dropt off without setting. However, I can buy apples, Sir, in the village. Will Watson's trees never fail; he seems to have luck with every thing about him, that man.

D.-Aye Nanny; your industrious hard-working man is pretty generally lucky, as you call it.

N.-Why Sir, I do call it luck. His industry can't alter the weather, I suppose.

D.-No; but it can prune his trees and get rid of bad bearers, and so on; and trees that are well managed, will generally have the luck, I take it, to bear fruit, though a smaller crop one year than another. I should call it luck, if Adam Harston's old cankered mossy trees were one year covered with a large crop of fine healthy apples. But what I meant to say is, send to my house -Betty Wyld's girl can step up presently with a basket-and I will give you some capital apples for the purpose. So now good bye. Keep the room cool, but don't her let be in a draught of air; and let her drink as much apple-tea as she pleases. And take care Mrs. Hexter, to keep her bowels open; and be sure not to let her have any meat or beer.

N.-I will Sir.

Sep. 5.-- Found her very bad to-day: got her breath with difficulty, and the cough very troublesome. I ordered her a strong purgative, and a blister to be applied to the chest; recommending, that if she should complain of tightness across the forehead or roughness in the throat, she should be made to hold her head from time to time over a bason of hot water, to breathe in the steam.* I also begged that her eyes might be bathed several times a day with warm milk and water, and that the room might be kept a little darkened.

Just as I was going away, who should come in but Mr. Prinsep, the man for dissent, and the voluntary system, and the right, as he calls it, of private judgement. That's a man I can't bear for he's turned poor Mrs. Lacy's head till I'm afraid it will never sit right on her shoulders again. I've no patience with Harry Buxton, who's well off and a regular church-goer himself, for letting that nice cottage to such a fellow, when he might have had within a pound or two of the same rent from poor widow Ibbotson, that has always a kind word for high and low alike;—and a kind action too, for that matter, whenever she has an opportunity. I made haste *The head should be covered with a flannel large enough to hang over the edges of the bason.

to get fairly away, for I had no time to hear his flights to-day, and I shall never choose to let him go without an answer. I must tell him some day how I served a private judgement man at Munton. There was a quicksand there right up to the rocks with only one path through it, that all the people about knew how to hit by beginning at the Cat's Head, as we called an odd bit of rock, and keeping Thurston tower straight before one. I was just over it one day, when I saw a fellow, I forget his name-who had just come to the village and held forth about the right of private judgement-ah! and he began, I remember that business about the church-rates-I can't think of his name just now; but he rode at a rattling pace, booted and buck-skinned, and came right on as if there was nothing to fear. I thought I would leave him to his right of private judgement; and I did too; and can laugh now to think how he floundered about, and what a figure he was, when at last he got out. He was very angry with me for not telling him of the danger, and got prettily laughed at for that exercise of the right of private judgement.

Sep. 11.-The poor child is very weak, but her cough is nearly gone, and, with wine and tonics and a nourishing diet, she will probably get through.

STATE OF THE NEWLY-FREED SLAVES IN THE WEST

INDIES.

EVERY trustworthy account from the West Indies is now of extreme interest. The experiment tried, of freeing vast bodies of slaves, stands alone in the history of the world. Nothing like it ever occurred before. All thinking men looked with fearful anxiety to the result: would the slaves who had learnt to hate work, labour industriously? would they not abuse their freedom, making it a mere permission to indulge without restraint in idleness and vice? Would they live peaceably with the whites, whose numbers were as nothing to theirs, and whom they had in many cases been taught to look upon as their enemies and oppressors? The mischief was, that in their eagerness to arrive at the end, men had overlooked the best means of making that end beneficial: they had not joined heart and hand in taking the best preparatory steps, in giving the slaves universally religious instruction, and encouraging habits of forethought and industry beforehand.

In spite of these mistakes, it appears however that God is blessing the great change that we ventured to make. The following extracts

are from letters lately received from the Bishops of Barbadoes and Nova Scotia, and the Rev. T. Watts.

