is, that there is another incarnation, became," says Thomas," a lively witthe Tenth, which they have so long ness that the blood of Jesus Christ expected ; and when that comes all does indeed cleanse from all sins."casts are to be destroyed. There is “Come ye who are heavy laden," is no reason why a salutary advantage truly the invitation which the gospel should not be taken of so general an holds out to the Hindoos. It is liberty expectation. And if, from their gross to the oppressed; emancipation to the notions of incarnations, and obscure enslaved; equality to the degraded ; fancies of a Trinity, their minds can good tidings of great joy to all. All be gradually and dexterously led into human affections and instincts are on the higher and more satisfactory doc. its side in Hindoostan ; it forbids the trines of the gospel, no teacher mother to expose or sacrifice her should decline it. Indeed his task child, the widow to be burnt with her would be so much the easier. In husband's corpse, the son to set fire other countries missionaries have had to his living mother's funeral pile ! to create terms for these mysteries ; “ But why should we wish to conbut here they have the Trimourtee vert the Hindoos?"-says the Bengal and the Avatar ready, and the peo. officer ; and this is the question of all ple are prepared to receive the bible those who hold that the Universal as the Shaster of the new cast. Father is equally adored " by saint,

The great difficulty which Chris. by savage, and by sage !” The phitianity has had to encounter in other losophy of the old fathers, who held cases is, that it requires submission the gods of the heathen to be the to certain restraints. Its yoke in- devils of their own mythology, was deed is easy and its burthen light ; better philosophy than this. Why but a yoke it was to the Greeks and should we convert them ?-Set the Romans, and to the Celts and Goths question of salvation aside. None whose previous belief laid them un- but catholicks or Calvanists will now der few or no restrictions. In the maintain the desperate doctrine, that Brahminical system every thing is salvation is exclusively attached to burthensome, and its lax morality is one system of faith, and that they a poor compensation for its oppres. who have never heard of Christ must sive ritual. A fine instance occurred be damned. It were better to worto the Danish missionaries of the ef- ship the Lingam than to believe this, fect produced by offering an easier if this belief were all. But this can. law. A penitent on the Malabar not be denied, that under the Chris. coast, having inquired of many Brah. tian dispensation man has been promans and Yogųees how he might gressive, and that his future and permake atonement for his sins, was petual progression is provided for, and directed to drive iron spikes through encouraged and enjoined by it; wherehis sandals, and go thus shod a pil. as every other system of belief tends grimage of nearly five hundred miles.

to keep the human race stationary, or If, through loss of blood or weakness to degrade them. All the institutions of body, he was obliged to halt, that of Christianity operate to produce the was allowable till he had recovered greatest possible quantity of virtue strength enough to proceed. One and of happiness ; of all institutions day, as he was halting under a tree, they are the best adapted to the heart one of the missionaries came and of man: so they needs must be, for preached in his hearing from these from Him who made the heart of words: The blood of Jesus Christ man did they proceed. It cannot be cleanseth from all sin

While he was denied by those who admit a future preaching, the man rose up, cast off state, wherein our identity is retain. his torturing sandals, and cried out ed, that that state must be such as aloud, this is what I want ! •* And he our moral habits here have qualified u9 for, and, setting faith aside, that perance, seclusion, and prayer ! the best man here will be the hap- An official inquiry was lately made piest man hereafter ;--that religion, at Calcutta, and a report given in of therefore, which most effectually pro- all these human sacrifices which motes our well doing in this world, were that year performed within is necessarily in the same degree thirty miles of that city, month by most instrumental to our well being month, specifying place and person. in the world to come. To the deist In the year 1803 they amounted to as well as the Christian, the reason- 275—one of whom was a girl of ing must be conclusive. And that eleven years of age. It is absurd, it is the Christian's duty to spread and worse than absurd, to say these the gospel, in obedience to the ex- sacrifices are voluntary, because in press injunction of our Divine Mas- some instancesthey appear to be so. ter, cannot be doubted by those who In those instances the victims chose understand, or who ever read his death, because they thought it more words. This, we say, cannot be tolerable than the infamy which was doubted, notwithstanding major Scott their only alternative. The fact that Waring assures us that bishop Horse- Alboquerque was blest by the women ley considered this injunction to be because he prohibited this custom, is obsolete, that such was the universal proof decisive, if it were needful, to opinion in 1781, and that that opinion prove that women would not be burnt was established by a vote of the alive if they could help it! Do we house of commons, which, as it feel less horrour at the thought of can make and unmake law, may these dreadful sacrifices, for the theaperhaps be thought competent by trical pageantry with which they the major to make and unmake have sometimes been represented to gospel also!

