verted heathen, but in erecting spiritual temples "the habitation of God through the Spirit," we shall rejoice in its success. A letter from Dr. Livingstone to Mr. Venn (page 361) points out a station on which we should be glad to hear that the Church Missionary Society was enabled to enter without delay. He says, "We have just returned from the discovery of a magnificent lake called Shirwa, separated by a partition of only a few miles from Nyinyesi, and not more than thirty from the navigable Shire; and one of the first thoughts that entered my mind, after gazing on the broad blue waters, and admiring the lofty cloud-covered mountains that surround it, was,-"Now this is what the Church Missionary Society has been thinking of for some years, a field in Eastern Africa for planting the gospel, beyond the unfriendly coast tribes; I shall write to Mr. Venn about it by the first opportunity." I have never seen so much land under cotton as here, and every one spins it; but we want the agents that Sierra Leone has supplied to Western Africa to guide the people to lawful commerce." May some Johnson be found to enter on the glorious task!

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

Ir we commence our monthly summary with a reference to the state of Italy, it is because her affairs are more complicated, rather than that Italian events have been more interesting, than those of other parts of Europe. For some weeks past the storm which had broken over her seems to have spent its violence, soon to rage again, no doubt, with redoubled fury. The king of Naples, despairing of success, and finding that the fidelity of his army was very doubtful, has withdrawn his troops from Sicily. Garibaldi is now undisputed lord of the whole island. But what is to be the next step? The Sicilians clamour for an immediate annexation to Sardinia, and Victor Emmanuel would be only too happy, if he dared, to add the magnificent island to his dominions. But Garibaldi hesitates, and as dictator refuses to resign his powers to a sovereign who, in the cession of Nice and Savoy, has lately shewn himself certainly to no great advantage in the character of father of his country. If it be contended that he acted under compulsion, so much the worse for Sicily. Under the same compulsion he may be forced to act in the same way again; and twelve months hence, Sicily may discover that she has been transferred to France, and has merely exchanged the tyranny of Naples for the equally despotic though more tolerable yoke of the Tuilleries. Again, the king of Naples is just now in convulsions of alarm, mingled, perhaps, with some remorse. To secure his throne, he promises everything a representative government, a national guard in the place of his odious police, freedom of the press, and, in short, whatever is likely to propitiate his indignant subjects. And strange to say, he meets with some success. It is even possible that his professions may be

believed; and we may see him reinstated through all his former king. dom as a constitutional sovereign. This solution of the difficulty would be more acceptable, or, however, less unpalatable, to Austria; and it would be one to which the emperor of France could not well refuse his consent. But what security would remain for Garibaldi and his Sicilians?-what hope for wretched Naples and the rest of Central Italy?

The reflection naturally occurs, that the fate of Europe once more lies, as it did in the fifteenth century, in two or three hands. Nations are nothing; a few crowned heads raise or quell the hurricane, and decide, not only whether there shall be peace or war, but whether nations shall exist. Our boasted progress has left the world where it was when Francis I., and Charles V., and our king Henry could set Europe in a blaze. We begin to doubt if it will ever be otherwise. Nations, with rare exceptions, prove themselves incapable of government; and after a frantic effort, relapse into blind submission, and are even proud of their chains. We try to hope well for Italy; but we feel that we are "hoping against hope," against probability, against difficulties every day increasing. Garibaldi has conquered Sicily, but he cannot conquer impossibilities. There is a faction in Italy-it can scarcely be called an Italian party-still anxious for a republic; but for this form of government Italy, at present, is totally disqualified. We confess that we almost should prefer, for her sake, to hear that she had submitted again to the tyrant of Naples; binding him-so far as it is possible to bind a man who seems destitute of every moral principle-to some of the elementary principles of just government; for of national freedom all hope would vanish. Yet even this would be preferable to a state such as that to which France was reduced under her first or even her second republic; and to such a state Italy would most probably sink down. But even now Garibaldi may be on his way to Naples or to Rome; for though he hesitates as a diplomatist, there is no hesitation as long as he is in the field. His movements are rapid, and he keeps well his own secret. He was apparently on the point of leaving Sicily at the head of a fine army, and we shall no doubt soon hear of him again.

