general concernments of his subjects; he wants to put matters upon some durable footing, so that his son, a very interesting youth, and the chief joy of his father, may find his seat easy and secure when his kind protector is no more. He was meditating a visit to all the neighbouring places upon the coast which acknowledge the supremacy of Borneo, in order to bind them to that state by leagues of confederacy and exchanges of mutual confidence." We are told by Mr. Lay that a very extensive coal-field has been discovered near to the capital of Borneo. Perhaps the day is not distant when this invaluable mineral may be wonderfully subservient to the navigation of the neighbouring seas. Our next and last extract, still connected with the same great island, although having illustrations upon a wider Malayan scale, presents a curious result of long established feudalism and despotism : "As Borneo Proper has had but little intercourse with other nations, the ancient customs have been maintained in greater purity than in most other countries about the Archipelago, if we except Java. Here we find the feudal system still in existence; the chieftain expects all kinds of service from his followers, who know nothing about a free soccage, or experience any differences in the mode of tenure. They hold themselves ready to answer when called for, and to execute whatever may be his pleasure. They form the essential part of his inheritance, the inseparable heraldry and adornments of his title. Use has rendered the burden easy, when not accompanied with any outrageous acts of oppression; and every man is taught to regard his chief as his friend and protector, and looks upon the whole tenor of his conduct with an eye of fondness and partiality. In fact, he identifies himself with his master, and seems to find as much pleasure in waiting upon him as the other can in receiving his attentions. We may compare the leader to the head, and his followers to the body; he reasons and decides, they listen to his commands, and fly with alacrity to execute them. Such is the rooted attachment for this form of government in the heart of a Malay, that in Malacca they bear the spoiling of their goods rather than leave their chief and settle in the British territory, where property is secure. At Singapore, the chief no longer exercises an uncontrolled authority over his subjects; and they are become poor, useless, and dispirited creatures. They had never learned to choose for themselves, or regulate their own conduct; so that now, like the hands without the head, they sink down in faint and drooping imbecility. Despotism is the only kind of rule that agrees with this people, for intellect and resolution they are in their childhood, and will continue to be so till knowledge, religion, and enterprise shall have enabled them to think and act for themselves. The will of the Sultan is the law of the land, modified, of course, by the influence which his councillors and great men exert upon him. He is elective, but the choice is limited to a single family." The sooner this degraded and vicious system is altered and shown VOL. II. (1839.) No. I. H to the people to be detestable the better. It is a reformation that is worthy of the enterprise of America and every civilized or Christian nation. But let not the pretence of an infusion of knowledge and the spread of religious light be made the mere cover for the advancement of purely secular advantages to parties, who taking advantage of accidental superior opportunities, and whose selfish inconsistent zeal are things likely to protract that which should be most earnestly yet cautiously promoted. ART. XII.-A Narrative of the Greek Mission, or, Seven Years in Malta and Greece, including Tours in the Peloponnesus, the Egean and Ionian Isles. By the Rev. S. S. WILSON, Member of the Literary Society of Athens. London: Snow, Paternoster Row. 1839. HERE is a bulky volume of no fewer than five hundred and ninety six pages, upon matter which, without the slightest detriment to the subject and with very great advantage to the time and patience of the reading public, might very fairly be compressed into fifty or one hundred at the utmost. A concise narrative of the measures taken by the Missionary Societies of London for the diffusion of Protestantism and education in general, in Greece and the Ionian Islands, and the success with which those efforts have been attended, might have formed a very agreeable book, and if executed with spirit and ability might have furnished a gratifying subject of speculation to those who are watching with eagerness the progress of civilization from the West to the East. But when we find it surcharged with the heavy lumber of historical and antiquarian lore, copied from the commonest guide books, blundering misquotations from the classics, and gossip and twaddle of the flimsiest description, when we are obliged to hunt for a few grains of information amid a mountain of chaff, it requires a strong effort to conquer the feeling of weariness and disgust which creeps over us. The Rev. S. S. Wilson is no doubt a man of excellent intentions and sincere piety, but these qualities are not sufficient to make a good book-maker. The saints indeed, for whose especial perusal the work seems written, will accept even the prosiness of the reverend missionary with gratulation and thanksgiving, while such of the great class of sinners as venture upon his pages may be apt to consider the task of exploration as a penance for their manifold offences. But the saints are in a better condition than the sinners. To the former the labour is considerably lightened by the judicious interspersion of complimentary morceaux, which give a zest and piquancy to the work, whereas the latter may be tempted to compare the sanctimonious ejaculations, and the reiterations of scriptural phrases, to the crossings and prostrations of the professors of the Greek faith, which Mr. Wilson so severely reprobates and condemns. Thus Mr. Newman, the tract vender in Berner's-street, and his daughter Isabella, may find very striking beauties in the following passage: “He (Admiral Miaulis) used to take pleasure in hearing his smallest boy, about twelve, read the stories of good children in my Greek spelling book. By the way one of these narratives I made from my reminiscences of some very amiable traits in the character of a then little daughter of my esteemed friend, Mr. N. of Berner'sstreet. The children of Socrates, hundreds and hundreds, have read dear excellent Isabella's simple story in many parts of Greece; and I feel persuaded that now, when she, like the dear children of the classic land who first read her story, is arrived at woman's age, she will forgive a liberty criginating in a purpose so benevolent" No doubt dear excellent Isabella will manage to keep her temper when she reads this very deliberate puff, and no doubt Mr. Newman will exert