are found,

Islands of the Ocean

Pacific

5000

38,000

"O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all the earth is full of thy riches."-Psal. civ. 24. A. G. JEWITT.

4000

Banff, May, 1821.

In the temperate regions of America, in both hemi

spheres..

In Equinoctial America.... 13,000

THE principal of the diamond works is at a place called Mandango, on the river Jigitonhonha, in the district of Serra de Frio. Formerly they were farmed out, but for many years the establishment has been entirely in the hands of Government. The produce was mostly sent to Holland, where the stones were cut and set; but of late they have found their way to the London market. The cascalbao which contains the diamond is nearly of the same composition as that in which the gold is found, but is generally met with under the beds of rivers. Caissons are constructed, and chain pumps worked, by a waterwheel, made use of to draw off the water, in order to facilitate the digging for the cascalhao, which is brought together in a large heap; over which a shade is built. Here it is washed in long troughs, through which a stream of water is made to pass. On the heap of cascalhao, at equal distances, are placed three high chairs (without backs) for the officers or overseers. After they are seated, the negroes enter the troughs, each provided with a rake of a peculiar form and short handle, with which he rakes in the trough about fifty or sixty pounds weight of cascalhao. When a negro finds a diamond, he immediately stands upright and clasps his hands, and then extends them, holding the gem between

• In no part of Brazil does the gold ap

pear to have been discovered in veins. For the most part it is found in a stratum composed at roundish pebbles and gravel, bound together by oxide of iron, and known to the natives by the name of cascalhao.

his fore-finger and thumb; an overseer receives it from him, and deposits it in a gamella or bowl, suspended from the centre of the structure, half full of water. In this vessel all the diamonds found in the course of the day are placed, and at the close of the work are taken out and delivered to the principal officer, who, after they have been weighed, registers the particulars in a book kept for that purpose. When a negro is so fortunate as to find a diamond of the weight of an octavo, (174 carats,) much ceremony takes place; he is crowned with a wreath of flowers, and carried in procession to the administrator, who gives him his free dom by paying his owner for it. He also receives a present of new clothes, and is permitted to work on his own account. When a stone of eight or ten carats is found, the negro receives two new shirts, a complete new suit, with a hat and a handsome knife. For smaller stones of trivial amount proportionate premiums are given, During the author's stay at Tejuco a stone of 16 carats was found; it was pleasing to see the anxious desire manifested by the officers that it might prove heavy enough to entitle the poor negro to his freedom; and when, on being delivered and weighed, it proved only a carat short of the requisite weight, all seemed to sympathize in his disof diamonds, annually obtained, may appointment. The average quantity be estimated at from 20,000 to 25,000 carats, which are sent under a military escort to Rio de Janeiro. They

are mostly small; very few reach 20 carats. One stone, however, was found a few years ago in the bed of a rivulet, by three banished criminals, which weighed nearly an ounce. It is now in the possession

of the Prince Regent of Portugal; whose collection is stated to be unequalled in number, size, and quality, and to be worth, at the lowest estimation, three millions sterling.

THE famous convent of Capuchins, about a mile without the city of Palermo, contains nothing very remarkable, but the burying-place, which, indeed, is a great curiosity. This is a vast subterraneous apartment, divided into large commodious galleries, the walls on each side of which are hollowed into a variety of niches, as if intended for a great collection of statues. These niches, instead of statues, are filled with dead bodies, set upright on their legs, and fixed by the back to the inside of the niche. Their number is about three hundred. They are all dressed in the clothes they usually wore, and form a most respectable and venerable assembly. The skin and muscles, by a certain preparation, become as dry and hard as a piece of stock-fish; and although many of them have been here upwards of two hundred and fifty years, yet none are reduced to skeletons. The muscles, indeed, in some, appear to be a good deal more shrunk than in others, probably because these persons had been more extenuated at the time of their death. Here the people of Palermo pay daily visits to their deceased friends, and recall, with pleasure and regret, the scenes of their past life. Here they familiarize themselves with their future state, and choose the company they would wish to keep after their departure to another world. It is a common thing to make choice of their niche, and to try if their body fits it, that no alterations may be

necessary after they are dead; and sometimes, by way of a voluntary penance, they accustom themselves to stand for hours in these niches. The bodies of the princes and first nobility are lodged in handsome chests or trunks, some of them richly adorned. These are not in the shape of coffins, but all of one width, and about a foot and a half or two feet deep. The keys are kept by the nearest relations of the family, who sometimes come and drop a tear over their departed friends. These visits must prove admirable lessons of humility; and I assure you, they are not such objects of terror as you may imagine. They are said, even for ages after death, to retain a strong likeness to what they were when alive; so that as soon as you have conquered the first feeling excited by these venerable figures, you only consider this as a vast gallery of original portraits, drawn after the life by the justest and most unprejudiced hand. It must be owned, that the colours are rather faded, and the pencil does not appear to have been the most flattering in the world. But no matter, it is the pencil of truth, and not of a mercenary who only wants to please. We were alleging, too, that they might be made of very considerable use to society, and that these dumb orators could give the most pathetic lectures upon pride and vanity. Some of the Capuchins sleep in these galleries every night.