our imagination ? Here is the misWhy should we convert the Hin- sionary Marshman's plain and faithful doos? --Even were there no religious account of one at which he was preduty which called upon us to enlight- sent, scarcely two years ago. en these unhappy idolaters, common “ A person informing us that a woman humanity should make us attempt to

was about to be burnt with the corpse of

her husband near our house, I, with se. rid them of their most burthensome

veral of our brethren, hastened to the and most inhuman superstition. Ex

place; but before we could arrive, the cept the system of Mexican priest- pile was in flames. It was a horrible sight. craft, no fabrick of human fraud has The most shocking indifference and levity ever been devised so deadly as the appeared among those who were present. Brahminical ; and though the Mexi. I never saw any thing more brutal than

their behaviour. The dreadful scene had can rites were bloodier, they were less

not the least appearance of a religious heart-hardening, less injurious to so

ceremony. It resembled an abandoned ciety, less pernicious to the moral rabble of boys in England, collected for nature of man. There was a time the purpose of worrying to death a cat or when the custom of burning widows a dog.* Such were the confusion, the was disbelieved in Europe, as a fiction levity, the bursts of brutal laughter, of lying travellers. The extent to

while the poor woman was burning alive which it is practised will not, perhaps, every spark of humanity was extinguish

before their eyes, that it seemed as if

. even now be credited by the ad- ed by this accursed superstition. That mirers of the gentle Hindoos, and

which added to the cruelty was, the the mild doctrines of Brahma--whom

smallness of the fire. It did not consist the late resident at Bhagulpore,'

of so much wood as we consume in dress. is pleased to metamorphose into a

* A bamboo, perhaps twenty feet long, lawgiver, and to represent under the

had been fastened at one end to a stake shade of the banian tree, instructing driven into the ground, and held down his disciples in the duties of tem- over the fire by men at the other.

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ing a dinner ; 'No, not this fire that was to He appeared about nineteen. You havę. consume the living and the dead! I saw murdered your mother ; your sin is great. the legs of the poor creature hanging The sin of the Brahman who urged you out of the fire, while her body was in to it is greater; but yours is very great. flames. After a while they took a bam. • What could I do? It is the custom.' boo, ten or twelve feet long, and stirred True, but this custom is not of God, but it, pushing and beating the half-consumed proceedeth from the devil, who wishes to corpses, as you would repair a fire of destroy mankind. How will you bear the. green wood, by throwing the unconsumed reflection that you have murdered your pieces into the middle. Perceiving the only surviving parent ?

He seemed to legs hanging out, they beat them with feel what was said to him ; but just at the bamboo for some time, in order to this instant that hardened wretch, the break the ligatures which fastened them Brahman, rushed in, and drew him away, at the knees (for they would not have while the tears were standing in his eyes. come near to touch them for the world.) After reasoning with some others, and At length they succeeded in bending telling them of the Saviour of the world, them upwards into the fire ; the skin and I returned home with a mind full of hormuscles giving way, and discovering the rour and disgust. knee-sockets bare, with the balls of the “ You expect, perhaps, to hear that this leg bones: a sight this which I need not unhappy victim was the wife of some say, made me thrill with horrour; especial. Brahman of high cast. She was the wife ly when I recollected that this hapless vic- of a barber, who dwelt in Serampore, and. tim of superstition was alive but a few mi. had died that morning, leaving the son I nutes before. To have seen savage wolves have mentioned, and a daughter of about thus tearing a human body limb from eleven years of age. Thus has this infernal limb, would have been shocking; but to superstition aggravated the common mise. see relations and neighbours do this to ries of life, and left these children stripped one with whom they had familiarly con- of both their parents in one day. Nor is versed not an hour before, and to do it this an uncommon case. It often happens with an air of levity, was almost too much to children far more helpless than these ; for me to bear!

