for self-indulgence. I have mentioned the papousie, or infant, as an object of interest to me: the little creature, not many days after its birth, is carefully wrapped in such clothing as the mother can provide, and laid flat in a case of bark, not unlike a small coffin, without lid or head. Some stout lacing, passed from side to side over the child's body, makes all safe; a strong strap is secured to the broad end of the cradle, and this being passed round the mother's neck, the baby appears at her back, in a standing position, its little head and face generally uncovered; and more exquisite specimens of infant loveliness I never beheld. In complexion they resemble a healthy, sunburnt, English child, rarely deepening into so dark a tint as our gipsies: the eyes always black, the hair of a beautiful auburn, crisp and curling, with delicate mouths, and much of the settled, quiet aspect that characterizes the adult race. It is only during early infancy that they retain this delicacy of complexion and resemblance to others by degrees the complexion thickens, the hair becomes black, straight, and coarse, and nothing survives of the beautiful papousie save that softness of eye, and pearly whiteness of diminutive rows of teeth, which render them striking through the whole period of childhood and youth. The Indian smile, until the light-heartedness of early years has given place to sterner feelings, is most bewitching; nor does it ever entirely lose its character: but they are among the saddest of people; and, alas! throughout the tribes of outcast Israel it is usually so: "All the merry-hearted do sigh."

I have asked the squaws how they could perform their laborious tasks of tilling the ground, cleaving

wood, and other similar employments requiring constant motion, with the children at their backs. They replied, that when they went to work in the woods they hung papousie on the branch of a tree, too high for foxes to reach, and threw a handkerchief over its head as security from birds and insects. The waving bough rocks the baby in the breeze; the mother's frequent visit supplies its hunger; and thus accustomed from the first to still and lonely life, no marvel that it grows up a pensive quiet being, attached to its forest home, and led into the haunts of busy man only by the pressure of artificial wants-the longing for indulgences that tend to utter destruction.

In their religious observances, the Indians who came under my notice were all papists: their priests were of their own race, but how far they carried the observance of their idolatrous rites I know not, because I did not inquire; nor did I then rightly comprehend the distinction between Popery and Christianity. I know that on a fine Sabbath evening many of the colonists used to visit their camp, on a neighbouring mountain, to hear the melody of their fine voices, engaged in vesper hymns; and I know that the rosary and crucifix formed a very general appendage to the dress of a squaw. Beyond this, I can say nothing: I can but envy those who, being still on the spot, and themselves enjoying the clear light of the gospel-the truth as it is in Jesus-may freely commune with these interesting people, and invite them also to lay hold on the same hope that forms the anchor of their souls. The colonists of Nova Scotia owe a deep, a solemn debt to the aborigines: and in proportion to the value which they are enabled to set on the blessings of salvation,

will be their anxiety to liquidate that long-standing debt of spiritual instruction. It was not England who introduced Popery here; she acted with stern decision in uprooting the evil from among the European settlers, by exiling those whose subservience to the Romish see was, as it ever must be, the pledge of disloyalty to a Protestant government; and whom they might expect to find dangerous as subjects and as neighbours. But the poor, diminished, despised Indians, driven into the woods, and destitute of means to become formidable, were no objects of dread, therefore no concern was felt for their state of bondage, nor a single effort made to win them into a participation of the privileges so richly prized by the Protestant colonists. I may be mistaken in asserting that no such effort has yet been made, but I am not aware that the plan so abundantly blessed in Ireland has been yet tried in Nova Scotia; that individuals brought to receive the light of the gospel have been sent back to their native brethren with the message of peace, and the word of life rendered acceptable by being breathed in their own accents, presented by a kindred hand. Sure I am that such an enterprize, on which side soever of the Atlantic it might originate, would produce glorious results; for, even putting out of sight the well-grounded supposition that these aborigines are of the race whom God will yet set his hand to gather from all countries whithersoever he has driven them, still it is a duty which no sophistry can evade, to impart these blessings to the people whose country we occupy, whose fathers we dispossessed, and over whom we hold unresisted sway. Endeavours have been made to settle and to educate the Indian race: they are resisted be

cause the motive that prompts them is suspected to be a self-interested one. They believe we want them to clear and till the land, to establish fisheries, and fertilize a spot from which they would afterwards be driven, that the fruit of their labours might be gathered by other and stronger hands. Let them first be won to regard us as disinterestedly caring for their souls, and they will no longer mistrust us in matters of inferior moment. Let justice be done to this forgotten, neglected class of our fellow-subjects, and the favour of God will be manifested to the promoters of such a work, by the return of a blessing many times multiplied into their own bosoms, their homes, their churches, and their whole province. I have yet to speak of many things concerning the settlers of Nova Scotia, but this paramount claim of the poor scattered Indian remnant on them must not be overlooked, while we consider their claim on us. It is through the righteous retribution of God that sins of omission, no less than of commission, find out the delinquents, perhaps unconscious that as such they appear in the eye of the Lord. This is peculiarly a time to search and try our ways, to confess, like the saints of old, our iniquity, and that of our fathers too: and with full purpose of heart to return unto Him who will never allow us to plead, in the evasive language of the first fratricide," Am I my brother's keeper?"

C. E.

THE TESTIMONY OF PAGANISM TO THE TRUTH OF REVELATION.

No. II.

THE EXISTENCE AND CREATIVE POWER OF GOD.

THERE has not been wanting, in all ages, a class of men gifted with talents of various amount, some of them indeed belonging to the higher orders of genius, who have been so far infatuated by their mental superiority, or rather by the pride of their own hearts, as to turn the gifts against the Giver, and deny the very being of a God.

But these open atheists have generally been regarded with horror by the more decent part of mankind; and of late years they have given way to another class, more respectable in its appearance, and far more comprehensive in its divisions. We find in it a vast variety of character and opinion, from the professed scoffer and profligate, the disciple of Voltaire or Tom Paine, up to the learned, moral, and grave philosopher, who, while he allows the bible to be a very good code of morals, quietly sets it aside in all matters of history or science, as a book written to please the vulgar, or to suit the erroneous notions of antiquity.

This latter person-be he the mere secular student