(so the family flattered themselves) even of friendship.  Soon after the commencement of the century Colin Macaulay was appointed Resident at the important native state of Travancore.  While on this employment he happened to light upon a valuable collection of books, and rapidly made himself master of the principal European languages, which he spoke and wrote with a facility surprising in one who had acquired them within a few leagues of Cape Comorin.

There was another son of John Macaulay, who in force and elevation of character stood out among his brothers, and who was destined to make for himself no ordinary career.  The path which Zachary Macaulay chose to tread did not lead to wealth, or worldly success, or indeed to much worldly happiness.  Born in 1768, he was sent out at the age of sixteen by a Scotch house of business as bookkeeper to an estate in Jamaica, of which he soon rose to be sole manager.  His position brought him into the closest possible contact with negro slavery.  His mind was not prepossessed against the system of society which he found in the West Indies.  His personal interests spoke strongly in its favour, while his father, whom he justly respected, could see nothing to condemn in an institution recognised by Scripture.  Indeed, the religious world still allowed the maintenance of slavery to continue an open question.  John Newton, the real founder of that school in the Church of England of which in after years Zachary Macaulay was a devoted member, contrived to reconcile the business of a slave trader with the duties of a Christian, and to the end of his days gave scandal to some of his disciples, (who by that time were one and all sworn abolitionists,) by his supposed reluctance to see that there could be no fellowship between light and such darkness.

But Zachary Macaulay had eyes of his own to look about him, a clear head for forming a judgment on what he saw, and a conscience which would not permit him to live otherwise than in obedience to its mandates.  The young Scotchman’s innate respect for his fellows, and his appreciation of all that instruction and religion can do for men, was shocked at the sight of a population deliberately kept ignorant and heathen.  His kind heart was wounded by cruelties practised at the will and pleasure of a thousand petty despots.  He had read his Bible too literally to acquiesce easily in a state of matters under which human beings were bred and raised like a stock of cattle, while outraged morality was revenged on the governing race by the shameless licentiousness which is the inevitable accompaniment of slavery.  He was well aware that these evils, so far from being superficial or remediable, were essential to the very existence of a social fabric constituted like that within which he lived.  It was not for nothing that he had been behind the scenes in that tragedy of crime and misery.  His philanthropy was not learned by the royal road of tracts, and platform speeches, and monthly magazines.  What he knew he had spelt out for himself with no teacher except the aspect of human suffering, and degradation, and sin.