*

never be a strong man again, and will probably sink into a premature grave. They have laid themselves open to an action for false imprisonment; and after the opinion so clearly expressed by the attorney-general, and the decision of the court reversing their proceedings, the result would not be doubtful. But those who have been injured remember that it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, saith the Lord," and choose rather to follow His example, who prayed on behalf of His persecutors, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Moreover, both the offending magistrates, though culpable, are not so to an equal extent. The younger one, Hemming, has stood aloof from the wicked attempt to fix upon the missionaries the charge of perjury, refusing to be a party to it. And throughout he has manifested far less of the bitterness and malignity which characterized all the proceedings of his associate, Rose. They are already punished in some measure by a disgraceful expulsion from office; and they may well be left to Him who judgeth righteously, while, in the true spirit of the religion they teach, the imprisoned missionaries show that they can forgive their persecutors.

* The constitution of Mr. Orton was so far undermined by his imprisonment that he never fully recovered. He remained in the colony for a year, suffering much from debility, and vainly striving to discharge his missionary duties. Ho was then compelled to return to England, a shattered, enfeebled, and prematurely old man. Here he rallied sufficiently to enable him to undertake a mission to Australia. But the poison inhaled in a Jamaica prison was never thoroughly eradicated from his system; and, while yet a comparatively young man, he died on his passage to England from Australia in 1842, and sleeps beneath the waves, until the morning dawns when, at the loud blast of the archangel's trump, the sea shall give up its dead. This persecuted minister was the first to introduce into Victoria, in Australia, the ordinances of public worship. "The occasion was striking, and worthy of commemoration. On the 26th of April, 1830, the Rev. Joseph Orton preached on Batanis hill to a mixed congregation of Europeans and natives. The place was then a green mound in the primeval forest; and Melbourne consisted of three huts and three houses, hardly distinguishable from the unbroken wilderness that stretched around."

V.

JUDGMENT HILL.

Oft o'er the Eden islands of the West,

In floral pomp and verdant beauty drest,
Bolls the dark cloud of God's awakened ire;
Thunder and earthquake, whirlwind, flood, and fire,
'Midst reeling mountains and disparting plains,

Tell the pale world, "The God of vengeance reigns."
Montgomery.

N the interior of Jamaica, at no great distance from Kingston, the mercantile capital of the island, a spot is pointed out which bears this remarkable designation, from having been, a little more than half a century ago, the scene of a startling catastrophe, which impressed many persons, who were but little accustomed to any thing like serious reflection, with the conviction that it is a fearful thing to brave the anger, and "fall into the hands, of the living God."

In the more easterly of the parishes into which Jamaica is divided, there are several wide river-courses, which collect and bear to the ocean the drainings of the majestic chain of mountains that lift their summits some seven or eight thousand feet above the level of the Caribbean Sea, which they overlook, and from which they are often clearly visible to mariners at a distance of seventy or eighty miles. One of these rivers, receiving the waterfall on the southern slope of the Port Royal and St. David's mountains, flows in a south-easterly direction for more than thirty miles. Ordinarily, in dry weather, the narrow stream of limpid water, formed by the contributions of many rivulets gurgling down the hollows and ravines between the hills,

rushes with rapid current over the stony bottom of the deep channel, sufficiently shallow to be fordable at numerous points, and leaving a large portion of the river bed perfectly dry. But the immense boulders, and masses of smooth rock, scattered in vast numbers over the wide, gravelly bed of the river, being brought down by the force of the stream, and the torn and rugged banks on either side, bear silent witness to the irresistible power with which, in the wet season, the mighty mass of turbid water, swollen by a thousand rushing torrents, rolls on to its destination.

Among the hills through which this river winds, and stretching along its banks, there is a plantation beautifully situated in a curve formed by the sinuosities of its course. The rich, well-tilled fields of the plantation, waving with the luxuriant sugar-cane, occupy the plain between the deep river-course and the foot of the hills. At a little distance from the stream, the buildings pertaining to the estate have been erected. Prominent amongst these is the great house occupied by the proprietor and his family; and scattered around are the miserable huts of the slaves, upon whom devolves the weary, unrequited task of cultivating for their owner several hundred acres of land which the estate comprises; themselves shut up in densest ignorance, and knowing no enjoyment of life but that which they have in common with the mules and cattle, that share with them the wasting toil of the plantation.

