Such is the manner in which you must preach the tidings of a Saviour, Christ the Lord. Thus preaching, you will have your reward in the grace of Christ strengthening you for, and encouraging you in, duty; you will save sinners, you will guide saints; and, in due time, you will be called to enter, as you cannot now, into the joy of the Lord, as a fellow-worker with Him in bringing back man to a higher state than that from which he has fallen; in destroying the works of the devil; and in making known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God.

CHARGE TO THE PEOPLE.

Be thankful that you again behold a pastor, a servant of Christ in the Gospel, to go out and in among you dispensing the bread and the water of life. The Head of the Church bestows upon you no common blessing when He thus gives you the services of an educated Christian minister, whose whole energies will be directed for your welfare, to train you and your children for dwelling for ever in the many-mansioned house of the Father. Be grateful, therefore, to the Lord for His goodness to you.

Make use of him for the ends for which Christ hath given him to you. Be regular in your attendance in the sanctuary, when, as your Christian teacher, he comes to declare to you the truths of the Gospel. Nothing has a more depressing effect upon a minister than to find his people irregular in their attendance upon the house of God, for he knows, that wherever grace is in lively exercise there is no forsaking the assembly of the saints, but rather joy at the prospect of forming one of its number. "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." The relation formed to-day is of the nature of a covenant, one of whose conditions is, that you engage to be regular in your attendance upon those ordinances in which the Head of the Church has so often saved sinners and instructed saints. Beware, therefore, of being covenant breakers, especially of a condition, the fulfilment of which is so much fitted to promote your own spiritual profit and growth in grace.

Assist him in his efforts to do you good. Be ready to enter into his plans for your welfare. Assist him by your prayers. He prays for you. Pray for him in return. Pray to the Church's Head to make him what you wish him to be-a faithful, and earnest, and successful preacher of the Gospel of the grace of God.

Give him time to pursue his studies. He cannot, Sabbath after Sabbath, bring forth out of his treasure things new and old, unless

you give him time, by meditation and reading, to replenish his Let the latter portion of the week be his own, be a season which nothing but stern necessity will ever lead you to break in upon and interrupt him in his preparations for the pulpit.

stores.

Ever put the best construction on his words and acts. Be charitable in judging of him. Of the two views that may be taken of him, take the favourable, and you will soon find that you much increase his efficiency, when he knows you are not cold critics but loving friends, ever disposed to look with a kindly and encouraging eye upon all he does for you.

Invite others to

Do what you can to increase the congregation. your place of worship, and, by your harmony, and diligence, and perseverance in Christian work, make it so that others will desire to share in your joy, and cast in their lot with you.

Contribute readily for your minister's support. He has many calls upon his liberality which you would not like to see him refuse, yet it is only your large-hearted giving that will enable him to meet these calls, and creditably to live in this city as your Christian minister.

Practise what he preaches. See that your blessedness be that of those who do as well as hear the Word of God. Thus acting towards him, he and you will be helpers of each others joy, and the relation this day formed will be one whose precious fruits will appear not merely in your greater happiness on earth, but in the higher and more lasting enjoyments of the heavenly state.

REV. DR STEEL BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT OF SYDNEY.

THE Australian mail has brought full details of the proceedings against both Dr Steel, agent for the New Hebrides Mission, and the Sydney Morning Herald. On the 5th of May last Dr Steel sent to the Sydney Morning Herald a letter, containing another from Rev. T. Neilson, jun., respecting the doings of a Captain Hovell and a Hugo Levinger, the supercargo of the "Young Australian." Levinger was then in Melbourne, awaiting his trial for the murder of several of the natives of Tanna, while Hovell was in the Sydney prison for a similar crime. On the 26th of May, three weeks after the publication of Mr Neilson's letter, Hovell was convicted of murder, and on the 31st, previous to his receiving sentence, which had been reserved until some points raised in the trial were considered by the judges, an article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald commenting on the case. Hovell's friends, exasperated at the exposure of their wickedness, immediately made an application to the Court, that both publications be regarded as contempt of Court, as, in the

one instance, likely to influence the jurors, and, in the other, the judges. In defence, Dr Steel lodged an affidavit, in which he pleaded ignorance of the fact that Hovell had been arrested on a charge of murder when he sent Mr Neilson's letter, while the Herald maintained that the case had been disposed of by the verdict of the jury when the article appeared, and was, therefore, fairly open to public comment. The judges unanimously ruled that the Herald be fined £100, and pay costs, and, by a majority, that Dr Steel be reprimanded, and also pay costs. With regard to Dr Steel, Chief-Justice Sir Alfred Stephen dissented from the judgment, and held that he had not been guilty of contempt of Court in any form. The sentence has excited much indignation, not only in New South Wales, but in Victoria. In Sydney, a crowded public meeting, presided over by the Hon. John Hay, Member of the Legislative Council, was held on 8th July, when an address of sympathy with Dr Steel was unanimously adopted, and a purse of fifty guineas presented him to meet the costs incurred. In Melbourne, public opinion has been equally unanimous in his favour. The Argus regards the penalty inflicted on the Herald as absurdly disproportionate to the offence, and affirms that Dr Steel committed no offence whatever.

