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SECTION II.

STATE OF MORALS IN MODERN TIMES.

Moral state of Savage nations.

I shall now take a very brief survey of the state of morals in modern times, and of the prevailing dispositions which are displayed by the existing inhabitants of our globe. Were I to enter into those minute and circumstantial details which the illustration of this subject would require, several volumes would be filled with the detail of facts, and with the sketches of moral scenery which might be brought forward. And such a work, if judiciously executed, might be rendered highly interesting, and might produce a variety of benignant effects both on Christian and on general society. But the narrow limits within which the present work must be comprised, compels me to confine my attention to a few prominent features in the characters of mankind, and to a few insolated facts by which they may be illustrated.-I shall consider, in the first place, some of the

Prominent dispositions which appear among Savage and halfcivilized nations.

It is not to be disputed, that numerous individuals among the uncivilized tribes of mankind, have occasionally displayed the exercise of many of the social virtues,that they have been brave and magnanimous, faithful to their promises, strong in their attachments, and generous and affectionate to their friends and relatives. But their virtues, for the most part, proceed from a principle of sel

sonings on the subject.-"Pictures of War," by Irenicus; and a duodecimo volume, lately published, entitled, "An Inquiry into the accordancy of War with the principles of Christianity," &c.

fishness, and are confined to the clan or tribe to which they belong. Towards their enemies, and towards all who have injured them in the slightest degree, they almost uniformly display cruel, perfidious, and revengeful dispositions. The following facts and descriptions, selected from the authentic records of voyagers and travellers, will tend to corroborate these positions.

The most prominent feature which appears in the character of savage nations, is, their disposition for war, and to inflict revenge for real or supposed injuries. With re

spect to the NORTH AMERICAN Indians, it is the uniform description given of them by all travellers, that, if we except hunting, war is the only employment of the men, and every other concern is left to the women. Their most common motive for entering into war, is, either to revenge themselves for the death of some lost friends, or to acquire prisoners, who may assist them in their hunting, and whom they adopt into their society. In these wars, they are cruel and savage, to an incredible degree. They enter, unawares, the villages of their foes, and, while the flower of the nation are engaged in hunting, massacre all the children, women, and helpless old men, or make prisoners of as many as they can manage. But when the enemy is apprised of their design, and coming on in arms against them, they throw themselves flat on the ground, among the withered herbs and leaves, which their faces are painted to resemble. They then allow a part to pass unmolested; when, all at once, with a tremendous shout, rising up from their ambush, they pour a storm of musket-balls on their foes. If the force on each side continues nearly equal, the fierce spirits of these savages, inflamed by the loss of friends, can no longer be restrained. They abandon their distant war, they rush upon one another with clubs and hatchets in their hands, magnifying their own courage, and insulting their enemies. A cruel combat ensues; death appears in a thousand hideous forms, which would congeal the blood of civilized nations to behold, but which rouse the fury of these savages. They trample, they insult over the dead bodies, tearing the scalp from the head, wallowing in their blood like wild beasts, and sometimes devouring their flesh. The flame rages on till it meets with no re

sistance; then the prisoners are secured, whose fate is a thousand times more dreadful than theirs who have died in the field. The conquerors set up a hideous howling, to lament the friends they have lost. They approach to their own village; the women, with frightful shrieks, come out to mourn their dead brothers, or their husbands. An Orator proclaims aloud a circumstantial account of every particular of the expedition; and as he mentions the names of those who have fallen, the shrieks of the women are redoubled. The last ceremony is, the proclamation of victory; each individual then forgets his private misfortunes, and joins in the triumph of his nation; all tears are wiped from their eyes, and, by an unaccountable transition, they pass in a moment from the bitterness of sorrow, to an extravagance of joy.*

