fully affected by the exhibition of these sufferings and atrocities, Infidelity, on the other hand, can behold them, and DOES behold them, with all the coldness and apathy of Voltaire. And this is the great practical triumph of Christianity over philosophical unbelief. While by the former, the best feelings of our nature are meliorated, and improved, and softened, and extended; they become by the influence of the latter, sullen, and cold, and torpid, and dead.

The remaining opinion on this subject, which is worthy of notice, is the following: "The "conversion of the Hindoos to Christianity is "indeed a solemn obligation, if practicable: "but the attempt may possibly displease the "Hindoos, and endanger our Empire." This fear is grounded solely on an ignorance of facts, and on the remoteness of the scene. Christianity began to be preached to Hindoos by Europeans, 300 years ago, and whole provinces are now covered with Christians. In the present endeavours of Protestant Missionaries, the chief difficulty which they generally experience is to awaken the mind of the torpid Hindoos to the subject. They know that every man may chuse the religion he likes best, and profess it with impunity; that he may lose his cast and buy a cast again, as he buys an article of merchandize.

There are a hundred casts of religion in Hindoostan; and there is no common interest about a particular religion. When one native meets another on the road, he seldom expects to find that he is of the same cast with himself. They are a divided people. Hindoostan is like the great world in miniature; when you pass a great river or lofty mountain, you generally find a new variety. Some persons in Europe think it must be a novelty to the Hindoos to see a Missionary. There have been for ages past, numerous casts of Missionaries in Hindoostan, Pagan, Mahomedan, and Christian, all seeking to proselyte individuals to a new religion, or to some new sect of an old one. The difficulty, as the Author has already observed, in regard to the Protestant Teachers, is to awaken attention to their doctrine.*

The general indifference of the natives to

* In fact, there is scarcely one point in their mythological religion that the whole race of Hindus have faith in. There are sectaries and schismatics without end, who will believe only certain points that others abjure: individuals of those sects dissent from the doctrines believed by the majority: other philo sophical sceptics will scarcely believe any thing, in opposition to their easy-faithed brethren, who disbelieve othing.-Hence nay, in part, be discerned the liability under which inquirers labour, of being misled by sectaries into receiving

these attempts, whether successful or not, has been demonstrated by recent events. After the adversaries of Christian Missions had circulated their pamphlets through British India, with the best intention no doubt, according to their judgment, announcing the intelligence that some of the English wanted to convert the inhabitants by force, and to blow Hindoostan into a flame; the natives seem to have considered the information as absurd or unintelligible, and to have treated it with contempt. immediately afterwards, when, by the defection of the British troops, the foundations of our empire were shaken to their centre, both Mahomedans and Hindoos (who, if they wished to rebel, needed only to sound that trumpet which was first sounded by a Senior Merchant in Leadenhall-street, no doubt with the best intentions) evinced their accustomed loyalty, and crowded round the standard of the Supreme Government in the hour of danger.*

For

scism as orthodoxy, and of forming general conclusions from individual or partial information. But, in fact, there is No GENERAL ORTHODOXY AMONG HINDOOS. See the Hindoo Pantheon, p. 180, by Edward Moor, F. R. S. published in 1810

* A worthy Clergyman belonging to the Presidency of Fort St. George, who witnessed the troops marching against cach

There is one argument for the expediency of an Ecclesiastical Establishment, which the Author did not insist on strongly in the Memoirs, from motives of delicacy: but recent events have rendered the same reserve no longer necessary. He will proceed therefore to disclose a fact which will serve to place the motives for recommending such an establishment, in their just light. It is not the giving the Christian Religion to the natives which will endanger our Empire, but the want of religion among our own countrymen. After the disturbance among the British Officers in Bengal in 1794, which for a time had a most alarming aspect, being of the same character with that which took place lately at Madras, a Memorial was presented to the

other, and knew not for a time, what would be the fate of the Empire; after the danger was over, makes the following most just and striking reflection, in a letter to a friend. "It cannot "but have occurred to every reflecting mind, in looking back on past scenes, if it had pleased God in his providence to have dispossessed us of our dominions, how little would have "remained to shew, that a people blessed with the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, had once born sway in this land! "But now," (he adds exultingly, in allusion to the Translation of the Scriptures) "the Word of God in the languages of all "India, will be an enduring MONUMENT of British Piety and "Liberality, for which the sacrifice of Prayer and Thanksgiv "ing will ascend to the Most high, to the latest generations."

Marquis Wellesley, government, by persons who had been long in the service of the Company, and who were well acquainted with the circumstances of the Empire at large; representing the necessity of a "suitable Religious Establishment for British India;" and illustrating that necessity by the events which had recently taken place in the army. That Memorial referred to the almost total extinction of Christian worship, at the military stations, where the seventh day was only distinguished by the British Flag; and noticed the fatal consequences that might be expected from large bodies of men, far remote from the controlling power of the parent state, enjoying luxury and independence, and seeing nothing, from youth to age, of the religion of their country. It shewed further, that, of the whole number of English who go to India, not a tenth part return; and assigned this fact as a reason why their religion should follow them to the East; that it might be, in the first place, a solace to themselves, in the dreary prospect of dying in that land (for of a thousand soldiers in sickly India, there will be generally a hundred in declining health) and secondly, "that it might be some security for their loyalty to

on his accession to the