"On Monday I visited with the attorney, without any notice previously given, the whole body of our cottagers, being anxious to give a prize to the cottager and his wife whose house should be found in the best order, land best cultivated, and provisions laid up with the most care and forethought. It took us from nearly eleven till four, and mostly on foot in the sun; but I know not when I have spent so gratifying a day. With only one exception of an old and very respectable man of the estate, with several children and grand-children, who wished to be placed among the cottagers, the state of the houses was most creditable, and the grounds in good and abundant cultivation, and every thing evincing that they knew how to work for their present support, and to provide for the future. The house and lands of the successful cottager and his wife, would have done no discredit to the most industrious English labourer. My prize was a blue coat, with gilt, or, as they term it, gold buttons, and a gown for the wife. The houses and lands, however, of two others, were so creditable,- -one with a nice little garden neatly laid out before it-that I could not refrain from giving a hat and handkerchief to each; and on Saturday they come in to receive them, when I shall give them a dinner, and send them back in high delight; and, as I have told them, I trust next year to do the same, and I doubt not that we shall find that yet greater emulation has been excited amongst them. Of the men, Mr. King speaks in the highest terms; they are amongst the most regular and industrious on the estate; but the wives, I understand, complain that their husbands want them to work too hard, they little know what a labourer's wife in England has to go through. It was delightful to go from cottage to cottage and witness so much comfort, and industry, and forethought, and good cultivation, and such an abundant produce."*

"Since the commencement of the apprenticeship system, the Negroes have not ceased to conduct themselves in an orderly manner. The plan of giving allotments of land, instead of clothes and provisions, to some of the more industrious and best-behaved families on the estate, has been persevered in, and crowned with much greater success than was at first anticipated. The system commenced in August 1833, with nine married men, and up to the present time the number has increased to * Bp. of Barbados.

twenty families, (including now, with their children who were under six years of age at the time of the emancipation, and those subsequently born, above eighty persons,) who provide themselves with all the necessaries of life, and work four days on the estates, as a labour-rent for the two acres of land which they are allowed to cultivate for their own use; and so fully conscious are the Negroes themselves of the benefit attending this system of allotments, that not only are they who have pursued the plan (some now for nearly three years) quite satisfied and happy with the arrangement, but many others are desirous of being placed on the same footing. Nor is the system which was first commenced on so large a scale on the Society's estate* now confined to this one property: many of the proprietors of the island have adopted the same plan, and with equal prospects of success.t"

"The important change which had been effected in the condition of the coloured people, by their liberation from slavery on the 1st of August, 1834, had occupied much of my attention, and I considered it an especial duty to ascertain as correctly as possible all its effects, with a desire to make my visit profitable to this portion of my charge. My inquiries were therefore frequently, indeed continually, directed to this point; and the result shall be communicated as it became known to me, with a hope that even repetitions, if they should occur, will be pardoned on account of the importance and interest of the subject. On this day, I clearly ascertained that the conduct of the coloured people had been commendable since their liberation, although the anxiety and even impatience which were excited, as the day for its completion approached, had raised some apprehension that it would be otherwise. It now appeared to be the general opinion that less and less heinous crime had been committed by these people in the last, than in any previous year. In the laudable readiness of the masters to relinquish entirely the proffered apprenticeship, the slaves had been completely and unreservedly emancipated on the 1st of August.

"Monday, May 4.-We attended divine service in the morning. at Pembroke, when a very excellent assize sermon was preached by the Archdeacon. We accompanied the court to the Court-house, and heard a very interesting charge from Mr. Chief Justice Butterfield, confirming the gratifying intelligence I have already mentioned, of the diminution of crime."+

*The estate left by Gen. Codrington to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. † The Rev. T. Watts. Bp. of Nova Scotia.

THE

POOR CHURCHMAN'S

QUARTERLY MAGAZINE.

BIOGRAPHY. OF ENGLISH CHURCHMEN.

CHAPTER III.-THOMAS BILNEY.*

THOMAS BILNEY was brought up in the University of Cambridge; where, after the holy Spirit of Christ had endued his heart with the knowledge of better and more wholesome things, he turned his study from man's laws, his first profession, to those pursuits which tended more unto godliness than gain.

As he himself was greatly inflamed with the love of true religion and godliness, so there was in his heart an incredible desire to win many unto the same. Neither were his labours vain, for he converted many of his fellows unto the knowledge of the Gospel, and especially Thomas Arthur, and Hugh Latimer, who was then Cross-keeper at Cambridge. After some time Bilney left the University, and went about with Arthur, teaching and preaching in many parts of the kingdom: whereupon the Cardinal of York, Thomas Wolsey, caused them to be apprehended and cast into prison.

The Cardinal, after they had been brought up before him in the Chapter-house at Westminster, being himself otherwise occupied about the affairs of the realm, committed the final hearing of the matter to the Bishop of London, and to other Bishops there present, or to three of them; to whom full power and authority was given to proceed against all men, as well spiritual as temporal, who should hold or preach the doctrines of Luther, lately condemned by Pope Leo the Tenth; and to compel all such as were found guilty, to abjuration according to the law; or if the matter so required, to deliver them unto the secular power.

* Abridged and a little modernized from Fox's Martyrs.
Afterwards Bishop and Martyr.

No. 3, Jan. 1837.

L