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barbarian lias first to be taught to think, before he can ponder religious truth; but, civilized men are, perhaps, too subtle and metaphysical in their speculations, and we find more difficulty in restraining, than in exciting their imaginative faculties. In the savage state, the relations of life are scarcely recognized, friendly and family feelings are almost unknown, and subordination and fidelity are exceedingly rare. But in such a country as China, where marriage has been instituted for upwards of three thousand years, and filial respect cherished from the first settlement of their monarchy; where the reciprocal duties of sovereigns and subjects, friends and neighbours, have been known, and, in some measure, acted upon, for milleniums — a sort of foundation is laid for benevolent and moralizing exertions, — and affords manifest advantages to the propagator of Christianity. In going amongst such a people, he finds a set of commonly-acknowledged axioms, which, though in some instances, erroneous and overstrained, are yet of sufficient stability to serve him for a stepping stone, in order to pass on to greater and more important topics. It is possible, in such cases, by reasoning on principles which the heathen readily acknowledge, to convince them, by Divine assistance, of their deficiencies; and thus to point out the necessity of a mediator to those who have evidently offended against the dictates of natural religion. This is a vantage ground which civilized nations present, and of which the missionary ought gladly to avail himself.