his influence in the proper quarters for the benefit of the reverend gentleman, in return for making his daughter vivam volitare per ora Græcorum. The apostolic career of the reverend Mr. Wilson commenced at Malta, which he proves by several passages from holy writ to be the precise island upon which his great predecessor St. Paul had been shipwrecked, some eighteen hundred years ago. So early as the year 1813, a Mr. Bloomfield had made some progress in the good work of enlightening the Maltese. But, unfortunately, just as he had qualified himself for more extensive usefulness, by acquiring a knowledge of the Italian and Greek languages, it pleased the Lord of the harvest (as Mr. Wilson piously expresses it) to translate to the church above the pious and devoted missionary. He died exclaiming "none but Christ," which suggests the following very pertinent observation : "To me this exclamation always seems so much the more a consecrated one, from the fact that so many of our afflicted martyrs in the times of Henry and of Mary left the world for glory with this sacred ejaculation on their lips.' The mantle of Mr. Bloomfield fell upon the Rev. Isaac Lowndes, and by him it was charitably shared with our author.--" Like that of St. Paul," his voyage to Malta was fearfully stormy and perilous. After going through all the horrors of shipwreck, it came to pass(he gives it in the words of St. Luke) that they all came safe to land. Having thus reached the field of labour under such cheering coincidences, he lost no time in girding himself for the struggle. He found the champions of papacy, whom he came single handed to attack, presented a close and serried front at his approach. Their name was legion. The sight seems to have been too much, even for his enthusiastic courage, as he candidly confesses that little is to be effected at Malta; and after making a tour of the island, and viewing the lions of this once renowned isle of the "knight of truest blue," he became convinced that Greece was his proper field, and to Greece he accordingly repaired. Not, however, before he met with another extraordinary coincidence between himself and St. Paul in the fact of his "killing a serpent near the very spot where that blessed man shook one from his hand." Like St. Paul, too, he was persecuted. In the words of his great predecessor he exclaimed, "I die daily." On one occasion he narrowly escaped being prosecuted for a libel in the shape of a witticism on the Santissima Casa. On another, "a mob of ten or fifteen thousand natives assailed him and the Wesleyan missionary, and stripped the pall from the coffin of a native professor, whose funeral they were attending." Again a persecuted convert he fled for refuge to his house. It was instantly surrounded by an immense crowd of islanders, and but for the interference of the civil authorities, he thinks it is probable he would have reaped the glorious crown of martyrdom; but he had a wife and children, and preferring their society on earth to a premature introduction to the society of the martyrs in heaven, with a fierce invective against the gloom of the Tybur, i. e. the church of Rome, the Rev. Mr. Wilson withdrew from Malta. He prays devoutly that the smile of heaven may rest upon future missionaries, as through his instrumentality "the bread has been cast upon the waters, and shall be seen after many days." He had distributed some Bibles, and effected the conversion of four persons of very questionable characters. In conjunction with the Rev. Mr. Lowndes, he now entered upon the Greek mission. He found the land of Basil and of Chrysostom suffering from want of scriptural education, want of books, want of the word of God, and the want of a pulpit. The Greek priesthood are numerous and ignorant, and their flocks superstitious and barbarous. The remedies adopted by the missionaries we shall give in Mr. Wilson's words : - "Such was the moral condition of Greece; such the melancholy state of things, which demanded our earliest and best efforts. The events which placed at our disposal that most efficient engine-a printing press, I have already detailed. To this we vigorously applied, as one powerful means of removing the maladies above specified; and ere the reader is presented with other matters, he will kindly allow me to prefix a brief review of the operations of the Greek press. As the selection, editing and printing of books was altogether my own department, the plural number may here be laid aside. My present object is chiefly to single out for brief notice some of the numerous works which, during about ten years, issued from the press under my superintendence at Malta. That I review my own works is a fact, which candour will trace to necessity, not to choice; and if I deal in fact rather than sentiment, there will not, perhaps be any just ground of complaint. The following syllabus comprises. THE PRINCIPAL PUBLICATIONS OF THE MISSION PRESS. Life of Robert Raikes. Janeway's Token of Love. Life of Oberlin. "It has already been stated, that when we entered on the Greek mission, the want of education and of books was one of our first convictions. To meet this defect, I published several of the works above enumerated. “The Ladder of Learning is taken chiefly from English elementary works of a kindred character. It is a primer; has gone through several editions, and always met with great acceptance throughout the classic land. Its popularity appears to have been aided by its syllabic lessonsa new thing in Greece. Before the appearance of our books, without any exception that I remember, the poor Greek children were compelled to spell out the long and difficult words of this language, from the tattered pages of an ancient Greek Psalter. The little narratives contained in the Ladder of Learning, was another agreeable novelty. It comprises also Greek, Roman, and Arabic numbers, the Nicene Creed, the Bible, My Mother, in verse, and Watts' First Catechism, together with a gradational series of sacred and moral lessons. I believe it may be truly added, that to the London Missionary Society pertains the honour of having supplied Greece with the first primer ever written in the language of Polycarp. "This small thing I followed by the Tutor's Guide, to which a very respectable and influential Greek of Chios, now Sir Neophytos Vamvas, kindly added a recommendatory preface. This book, a 12mo of about 250 pages, I carried through several editions, and many thousand copies of it are spread through all parts of Greece, insular and continental. Like the Ladder,' it is a sort of eclectic compend of some of our best English spelling-books. "With a facility beyond my hopes, I was enabled to put Watts' Divine Songs into Greek lyrics, adding to them a few of John Wesley's and Miss Jane Taylor's, with a version of some spirited lines on the value of the Bible, and poetic arrangements of some favourite prose doxolgies from |