the most had no personal knowledge of any country beyond Yakobu, Mandara, Kanikè, and the Desert. But the Moors and Arabs, who had been everywhere, had told them wonderful stories of still other countries and tribes far off in the east. Somewhere on the other side of Yakobu is a tribe of people called Alkalere, none of whom are more than three feet in height. The chiefs are a little taller than the common people. The Alakere are very ingenious people, especially in working iron, and they are so industrious that their towns are surrounded by iron walls. Beyond these are a tribe called Alabiru who have inflexible tails about six inches in length. As the stiffness of their tails prevents the Alabiru from sitting flat on the ground, every man carries a sharp pointed stick with which he drills a hole in the earth to receive his tail while sitting. They are industrious manufacturers of iron bars which they sell to surrounding tribes. All the fine swords in Sudan are made of this iron. The next tribe in order are the Alabiwoe, who have a small goat-like horn projecting from the middle of their forehead. For all that, they are a nice kind of black people and quite intelligent. A woman of this tribe is now in slavery at Offa, near Ilorrin. She always wears a handkerchief around her head because she is ashamed of her horn. There are other people in this "Doko" region who have four eyes, and others who live entirely in subterranean galleries. These wonders were attested by natives and Arabs. If the German surgeon in the French service in Africa,' had heard all this he would doubtless have reported that he had found men at Ilorrin with two extra vertebræ instead of one. But the most singular lusus naturæ of which I have yet heard was the French savan,' who fell among the Arabs and heard such vivid descriptions of tailed men, that he went home and reported that he had actually seen one. No savan, as yet, I believe, has published a scientific description of the roc's egg. After all, if there are white men in France with long ears like asses, why should there not be negroes in Africa with short tails like baboons ?"

The other extract likewise we make for the entertainment of our friends who repudiate the Scripture doctrine of the unity of the races. It may serve to show them how facts contradict their theory that mulattoes are the hybrid offspring of different species of men, by contradicting their allegation that mulattoes are infertile for the most part and necessarily an inferior and perishing race:

"Many of the Pulohs, and of some other interior tribes, and a few of the Yorubas, Iboes, Nufés, Hausas, Kanikés, Mandingoes and Kroo men, are mulattoes, the descendants of typical negroes and white men. This is proved by several facts. 1. Their colour varies from dark to very bright. Some of the Pulohs cannot have more than one eighth of negro blood, if we judge by their colour. 2. Their hair, though woolly, is long and bushy like that of other mulattoes. I have seen one woman, nearly black, with soft silky hair. Some have a sandy tint of beard and hair as if their ancestors were red-headed. I have seen one with bright blue eyes. Lander saw one on the Niger. 3. Their features, noses, lips, skull, etc., are cast more or less in the European mould. Their hands and feet are frequently small and elegantly formed. 4. The language of the Pulohs of which I have collected about three hundred phrases, containing one thousand words or more,

is not African or Shemitic. 5. The Pulohs affirm that their ancestors were white. 6. And finally, we have evidence worthy of more or less confidence, that the white and negro races have repeatedly come in contact under circumstances which must have resulted in amalgamation." * * *

"Here we may step aside to make two remarks. First, that the burning sun and dry air of the desert have not changed the color or the feaures of the whites who have been there for three or four thousand years. Their children are still as white as any in the world. Secondly, the mulatto Pulohs must have been mulattoes many centuries ago, and they have intermarried among themselves, hybrids with hybrids,' all the time;" otherwise many of them could not still remain as bright coloured as quadroons or even brighter. But the Pulohs are physically and mentally a fine race. They show no symptoms of dying out."

On several important points our opinions do not coincide with Mr Bowen's. In the first sentence of chapter xxv., on the religion of Africa, his statement seems to us too strong, that no man has ever believed in two gods.' That the "practical idolatry" which Mr. B. admits to be "no less natural to man than a belief in one God," may (as in the case frequently of the Jews of old, and generally of the modern Roman Catholics) consist with the acknowledgment of one God, we are perfectly well aware. But we cannot easily relinquish the belief that amongst many races of men the practical idolatry has so far overgrown the knowledge of the ONE GOD as to constitute the people in the strictest sense polytheists. Mr. B. says, they all "look beyond the idol to THE GOD." We think they all put the idol between them and THE GOD, so that they never can look beyond the idol at all. Paul, in Romans, seems to signify that the Heathens once knew God, but not glorifying Him as such, were, in God's righteous judgment, given up to delusions, and so have become vain in their imaginations, and have their foolish heart darkened; so that now instead of the truth of God they hold a lie. We quote Paul against Mr. Bowen, because the latter having been a Missionary, may feel that he can speak with authority on this aubject to us who know it not by actual observation like himself, but only by theory and report. Now Paul was also a Missionary, and knew the Heathen personally. And Paul says, "There be Gods many, but to us there is but one God." "We know that an idol is nothing in the world, how beit there is not in every man that knowledge."

So too, he says,

Paul

speaks also on this wise, "But I say that the things which the gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to devils, and not to God." Mr. B. says they look through the idol and beyond the idol to God, but the apostle says they regard only the devils in their worship. Finally, Paul declares that the worship of devils cannot be tributary to, or be mixed with the worship of God. "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils, ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils."

"Polytheism (says Mr. B.) has no existence in Sudan nor yet in Guinea In Yoruba many of the notions which the people entertain of God are remarkably correct." Mr. B. has informed us that Mohammedanism has been long established, and is very widely spread in all that portion of the African continent. We would suggest that this may perhaps, account for the general correctness of opinions respecting God which Mr. B. found even amongst the pagan portion of the population. It would be very strange if a strong Mohammedanism should peacefully co-exist in the same country with a vigorous Polytheism.

