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of the English congregation of the | same order, our holy father the general president of the same order, and to his successors in this monastery of St. in the county of of the same congregation and order, in the presence of the very reverend -, prior of the monks of the same monastery, to the faith of which thing, this schedule or petition, written and undersigned with my hand, in the year and day of the month above added." Here is a solemn engagement of unreserved submission to human authority, which, with the Bible in our hands, it may be said none ought to exact, or if exacted, none ought to yield.

As soon as the person being professed has read this form, the black pall (that which is used for funerals) is brought in, and spread on the ground before the altar; on this he prostrates himself, and the sides being thrown over him, he is hidden from the view of all present. The brethren now commence chaunting "the Long Litany," an appeal to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, for mercy on the person making this profession, and to the Virgin Mary, to the angels, and to many saints and martyrs, virgins and confessors, imploring their prayers in his behalf. At its conclusion, he rises, proceeds to the left hand of the altar, on which the mass is still being offered, and there takes the oath of obedience to his superior and successors for ever, and also of chastity and poverty. Placing his left hand on the crucifix, he signs his name in full to the oath he has taken, prefixing to it the declaration, "Tango crucem"-"I touch the cross." Immediately after this act, the recital of which is deeply painful, from a conviction that such vows are frequently broken, and that the consequences of keeping them are also fearful, the following vow is taken :-" I brother in the place of

in the county of in England, promise, vow, and swear, before God and his saints, that I will go to the work of the English apostolic mission, and return again whenever and wherever the most reverend president of our congregation shall judge expedient, and shall command: I touch the cross.' To this are appended the

(Name of the professed.)
(Names of witnesses.)

The state of a slave has frequently called for the sighs and the tears of true philanthropy: are they not then de

manded by the spectacle on which we are now looking? Where can bondage be more complete? Henceforth the professed is the mere instrument of those to whom, whatever be their dictates, he has declared he will be, in body and in mind, entirely subject.

The mass is now concluded, and he returns to the noviciate, to spend the remainder of that day, and the two following, in silence so profound, that he is forbidden to hear his own voice, even in devotion. After three days have elapsed, he receives the wafer, or host of the sacrament, and is then conducted by the novice master to the calefactory, where he is introduced to each of the assembled brethren, who having offered their congratulations, proceed to the prior, and ask relief from study for the whole monastery.

Two facts should be remembered as to this act of profession. One is, that since the year 1829, in which the emancipation bill was carried through Parliament, the profession of monks has been prohibited in England. Still it occurs, and sometimes every year; the precaution being taken of performing the ceremony, now described, either during the night, or at an early hour in the morning, when only the initiated are present. The other fact is, that the sum paid by each individual, at or about the time of profession, is six hundred pounds, though this is remitted, in some instances, from the hope that special service will be rendered to the Romish mission in England. Gold has, however, in all monasteries and nunneries a powerful attraction. Strong, indeed, must be the case that allows it to be declined.

It might be supposed, that an appetite for gain would be satiated by the sum just mentioned, but still there is the cry, "Give, give;" for immediately after profession, the individual is required, according to an invariable rule, to resign, in a testamentary form, the whole of his property; not only what he has, but what may be his at any future time; property, in fact, whether afterwards arising from heirship, from gift, or from accumulation in the service of the mission, to the monastic establishment. As, however, it is against the English law to do so specifically, the plan is, to surrender such property to two members of the Benedictine order, so that the professed is unable to make any gift, without ren

dering an account to the prior, or, in the prospect of death, to bequeath any thing he has possessed.

Exorbitant as this requirement is, more still is demanded, (shame-shame that an intelligent and accountable being should ever yield it!) for he must tender to his president, every four years, a statement of all he has received, all he has used, and how it was spent. So long, too, as he is the inmate of a monastery, he has to give in annually, "a bill of poverty," including all he has about his person, or in his cell, even to a pen, a nail, or a small piece of string; and in such subjection is he to his superior, that the prior may demand his key whenever he thinks proper!

THE MORAL CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES OF AUSTRALIA.-No. I. THE colonization of New Holland occupies so much of the public attention at present, that we shall probably afford gratification to our readers, by giving some characteristic descriptions of the aboriginal natives.

All the tribes have such a general resemblance to each other, as would lead us to deduce their descent from a common stock. The researches of some ingenious travellers, however, have led many to suppose, that the natives on the northern portions of Australia are of Malayan, or Asiatic origin, and that the other parts of this immense country have been peopled from New Guinea, and are of the Papuan (black) race.