sometimes to children possessed of pro'Turning to the Brahman, who was perty, which is then left, as well as themthe chief actor in this horrid tragedy, a selves, to the mercy of those who have young fellow of about twenty-two, and one decoyed their mother to their father's of the most hardened that I ever accosted, funeral pile !" I told him that the system which allowed After such an example, it were in. of these cruelties could no more proceed sulling the feelings of the reader to from God than darkness from the sun; and warned him that he must appear at

say more.

This accursed custom the judgment seat of God to answer for

was not known when the Institutes this murder. He with a grin, full of sa

of Menu were written, nor when vage contempt, told me that'he gloried they were glossed by Calidas, for in it; and felt the highest pleasure in per- rules are there given concerning the forming the deed.' I replied, that his conduct of widows. They are merepleasure might be less than that of his ly restricted from second marriage, master; but seeing it was in vain to rea. son with him, I turned to the people, and

and that, it seems, had been abroexpostulated with them. One of them gated under Vena, the same king answered, that the woman had burnt who broke down the distinciion of herself of her own free choice; and that casts, and who for that wise measure she went to the pile as a matter of plea

was called the chief of sage mosure. Why then did you confine her down with that large bamboo ?

narchs,-far more probably than for had not, she would have run away the adulatory reason which Calidas What, run away from pleasure -I then has interpolated. addressed the poor luci, who had been To what extent infanticide is carihus induced to set fire to his mother. ried, it is impossible to say. Among

the lower classes every new-born in* Yet there are men in Britain who

fant who refuses the mother's milk, reckon every attempt to introduce Christianity among these people as fanatical ;

is put into a basket and hung up in and whose charity leads them to talk of

a tree for three days, during which Their going to heaven in their own way! rime the ants pick the bones clean,

if the birds of prey do not put it to Why should we convert them ?-be-
a more merciful death! It is com- cause policy requires it; religion re-
mon for those who desire children, quires it; common humanity requires
to make a vow of devoting the first it. Why should we convert them?
born to the goddess Ganges; the because they who permit the evil
victim is brought up till they have a which they can prevent are guilty of
convenient opportunity of perform- that evil, and to them shall it be im-
ing their pilgrimage and sacrifice to puted.
the river. The child is taken with Thus having shown that it is not
them, and at the time of bathing en- only safe put politick to attempt the
couraged to walk into deep water conversion of the Hindoos, that it is
till it is carried away by the stream ; our interest as well as our duty, that
should the little wretch hesitate, the the thing is possible because it has
parent pushes it off. Sick persons, been done, and that it is comparative-
whose recovery is despaired of, are ly easy, because their system supplies
laid on the bank of the river, where weapons for its own destruction, it
they die for want of food, or the remains to consider the last objection,
stream carries them off, or the sharks the utter unfitness of the missiona-
and crocodiles devour them. Sons ries for their work."
have been seen to force their fathers They have been treated with the
back into the water, when (nature peculiar insolence, injustice, and want
overcoming superstition) they have of all good feeling, which mark the
endeavoured to regain the shore! criticism of the present times. Such
“ Do not send men of any compassion qualities as these are seldom far re-
here," says Thomas to his Mission- moved from ignorance ; accordingly
ary Society, "for you will break their the missionaries have, by a wretched
hearts.” But with that rapid transi- vulgarity, been called Anabaptists :
tion of thought and feeling which a name, which like that of Manichean
marks the man of genius, he adds in former times, has served the same
immediately : “Do send men full of purpose in ecclesiastical, that the
compassion here, where many perish watch word of the day has in political
with cold, many for lack of bread, controversy.-Major Scott Waring
and millions for lack of knowledge! objects that they are dissenters. The
This country abounds with misery, objection has been crepeated from the
In England the poor receive the be- pulpit, and Dr. Barrow recommends
nefit of the gospel, in being fed and that no missionaries may be suffered
clothed by ihose who know not by to appear in India but those of the
what they are moved ; for when the established church. Lastly, they are
gospel is generally acknowledged in called fools, madmen, tinkers, &c.
a land, it puts some to fear and others Claudius Buchanan recommends a
to shame, so that to relieve their own church establishment for India. It
smart, they provide for the poor. is highly desirable that there should
But here- miserable sight! I have be one, not for the honour only of
found the path-way stopped up by the the British people, who, God be
sick and wounded people, perishing praised, are, and ever will be, a reli-
with hunger, and that in a populous gious people but even for the sake
neighbourhood, where numbers pass of publick decency. It is desirable
by, some singing, others talking, but for our countrymen, who too often,
none showing mercy-as though they as Burke has said, are unbaptized by
were dying weeds, and not dying crossing the ocean. Colonization ini

