the Kingdom are ably fighting one battle; but the other will be fought under certain disadvantages, as most of the Reviews* are already in the power of the Oxford Schismatics? As all the Leaders came from Oriel, why should not the Schism be designated as the Oriel Heresy.

Let me therefore advise the orthodox Clergy (I allude to no distinction between High and Low Church), to give a series of Lectures from their Pulipts against these contagious doctrines, which are far more suited to the pride of the human heart than to the spirit of Christianity, but exceedingly calculated to warp those whose reading has been limited. Let me hope, that whilst vigour is shown in opposing the Roman Catholics, equal vigour will be shown in crushing TREASON IN THE CHURCH. MISO-TRADITOR.

Poetry.

THE SWALLOWS.

An American poet, named SPRAGUE, of whose history we know nothing, is the author of the following exquisite poem, suggested by the incident of two swallows having entered a Church during Divine Service. It is a production of great feeling and happy thought. See Pl. lxxxiv. 3. The Arabian Poch Nabegi, has some magnificent verses on the same subject.—ED.

*From this charge The Church of England Quarterly Review must be excepted;

so must Fraser's Magazine.

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[The Editor having been informed that some parties who have sent works for review to the office of The Churchman, and The Church of England Quarterly Review, under the idea that the publications were common to both periodicals, have been dissatisfied that they have not been noticed in The Churchman, takes this opportunity of stating that the two Reviews are distinct from each other, and that those books only which are expressly and under name sent to each, will reach the respective Editors.]

A Narrative of the Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, with Remarks upon the Natural History of the Islands, Origin, Languages, Traditions, and Usages of the Inhabitants. By John Williams, of the London Missionary Society. With Engravings on Wood, by G. Baxter. London: Snow. 1838. Or late years our most interesting information has been derived from the labours and researches of the Missionaries, who, whilst they have devoted themselves to their holy cause, have directed their attention to the antiquities, history, peculiarities, and superstitions of the countries which they have visited, and have furnished Europe with a brilliant light of literature. From the Tahitian and Society Islands, the gospel has been conveyed to the Sandwich group, having a population of 150,000 souls, The Austral islands, the Paumotu, the Gambier, the Marquesan, the Hervey, the Navigators, and the Friendly Islands collectively, having a population little short of 300,000 persons, who have renounced idolatry, and embraced Christianity.

The Hervey Islands are seven in number: to give an idea of the Islands generally, Mr. Williams has divided them into three classes; the first of which is mountainous. With very few exceptions those of this class are splendid; immense mountains rising from their base, till their summits are lost in the clouds, and often broken into a thousand fantastic shapes, their sides crowned with bright verdure of varied shades: at the base, fertile valleys, where the bread-fruit tree, the banana, the Brazilian plum and other tropical productions, some of gigantic growth and richest foliage, the plumes of the majestic cocoa-nut tree overtopping the whole, intermingle their quanta with the magnificence of the scenery, arrest the eye, and occupy the mind with wonder and intense admiration of the Creator's diversified power. Here may be seen a precipitous rock, rearing itself in solemn grandeur, and frowning like the mouldering battlements of a castle over the subjacent parts: and there the boundless ocean stretching out its continuous waves, until it seems to embrace the heavens in the distance. In all these islands are traces of volcanic eruptions. Those of the second class are rather hilly than mountainous, equally beautiful and luxuriant as the first, but less sublime in character. The volcanic phenomena also are less abundant and extensive, Those of the third class are the low coralline islands, which are generally small, and in most cases rise but a few feet above the sea. The soil of these is frequently so very thin, that but little vegetation is procured upon it: but Tongatabu, and the Friendly Islands in general, offer exceptions, as the soil being much deeper, every production of those of the first and second classes, are profusely luxuriant in their growth. All the Society and many other Islands in the Pacific, are surrounded with a belt of coral rock, from two or three to twenty yards in width, situated variously from two yards to perhaps two miles from the shore, forming a barrier against the long-rolling waves of the Pacific. The spray from the violent bursting of the billows over this belt, often

rises so high as to present a beautiful marine rainbow. In the waters of the Lagoon, below the reef, coral of every variety, shape, and hue, is intermingled, in rich profusion, exhibiting, as it were, a submarine, but exquisitely beautiful flower garden or shrubbery; whilst among the madrepore's tortuous branches, and the spreading leaves of other corals, the zebrafishes and others of every colour and size, gambol in conscious security.

