INTRODUCTION. 35 



and that the worship of one holy God Creator, Saviour, and 

 Sanctifier with all its rational consequences, all its beneficial 

 emanations, all its social applications, that is to say, that sublime 

 philosophy of the natural law, of which the grandest genius of 

 antiquity had but a glimpse has become, through the teaching of 

 the Gospel, a practical science for all indistinctively, the vulgate 

 of all nations, and diffusive as the atmosphere in which we breathe 

 and move. It is also certain that wherever Christianity has not 

 yet penetrated, the same frightful superstition and gross idolatry, 

 which in former ages overspread the entire world, are still pre- 

 vailing ; that countries once enlightened by the Christian doc- 

 trine, and which under its influence shone with all the brightness 

 of intellectual greatness and practical virtues have since, by re- 

 pudiating its dictates, sunk into the abjection of degeneracy, and 

 have remained in the darkness which ensued on their extinction 

 of the lamp of Christianity. Asia and Africa will supply many 

 examples of this ; indeed that activity of our moral, intellectual, 

 and social faculties ; that progressive development of high con- 

 ceptions, useful aims, and human fraternity, which constitute 

 civilisation, are the result of an attractive power in Christian in- 

 stitutions, springing up wherever the latter are planted and 

 fostered, disappearing or reappearing with them, retrograding or 

 progressing, according as they are more or less respected. 



During the time of slavery, no sort of religious instruction was 

 afforded to the slaves ; and the little they ever learned of Christi- 

 anity was derived from the prayers taught them by their masters, 

 or the sermons few and far between addressed to them, on 

 occasional sabbaths, by the ministers of religion : but even these 

 small crumbs fallen from the table of Christianity, have nourished 

 and improved the minds of the wild Africans to the extent we 

 have seen. And let me remark, that those who have received 

 more direct and constant lessons, have shown themselves by no 

 means unworthy of their high and holy privileges ; whilst, on the 

 other hand, those who have been deprived of those means of in- 

 struction have evidently been declining in the scale of morality, 

 civilisation, and comfort. Such being the case, ought not the 

 local authorities and the home government to encourage, by all 

 means, the diffusion of Christianity, and aid those who have the 

 peculiar charge of preaching evangelic morality and Scripture 

 truths ? Not only will they thus indirectly lead the people to be 

 peaceable, but they will also, by teaching them their duties, con- 

 tribute to form of not inapt materials useful members of so- 

 ciety, faithful subjects of the crown, industrious and saving com- 

 munities. Now, the question is, how can the Government co- 

 operate in the diffusion of Christianity, and aid its ministers 

 therein ? Simply by being impartial, and by " rendering to 

 Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that 



c 2 



