the new names which it introduced, that the decline of their missions must be considered as tantamount to the removal of one formidable obstacle in the way of evangelizing the Pagan and the Mahommedan world. How much the exertions of British missionaries directly contribute to the consolidation of the English empire in distant regions, it would not be difficult to shew. The connexion formed by conquest and political rule, is feeble, compared with the ties of a common religion and a common language. And contemplating the probability that the British empire may share the fate of other empires in its colonial relations, and be compelled either to yield to other foreign influence, or to see her dependencies throw off their allegiance, every day is now rendering it less and less possible that those countries which have been the sphere of missionary labour, should cease to belong to England by these moral ties. The extension of education and religious knowledge among the heathen, unquestionably tends to promote our mercantile prosperity, by widening the market for commerce; and it is by the opening of fresh markets, rather than by any extension of our empire, that our colonies tend to the aggrandisement of the Mother Country. But, as regards the true glory of a nation, what territorial accessions can be put in competition with the permanent honour of having made its language and literature the all but universal medium of intelligence and religious truth, as the English language is likely to become, by means, first, of our foreign commerce, and next by missionary exertions?

Dr. Coke sailed for Ceylon with six missionaries in December, 1813. He was not, however, permitted to see the commencement of the work. Before the vessel reached Bombay, a fit of apoplexy closed his labours, and his remains were committed to the deep, which he had so often traversed on the same benevolent errand: he is said to have crossed the Atlantic no fewer than eighteen times. Among the advocates and promoters of Christian Missions, this venerable individual is certainly entitled to no ordinary rank. During the last thirty years of his life, this cause was ever uppermost in his thoughts. When in England, he stooped to the very drudgery of charity,' employing much of his time in travelling through the country, to solicit subscriptions for missionary purposes, while the larger part of his own private fortune was cheerfully dedicated to the same cause. His unconquerable activity,' remarks Dr. Brown, was attributed by the world to enthusiasm, by his enemies to ambition; but, by his friends, who knew him best, to zeal for the glory of • God and the salvation of men. He was not, however, with

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' out his faults. Of a warm and sanguine temperament, he was 'frequently hurried into schemes without consideration, was liable to be provoked by opposition, was improvident in his plans, profuse in his expenditure, and had, we suspect, no inconsiderable share of vanity. His many excellencies, bowever, more than counterbalanced his faults.' One of his chief faults, indeed, appears to have been, that he was before-hand with the Conference, and with the greater part of the religious world, in embarking in the cause of Missions; that he was impatient of the apathy and supineness which he had to encounter in his brethren; and that he differed from some of them as to the relative importance of carrying the Gospel to the heathen, and extending a sect at home.

Mr. Harvard has devoted, we think injudiciously, upwards of a hundred pages to a detail of the circumstances preliminary to the actual commencement of the mission: his fifth chapter commences with the arrival of the surviving missionaries at Bombay, and it is not till the seventh chapter, that the reader is landed at Ceylon. Mr. H. remained behind at Bombay till the following January, when, with Mrs. Harvard, he joined his brother missionaries. He laboured at Ceylon four years, and returned to England in ill-health, in January 1818. At this date, the narrative terminates. The information which the volume contains, will not, therefore, be very new to those readers who are in the habit of inspecting the missionary accounts. But they will feel interested in tracing the steps by which the mission has been brought to its present encouraging state. The Methodist Missionaries had, in 1822, established no fewer than fifteen stations, and their judicious exertions in instituting schools, had been crowned with great success. The last Report states the number of scholars at 5000. Not only has no resistance been offered by the heathen native priests, but ' even they have themselves cheerfully co-operated in the erection of school-rooms, and in encouraging the attendance of ⚫ their children.' The transcendent stupidity of the adult natives presents an almost unsurmountable difficulty in the way of any other exertions at present: such stocks and stones,' says Mr. Fox, missionary at Colombo, cannot be conceived of out of Asia.'

Of all the systems of religious belief or disbelief that have deluded and degraded mankind, the vulgar Budhuism would seem to be well-nigh the most incapable of resisting or surviving the introduction of rational ideas, by the diffusion of education. Mr. Harvard is right when he says that, compared with the prevailing religion of the Hindoos, Budhuism wears an aspect amiable and humane. Unlike the worship

of Juggernaut, (to instance one Hindoo deity only,) whose rubric prescribes impurity and blood as acceptable, and even ' essential acts of worship, the worship of Budhu is simple and ' inoffensive.' The sacred books of the system, we are told, forbid cruelty, dishonesty, unchastity, and falsehood, and inculcate kindness, sympathy, and subordination. But the same may be said of the sacred books of the Hindoos; and as well might the religion of the Jesuits and Dominicans be sought for in the New Testament, as the religion of the Hindoos, the Chinese, or the Singhalese be judged of from their vedas, or banna, or sacred books. The common people have no access to these books; they are, for the most part, written in a language which the people do not understand. The Banna, or sacred writings of Budhu, are in the Pali language; and when they are read in public, it is the business of a subordinate priest to interpret them, sentence by sentence, in the vernacular tongue. This seems a rational proceeding,-the relic, possibly, of a better system. Indeed, there is some reason to believe that Budhuism is a corruption of a purer faith-a reformation, as Mahommedanism was, upon polytheism; and its founder may not have been chargeable with the atheistic tenets avowed by his followers. He may have taught, as a philosophical dogma, that the world made itself, in opposition to the ridiculous fables respecting its origin; or, rather, perhaps, he may have held the eternity of matter, without connecting with it sentiments strictly atheistic. In fact, the notions held by his worshippers, who regard him as an incarnation of Deity, seem to imply that the existence of a Deity was not excluded from his doctrines. Mr. Harvard was told by a converted Budhuist priest, that the worshippers of Budhu believe that several incarnations of their Deity have taken place, the last of which they conceive to have happened about four hundred years before the Christian era.