But, without entering into any discussion on this subject, or dogmatically assuming any precise origin for a race of mankind, which with varied language has the same distinguishing habits, it may be remarked, that the difficulties of migration to New Holland by the islanders in the North Pacific, may have been surmounted without great difficulty, and that some of the inhabitants of Malay, in particular, may have passed to the northern extremity, by intermediate location on Melville or Bathurst islands.

head and cheeks with white or yellow clay; the more rare dandyism of a bone or feather drawn through the cartilage of the nose, and a universal neglect of dress, except a narrow band of network about the waist, and sometimes on the head.

Their modes of living are the same. When successful in the chase of the kangaroo, or in fishing, they will eat to repletion, careless of succeeding wants, while the means of gorging last; but, generally speaking, they are abstemious in the extreme, and very simple in their dietary. Roots of various kinds, and of spontaneous growth, with wild honey, lizards, fresh water muscles, fish in general, wild ducks, and other water fowl, the emir and the kangaroo, which they flay, and then cover with the skin, as the Armenians cook a sheep,* roasting it whole with a quick fire over and under it, constitute their food. Temperate in their habits, and living at large in the open air of a delicious climate, they are of course exempt from the diseases consequent on a life of luxury, or arising from foulness of atmosphere and deficiency of ventilation.

But since disease and decay and death are the doom of erring and corrupt man, these children of nature have their peculiar maladies, arising in general from exposure to night air, in unfavourable seasons, without domestic security, in general, from its influences, (unless a rudely-constructed wigwam, formed of a few boughs and rushes, pervious to rain and wind, can be considered such,) and from frequent deficiency of food; they suffer much from bronchitis, from one of the causes first assigned, and from opthalmia, which is probably attributable to the sandy nature of the soil. They rarely attain a green old age, and. know nothing of the honours and the blessings of the patriarchal life: yet they are a cheerful and intelligent people.

Their dialects vary considerably, so much so, as to embarrass considerably the verbal intercourse of different tribes. The natives of the northern and southern extremities cannot at all understand each other.

tages of civilized life, there has been no anxiety amongst the colonists (commensurate with that which has actuated them to add field to field) to spread the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, to diffuse the blessings of the Christian faith among the benighted sons of Adam, in any of those places which we have wrested or obtained by other means from the natural occupiers.

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Nor need we revert to those dark periods in the records of human guilt, when the conversion of the pagan was sought, not in the spirit of Divine truth, by apostles and prophets, and evangelists, and pastors and teachers, for the edifying of the "body of Christ;" not with "the whole armour of God," the "breastplate of righteousness," and "feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace,' the shield of faith,' the "helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God," with " prayer and supplication in the Spirit," but with the arm of flesh, the sword of human power, in the hands of ungodly men, arrayed in the pomp and pageantry of war, ready to destroy those whom God had formed in his own similitude, if they refused to embrace the dogmas which they could not understand, and bow down to the cross, which in their minds must have been associated with the ideas of oppression and of cruelty.

Alas! in our own times, and especially in the heathen country under consideration, the beauteous form of religion, freed from meretricious ornament and compulsory advances, has not been presented as it ought to have been. If there has been there erected an altar "To the unknown God," him whom they "ignorantly worship" has not been declared unto them in the degree in which it might have been expected from a country which, while (like the pure spirit of Christianity) it broadly and distinctly repudiates all violent dissemination of the word of God, upholds the principle of being "debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise," in the preaching of the cross. We have often heard these poor savages upbraided with their treachery, their dishonesty, their cruelty; with their sloth, and ignorance of the distinctions between right and wrong, yet we have acted towards them, as if they were in every respect enlightened in the practices of civilized nations; as if they, who are under a law unto themselves, were

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under obligation to ours, and understood them too; we have made little allowances for the influence of principles diametrically opposed to our own, and which have originated a system of conduct in them which we have no right to condemn, under existing circumstances. We talk to them of morality, and we present them with a poisoned bowl of liquid fire; and while they are maddened by its power, we sometimes take advantage of their helplessness, and rarely make allowance for the acts which they may commit under an influence communicated by our designing craftiness or senseless folly. We have had too many of our countrymen, there and elsewhere, under similar circumstances, who, though boasting of being in the light, have not been "blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation," shining as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life.