Immediately behind these several buildings there towers a lofty mountain, rising precipitately from the gentle slope whereon the buildings stand, lifting its verdure-crowned head nearly a thousand feet to the clouds, and overshadowing the plantation buildings and the river. All kinds of rich tropical fruits, sheltered here from every unkindly blast, flourish in abundance,—the mango, the orange, the shaddock, the star-apple, and the lime. Every hut is embowered in. a grove of plantains and bananas, whose large velvet-like leaves afford a grateful shelter from the sun; while the lofty plume of the cocoa-nut waves in graceful beauty above, and imparts to the whole scene a character of tropical luxuriance

with which we may well associate the idea of an earthly paradise.

Satan and sin obtained admission into Eden; and they have found an entrance here. Ungodliness and vice, in some of their foulest developments, pervade the colony; darkness prevails everywhere, except where the few missionaries that are labouring in the midst of much hatred and opposition, have diffused, in some measure, the light of the ever-blessed Gospel. All classes, masters and slaves, whites and blacks, are sunk in deep moral debasement together. And the clerical order, making merchandise of the bodies and souls of men, and mixed up with the worst abominations of slavery, are, in most instances, as far removed from all that is virtuous and godly, as the most abandoned of the slave oppressors. But in this secluded plantation, surrounded as it is with scenes of surpassing natural loveliness, there is a den of vice and pollution, to which no parallel can be found in all this wicked land. A monster of wickedness, who has given himself up to work all uncleanness with greediness, the owner of that lovely spot, has converted it into such a sink of loathsome, nameless depravity, that all the neighbours for miles around stand aloof from him and all that pertain to him, and hold no avoidable communication with the place. It is shunned by all classes of the people, as if a deadly pestilence were known to be raging there.

In no country under heaven is there to be found less of everything like prudery than here in Jamaica. The moral standard is deplorably low; and vicious, licentious habits, disregard of moral obligations, and forgetfulness of God, are prevalent throughout the land. But here is a household so utterly abandoned and vile in their associations and habits, that even the low degraded society of Jamaica scorns them as its outcasts, and turns away from them with loathing. No planter from the surrounding estates calls to take a friendly glass with the overseer, who is also the owner of the plantation. No neighbour goes to render friendly offices in time of sickness; and even the medical man, who periodically visits the hot-house (the hospital) of the estate,

and prescribes medicine for the slaves disabled by sickness from taking their usual place in the field, lingers not, as he does on all the other plantations he attends, to dine or hold a carouse with the magnate of the estate.

Year after year passes away, but still the man and his estate are shunned; for the lapse of time only serves to develop more and more the God-defying wickedness which is not only practised but boasted of there; awakening more and more fully the indignation and disgust of all around towards the depraved denizens of that secluded habitation, amongst whom all decency and propriety are set at nought, and the natural relations and distinctions known in families are utterly confounded and lost. There are some who look on the place with fear and trembling, as well as loathing; half expecting that this den of wickedness, with its associations of depravity, will be dealt with in some such way as the Just and Holy One dealt with the guilty inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The owner of the plantation has become hoary in his evil career; and wealth has been increasing in his hands, serving only to promote strife and discord amongst the incestuous brood of which he is the head; when the hand of Jehovah is lifted up, and that event occurs, the memorial of which is handed down in the designation that stands at the head of this paper.

Jamaica has often been fearfully desolated by the hurricane and the earthquake, causing a lamentable destruction of property and life, and sometimes throughout vast districts changing the whole aspect of the country. It was on the 18th and 19th of October, one of the months usually included in what is known as the hurricane season, when a destructive storm swept over the eastern parishes of the island, accompanied, as effects would seem to indicate, by severe shocks of earthquake. A preternatural discharge of water from the heavens destroyed many sugar and coffee plantations, sweeping off all vegetation, or burying it, to the depth of many feet, beneath the earth and stones and sand which the descending torrents wash down from the