The geological remarks of Mr. Williams are of very high order, and completely overthrow Dr. Buckland's dicta about the new formations in the Pacific. One assertion from the experimental voyager who has visited the spots, is worth fifty of scientific theories from one, who has only voyaged in fancy on the faith of books. Here we have completely the case of practice versus theory-religion, verified by nature, versus presumptuous infidelity. The conjectures which Mr. Williams offer disclose no ordinary talent, and display the active working of a philosophical mind rightly attuned.

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We must, however, very much condense matters from this interesting and instructive book. Aa, the national god of Rurutu, presents us with circumstances in general unknown to polytheism in addition to being externally covered with little gods, he had a door in his back, on opening which he was found to contain twenty-four small gods-a way, still more clumsy than the Hindù expression of attributes by the Deva and his sactis. At Aitutaki some odd looking gods were seen, whose employment was that of their supporting on their heads the whole weight of a cookinghouse; besides we read of one of the Dii Supremi called To-rongo, bearing another epithet, which signified the man-eater, whose priests were supposed to be inspired by the shark ;-Tangaroa, the great national god, who holds a net, with which he is affirmed to catch the just departed spirit, and a spear, with which he kills it! a rod, with which the priest catches the spirit of the god :-Ruannu, a deified chief, the god of fleets, and Taau, the god of thunder, with his fan.

Among other most interesting particulars, not the least of which is, the reminiscence of Captain Cook, a curions fact is mentioned, viz., that the tides in Tahiti and the Society Islands are uniform throughout the year, both as to the time of the ebb and flow, and the height of the rise and fall, high water being invariably at noon and at midnight. The rise is seldom more than eighteen inches or two feet above low water mark: mostly once, frequently twice in the year, a heavy sea rolls over the reef, and bursts violently on the shore: but this periodical high sea invariably comes from W. and S.W, the direction opposite to that from which the trade wind blows. The account of the history of the people in general, which is given, particularly that of the unparalleled success of the Mission, by which whole islands were converted to the true God, and the idols destroyed, are amongst the most gratifying parts of the work, which is written without egotism, and with equal portions of humility and simplicity.

Mr. Williams gives to us among these people, a trace of the quadruple division into caste, which prevailed with the ancient Orientals, sufficiently distinct indeed to authorize our reference of it to the same source, and at Mangaia particularly shews the existence of the old law of hereditary blood-revenge. A close approach to the Malay system of putting the old and infirm to a barbarous death, prevailed among these islanders in their pagan state. Human victims were offered at their pagan temples. The first expression of joy among these people is invariably by weeping; at Savali, likewise in other Sarroan islands, every noted chief had his Etu, which was some species of bird, fish, or reptile, in which the spirit of the god was supposed to reside and on abandonment of his idolatry, each

cooked and ate one of the class as an act by which the etu became desecrated, and could no more be religiously venerated. The faita-linga or consultation holden on these occasions, reminds us of the palaver of the American savages. At Savali Papo, the god of war was nothing more than a piece of old rotten matting, which was attached to the leader's canoe as he went forth to battle. In the Samoa islands, a species of serpent abounds which the women fear not to twine alive around their necks; but we know not whether in this they have any art resembling that of the serpent charmer of Arabia and India. Other superstitions which are incidentally noticed, display an affinity to those of the Chinese. The geographical observations, with which the work is furnished towards its conclusion, are valuable; but will not suit the purposes of this Review. The trees at the Samoas, as at Tahiti, are very beautiful and various of these the tamanu or calophyllum grows to enormous size, and is used in multiform ways; it holds nails with a vast tenacity, and has such a beautiful and veiny grain, at the same time being susceptible of so high a polish, that it should become an important article of commerce with European cabinet-makers. There are others equally valuable for their woods, gums, and diges: the candle-nut tree (aleurites triloba), whose nuts are substitutes for candles, which has also other useful properties, is abundant in the islands of the Pacific: but over all the breadfruit tree is pre-eminent. The feathered tribes are less numerous; in some islands there are many, in others very few snakes and lizards. The mountains have small grey wild dogs, with little or no hair, and large erect ears the coast abounds with fish and turtle, the modes of catching which are various and singular.

