in civilization. You have yourself made the acquaintance of men who were formerly slaves, and who are now in independent circumstances, and enjoying a large share of public respect. . . . It is impossible to compare the present statistics of crime with those during slavery, when the great bulk of our ordinary offenses, petty thefts and assaults, were summarily punished by the managers and overseers of estates. You have had an opportunity of satisfying yourself that the offenses in this island are not of an aggravated character. That there is much greater security for person and property now than there was during slavery does not admit of a doubt."

Similar testimony might have been given at much greater length, but sufficient has been adduced to show the fallacy of those assumptions which have been so confidently advanced as to the failure of emancipation, and the ruin which it is alleged to have brought both upon the proprietors and the peasantry of the West Indies. These assumptions are made in ignorance of the financial history of the colonies prior to the abolition of slavery, and the embarrassed and ruined condition into which they had sunk when the change took place; and also of their actual state since emancipation and at the present time. If insolvent planters, ruined by slavery and their own reckless extravagance, have failed to carry on an expensive sugar or coffee cultivation, without the necessary capital to pay the wages of their laborers, and have consequently been compelled to relinquish their estates to mortgagees, or throw them out of cultivation altogether; if others have not succeeded in the attempt to make free men work without wages, and have injured their own or their employer's interests by driving the laborers from the plantations; and if the British government by suddenly destroying the monopoly of the British markets, which, through the whole history of slavery, the West India colonist enjoyed, and thus threw them into a competition with other producers which they were ill-prepared to enter upon, and which consummated with many the ruin which had been in progress for more than half a century; none of these things can with truth be classed among the results of emancipation. They have retarded the success of the great experiment, but have not prevented it. The triumphant results which it has already wrought out in many of the colonies, notwithstanding these several hinderances, and which it is now working out in all the others, prove that it is always both wise and safe to do what is just and right, and leave the consequences of such well-doing to the great and wise Disposer of all events. Most completely have the predictions of alarmists been falsified. It would be difficult to conceive a wider contrast between the condition of things as the planters imagined they would be (the idleness, riot, and debauchery, the ruin and desolation they anticipated as sure to follow the emancipation of the slaves) and those pictures of rural industry and

social comfort, improving agriculture and growing opulence, awaking intelligence and moral progress, which are exhibited in the extracts we have furnished. Slavery was the destroyer, emancipation is the restorer. The one tended always, through its history, to impoverishment and ruin; the other has awakened industry and confidence, and laid the foundation of prosperity and wealth.

None but dreaming enthusiasts could have expected that emancipation would at once restore the wasted substance of the planters, or suddenly, as if by miracle, advance the down-trodden negroes, debased and embruted by years of slavery, and excluded from mental and moral culture, to a high degree of civilization, intelligence, and virtue, such as can be found only among those who have enjoyed through life the advantages of education and civil and religious liberty. All that could be reasonably hoped for has been realized. The nation has been freed from the shame and guilt of sanctioning and perpetuating what the conscience of the people felt to be a monstrous system of oppression and crime, which reflected the darkest dishonor upon a Christian people and government. The dread of insurrection and servile war which, day and night, continually haunted the colonists while slavery existed, has given place to a sense of perfect security; so that instead of a considerable military force, supported by a formidable and expensive militia embodiment, to keep slaves in awe, a few native police, appointed chiefly from among the peasantry themselves, are found sufficient for the maintenance of peace and good order. A more profitable market has been opened for the employment of British shipping, and the consumption of British manufactures; while hordes of wretched, discontented slaves, robbed of all the rights of humanity, ground to the dust by oppression and cruelty, and rapidly wasting to depopulation, have been transformed into a satisfied, industrious, and improving peasantry, rapidly increasing in numbers, and grateful for the advantages which the philanthropy and the religion of the nation have conferred upon them.

If due attention had been given to the instruction of the juvenile portion of the emancipated people in the several colonies immediately after the abolition of slavery, there might have been even a better state of things than now exist. But none of the local governments, except that of British Guiana, have taken any effectual measures for establishing a general system of education. In all the other colonies this has yet to be done, and it may yet be a work of considerable time, as some of the influential men in the local parliaments have yet to be awakened to a sense of its importance, and are more afraid of the effects of education than of ignorance. It reflects

credit upon the colored class that, in the face of the manifold disadvantages under which they have labored, they exhibit unmistakable proofs of intellectual and moral progress. In two of the islands, where a system of responsible government similar to that of Canada has been adopted, its chief administration has been intrusted to colored men; while, in another, one of the same class has filled the highest office known in the colony, that of lieutenant governor. Several members of the privy council in Jamaica, and also of the legislative council, are Creoles of African descent, and one of pure African blood; while on the judicial bench and at the bar, in the halls of legislation, among the magistracy of the islands, in the pulpit and the medical faculty, among the most enterprising merchants, and wealthy planters and proprietors, they are to be found, exhibiting equal intelligence and ability with competitors of fairer hue, and practically refuting the pitiful and senseless slander which would brand the colored man as an inferior type of humanity, and exclude him from the common brotherhood of the human race.

ART. III.-LAY REPRESENTATION.