Impartial readers, in this country, of the whole proceedings, will not in any way differ from the view taken by the Argus. To charge a man with contempt of Court, for prejudging in a case that he did not know was under trial before the judges, and heavily to fine a newspaper for commenting on a criminal after the jury had pronounced him guilty, are things quite unknown in Great Britain. Of late years it has been regarded, that when once a jury has been empannelled, both judge and jury are beyond the reach of newspaper influence. Indeed, our judges would think it an insult if it were supposed that any leading article would influence their judicial minds. Perhaps the most noticeable feature in the matter is, the abusive language which Justice Hargrave employed in reprimanding Dr Steel. It recalls to memory Lord Hategood, in Bunyan's immortal allegory. With a virulence and, it seems, from a cartoon in the Sydney Punch, with a violence of manner, such as the judge of the town of Vanity would have envied, he charged him with an interference with the administration of justice altogether unparallelled, with being a public accuser, with assuming authority publicly to judge sinners, and condemning them unheard in their defence.

Notwithstanding this intemperance of Justice Hargrave, good will result from the trial. Attention has been directed to the mode of removing the natives of the South Sea Islands practised by unscrupulous traders. It has been clearly proved, before the Supreme Court of Sydney, that kidnapping has been carried on ;-the statements in Mr Neilson's letter have not been denied;-and instructions have been issued on the subject to Her Majesty's ships of war on the station. Dr Steel may rest assured that he has come out of this trial not merely without discredit, but greatly to his praise. In this country Dr Steel would have been held inexcusable had he not instantly given publication to the facts in the letter, and all the

more that the case was before the Courts. The friends of the Mis sion in Scotland are grateful to him for the efforts he has made in behalf of the oppressed natives of the New Hebrides, and esteem it as a duty and a privilege to assure him of their sympathy, especially at a time when his conduct has been so rudely assailed.

From the mass of papers sent us we select the following four documents. We especially call attention to the speech of the Hon. John Hay, a gentleman who has long occupied, to the satisfaction of all contending parties, a semi-judicial position in New South Wales.

DEPORTATION OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD.

SIR, The following letter has been addressed to me, with a view to publication. It only reached me on Saturday, having been detained in Brisbane Post-Office. It refers to the doings of Hugo Levinger, who has been committed for trial at Melbourne for the murder of three natives of Tanna, on board the "Young Australian," on the high seas. I send you also the report of the case of this man before the City Court at Melbourne. The letter of Mr Neilson deserves the attention of traders and of the authorities. Unless a British man-of-war is constantly cruising among the islands from which so many natives are being taken, all the horrors of the slave trade will be perpetrated in the Southern Seas.—I am, etc. 77 Macleay Street, 5th May.

66

ROBERT STEEL.

PORT RESOLUTION, TANNA, NEW HEBRIDES, Feb. 6, 1869. REV. DEAR SIR,-I write for the purpose of bringing under your notice, and through you, under the notice of the Sydney public, the doings of the so-called "South Sea Trading Company" on this island. I landed at this port on the 2nd of September, and towards the end of the same month, the three-masted schooner Young Australian," of Sydney, Captain Ross Hovell, master, chartered by Messrs Eldred & Spence, 17 Church Hill, Sydney, on behalf of the South Sea Trading Company, and having on board Mr Hugo Levinger, agent for the firm, called at this harbour for the purpose of establishing a trading station, and also for the purpose of carrying off natives from this group as labourers to Fiji. Upwards of thirty natives were taken from this island, and sold as labourers for a term of three years there. Regarding twenty-three of these I have received information. One was taken away under stipulation to be brought back in one month, and twenty-two under stipulation to be brought back in one year. I have also heard a report, which as yet I have not had the means of verifying, that three of the others were taken under promise to be returned in three months; all were, as I have said, disposed of for three years. The fact of the matter is, if a vessel picking up natives plainly states that they are to be kept away for three years, it will be very difficult for her to get a single man, from this island at least.

