to his feelings, on first hearing, after five years absence from his native land, any one of the services of the united Church read, either in publick or in private. He had not brought a prayer book with him from Ireland-an omission that he could not cease to lament. Having a small family of children at home, some of whom were not baptized, he begged to avail himself of the oppor tunity that then offered, to have the rite of baptism administered to them. I readily complied with his wishes, and for that purpose proceeded forthwith to his house. When I took my leave of him, I could not but reflect that, notwithstanding the distresses of the mother country, and the plenty of this colony, the privations are greater in the latter than in the former; and that, did the venerable society know the real condition of the poorer parts of Nova Scotia, they would be induced to make even greater exertions, if possible, than at present, for their spiritual welfare."

AFRICA. At the conclusion of the year 1820, the Rev. William Wright was sent by the society to the Cape of Good Hope. A letter received from him, dated Sept. 1, 1821, contains an interesting account of what he had begun to do; but this was confined to the reorganization of the national school at Cape Town, which is reviving under his auspices, and the establishment of divine service at the village of Wynberg, eight miles from Cape Town, where the congregation was continually increasing.

CALCUTTA. The body of statutes prepared by Dr. Middleton, the late lamented bishop of Calcutta, for the bishop's college, arrived in England in the autumn of 1821, and were submitted to the East-India committee. This committee reported, in January, 1822, some alterations, with which the statutes were provisionally adopted by the society, and transmitted to the bishop. The buildings of this college, including a chapel, hall, and library, and apartments for two missionaries and twenty students, in addition to those reserved for the professors, were to be finished at the close of the year 1822. The society are taking measures to form a college library. They have founded ten theological and ten lay scholarships for native or European youth, educated in the principles of Christianity, and have appropriated to that special purpose 1000/. ($4444.) Individuals may form scholarships, at the rate of not less than 5000 sicca rupees, ($2500.) The ordinary age of admission is fourteen. The general state of the establishment in India is in a high degree prosperous, no unfavourable circumstance having occurred to interrupt even slightly the proceedings of the society. The death of Bishop Middleton must form an exception to this remark, but that afflicting event was subsequent to the report before us.

The Rev. W. H Mill, principal of the college, arrived at Calcutta, in February, 1822, and from his letter to the secretary of the society, we shall subjoin a few extracts.

In September, 1821, the ship touched at the island of Madeira, and Mr. Mill gives the pleasing intelligence that an English church was about being erected at Funchal "We found," says he, "a very considerable English population, of all ranks, to whom the arrival of a clergyman was an event of some importance, as they were totally destitute of all pastoral ministrations of every kind, and consequently had many children waiting for baptism. This want, however, was shortly to be supplied, by the erection of a church, and the procuring of a regular minister from England. The same zeal for Christianity in its best form, which had prompted some of the resident merchants to this, had extended itself to the greater wants of the Roman Catholick inhabitants. A school had been erected at their expense, for the benefit of the latter class entirely, of which the master was a Portuguese, and in which the New Testament was constantly read in a Portuguese version, with the countenance and approbation of the bishop and clergy of the city."

Mr. Mill adds the following interesting observations on the prospect of introducing Christianity in India, and on the good effects to be derived from the establishment of schools for Christian and Pagan children. We are particularly pleased with his temperate remarks on the influence of dissenting missions The schisms which exist among Christians are the great obstacle which prevent the success of missionary exertions among the heathen.

"The impulse given to the publick mind here, with respect to the obligation of improving the state of the native population, is indeed remarkable; and the conviction among the more reflecting and religious part of the European society, seems to be gaining ground, that this improvement must involve in it the introduction of Christianity, and should be conducted according to the sober principles, the apostolical doctrine and discipline of our Church. The great difficulty with which we have to contend, is the prejudice which associates every endeavour of this nature, with hostility to the establishment; a prejudice, which, though contradicted by innumerable testimonies, both in former times and the present, exists in the minds of many very different classes of persons, and is confirmed in them by much that they see and hear around them. The good which the missionaries of the dissenting communions, the Baptists especially, are actually effecting among the heathens, is strongly counterbalanced by the evil of this false opinion, which many of them avowedly, and all indirectly, are the means of propagating with it. Excepting this obstacle, arising naturally out of the original evil of their separation, which threatens, more at future times than at the present, the planting of the Church in India, there seems no reason for discouragement. Apprehensions of danger from the native prejudices, are, in the judgment of almost every observer here, without foundation. The experience of the diocesan schools, and others