As they feel nothing but revenge for the enemies of their nation, their prisoners are treated with cruelty in the extreme. The cruelties inflicted on those prisoners who are doomed to death, are too shocking and horrible to be exhibited in detail. One plucks out the nails of the prisoner by the roots; another takes a finger into his mouth, and tears off the flesh with his teeth; a third thrusts the finger, mangled as it is, into the bowl of a pipe made red hot, which he smokes like tobacco: they then pound his toes and fingers to pieces between two stones; they apply red hot irons to every part of his mangled body; they pull off his flesh, thus mangled and roasted, and devour it with greediness ;-and thus they continue for several hours, and sometimes for a whole day, till they penetrate to the vital parts, and completely exhaust the springs of life. Even the women, forgetting the human, as well as the female nature, and transformed into something worse than furies, frequently outdo the men in this scene of horror; while the principal persons of the country sit round the stake to which the prisoner is fixed, smoking, and looking on without the least emotion. What is most remarkable, the prisoner himself endeavours to brave his torments with a stoical apathy. "I do not fear death, (he exclaims in the face of his tormentors,) nor

*See Ency. Brit, Art. America.

any kind of tortures; those that fear them are cowards, they are less than women. May my enemies be confounded with despair and rage! Oh, that I could devour them, and drink their blood to the last drop !"

Such is a faint picture of the ferocious dispositions of the Indians of America, which, with a few slight modifications, will apply to almost the whole of the original natives of that vast continent. Instead of the exercise of benevolent affections, and of forgiving dispositions; instead of humane feelings, and compassion for the sufferings of fellow-mortals, we here behold them transported into an extravagance of joy, over the sufferings they had produced, the carnage they had created, the children whom they had deprived of their parents, and the widows whose husbands they had mangled and slain; because they had glutted their revenge, and obtained a victory. Nothing can appear more directly opposed to the precepts of Christ, and to the benevolence of heaven.

If, from America, we cross the Atlantic, and land on the shores of AFRICA, we shall find the existing inhabitants of that continent displaying dispositions no less cruel and ferocious.-Bosman relates the following instances of cruelties practised by the Adomese Negroes, inhabiting the banks of the Praa, or Chamah river.

Anqua, the king, having in an engagement taken five of his principal Antese enemies prisoners, he wounded them all over; after which, with a more than brutal fury, he satiated, though not tired himself, by sucking their blood at their gaping wounds; but, bearing a more than ordinary grudge against one of them, he caused him to be laid bound at his feet, and his body to be pierced with hot irons, gathering his blood that issued. from him in a vessel, one half of which he drank, and offered up the rest to his god. On another occasion, he put to death one of his wives and a slave, drinking their blood also, as was his usual practice with his enemies."* -Dispositions and practices no less abominable, are regularly exhibited in the kingdom of Dahomy, near the Gulph of Guinea. An immolation of human victims, for

* Depuis' Journal in Ashantee.

the purpose of watering the graves of the king's ancestors, and of supplying them with servants of various descriptions in the other world, takes place every year, at a grand festival which is held generally in April and May, about the period, possibly, when the Bible and Missionary Societies of this country are holding their anniversaries. The victims are generally prisoners of war, reserv ed for the purpose; but, should there be lack of these, the number (betwixt sixty and seventy) is made up from the most convenient of his own subjects. The immolation of victims is not confined to this particular period; for at any time, should it be necessary to send an account to his forefathers of any remarkable event, the king despatches a courier to the shades, by delivering a message to whoever may happen to be near him, and then ordering his head to be chopped off immediately. It is considered an honour where his majesty personally condescends to become the executioner in these cases; an office in which the king prides himself in being expert. The governor was present on one occasion, when a poor fellow, whose fear of death outweighing the sense of the honour conferred upon him, on being desired to carry some message to his father, humbly declared on his knees, that he was unacquainted with the way. On which the tyrant vociferated, "I'll show you the way," and, with one blow, made his head fly many yards from his body, highly indignant that there should have been the least expression of reluctance.* On the thatched roofs of the guardhouses which surround the palace of this tyrant, are ranged, on wooden stakes, numbers of human skulls; the top of the wall which encloses an area before it, is stuck full of human jaw-bones, and the path leading to the door is paved with the skulls.

In the kingdom of ASHANTEE, similar practices uniformly prevail. "When the king of this country, (says Dupuis) was about to open the campaign in Gaman, he collected together his priests, to invoke the royal Fetische, and perform the necessary orgies to ensure success. These ministers of superstition sacrificed thirty-two male,

* M'Leod's Voyage to Africa.

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