ceremony in the colony, and as the visits of prelates for India are only occasional, and restricted to Cape Town, the Eastern Province is effectually excluded from the performance of that ordinance. Of the 5000 members of the Church of England, resident in the Eastern Province, perhaps not 1000 have been confirmed.

A

The Roman Catholic community, until these few last years, were a proscribed, though not a persecuted people. By an old law of India, Jesuits and Roman priests were to be forcibly apprehended, and immediately deported. "The Catholic Relief Bill" has set these matters in a new view, and the Cape has several Roman clergy zealously exercising their vocation. bishop resides in Cape Town, where a splendid cathedral is building. The county of Albany and Utenhay also have their appointed pastors, and that of George its preachers. Proselytism is making quiet but considerable strides through this essentially Protestant colony. A Kafir mission is also said to be in contemplation; what effect this may have on the barbarians already under the instruction of the Wesleyans, Independents, Moravians, Scotch, French, and German missions, it is not difficult to predict.

The Church of Scotland has a place of worship in Cape Town, a chaste and elegant building, and well attended.

MISSIONS.-To all the various societies of Christian missions* in this colony, unbounded prise is due for their attention to the spiritual wants of all the inhabitants, especially of the coloured races, and of the heathen beyond the colony, among whom,

increase of congregations may be reasonably expected to the eastward, where the English population preponderates, and because it seems now less improbable than ever, that circumstances may sooner or later cause the seat of Supreme Government to be transfered to the Eastern Province, as creommended by Sir Benjamin D'Urban, probably to Utenhay ro Graham's Town, which places being nearly equi-distant from Cape Town on the West, and from Natal, now to be permanently occupied on the East, would form a central position at a convenient distance."

To the missionaries of the Wesleyan body we are indebted for two excellent grammars of the chief languages spoken over the vast interior of South Africa. The Kafir by the Rev. W. Boyce, and Sechuana by the Rev. Jas. Archbell. Mr. Moffat, the very talented missionary of the London Society, long resident at Littakoo, has translated a great part of the New Testament into the latter language. These gifts to Christianity are deserving of all praise.

nearly as far as the tropic on one side, and 200 miles from the eastern frontier on the other, they have established promising institutions. These bodies have at least fifty-five stations within the colonial boundaries, and fifty-four dispersed over the north and south-eastern interior.

The following return will indicate the date of the commencement of their labours in South Africa, their respective spheres of usefulness, and the extent of their missions :

At all these institutions day, Sunday, and infant-schools are established, which doubtless are effecting great progress in the important branches of education, religion, and morality.

An attempt has been made by some few of the members of the London Missionary Society in South Africa, to impress upon the minds of the people of Britain, that a general prejudice exists against the missionary cause, and against missionaries themselves, on the part of the colonists, especially the Dutch farmers or Boers. Nothing can be either more unjust or more untrue, and within these few weeks a public and most positive denial has been given to the accusation by the Rev. W. Hodgson, the superintendent of the Wesleyan Mission, who, as a body, have more extensive opportunities of forming a calm and correct judgment than any other community of missionaries. It is true, indeed, that there is a strong feeling afloat against the present superintendent of the London Society's missions in South Africa, whose proceedings and incredible evidence against

the colonists have caused one universal sentiment of disapproval against that individual; but it is confined to him alone, and the colonists regret that the usefulness and interests of the noble society which he represents, should have been so greatly endangered in the colony by his conduct, and religion maligned in consequence.

It has also been recently charged against the colonists, by a writer in an Irish periodical, that a spirit of indifferentism in religious matters is generally prevalent, a libel more than sufficiently refuted by the anxiety displayed by all classes for increased opportunities of religious worship and instruction, and by their efforts for the conversion of the surrounding barbarous and heathen tribes. In few, if any other portions of the Christian world, is there existing a greater spirit of cordiality between the ministers of all religious professions, or a higher sense of their duties, than is evinced by the respective congregations.

It is difficult to arrive at the extent of the church and chapel accommodation of the colony, from the very defective state of the returns on this head, as well as that of almost every other statistic paper collected by the Government, but it is assumed that there are at least 100 places of worship, including those of all Christian denominations, forty-four of which are in the Eastern Province, wherein perhaps 50,000 persons can be assembled, leaving the large remainder of the Christian population without the means of public devotional exercise.

The following return will shew the number of religious denominations, churches, and ministers, established in the Colony :

Extent
in

Dutch
Reformed.

English

SECTION IV.

EDUCATION AND SCHOOLS.

THE deplorable and inefficient state of public instruction at the government schools, throughout the whole country, for many years attracted the attention of the friends of the colony, and more especially that of Colonel Bell, late Secretary of the Government, and the celebrated philosopher and astronomer, Sir John Herschel, who visited the Cape in pursuit of scientific objects in the year 1832. To the efforts of these gentlemen we owe the present reformed and satisfactory state of our educational system. Their views having been communicated to his Excellency Sir G. Napier, shortly after his arrival to assume the government of the colony, that officer immediately represented the defective nature of the existing institutions, to the home authorities, and received directions to place the public schools in charge of men professionally qualified to undertake the important office of public instructors. These orders were promulgated on the 23rd May, 1839, and on the same day "a superintendent-general of education" was appointed under whom the public instruction of the colony was placed.

The gentleman very judiciously selected for this office was Dr. James Rose Innes, who originally arrived in the Cape in 1822 with a number of instructors that were sent out by the British Government, to several of the country districts, in order to promulgate the English language, which it had been determined to introduce into all legal and official proceedings. Mr. Innes was stationed for several years in the town of Utenhay, where he conducted one of the most numerous and efficient seminaries in the colony, and subsequently accepted the offer of a professor's chair, in the South African College, a very valuable institution established at Cape Town by public subscription, and which, under the care of the Reverend Mr. Faure, the Reverend Dr. Adamson, Mr. Innes, and Mr. Changuion, has educated a considerable mass of the colonial youth, some of whom have since deservedly earned distinguished honours at British and continental universities.

The superintendent of education, finding, after a tour made