Yet, notwithstanding many melancholy facts that seem to be repugnant to such a conclusion, there exist satisfactory grounds for inferring that civilization has a direct tendency to promote the moral improvement of the Human Race, and that our species is probably destined even in this state of existence, to a course not only of social, but also of a moral progression! Of this truth distinct indications may be recognized in the altered sentiments of European nations on many momentous subjects, as evinced in the increasing aversion to wars of aggression—in the general condemnation of the principle—and the extensive abolition of the practice—of slavery, and in the rapid growth of an earnest sympathy, at once generous and humane, with the claims and the sufferings of the more unprotected branches of mankind! Of the practical results of these changes in the moral sentiments of Society—of which Christianity, which teaches that all men are of one blood and of one family, has been the primary source—and of which the English nation—influenced by the example of a few men of extraordinary piety, wisdom, and humanity, to whom it gave birth in the last generation, have been the most conspicuous instruments—one example may be appropriately introduced in this place. “The original proprietors of this fine soil, (the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope,) the poor Hottentots, the fabricated tales of whose filthiness are known to every schoolboy, and have made them proverbial in every nation of Europe, are probably the simplest and most inoffensive of the human race. By open robbery and murder, and by a cruel and persevering system of oppression on the part of the Dutch colonists, they have been reduced to not much more than 15,000 souls. Under the protection of the British government, by the careful instruction of the missionaries, and their increased importance in the colony as labourers since the abolition of the slave trade, their number is now considerably on the increase; General Craig, after the capture of the Cape, brought forward, experimentally, the physical and moral qualities of this most injured and degraded people, by forming them into a military corps, which, in point of discipline, obedience, instruction and cleanliness, were not at all behind European troops. The truth is that the filthy appearance of the Hottentot was never from choice, but necessity. The anxiety which he now shows to get quit of his sheep-skin clothing for cotton, linen, or woollen, and to keep his person clean, proves that he is far more sensible than the ‘Boor’ to the comforts of civilized life. ‘Whosoever,’ says the excellent Mr. Latrobe, the father of the Moravians in this country, ‘charges the Hottentots with being inferior to other people of the same class as to education and the means of improvement, knows nothing about them. They are in general more sensible, and possess better judgment than most Europeans,