upward. 'May we all be aboard that blessed ship!' Shouts throughout the audience, 'We will! We will!' Stirred by such responses, Julia broke out with redoubled fervour. Farewell-farewell. Let the world say what they will of me, I shall surely meet you in Heaven's broad bay. Hell clutched me, but it hadn't energy enough to hold me. Farewelĺ on earth. I shall meet you in the morning.' Again and again she tossed her arms abroad, and uttered her wild farewell;' responded to by the loud farewell of a whole congregation, like the shouts of an excited populace. Her last words were the poetic phrase, I shall meet you in the morning!'

Her audience were wrought up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm I ever witnessed. 6 That's God's truth!' 'Glory!' 'Amen!' Hallelujah!' resounded throughout the crowded house. Emotion vented itself in murmuring, stamping, shouting, singing, and wailing. It was like the uproar of a sea lashed by the winds.

You know that religion has always come to me in stillness; and that the machinery of theological excitement has ever been as powerless over my soul, as would be the exorcisms of a wizard. You are likewise aware of my tendency to generalize; to look at truth as universal, not merely in its particular relations; to observe human nature as a whole, and not in fragments. This propensity, greatly strengthened by the education of circumstances, has taught me to look calmly on all forms of religious opinion-not with the indifference, or the scorn, of unbelief; but with a friendly wish to discover everywhere the great central ideas common to all religious souls, though often re-appearing in the strangest disguises, and lisping or jabbering in the most untranslated tones.

Yet combined as my religious character is, of quiet mysticism, and the coolest rationality, will you believe me, I could scarcely refrain from shouting

Hurrah for that heaven-bound ship! and the tears rolled down my cheeks, as that dusky priestess of eloquence reiterated her wild and solemn farewell.

If she gained such power over my spirit, there is no cause to marvel at the tremendous excitement throughout an audience so ignorant, and so keenly susceptible to outward impressions. I knew not how the high-wrought enthusiasm would be let down in safety. The shouts died away, and returned in shrill fragments of echoes, like the trembling vibrations of a harp, swept with a strong hand, to the powerful music of a war-song. Had I remembered a lively Methodist tune, as well as I recollected the words, I should have broke forth:

'The gospel ship is sailing by!
The Ark of safety now is nigh;
Come, sinners, unto Jesus fly,
Improve the day of grace.
Oh, there'll be glory, hallelujah,

When we all arrive at home!'

The same instinct that guided me, impelled the audience to seek rest in music, for their panting spirits and quivering nerves. All joined spontaneously in singing an old familiar tune, more quiet than the bounding, billowy tones of my favourite Gospel Ship. Blessings on music! Like a gurgling brook to feverish lips are sweet sounds to the heated and weary soul.

Everybody round me could sing; and the tones were soft and melodious. The gift of song is universal with Africans; and the fact is a prophetic one. Sculpture blossomed into its fullest perfection in a Physical Age, on which dawned the intellectual; Painting blossomed in an Intellectual Age. warmed by the rising sun of moral sentiment; and now Music goes forward to its culmination in the coming Spiritual Age. Now is the time that Ethiopia begins to stretch forth her hands.' Her soul,

so long silenced, will yet utter itself in music's highest harmony.

When the audience paused, Mr. Matthews, their pastor, rose to address them. He is a religious-minded man, to whose good influence Julia owes, under God, her present state of mind. She always calls him 'father,' and speaks of him with the niost affectionate and grateful reverence. At one period of her life, it seems that she was led astray by temptations, which peculiarly infest the path of coloured women in large cities; but ever since her 'conversion to God,' she has been strictly exemplary in her walk and conversation. In her own expressive language, 'Hell clutched her, but hadn't energy enough to hold her.' The missteps of her youth are now eagerly recalled by those who love to stir polluted waters; and they are brought forward as reasons why she ought not to be allowed to preach. I was surprised to learn that to this prejudice was added another, against women's preaching. This seemed a strange idea for Methodists, some of whose brightest ornaments have been women preachers. As far back as Adam Clarke's time, his objections were met by the answer, 'If an ass reproved Balaam, and a barn-door foul reproved Peter, why shouldn't a woman reprove sin?'

This classification with donkeys and fowls is certainly not very complimentary. The first comparison I heard most wittily replied to, by a coloured woman who had once been a slave. Maybe a speaking woman is like an Ass,' said she; but I can tell you one thing-the Ass saw the angel, when Balaam didn't.'

Father Matthews, after apologizing for various misquotations of Scripture, on the ground of Julia's inability to read, added:-' But the Lord has evidently called this woman to a great work. He has made her mighty to the salvation of many souls, as a cloud of witnesses can testify. Some say she ought not to preach, because she is a woman. But I say,

'Let the Lord send by whom he will send.' Let everybody that has a message, deliver it-whether man or woman, white or coloured! Some say women mustn't preach, because they were first in the transgression; but it seems to me hard that if they helped us into sin, they shouldn't be suffered to help us out. I say, 'Let the Lord send by whom he will send;' and my pulpit shall be always open.'

Thus did the good man instil a free principle into those uneducated minds, like gleams of light through chinks in a prison-wall. Who can foretell its manifold and ever-increasing results in the history of that long-crippled race? Verily great is the Advent of a true Idea, made manifest to men; and great are the miracles of works-making the blind to see, and the lame to walk.

LETTER XII.

January 1, 1842.

I wish you a Happy New Year. A year of brave conflict with evil, within and without-a year of sinless victories. Would that some fairy, whose word fulfils itself in fate, would wish me such a year! Yet scarcely are the words written, when I fall to pitying myself, in view of the active images they have conjured up; and my soul turns, with wistful gaze, towards the green pastures and still waters of spiritual quietude, and poetic ease. Yet were the aforesaid fairy standing before me, ready to grant whatsoever I might ask, I think I should have strength enough to choose a year of conflict for the good of my race; but it should be warfare without poisoned arrows, and fought on the broad tableland of high mountains, never descending into the narrow by-paths of personal controversy, or chasing its foe through the crooked lanes of policy. In all

ages of the world. Truth has suffered much at the hands of her disciples, because they have been ever tempted to use the weapons her antagonists have. chosen. Let us learn wisdom by the Past. The warnings that sigh through experience, and the hope that smiles through prophecy, both have power to strengthen us.

The Past and the Future! how vast is the sound, how infinite the significance! Hast thou well considered of the fact, that all the Past is reproduced in thee, and all the Future prophesied? Had not Pharaoh's daughter saved the Hebrew babe, and brought him up in all the learning of the Egyptians; had not Plato's soul uttered itself in harmony with the great choral hymn of the universe; had not Judean shepherd's listened in the deep stillness of moonlight, on the mountains, to angels chanting forth the primal notes whence all music flows-Worship, Peace, and Love; had any one of these been silent, wouldst thou have been what thou art? Nay, thou wouldst have been altogether another; unable even to comprehend thy present self. Had Christianity remained in dens and caves, instead of clothing itself in outward symbols of grandeur and of beauty; had cathedrals never risen in towered state,

'And over hill and dell

Gone sounding with a royal voice

The stately minster bell;'

had William the Norman never divided Saxon lands by force, and then united his new piratical state in solemn marriage with the Church; had Luther never thrown his inkstand at the Devil, and hit him hard; had Bishop Laud never driven heretics, by fire and faggot, to the rocky shores of New England; had William Penn taken off his hat to the Duke of York -would thy present self have been known to thyself, couldst thou have seen its features in a mirror?

Nay, verily. Thou art made up of all that has preceded thee; and thus was thy being predestined