India is, indeed, forbidden; but says " Why should we convert the this pious, beneficent, and most libeHindoos?”—because our duty to God ral churchman : “ Let us rightly unand man alike requires the atteinpt. derstand what this colonization is;

men !”

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:

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It was

for the term seems to have been often we have one." This will hardly be used of late, without a precise mean- done without a visible church. There ing. If to colonize in India be to would be no difficulty in filling up pass the whole of one's life in it, then the establishment, however ample ; do ninety out of the hundred colonize; but would the archbishop, bishops, for of the whole number of Euro. deans, and chapters of Mr. Buchapeans who come out to India, a tenth Dan's plan do the work of missionapart do not return!” A melancholy ries? Could the church of England picture does this excellent man pre- supply missionaries? Where are they sent of our countrymen in that re- to be found among them? In what mote empire, sinking into "that de school, for the promulgation of sound spondent and indolent habit of mind and orthodox learning are they trainwhich contemplates home without ed up? There is ability and there is affection, and yet expects here no learning in the church of England, happiness.” “ Does it not,” he says, but its age of fermentation has long

appear a proper thing to wise and been over; and that zeal which for good men in England (for after a this work is the most needful, is, long residence in India we some- we fear, possessed only by the Metimes lose sight of what is accounted thodists. proper at home) does it not seem

a favourite opinion with proper, when a thousand British sol- Priestley, that the Mahomedans will diers are assembled at a remote sta- be converted by Socinian missionation in the heart of Asia, that the ries. Alas, his chymick art, mighty Sabbath of their country should be as it was, could not have extracted noticed ? That at least it should not spirit of zeal enough for one out of become what it is, and ever must all his Socinian coadjutors ! Socinian. be, where there is no religious re- ism has paralized itself by its union straint, a day of peculiar profligacy! with the degrading and deadening To us it would appear not only a po- philosophy of materialism ; and can litick but a humane act, in respect with difficulty supply ministers for to these our countrymen, to hallow its own few and decreasing congrethe seventh day. Of a thousand soldiers in sickly India, there will gene. England, though we thought that many

* 0, sir, say the Converts in a letter to rally be a hundred who are in a de

nations had many kinds of Shasters, yet clining state of health; who, after a in the country of the English we thought strong struggle with the climate and that there was no Shaster at all; for conwith intemperance, have fallen into cerning sin and holiness, those that are a dejected and hopeless state of mind, here have no judgment at all. We have and pass their time in painful reflec- but a kind of other creatures like devour

even thought that they were not men, tion on their distant homes, their ab

One of the richest inhabitants of sent families, and on the indiscretions Tanjore said to Swarts : “Sir, if you send of past life; but whose hearts would a person to us, send us one who has

learned all revive within them on their entering

your ten commandments."

The letter of this excellent good man to once more the house of God, and hearing the absolution of the Gospel ledge, in reply to Mr. Montgomery Camp

the Society for promoting Christian knowto the returning sinner." Such an bell (the Major Waring of his day) proves appeal is unanswerable. Nor is it incontestably the fresh benefit which he, sufficient, in reply to this, to increase in his missionary capacity, conferred both the number of army chaplains. The

upon the native Indians and the British, first step towards winning the natives demonstration, that it is our interest to

and may be referred to as a triumphant to our religion, is to show them that introduce Christianity in India..

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