These are no false assertions or ex. aggerated statements, but facts which can be proved, in too many cases, by indisputable evidence.

That these people are capable of receiving instruction in evangelical truth is by no means doubtful; and when adequate attention shall be given to the general improvement of their minds, they will become impressed with all those motives of action which influence in social and civilized life.

The rational system of treatment which they have experienced from Mr. Dawson, in South Australia, and the Hon. George Fletcher Moore (on the Swan River) who is represented as peculiarly gifted for conducting negotiation, and possessing extraordinary aptitude for holding intercourse with the natives, is precisely that which, with the Divine blessing, may Christianize these people. The latter gentleman, whose private letters it has been our occasional privilege to peruse, is precisely the person likely to afford valuable suggestions to the clerical missionary who has gone there recently, and who will probably undertake the interesting though arduous task of instructing these heathens, some of whom have translated the Lord's Prayer into their own language, with very tolerable apprehension of its meaning; some of them are now tending sheep for the colonists: and in thus advancing from a state of wildness to the pastoral character, they afford reasonable presumption of making further progress to civilization.

It does not appear that they have any notion of a beneficent God; their deity appears in unmitigated manifestations of wrath; they view him as the spirit of evil only; they know nothing of the God of love.

On an exploring expedition, undertaken by Mr. Moore, in 1835, he had several opportunities of witnessing the superstitious impressions by which the natives of western Australia are influenced. They attributed the spiral motion of dust and wind, an ordinary whirlwind, to the agency of a demon, whom they call Ching-ah, and some rheumatic twinges with which they were affected during the route, to the venom of a bite from this malignant being. On another occasion, Mr. Armstrong, an interpreter of their language, having spoken irreverently of a monster, whom they believe to dwell at the bottom of the Melville river, was entreated not to pronounce the fiend's name, under the belief that he would be drowned if he attempted to cross the river, from the vengeance of the offended god. Unfortunately, in confirmation of their superstition, Mr. Armstrong's foot slipped, and he fell heels over head into the river. They asserted, with great energy, that he had been so punished for his irreverent allusion to the deity.

They have a confused notion of a future state; they believe in the transmigration of souls, and are certain that the white men are the embodied spirits of their deceased friends. So fully are they impressed with this doctrine of reappearance on earth, that they name many of the white men after their dead relatives. How this belief originated, it is impossible to conjecture.

In all the parts of Australia with which we are acquainted, the natives so studiously avoid the observation of the white men, when performing their funeral obsequies, that nothing certain is known respecting those formalities; they conceal the dead bodies, and bury them with the utmost privacy, in the most sequestered spots.

Ululation at wakes is not uncommon. Mr. Moore saw the mother of a dead child clinging to the knees of an old man, who stood apparently unmoved, while she muttered a long and mournful recitative, like the Irish Keene, as if apostrophizing the spirit of the deceased. These circumstances clearly demonstrate the predisposition and capacity of

these people to hear of Him who is the resurrection and the life, and the expediency of preaching to them Christ crucified, him who has "the keys of hell and of death."

The great principle of sacrificial and vicarious offering, by the shedding of blood, so prevalent throughout the world, is not without its practical illustration among those people."

From the memoranda of Mr. Moore we have been informed that whenever an injury is sustained, either from an unfriendly tribe or an individual offender, or even when a natural disease occurs, the ceremony of spearing a victim to death, or in a slight degree, or merely for form's sake, according to their systematic code of retaliation, frequently takes place.

THE PERAMBULATOR.
THE RIMY MORNING.

Now had I the dancing spirits, the buoyant elasticity of youth, how would my delighted eyes, and exulting heart, revel in the wondrous scenes around me! Even as it is, I can scarcely rein in my ardent imagination, that is ready to spring forward as recklessly as an unbroken steed. The sharp freshness of the air, the crimp snow beneath the foot, and the novelty of the scene, give an hilarity of feeling that is delightful.