Part of this volume relates more immediately to Scotland, part to the church of which DR. CHALMERS is so distinguished a Minister, but much more to the nation at large, and to all who by profession, or the impulses of religious charity and zeal, are engaged in promoting its "instruction in righteousness," the elevation of its morals, and the advancement of its happiness.

In bringing this work before our readers, we shall first consider what the author offers in explanation of its main design, leaving some of the subjects into which he has made very instructive digressions, for subsequent notice.

No man can be a true believer in Christianity, who does not admit its complete moral efficacy to accomplish the purposes of its Author,-to dissipate the most accumulated ignorance, -to put to shame the boldest vices, -to correct the most corrupt state of society, to wrestle with and subdue the most inveterate aberrations of the human heart from truth, justice, and holiness.

If, in countries where it has long existed, these mighty effects have been but partially developed, and a great part of society is seen wandering through the paths of various evil, as though quite out of the sphere of its influence, and is, in consequence, sunk into a misery almost as extreme, as though the divine benevolence had made no provision for the fallen condition of man, it becomes a subject of natural inquiry, whether that remedy, in which most confidence has been placed, has in point of fact the efficacy usually ascribed to it;

There are too many instances of entire cure, in individuals at least, to allow us to assume the first: as to the second, an adulterated medicine does exist; but the genuine one is not lost, as appears from many sufficiently attested cases of relief or cure; and if moral disease still rages, and, in certain districts, spreads its most concentrated contagion, and displays its most affecting desolations, the fair inference is, that such districts have been too much neglected by those in whose hands this powerful panacea has been deposited. The great questions, therefore, before the christian philanthropist, relate to the opportunities which may exist for a more extensive application of it, and to that process which promises the most successful results. Both these questions find ample answers in the work before us. This powerful writer, who lately conducted the sublime march of his readers amidst the rolling planets, and the gorgeous plains of the widespread firmament, in search of the magnificence of Deity, now leads us through the crowded alleys and streets of overgrown towns and cities, in search of the miseries of men. Nor is the moral he would impress upon us less powerful; he displays their squalid wretchedness, and their affecting alienation from good, that he may appeal to the charity of our hearts, remind us that we have the infallible remedy in our hands, and urge us, by every motive of christian obligation, to apply it in those methods which practical wisdom has pointed out as the most effectual.

In the contemplation of a large town, facts present themselves, from which, however painful, we must not turn aside; a state of things which, if neglected, will ultimately force itself upon us by its disastrous consequences, and convince us that to shut our eyes upon danger is not the way to avoid it, and that to pass by

*

on the other side," is not only want of charity but want of wisdom, Christianity is generally professed among us; yet her sabbaths are profaned, and her temples deserted, by the great mass of the population. Copies of the Book of GoD are multiplied; but thousands want the heart or the ability to consult it. Schools are multiplied; yet we are horrorstruck at the reports made from time to time of juvenile depravity. A greater number of agencies have been of late years set at work, to counteract vice; yet our calendars show an increase of crime. Immense sums are expended in private and public charities; yet the forms of misery multiply around us. That great legal charity, the poor-rates, has extorted its ample taxation for the relief of the necessitous, the aged, and the sick; but a spirit of pauperism has grown up with the facilities of obtaining relief, until it has created constant and agitating contests between the efficient administrator of the bounty, and the sturdy and demanding claimant. Large wages have at different times, and often for long periods, been earned by the poor; but too generally they have made no provision for temporary reverses: and a pressure on commerce, for a few years, has at once spread misery and murmuring through the working classes, disposed them to riot and rebellion, and rendered them a prey to every designing demagogue who could mislead their ignorance, or had the address to practise upon their passions. Feelings of enmity to the higher classes have been generated; airy schemes of government, holding out false hopes, have become the subjects of popular discussion and attachment; and with all this, infidelity has insinuated itself, and destroyed what remained of moral principle, in those who caught the contamination.Regard for character has been sunk in proportion; the ambition of cleanliness, comfort, and appearance, among many of the poor, has been annihilated; with these spurs to industry and economy, has passed away a prudent regard to the future; and inconsiderate marriages, and a profligate expenditure of money

when in possession, have been the results.