The Turkish empire is sick unto death, and the eagles hasten to the prey. The Druses, a mountain tribe of Syrians, half Pagan, half Mahomedan, have fallen on the native Christians, and massacred them to an extent, and with a fury, unknown for ages. Various accounts are given of the origin of the quarrel; nor does it signify much to ask, in such a country, where bloodshed is of daily occurrence, whether a Druse first murdered a Christian, or a Christian a Druse. In either case the consequences are equally appalling. The Druses have involved the Christians in one general slaughter. It broke out at Beyrout, extended to Damascus, and has since spread over a great part of Syria. Nearly a hundred villages have been burned to ashes, and 30,000 Christians wander in the mountains, and perish daily from hunger or the sword. An appeal for charitable assistance, issued in London, on most respectable authority, states that "the annals of fanaticism offer no parallel to a butchery which has already cast on the charity of the world ten thousand new-made widows and orphans." But the worst feature is that the Turkish soldiery stood by and made no effort to

arrest the slaughter, at which the pashas of Deir and of Damascus, and other Turkish governors, connived. England has despatched a few ships of war to the Syrian coast to protect our countrymen, or other Christian fugitives; but France goes further, and sends out an armed expedition of eight thousand men, on her own account;" being resolved, says the Moniteur, that "she will never fail in her mission of humanity." This force is to be increased, if necessary, to 25,000 men. Once landed in Syria, the Christians, we have no doubt, will be terribly avenged upon the Druses and Turks; and probably the dismemberment of the Turkish empire will date from the massacres in Lebanon!

But we have our own troubles in New Zealand, where the natives are in arms against us; and one engagement, if not more, with some bloodshed, has unhappily occurred between our troops and the Maories. The published accounts from New Zealand lay the blame entirely upon the natives: we fear that it will be found to rest altogether with the governor and the European settlers. The dispute arose, as usual, out of a question of the sale of land; in this instance the disputed ground is situated within the territory of Wiremu Kingi, or William King, a native chief. This land was disposed of at the governor's suggestion, by a native land agent, a man of no consideration, who, we believe, had no more right to deal with it than to put up Hyde Park to auction. Part of the plot, in fact, belongs to the Rev. Rewai Te Ahu, whose name will be recognized by some of our readers as that of a convert, and an esteemed missionary of the Church Missionary Society, who was ordained by bishop Selwyn, and it was sold without his consent. It is stated by the Wiremu party, that Teira, the land agent, sold the land out of feelings of ill will and revenge; that, correctly speaking, no portion of it, however small, belonged to him, for his father is still living, and objected to the sale; that Wiremu Kingi, the supreme chief, who claims a right similar to that of our lord of the manor, always resisted it; and when the first instalment was paid to Teira, made a formal protest to the British land commissioner. His protest was disregarded, and Wiremu Kingi drove off the trespassers in a strictly legal manner; for the law of England allows a claimant in possession to remove forcibly, but without violence, any trespassers, and this is precisely what Wiremu Kingi did he sent women to interrupt the survey. The governor immediately sent English troops into the district (Taraniki), proclaimed martial law, and fired with cannon upon Kingi's pah, or fort; Kingi, and the other chiefs, in vain demanding to have their disputed claims adjudicated on before a competent court to which they were willing to submit; but said they, and we honor them for their patriotism and courage,-We will not submit to have our land taken from us on the mere ipse dixit of an ignorant land agent. We make this statement with confidence, on the authority of some of the best and most experienced men in New Zealand; men whose lives have been spent in what we fear will after all prove the vain endeavour to save the native tribes from the ruthless tyranny of English settlers, as well as in every other way to promote their present and future happiness. The recal of governor Brown is demanded by the natives in a most becoming petition to the queen, and we hope their

may

Well prayer will be heard with attention. other nations taunt us with hypocrisy in our professed hatred of negro slavery while we connive at such acts of tyrannical injustice perpetrated in one of our own colonies upon the natives, our fellow subjects. All who wish well to New Zealand ought at once to insist on a full and fair investigation of this unhappy business.

