Many Mahometans came to the Angrab to meet the caravan. They all knew of my coming, and I foon explained my fituation. I had Janni's letters to Negade Ras Mahomet, the chief of the Moors at Gondar, and principal merchant in Abyffinia, who was abfent likewife with the army. But one of his brethren, a fagacious, open-hearted man, defired me not to be difcouraged; that as I had not put off my Moorish dress, I fhould continue it; that a houfe was provided for Mahomet Gibberti, and thofe that were with him, and that he would put me immediately into poffeffion of it, where I might ftay, free from any intercourfe with the priests, till Petros or the Ras fhould return to Gondar. This advice I embraced with great readinefs, as there was nothing I was fo much afraid of as an encounter with fanatical priests before I had obtained fome protection from government, or the great people in the country. After having concerted thefe meafures, I refigned myself to the direction of my Moorish friend Hagi Saleh.

The Moorish town at Gondar confifts of about 3006 houfes, fome of them fpacious and good. I was put in poffeffion of a very neat one, defined for Mahomet Gibberti. Flour, honey, and fuch-like food, Mahometans and Chriftians eat promifcuously, and fo far I was well fituated. As for flesh, although there was abun dance of it, I could not touch a bit of it, being killed by Mahometans, as that communion would have been looked upon as equal to a renunciation of Chriflianity.

[To be continued.].

REFLECTIONS ON WAR.

From a Sermon preached at Whittlefea St. Mary's, in the Iffe of Ely, on a late Faft day, by the Rev. Mr, Burgess, B. A.

"WAR, offennt

YAR, whether offenfive or defenfive, is a picture of defolation: In no one point of view does it exhibit an amiable feature: take the beft fide of it: What fee you to commend it? There is a childish, foolish pomp; there is a van, and fleeting glory; there is an empty and deceitful honour; but there is no profit; there is no lafting advantage; there is no brotherly love: Throughout, it is one continued fcene of favage cruelty, and unprincipled licentioufnefs, thirsting for dominion, at the price of blood, and purchafing greatnefs at the expence of humanity.

I would to God that every unthinking encourager of War, was made to feel in his own perfon the mifery and ruin that it brings upon the peaceable, and induftrious! Severe experience. would then convince him, that notwithstanding the fhameful, and precarious gain of a few, War is ultimately a ferious lofs to fociety; and that whether it turn out fuccefsful, or unfuccefsful, it fpreads devaftation through every class of the community.

-Of

Of the numerous, wars recorded in hiftory, how few have been commenced upon, juftifiable principles? An invincible luft of avarice, joined to a tyrannizing and defpotic ambition, has plun ged the nations of the earth into unreafonable animofities, and deluged the world with the innocent blood of millions. By what rule of reafon, by what precept of the gofpel, do we Chriftians fet up the banners of defiance and fharpen the fword for each others' deftruction?

Followers of a meek and lowly Mafter, profeffors of a Religion which breaths no other spirit than that of universal forbearance, and univerfal good-will, is it a part of your creed to murder a fellow-creature who has never done you any injury, and against whom you have not the flighteft perfonal ill-will? Of all the various combinations of folly and wickednefs, furely this is at once the most diabolical, and most ridiculous!

The conviction, that it is for the intereft and happiness of all parties to be at peace with each other, forces itself upon the mind too ftrongly, to be difpelled by any wretched motives of expedi ency or policy. Peace has uniformly profited all nations; war has uniformly depopulated and impoverished them. I folemnly believe and hope, there is not at this moment, a country under the face of heaven, the great mass of whofe inhabitants does not, with heart and foul, with for Wars to cease in all the World! Afk the hufbandman what is his opinion, he will tell you, that he could be glad to hear "they had beat their fwords into ploughfhares, and their fpears into pruning-hooks." Put the fame queftion to the tradefman, to the merchant, to the manufacturer, to the daylabourer, to the poor at large; and they will all answer with one voice, We abhor, we deteft war; it takes from us the hard earned fruits of our labour, and gives us nothing but poverty and mifery in return,