In Scotland, perhaps, such a picture may be the representation only of the larger and manufacturing towns. In England, we see, it is true, in such places, the evil in its more concentrated virulence, and amplified more fully into all the foregoing particulars; but we cannot generally except even our villages and smaller towns. Ignorance, irreligion, the profanation of the sabbath, neglect of worship, crimes, the spirit of pauperism, improvidence, profligacy, disregard to character, and other moral evils, exist in full proportion in them; though political evil may not be so manifest, and from various circumstances has not been so fully introduced, and especially in those parts of the country whose inhabitants are occupied in agriculture.

What is the cause of this state of things? Religious fanaticism, say some; the diffusion of education, say others. The point, however, is touched by neither. It is singular that what is generally meant by fanaticism, by those who talk most vehemently about it, is that very theological system, which they themselves profess to reverence in their own religious formularies, fully drawn out, and earnestly impressed upon others; and yet, if the fanaticism charged were as objectionable in reality as in their opinions, it would be little culpable, as to the point now under consideration. For the evils complained of are not found, or not exclusively found, among reported fanatics; but, at least with us in England, chiefly among a class of persons who have no ideas at all on religious subjects, because they have never occupied their thoughts.

When those evils are charged upon education, that education is usually meant which is communicated to the poor, by the efforts of the more zealous members of the Establishment, by the Methodists, and by the several bodies of Dissenters, in Sunday Schools. Now we are far from supposing, that all the good has been produced by these institutions of which they are capable, or that all who have received instruction in them have escaped the evils before

G

mentioned, as actually existing among us. But it is indubitable, that the increase of juvenile crime and depravity, for instance, has been among those chiefly who have had no such care bestowed upon them; and that the great mass of those adults, whose vices and whose wretchedness blot and shame our cities, towns, and villages, are unaccustomed to the public worship of GOD, unacquainted with the Scriptures, and equally ignorant and neglected.

So little conviction will be carried to the mind of any considerate person, by the allegation of fanaticism and education as the causes of a state of society, in our large towns especially, which all lament, that the investigation may be considered as still fairly open and it would be well, if instead of indulging in the railings of religious bitterness on any side, the subject were weighed with the most dispassionate seriousness, and that all religious bodies, particularly, should become willing to promote each other's agency, wherever it appears effectually to exert itself against vice and misery, as a matter of common interest and concern to all. The great reason of the evils complained of, is the non-application of Christianity, on a scale sufficiently extensive, to our national ignorance and vices, and to that wretchedness which is consequent upon them, and therefore capable of being greatly assuaged, or entirely removed.

On this subject it ought to be remembered, that Christianity is not always applied, even when there is the outward show of its apparatus and operation. The work of evangelizing the world was laid upon the Ministers of CHRIST by their Master, at his ascension; and with them the great power of moving the moral mass still rests, by the doctrines they teach, and by the institution of religious societies, whose exertions they are to head, direct, and encourage. But if any great portion of them have taught a defective, and therefore an enfeebled, and almost powerless system of religion, we can account, without much difficulty, for ignorance being left to darken, and vice to radicate and ramify. If also

it should be found, that, where this evil does not exist, (one of the greatest which can befall a country professing Christianity,) even enlightened and zealous Ministers have been prevented by their own fears, or the prejudices of their order, from encouraging the efforts of pious agents, in offices subordinate to those which are peculiar to the christian priesthood;-in teaching the uninstructed the elements of religious knowledge, and advising them on their best interests; in praying in the cottages of the poor, and by the beds of the sick; and in conducting schools, whose main object should be moral correction, and the diffusion of religious influence ;—we are brought by this neglect, or by the operation of these fears, to precisely the same conclusion. Christianity, even when it exists in the understanding and heart of the Minister, is non-applied, because his work has swelled beyond his personal ability, and he has not supplied the want by subordinate agents.

It will be sufficiently in time to discuss the question, as to the efficiency of Christianity to moralize and to save, when it has been actually brought to bear upon collective society. It is not enough to say, that the kingdom is divided into parishes, and that a Minister of religion is appointed to each; with a vast array of preachers of other denominations. The fact remains, the majority have not been taught religion at all; and of those who have been taught it, many have been defectively or erroneously taught. For if they have been led to depend upon the efficacy of sacraments, and the merit of mere ceremonial observances; and if christian morals have been enjoined upon them separate from those christian motives, which alone can give vitality and power to doctrine, by seizing the conscience and the affections, by raising a devotional spirit, and connecting the weakness of man with a mighty and redeeming working of the power of GOD in his heart, drying up there the fountain of corruption, and breaking open the source of a pure and living stream;-the religion of CHRIST, as it is contained in the New Testament, has not been developed to the