According to their writings, Budhu visited Ceylon for the purpose of rescuing the natives from the tyranny of the demons who covered the whole island, and exercised the most cruel tyranny over the inhabitants. So numerous were these malignant spirits, that, on the arrival of Budhu, they covered the whole ground, and there was not sufficient space left for him to set his foot; and had a pin fallen, it could not have found its way to the ground. Budhu, confident of the efficacy of his doctrines, directed his discourse to a part of the vast mass before him, which immediately yielded to its force, and became panic-struck by the superior power which was opposed to them. Availing himself of the confusion into which the demons were thrown, and perceiving a vacant space, Budhu descended, and occupied the spot. As he continued to preach, directing his sermons to every part of the vast circle which was formed around him, the

demons gradually retired further from his presence, until they were all at length driven into the sea. Budhu then issued the following proclamation: "Behold, I have conquered the malignant spirits who had so long, and with such irresistible sway, tyrannised over you. Fear demons no more-worship them no more!"

This tradition, divested of the absurdities in which it is clothed, represents Budhu as a religious reformer, who, finding the Singhalese devoted to the Kappooa system of demon worship, endeavoured, by preaching some portion of truth, though mixed up with much error, to raise their minds from the degraded and enslaved state in which they had been held for ages; success followed the persevering promulgation of the system, until it gained the ascendancy, and became the established religion of the island. The principal doctrines he inculcated, appear to have been these: He denied the existence of a Great First Cause of all things, and taught that matter is eternal; and that the affairs and destinies of men are invariably fixed by an uncontrollable fatality. As a rational effect of these principles, he rejected as absurd the practice of any form of religious worship. With respect to a future state, he asserted, that human beings pass from one mode of existence into another, in an endless series of transmigrations; that these transmigrations are regulated according to their moral character; until, by repeated births and sufferings, they attain to that state of moral perfection which, as a necessary consequence, shall usher them into Nirri-wana.'

That is, absorption, the ne plus ultra of Budhuistical beatitude. To the Singhalese in general, this word, says Mr. Harvard, conveys no other idea than that of annihilation. This may be questioned. At least, among the Burmans, Nirvamu implies exemption from all the miseries, incident to humanity, a state of perfect quiescence, but by no means annihilation. The Hindoo idea of absorption,' says Mr. Ward,' is, that the 'soul is received into the Divine essence;' and it is difficult to conceive that the absolute termination of existence can ever be represented as the consummation of happiness. The doctrine of absorption, which places bliss in the utter extinction of desire, may be considered as the Stoicism of the Eastern world.*

That Budhu rejected any form of religious worship, is by no means clear; it is more probable that he only condemned the bloody sacrifices and absurd ritual of the Hindoo polytheism. This institution of temples and a priesthood, is at variance with the supposition that Budhuism in its original form was a system of undisguised atheism.' We know but little what was its original form. It is now acknowledged to be universally corrupted. The followers of Budhu, and even the priests themselves,' Mr. Harvard admits, will perform acts of wor

* See Ward's View of the History, &c. of the Hindoos. Vol. II. p. 206.

ship to the Kapooistic deities, and have figures of demons painted on the walls of their own temples. But this he adds, so far as I have been able to learn, is a corruption of the Budhuist system.' The worship of Fo is in like manner blended with the more ancient polytheism of China. The fact is, that the doctrines of Budhu, whatever they were, have, wherever they prevail, grafted themselves on the popular faith, modifying only, rather than displacing, the pre-existing idolatry, by a process analogous to that by which a corrupt Christianity became blended with the paganism of Greece and Rome. And the substitution of Budhu himself as an object of worship, in 'the place of the devils whom he expelled, would be the natural result, in the absence of enlightened ideas respecting an invisible Object of worship; just as the worship of Venus and Astarte was transferred to the Virgin, and all the rites of classic heathenism were adopted into the hagiology of Christian Rome. The first step would be the deification of the deceased teacher; this idea the vulgar would soon convert into the prevailing notion of an incarnation of deity,-a god come down in the likeness of man; and the downward tendency of the depraved mind would soon lead to the absolute identification of Deity with this supposed avatar, to the exclusion of any higher object of worship. But idolatry cannot subsist on invisible things. Budhu himself must needs undergo incarnation, or must condescend to become wood and stone. In the North of Asia, the former alternative has been adopted, and the besotted worshippers believe in an ever-renewed incarnation of Budhu, in the person of one or other of their Lamas. In Ceylon, the latter has taken place.

The Budhuist wihárees, or temples,' says Mr. Harvard, which have fallen under my observation, appear to have been constructed merely as receptacles of the sacred image; as they are not sufficiently capacious to have been designed for the accommodation of worshippers. The natives generally perform their devotions standing at the door. The principal image of Budhu in these temples, represents the god in a recumbent posture, with his eyes open, and the head resting on one of the hands. The size of this image is sometimes fifteen or twenty feet long. The god is also represented by smaller images, sitting cross-legged, after the manner of the Asiatics; and by others, standing, with the right arm extended, and the thumb and fore-finger compressed, as if in the act of communicating instruction. The temples also contain smaller images of the idol, molten and carved, with celestial attendants painted on the walls. A frightful demon, usually painted black or blue, armed with some instrument of destruction, is stationed at the door of the temple, as a guard of honour or defence. A priest is generally in attendance to receive the offerings of the worshippers: these consist of food, flowers, and money. The food is the portion of the priests; the flowers are