If we attend to the confequences of war, what a wide field of mifery opens upon us! Here the picture of defolation is completed, and we view this abominable Scourge of Mankind, as it appears when divefted of its entraneous embellishments, and arrayed in the dismal garb of truth. At the final iffue of an obfti nate conteft, there must neceffarily be many lives loft on both fides; destruction has then done her worst and felected the objects of her fury; the grave, that tells no tales, filently receives her myriads of murdered fouls; and ungrateful ambition, forgetting the blood by which victory was purchafed, dwells only with rapture on the glory of her conquefts! Oh! that the great ones of the earth were but a little more inclined to the reflection! What conqueft was ever worth the useful lives loft to accomplish it? What battle was ever fought that did not hurry thousands of trembling and unprepared fouls into the prefence of their offended Redeemer? O God! when thou makeft inquifition for blood, upon whom wilt thou lay the guilt of those torrents of blood that VOL. XIX. Jan. 1796.

have

have been fhed for no earthly purpose whatever, but to gratify the deteftable and infolent ambition of a few poor puny creatures like ourselves.

At the conclufion of a spirited and long contefted war, there is fcarcely a cottage to be met with that does not bear vifible marks of its fruits. In one miferable hut you may behold, feated at their fcanty meal, a mother and her tribe of half ftarved children; but father you will find none; death met him in the field of battle, and in a moment, made his children fatherlefs, and his wife a widow. Here you view an aged couple, bent double with infirmities and years, and, God knows! but little capable to sustain a protracted journey through the winter of life, yet hoping ftill to fee better days, when the war is ended, and their children are returned. Time, that at length, brings all things to bear, finishes the war; but time does not bring back their children. To the artificial advantages of war, I oppofe, with confidence, the real loffes of mankind: To the pomp and fplendour of martial heroifm, I oppose the orphan's tears, and the widow's cry: And to the vain and idle boaft of the victor, the fad and untimely fate of the vanquished. When the glories of battle, are the theme of converfation, how feldom are thofe remembered who fought and who fell in it! Twenty thousand of what are called common foldiers, might perifh, and no one concern himself to inquire how they died, or where they were buried; but let inhuman and infolent pride be told, that every one of thofe poor men, who thus fell neglected and forgotten, were as true to their king, as faithful to their country, had difpofitions as good, and hearts as brave and honeft, and fouls as dear, as the greatest and nobleft warrior among them. How often are the common foldiers doomed to *beg bitter bread through realms their valour fav'd," while too many who are converfant only in the knaveries of war, and who without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich, as their country is impoverishing, find their infamies at length rewarded, by equipages that fhine like meteors, and palaces that rife like exhalations. War being thus a national misfortune and of benefit to thofe only, who, of all others, leaft deferve to be benefited, can' never with any complacency be looked upon in the erroneous light of a neceffary evil. Arguments are not wanting to prove, that men were never created to be a Scourge and Nuisance to one another. We have but to reflect upon the nature of life, and all animofities muft inftantly vanish. Fellow travellers through a vale of forrow! fellow fufferers in a world of wretchedness! all setting out from the fame fpot! all bound to the fame place! all encoun tering the fane enemy-death! all exploring the fame unknown region-the grave! all fleeping filent in the duft and forgotten! all rifing from the duft, when every man shall receive his own Reward! When we confider life in this awful point of view, it is aftonishing how chriftian nations can make war upon each other, or forbear to live together in UNITY like BRETHREN,

Mr.

LETTER S.

MR. FLETCHER's

To JAMES IRELAND, Efq;

My very dear Friend,

I Thank

Madeley, Sept. 7, 1776. Thank you for your kind letter, and am glad you will continue to oppose bigotry, though I would not have you bring a whole house about your ears, for the fake of fo infignificant a creature as I am. As many, who efpoufe the fentiments of my opponents, condemn me without having heard me out, and upon the dreadful charges which they have brought against me, they are not much to blame; for what good man can think well of a blasphemer, and an enemy to the gospel? I hope, for my part, to do what shall be in my power to remove prejudices, and trust to gain fome refignation and patience, by what I fhall not be able to re. move. God is my witness, that I honour and love them, though I will never part with my liberty of expofing error, wherever I shall detect it. Why might I not endeavour to take off a spot from a friend's fleeve, without running the risk of lofing his friendfhip, and incuring his ill will ?.