THE Methodist Episcopal Church is again excited to some extent by the discussion of this subject. Another effort is in progress to effect a change by which laymen shall be admitted to a participation in its sovereignty and to seats in all its councils. About thirty-one years since an agitation, which had been kept up for seven or eight years, resulted in a secession, and the formation of the Methodist Protestant Church. That Church is an exemplification of the tendencies of the measures now contended for. If lay delegates are to act equally with the ministry upon all questions which concern the latter, as has been suggested by an eminent writer, they must go, not only into the general and annual conferences, but also into the councils by which the appointments are made. This will soon result in a dismissal of our episcopacy and presiding eldership, and the Methodist Protestant organization will be reproduced. Has the success of that Church been such as to warrant the adoption of its polity by the Methodist Episcopal Church? At its organization it claimed for its distinguishing principles the approval of "the people" of Methodism. It took away at once many thousands of our members, including some of the most wealthy, with a considerable number of our ministers, including some of the most eloquent and popular. It appropriated to itself some of our

best church edifices. And yet it numbers at this time only seventy thousand. Since its origin the increase of our Church, which was thought to be so much in need of reform, including the north and the south, amounts to one million one hundred and seventy-three thousand and fifty-seven, in addition to repairing the losses caused by the secession. Indeed, the prosperity of the Methodist Episcopal Church, judging it by comparison with that of the other Churches of the land, has been truly extraordinary. We do not refer to it for the purpose of boasting, but for the purpose of argument; we are compelled to do so. The attention of the reader is invited to a single statement upon this point. The ministers of the English national establishment, from which the Protestant Episcopal Church has sprung, were in this country as early as the year 1607; the Lutherans were here in 1630; the Baptists and Presbyterians in 1636; the first Methodists landed on the shores of this western world in 1760. So that the age of Protestant Episcopalianism in this country is two hundred and fifty-three years; that of Lutheranism two hundred and thirty years; that of the Baptists two hundred and twentyfour; that of Presbyterianism about the same; that of Methodism one hundred years. The Protestant Episcopal Church has one hundred and thirty-five thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven communicants; the Lutheran one hundred and forty-six thousand and sixty-two; the Baptist denomination nine hundred and ninety-two thousand eight hundred and fifty-one; the Presbyterians, including both the Old and the New School organizations, four hundred and seventeen thousand six hundred and twenty; the Methodist Episcopal, including north and south, one million six hundred and seventy-three thousand and fifty-seven-lacking only nineteen thousand two hundred and forty-three of having as many communicants as those four leading denominations put together.

In order to estimate justly our comparative success, we must take into the account the advantages additional to antecedence with which three of those denominations were favored. The English Episcopalians were established by law in some of the colonies, and their successors, composing the Protestant Episcopal Church, are as a Church in possession of immense wealth, the result of grants made by the British crown in colonial times.. The Presbyterians were backed by the Churches of that denomination in England; by the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which was, and is now, established by law; and by the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, which was, and is now, in receipt of bounty from the British crown. The Lutherans were reinforced by men and means from the continent of Europe, where, in several countries, they were established by law. They FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XII.-15

formed settlements in this country. In 1700 three thousand of them came from the Palatinate and settled in New York. Whereas the Methodists, at the time of their appearance in this country, were poor and persecuted, and few in number, both here and in Europe. It might be supposed that such wonderful success would be sufficient to secure us against a restless desire for change, but it is not. There are several ways in which occasional discontent may be accounted for. In the first place, we are constantly assailed by our brethren of other denominations. Finding that they cannot, with advantage to themselves, controvert our doctrines, they fall upon our economy. This is done not only in their publications but in personal intercourse. Many of our members, and some of our ministers, become perplexed. This is allowed to go on for years without any earnest effort upon our part to defend our system, or to enlighten our people generally as to the grounds upon which its peculiarities are justified. The result is that its difficulties-for the best system will have its difficulties-come to be very distinctly perceived and felt, and made the subject of conversation in Methodist circles; and many, who have not investigated its philosophy, or compared it intelligently with other systems, begin to think that it is very defective, and may very easily be improved. Secondly, in our rapid accumulation of members we receive many who, although they have been converted at our altars, believe our doctrines, and appreciate highly our means of spiritual improvement, bring with them a lingering preference for other systems of polity in connection with which they have been educated. This preference is easily excited in times of controversy.

So far from success preventing or allaying the desire for change, it is given, by some, as the chief reason for fundamental changes. We must reform because of our success. And, still more remarkable, we must reform, not to imitate those who have been more successful-we cannot find such-but those whose success bears no comparison with ours. We must conform to those much less successful, in order that we may be more successful. It is as if a farmer, having an important agricultural implement-a mowing or thrashing machine for instance-superior to those owned and used by his neighbors, accomplishing three times as much work with less effort and expense, should be urged to have it remodeled after the pattern of those so much inferior, for the purpose of improving it. We need scarcely suggest the probable fate of such a proposition. Whatever semblances of wisdom superior genius might detect in it, plain common sense would reject it without deliberation.

It is not the intention of our reformers to originate a new system