There are two distinct Polynesian races: they differ in conformation, colour, and language. The one is Herculean, allied to the negro, with black skin, and woolly or crisped hair: the hair of the other is lank and glossy, the skin light copper-coloured, and the countenance Malay. That the latter are of Asiatic origin is evinced by the affinity between the Indian caste and the South Sea Islander's taba, by the similarity of notions respecting women in Polynesia and Bengal, by the similar treatment of them, and interdictions respecting foods, cruelty to the sick, immolation of wives at the funerals of their husbands, and a variety of games and usages. To all these the extraordinary correspondence in language may be added. The difficulties urged against this theory from the distance between the people, &c., totally disappear when we think of the daring navigation of the ancient world. The negro race, Mr. Williams thinks, inhabited the whole of the islands prior to the arrival of the Malay Polynesians. The physical characteristics and intellectual capacities, the habit of punning, and the ingenuity, which prevail among them, are equally noticed.

The religion of the Samoans essentially differed from that of the Tahitians and other islanders; but it was equally superstitious. The Samoans worshipped their deified ancestors, their idols, and their etus. "It was believed, that the world was originally in darkness, but that one of their progenitors, by a most absurd process, created the sun, moon, and stars." According to another tradition, the heavens were originally so close to the earth, that men were obliged to crawl; till some sublime individual having contrived to raise them to the height of four feet and deposited them on the top of a tender plant, after a little rest, raised them on a second effort to the height of a sycamore, on the third to the summits of the mountains, and at last, by one prodigious exertion, to their present situation. This individual was deified. The god of the fisherman,

husbandman, voyager, thief, and warrior, were men deified on account of their eminence in these vocations: the priests pretended to catch the spirits of these gods, and to infuse them into children before their birth. The idols seem to have been formed according to the carver's fancy; they have, however, a vague idea of the Supreme Being, whom they call Fangaloa. Human sacrifices and the infliction of self-injuries were formerly common in honour of the gods; and their festivals were stained with cruelties. The Tahitians believed in the existence of two places for departed spirits, Roohutu noanoa, or the sweet scented Roohutu, and Roohutu namu-namua, or the foul-scented :—perhaps the Sakakola of the Hindús. The paradise of the Roratongaus was a long house encircled with ever-blooming shrubs and flowers, filled with immortal and perpetually happy occupants: the pains of their hell consisted in being obliged to crawl round this place, oppressed with insatiable desires for admittance, that could not be realized. Among the Fiji islanders the wives are wont voluntarily to sacrifice themselves at their husband's funerals and in the Tahitian and Society Islands infanticide prevailed to an incalculable extent.

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Those who would know more of this admirable work, must seek the information from its pages. We have not read any book for a very long time which is so strikingly diversified in interest, so modestly written, or which bears so strongly in its narrative the full and convincing impression of truth. The labours of the Missionary were vast; in perils often by sea and by land, energizing boldly and constantly in the work of evangelization, he sowed the good seed, probably more abundantly and extensively than any other of his brethren, and has laid up for himself and his proselytes a store, which moth cannot corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal.

We have, however, left this useful part of the narrative to the reader, impressed with the persusaion. that by exhibiting the researches, which Mr. Williams has made, we shall draw the attention of those to his work, who might not peruse it, whilst ignorant of these invaluable parts of its contents.*

Millennarianism unscriptural; or a Glance at some of the Consequences of that Theory. London: Croft. 1838.

This book is written in an unfortunate and unprepossessing style; and the writer does not seem to us to be accustomed to the critical examination of scriptural texts; otherwise, he would have made much more of his arguments. He is, however, in our opinion, decidedly right in his doctrinal conclusions; for we are persuaded, that the idea of the Millennium may easily be traced to Jewish traditions; from whence it found advocates with some of the Fathers. The xa erη in the Apocalypse are not sufficient for the theory: and the term can be shewn to have been often used by the Hebrews to express an indefinite period.

We certainly can say in favour of the work, that arguments are advanced which the Millennarians will not easily refute.

The British Librarian, or Book-Collector's Guide.

London: Whittaker. 1838.

By W. T. Lowndes.

THIS is the first number of a work which bears the fair promise of being an ornament to the literature of the country; and we trust that we shall have an opportunity of introducing to notice the forthcoming numbers.

* China: its State and Prospects, by Mr. Medhurst, will be reviewed in our next number.