This morning, when I rose, the beautiful frostwork on the window panes, spelled me with its rich variety of glasslike foliage, trees and grasses, floods and waterfalls, crystal rock work, and landscapes of silvery brightness; and now, in the open air, on the skirt of a wood, a richer treat awaits me. Every tree, shrub, bramble, thorn, and blade of grass is covered with rime; and look which way I will, I am gazing on a world of transcendent wonders. The snow, the frost, and the rime, mingle their several attractions. How poor are the pearls on the neck of beauty, compared with the coruscations of this spreading hawthorn! How dim the diamonds, in a monarch's crown, in competition with the myriad gems that are sparkling on these frosty straggling brambles. The most elaborate workmanship, the costliest carvings of human hands, is a coarse and blundering performance, in comparison with the more than magical creations that are profusely flung on every brake and brier. Every leaf is, in itself, a study

for the reflective mind; every shrub a museum, and every bush a cabinet of curiosities!

The fields around are only partially covered with snow, and the broad patches of brown blend not inharmoniously, in the distance, with the white colour which mostly prevails; the trees are bold and dark in their stems, but faint and feathery in their sprays; and the sky is grey: neither sun nor cloud, neither shine nor shadow is to be seen above the horizon: all is grey, grey, monotonously grey !

On my road to this place, I gazed on the different trees and shrubs that adorned the gardens and pleasure grounds of the goodly mansions by the wayside. The dark-mossy, green, flaky-foliaged cypress, with its leaves beautifully edged with silver; the laurel, laurustinus, variegated holly, and ivy, all fantastically fringed at their terminations, and trees with clusters of red berries on their leafless boughs; but one picture, above the rest, spelled me to the spot. I will try to describe it.

There were plants and shrubs in abundance on the fanciful parterres which opened right and left from the gate at the entrance of the ground, and the snow, and the frost, and the rime, had disposed themselves in every seeming variety of form on their stems and leaves. At a distance of a dozen paces from the place where I stood, rose a dense mass of laurel, so sheltered, that its bold green foliage was almost free from rime, while, in front of it, sprung a silver-barked birch tree of the most romantic beauty. The contrast between the laurel bush, and the light feathery tree, was singularly striking, and the one furnished the most appropriate relief to the other. The birch was exceedingly beautiful, and its graceful and elegant branches were so elaborately adorned with rime, that I gazed on the scene with extasy. Talk of paintings!-bah!

What a blessing has the great Giver of every good thing bestowed on man, in the change of the seasons! It is boon worthy its Almighty Donor.

"Who loves not spring's extatic hours,
The carnival of birds and flowers ?
Yet, who would choose, however dear,
That spring should revel all the year?

Who loves not summer's splendid reign,
The bridal of the earth and main?
Yet, who would choose, however bright,
A dog-day noon without a night?

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Who loves not autumn's joyous round,
When corn, and wine, and oil abound?
Yet, who would choose, however gay,
A year of unrenewed decay?

Who loves not winter's awful form,
The sphere-born music of the storm?
Yet, who would choose, how grand soever,
The shortest day to last for ever?"

On a pond, which I passed half an hour ago, were assembled two or three groups of happy-hearted pleasure takers, differently employed: six or eight boys were rapidly pursuing each other along an extended slide: one young man was, apparently, making his first essay on skates, for every time he stirred he manifested fear, whirling his arms in the air, ludicrously, to preserve his balance; while another, revelling in his conscious superiority, called forth the wondering admiration of those around him, by skating backwards, cutting the outside stroke, and forming the figure three. A young urchin had tied, under one of his shoes, a lump of ice, as a skate; and a few girls, and lesser boys, occupied a smaller slide at the far end of the pond. Winter has its pleasures, and being of a hardy kind, they brace the framework of the body, and give elasticity to the spirit.

At the entrance of the wood, here is a painted board, denouncing a woe to all sportsmen who shall dare to appear with a gun on the manor, without due permission, and against all dogs trespassing on the preserve. Sportsmen may take warning, and escape the punishment; but the poor dogs are still unlettered and in danger, for though the schoolmaster has ceived the benefit of his instructions. been so long abroad, they have not re

In the hedge of an adjoining field stands a tall oak, with neither leaf, spray, nor branch upon it; for the woodman's axe has lopped away all its graceful appendages, leaving the crooked unsightly stem a spectacle to gaze on: it only wants a crow perched upon the top of it, to make it perfect picture of the unnatural and the unlovely in nature.

An infinity of spiders must have been at work to form the unnumbered myriads of lines, which are now rendered visible by the fallen rime. Trees and brushwood are covered with a gauze-like mantle of unwonted loveliness. A man of imagination might well be pardoned if, with such objects as these before him, he manifested a few singularities. He who could gaze around him, from this place, on the fairy scene, without emotions of thankfulness, must be deficient, either in