The session of parliament draws to a close, and we are uncertain whether, as we attempt to strike the balance, we have more reason to regret the failure of some measures, or to rejoice in the rejection of others. In national education very little has been accomplished. Mr. Adderley's proposal, that no child should be employed in certain factories until he can at least read a little, and has the rudiments of education, has met with no success. But the principle is too important to be lost; and we hope that no present discouragement will induce the hon. gentleman to desist. The clamour against interfering with the claims of labour is, in such a case, an idle and senseless one; and were it not, there are higher claims and duties, in the presence of which even "the claims of labour" must give place. A succession A bill of abortive schemes has occupied and wasted the session. for amending the bankruptcy laws, and another for reforming the corporation. of the city of London, are amongst the last that have been sacrificed. For these we may perhaps afford to wait. We rejoice in the failure of Lord Chelmsford's Lord's-day bill. It perished ignominiously in the house of commons without a division, after having sailed in triumph through the house of peers. On the other hand, foremost among the measures of which we deeply regret the failure, is the duke of Marlborough's motion for the removal of the bar now placed on the use of the bible in the government schools in India. Men of the most opposite principles and parties joined to oppose its progress. The earl of Shaftesbury, lord Brougham, the earl of Ellenborough, and others, entreated the noble duke to postpone his motion for the present, on the plea that the moment was inopportune; and that just now the agitation of the quesWe feel that we tion would be dangerous to the peace of India. must bow to the judgment of such men, though at the same time we cannot but express our disappointment. The duke of Marlborough, it is understood, has no intention of desisting from his exertions in this righteous cause; and we cannot but believe that the difficulties, whatever they may be, which induced the friends of scriptural education in the upper house to desert the noble duke, will have been When public removed before the commencement of another session. men have once gained our confidence, we do not withdraw it hastily. There may be powerful reasons for their conduct with which the public are totally unacquainted-there must be such, or we should not have had to relate that, amidst the silence of all our bishops, and at the instance of lord Shaftesbury, a motion for removing the ban which excludes the bible from our Indian schools was allowed to fall still-born in the house of lords.

THE

CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

NEW SERIES.

} No. 273. SEPTEMBER.

[1860.

THE PREVALENCE OF UNBELIEF.

UNBELIEF the not crediting what God hath said-is often spoken of as the sin of our own age. It is, no doubt, a prevalent and, we fear, a disregarded sin; easily palliated, not unfrequently excused. But it is, in truth, the one great sin of fallen man. It is the source of all our disobedience. It is because all men naturally cherish an evil heart of unbelief, that they are always prone to depart from the living God.

It is not surprising that this should be a frequent sin at the present day; for it prevailed amongst God's chosen people under the Old Testament, and it prevailed even amongst the apostles of the Lord. They both heard his word and saw his person, and their hands handled the word of life-yet they were slow of heart to believe. Deeply rooted must be that sin, which the presence, the instruction, the miracles of the Blessed Jesus could not, or did not, destroy.

As if to display this sin in the strongest light, and to place it before us in its most revolting character, two signal instances are given, the one in the Old Testament, the other in the New; the one showing its influence on a universal church, the other on a single individual; and in each case its terrific power is exhibited in a manner, than which it seems impossible to conceive anything more dreadful.

In the Old Testament we have the instance of the church in the wilderness. To a man, one family excepted, they fell the victims of this spiritual endemic, this contagious moral leprosy. To place the question before us in a clear light, let it be stated thus: There was a point in Jewish history when the whole nation were seized with a frantic unbelief of God, of all his threats, of all his