:

Another statement of Mr. B. to which we must except is, that "Belief in one God is the result of reason," p. 311. But we will not stop to give reasons for the exception taken. This sentiment, however, accords with and serves to explain Mr. B's. opinions, more fully expressed on another topic, viz. the necessity of civilization and commerce to the Missionary work. We are not sure that we have a perfectly correct apprehension of the author's ideas on this subject. We understand him to admit that the greatest savage may be converted to Christ, and here we are heartily at one with him. But, we understand him to deny that a savage people converted truly to Christianity, could remain permanently or long, a Christian people, unless with the Gospel we also give them civilization. He says, in the preface, "We do not believe that natural causes can sanctify the heart, although we hold that civilization is essential to the permanence of the gospel among any people." On page 322, he says, "Suppose now, that all the people of Africa were converted to-day and left to-morrow to perpetuate their Christianity without foreign assistance. In a few generations they would sink to a level with the Christians of Abyssinia, as unconverted, as superstitious, and as vicious as the very heathens themselves." On page 326, we read, “Evangelization is our first great object, because the soul is more than the body; but evangelization involves civilization, both as cause and effect, because the body, the intellect, and the affections of man are inseparably united, so as to act and react upon each other, both for good and evil.” On pages 322 and 323, he says, "To diffuse a good degree of mental culture among the people, though a secondary object, is really and necessarily one part of the missionary work in Africa; and he that expects to evangelize the country without civilization will find like Xavier in the East, and the Jesuits in South America, and the Priests in Congo, that his labours will end in disappointment." And on page 327, "What then shall Christians of this favoured age attempt to do for Africa? The same that we are now attempting. Give the people Missionaries, give them Bibles, give them the

power to perpetuate the gospel amongst them,-or in one word, civilization." Now, if Mr. B. means to say, that the written or printed word of God, and the knowledge requisite to its being read by a considerable number of the people in any nation converted suddenly to God, is essential to the permanence of Christianity among them, we entirely agree with him. If, going further, he means to say, that besides the word, it is also essential that such a people have the ministry, and the church, and the sacraments, as else their Christianity will soon die out, we also agree with him heartily. But if going still further and insisting as we understand him to do, that such an establishment of Christ's Church as we have supposed above, must, necessarily, prove transient unless "foreign assistance," in the way of the arts and sciences and social improvements, be given to this church of Jesus Christ, we think he commits a serious error. We think, he impugns the power and wisdom of God, which is Christ crucified. We think, he reduces the efficiency of God's spirit below the feeble strength of men. The church, and the ministry, and the written Word, is all we need as Christ's disciples, to send to the Heathen. This is all He commanded us to carry to them. This is all His apostles carried any where with them. This carried to a people, their civilization will begin at orce to be developed out of these elements. Taught their duty to God, and to each other, and to themselves they are civilized, even without the trappings of European or American society.

Holding this idea of reason as the teacher of man in the belief of one God, and holding this estimate of the place of civilization amongst the means of permanently converting the nations, we do not wonder to find that Mr. B. has high hopes of the conversion of the natives around Liberia, by the influence of that colony. All colonizationists, it seems to us, ought to agree with Mr. B. in his idea of civilization as a means of converting men, or at least keeping them converted. Mr. B's. testimony however, confirms what we have stated in another article of this number as to the relations of the colonists and natives:

"But the Liberians cannot be justified generally in regard to the manner in which they treat the natives. Making all due allowance for social and other differences, they regard their barbarous neighbors with too much. contempt. Neither do they exert themselves as they might, to improve them in civilization and religion. It is true, that the churches and schools are open to the natives, if they choose to enter them; but the naked and ignorant barbarians do not choose to thrust themselves in among the proud and well dressed Liberians, either to learn or worship. I am glad that some are now making more special efforts to improve the natives, and I have no doubt that persevering, well directed efforts will be successful."

The feelings of contempt and aversion with which the Liberians generally seem to regard the natives, are precisely what we ought to expect in a colony coming from a distant country, speaking another language, and having different ideas on many points from those which the native Africans hold, and a colony moreover, consisting largely of unconverted men. And so we ought to expect that these feelings will be met with corresponding feelings on the part of the natives. Accordingly, we are not at all surprised to read, in the papers, of the war now actually going on between the colony and the natives, a war which has broken out anew since we wrote the article on Missions and Colonization. These things must inevitably be, and increase. All the power and all the wisdom of men cannot hinder contineal collisions more and more serious and destructive between these two peoples, now on the African coast. And the result must be, if all history deceive us not, either the subjugation of the natives by the colony, or the destruction of the colony by the natives.

In like manner, we are not at all surprised by the estimate Mr. B. puts on commerce with Christian nations as an element in the work of Missions to Africa. But we cannot and we need not enlarge on this point.

Westward Empire: or the Great Drama of Human Progress. By E. L. MAGOON, author of Proverbs for the People, Republican Christianity, Orators of the American Revolution, Living Orators of America, &c. 1856.—The design of this work is nothing less than to unfold the scheme of Providence in the successive evolutions of human history. The ages selected, as topics of special illustration, are those of Pericles, Augustus, Leo, and Washington, and each is reviewed under the inviting heads of Literature, Art, Science, Philosophy, and Religion. The author is full of hope in relation to his own country. All the past has existed for us,-" if we inquire as to the area and agency of the chief progression in the domain of human history, it will be found that Japhet has been the constant leader Europe the intermediate track, and America the manifest goal." "Let us fondly hope that, on the side of the globe opposite to the first Ararat, shall a second be reached by the ark of conservative civilization, whereon human reason and divine righteousness will repose in the sublimest earthly union, and thence send down a perfected race to propagate their virtues and redeem mankind." The author's plan is certainly a bold one, and to execute it well within the compass of a duodecimo volume, requires abilities which we