My health is, I thank God, better than when I wrote laft. I have not yet preached, rather from a fenfe of my duty to my friends, and high thoughts of Mr. Greave's labours, (who does the work of an evangelift to better purpose than I) than to spare myfelf; for, if I am not mistaken, I am as able to do my work now, as I was a year ago.

66

I can

A fortnight ago I paid a vifit to Weft Bromwich: I ran away From the kindness of my parishioners, who oppreffed me with tokens of their love. To me there is nothing fo extremely trying as exceffive kindness. I am of the King's mind, when the people fhewed their love to him on his journey to Portsmouth, bear," he said, "the hiffings of a London mob, but these shouts of joy are too much for me." You, my dear friend, Mrs. Ireland, Mrs. Norman, and all your family, have put me to that severe trial, to which all trials caufed by the hard words that have been spoken of me are nothing. I return you all my warmeft thanks, and pray that, excefs excepted, you may all meet, in the day of your weakness, as kind nurses and benefactors, as you have proved

to me.

I

At our age, a recovery can be but a fhort reprieve: let us, then, give up ourselves daily to the Lord, as people who have no confidence in the flesh, and do not truft to To-morrow. find my weakness, unprofitableness, and wretchedness, daily more and more; and the more I find them, the more need I have to fink into felf-abhorrence. Nor do I defpair to fink one day fo in it, as to die to felf, and revive in my God. Farewell.

Fa

J. F.

To

I

To the Rev. Mr. CHARLES WESLEY.

My very dear Brother,

Madeley, Sept. 15, 1776.

Lately confulted a pious gentleman, near Litchfield, famous for his fkill in the diforders of the breaft. He affured me, I am in no immediate danger of a confumption of the lungs; and that my diforder is upon the nerves, in confequence of too much clofe thinking. He permitted me to write and preach in moderation, and gave me medicines, which, I think, are of fervice in taking off my feverish heats. My fpitting of blood is stopped, and I may yet be spared to travel with you as an invalid.

If God adds one inch to my fpan, I fee my calling. I defire to know nothing but Chrift, and him crucified, revealed in the Spirit. I long to feel the utmost power of the Spirit's difpenfation; and I will endeavour to bear my teftimony to the glory of that difpenfation, both with my pen and tongue. Some of our injudicious, or inattentive friends, will probably charge me with novelty for it; but be that as it will, let us meekly ftand for the truth as it is in Jefus, and trust the Lord for every thing. I thank God, I'feel fo dead to popular applaufe, that, I truft, I fhould not be afraid to maintain a truth againft all the world; and yet I dread to diffent from any child of God, and feel ready to condefcend to every one. O' what depths of humble love, and what heights of gospel truth, do I fometimes fee! I want to fink into the former, and rife into the latter. Help me by your example, letters, and prayers; and let us, after our forty years abode in the wilderness with Mofes and John, break forth after our Joshua into the Canaan of pure love. I am, &c.

I

To the Rev. Mr. VINCENT PERRONET. Dear Father in Chrift,

J. F.

Newington, Jan. 19, 1777.

your

Beg you would accept my multiplied thanks for your repeated favours. You have twice entertained me a worthless stranger; and not yet tired of the burden, you kindly invite me, weak and troublefome as I am, to fhare in the comforts of house and family. Kind Providence leaves me no room, at prefent, to hang a third burden upon you. The good air and accommodations here, and the nearness to a variety of helps, joined to the kindness of my friends and the weakness of my body, forbid me to remove at prefent. God reward your labour of love and fatherly offers! Should the Lord raife me, I fhall be better able to reap the benefit of your instructions, a pleafure, which I promise myself fome time, if the Lord pleafes.

I have of late thought much upon a method of reconciling the Calvinifts and Arminians. I have feen fome Calvinian minifters, who seem inclined to a plan of pacification. I wish I had ftrength enough to draw the fketch of it for your improvement. I think he thing is by no means impracticable, if we would but look one

another