96 A Night Thought................. 78 The Slaves of the Beautiful Isle...... 81 The Weary Negro, a Dialogue................. 83 Colonial Courtesy, or a Prison for the Pious....... 87 The Cedar Grove, a Sonnet................. 91 The Reprobate, or Grace Finally Rejected.......... 93 The Contrast, or Final Hour of the Wicked........ Lines on the Death of Mrs. Bradley.......... 101 Verses Inscribed to the Preachers......... 109 Humanity's Gem, a Sonnet....... 113 The Mission, a Poem............................. .............. 117 West-India Logic, or Negroes have no Souls........ 129 The Sale of Slaves, or a Good Bargain............. 134 "The Converted Mulattoes, or enraged Junto......... 139 The Spread of the Gospel................................ 142 To Mary, a Parting Thought............ 146 The Black Man's Plea............ 149 An Invocation to Pity............................................ 152 ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FOLLOWING EPISTLE. THE writer of the following Epistle , was appointed in 1800 by the British Methodist Conference to a mis sion in Nova Scotia and New-Brunswick ; where, after having laboured nearly eight years, and injured his constitution by the severity of the climate, he requested permission to return to England ; the committee appointed to manage the missions under the superintendency of Doctor Coke, requested him to go on a mission to Bermuda. The situation of that mission was painful in the extreme, as in the year 1799 a missionary was sent from England, who was imprisoned by a law made, forbidding dissenters to preach the Gospel under the penalty of 50 pounds and sir months imprisonment. By this cruel, unjust, and persecuting statute, God's minister B was imprisoned, fined, and finally banished from the Island. Things remained in this state several years, as different ministers who were appointed declined the hazardous undertaking. At last the writer of this note arrived on the Island; his prospects at first were truly distressing ; but faith, patience, and prayer, opened a glimmering of better times: this hope after a short season was realized. The Lord Jesus, by his word and Spirit, touched the hearts of a few coloured people, and whites ; these, by their own desire, were formed into a little society. The light of truth shone brighter and brighter, and the little flock increased amidst much opposition, and verbal persecution. In a little time a neat commodious chapel was erected, and God disposed many to help this undertaking who were formerly hostile to evangelical piety. At present the Gospel is preached through all the Islands; and not a few say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the LordPure religion, leaning on her fair daughters, Truth and Love, takes many a pleasant walk through the land, inviting the inhabitants to bon to Emmanuels cross, and take upon them the mild and easy yoke of obedience to his com mands. But to return; this Epistle was written for : amusement, and addressed to a respectable friend in Eng land. The author had no intention then of ever giving it to the public, though the information it contains is, at least more poetically true, and in many points more simply descriptive, than either Waller or Moore's poetical accounts ; as the writer was more recently there than the first, and longer upon the Island than the last of those gentlemen ; having resided nearly four years on different of the Bermudas. GREENWICH VILLAGE, (N. Y.) July, 1812. |