A trading station was opened at the head of the harbour, for the purchase of sulphur, pigs, and cocoa-nuts, in exchange for muskets, ammunition, tobacco, etc.; and, in less than three months, more than fifty muskets were sold, and large quantities of powder, caps, and bullets. A man, who was taken from this harbour for the purpose of picking up natives round this island, was paid for his services in muskets and ammunition. Ten days after the station was opened fighting commenced among the tribes around, and in the course of three months and a-half, 10 men were killed, 26 wounded, 7 villages burned, the plantations and fruit-trees destroyed, canoes, pigs, fowls, carried off as plunder, and a district of country six miles in length and five in breadth, which, when I landed, contained between 800 and 1000 people, left without a house except the leading station, and without an inhabitant, except the white men who looked after them. On the return of the "Young Australian" from Fiji, I went on board to inform Captain Hovell and Mr Levinger of the state of affairs. This was about

the middle of December, when the fighting was at its height. Also, on Saturday, the 19th December, I took on board their vessel the other two traders in this harbour, who were willing, at my request, to stop the sale of ammunition during the time the fighting lasted, if Captain Hovell and Mr Levinger should agree to do the same. This they refused to do. I then requested that the sale of bullets, at least, might be stopped. This also was refused, Captain Hovell declaring that he had 300 lbs of bullets, and asking what he was to do with them if he did not sell them to the Tanna men; and Mr Levinger, that he was just going to melt down the lining of some tea chests, and make some more bullets with it. I was therefore obliged to leave them to take their own course, only protesting that I should take the first opportunity of making their conduct known to the public of Sydney, and to the British authorities. For more than three months a third part of my time was taken up in visiting and attending upon wounded men, as surgeon, not without considerable personal risk.

To sell these savages muskets and ammunition, with the expectation that they will not use them for mutual destruction, is just as reasonable as it would be to throw gunpowder into the fire, with the expectation that it will not explode; or lead into the sea, with the expectation that it will not sink.

To give you an idea of their barbarous method of warfare during the time the " Young Australian" was lying here in December, two little boys, aged respectively five and six years, were standing on the path, the one behind the other, when they were fired at; the bullet passed through them both-one was killed on the spot, the other died nine days after. I told this to Captain Hovell and Mr Levinger, and their only reply was, that they were not responsible for what the Tanna men might do. About six weeks afterwards an old man belonging to the same village, with whose face I was quite familiar, had his arm broken by a musket shot, and not being able to escape fast enough, was laid hold of by his enemies, and held fast while he was shot through the stomach. As he did not die immediately, he was chopped about the head with axes till he was dead. His head was then cut off, and he was carried away to be cooked and eaten. When, however, the chief of the attacking party saw him, probably thinking him too old and tough, he sent his body back to his friends for burial. I have only further to state, that this Captain Hovell was master of the Sea Witch," last season, 1867-68, of the doings of which vessel, at Eromanga, Mr Gordon made a public complaint in Sydney.-I am, etc. Rev. Dr R. STEEL, 77 Macleay Street, Sydney.

COPY OF AFFIDAVIT.

66

THOMAS NEILSON, Jun.

In the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

In the matter of the Application of Albert Ross Hovell for a rule nisi against the Reverend Robert Steel.

On the nineteenth day of June, in the year 1869, Robert Steel, of the city of Sydney, in the colony of New South Wales, Doctor of Philosophy, a minister of the Presbyterian Church, being duly sworn, maketh oath, and saith as follows:1. At the time of the publication of the letter of Thomas Neilson, mentioned in the rule nisi, and in the affidavit of Frederick Cannon, sworn in this matter, I was not aware of the arrest or committal for trial of Captain Albert Ross Hovell on a charge of murder on board the "Young Australian," on the high seas; nor was I aware that any such prosecution had been commenced or threatened, or was contemplated.

2. I was absent from Sydney on a mission connected with St Andrew's College during the months of January and February last; and for some considerable time after my return on the twelfth day of February, I was necessarily so much engaged arising from an accumulation of correspondence and pressing duties, that I scarcely looked at a newspaper, and I did not observe the report of the case of Captain Ross Hovell, before the Water Police Court, on the seventeenth day of February, and published on the eighteenth day of February, nor was the fact of any such prosecution having been commenced communicated to me by any person before the publishing of the said letter.

3. The letter published, as mentioned in the said rule, was received by me from the Reverend Thomas Neilson, a missionary residing at Tanna, New Hebrides; and at the time I received such letter my attention was called to a