it is thought, be harmlessly indulged, when permitted to vent itself in the deep, but quiet aspirations of devotional abstraction; yet when sufficiently powerful to operate on practice, and to animate exertion, being founded on error, it must, like every other error produce evils, proportioned to its magnitude. An exclusive attachment to a particular mode of faith, in a state of quiescence generates the overweening reserve of the anchorite; but stimulated into action, and armed with authority, kindles the boisterous zeal, and sanguinary fury, of the bigot.

These objections, which are always eagerly espoused by unbelievers, who are in the habit of classing the Christian Religion with the various delusions, which have successively captivated the public mind, have been supposed to derive additional weight, from a survey of the religious opinions prevalent throughout the eastern world. Divided into empires of vast extent and grandeur, inhabited by an immense population, its conquerers have always preserved and still continue to preserve, their superiority, rather by the expedients of political wisdom, than by the force of arms. But if its inhabitants must yield the palm of intellectual strength, in many of the arts of refinement they have maintained a decided superiority;

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and wherever European power has enslaved their bodies, the European mind itself has generally received a bias, and European habits have taken their complexion, from the fascinating and luxurious manners of Asiatic climates. On subjects connected with legislation and government, the liberal spirit of European policy has often been contracted, and subdued, by the refinements of Eastern despotism. In matters of religious belief, which must always have a powerful influence on the moral character, this result has been still more conspicuous; and the pure and simple faith of' the western world, has been too frequently weakened and confounded by the imposing dogmata of oriental superstition.

The various forms of religion predominant in the east have also acquired a higher degree of importance, and occupied a greater share of attention, from their connection with the history and science of a people, whose interests are so intimately blended with those of the British empire; a people, who while they have for a series of ages borne with unresisting apathy the yoke of servitude, under so many different masters, have stubbornly repelled any attempted innovation, and every imposed restriction, on those peculiar tenets which they have so long revered,

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That the warlike tribes of Arabia and Tartary, who have sent out from their bosom, conquerors to invade, to subdue, or to convert the rest of the earth, should have retained vestiges of their ancient customs and traditions, might be reasonably expected; but that the peaceful natives of Hindoostan, under the most sanguinary persecutions, as well as under the milder influence of persuasion, should have preserved the prominent features of their ancient character unworn by this attrition, is a fact, which while it causes admiration, must afford an ample field for speculation and research.

To the expedition of Alexander, who opened the knowledge of India to Europe, we are naturally prompted to look, for the earliest information respecting the manners of its inhabitants.

Whatever defects may be found in the Grecian historians, with respect to their geographical knowledge, defects, arising both from their difficulty in obtaining local information, and from the structure of their language, which caused them to reject many foreign terms, as barbarous and dissonant; yet to their faithful accuracy in the delineation of manners, the experience and observation of modern times, have afforded abundant and honourable testimony.

In those authors who have recorded the actions of the Macedonian conqueror, and particularly in the works of Arrian, which, although written after the declension of Attic taste and elegance, are not unworthy of a purer age; we recognize many of those distinctive marks, which, at this day are attached to the followers of the religion of Brahmà. We are also informed that even at

period so remote from the present, their religion exhibited proofs of long establishment. Their division into separate tribes or castes, by which a community in religious worship, as well as in social intercourse, was restricted, together with the peculiar immunities arrogated by the sacerdotal order, are described with a clearness and precisión, which it might be thought impossible for ignorance to misapprehend, or for ingenuity to pervert. But in the representations which are given of the simplicity of their worship, and particularly of their total abhorrence from idolatry, there is not less reason to conclude, that their faith has suffered some remarkable deviations from its original purity.

From the time when the successors of Alexander ceased to maintain an immediate communication with India, a wide chasm occurs in its history.

It was during this interval however, that a wonderful change was effected in the opinions of mankind by the introduction of a religion, of which, if the purity of its doctrines attested by incontrovertible miracles. prove the divine origin, its propagation by means so utterly inadequate, and to human reason contemptible, no less demonstrates the intervention of divine agency. The command which its divine author gave to his disciples: "Go ye into all the world and preach "the Gospel to every creature," was so punctually fulfilled, if not in the letter, yet as to the spirit and design, that in comparison with the triumphs, obtained by a few artless and illiterate men, not only without the assistance of all human power, but in direct opposition to it, the conquests of the Macedonian hero, either in magnitude or difficulty, shrink into insignificance. Within the short period of fifty years from the death of Christ, the sound of his Gospel had, almost literally, " gone forth into all lands, and "its words unto the ends of the world." It had been heard in the porticos of Athens, and in the pagodas of India. It had been enabled by its native strength to subdue the fierce and inhospitable Parthian, and combat the wit and eloquence of the Roman court. It was equally successful, whether opposed to the metaphysical subtleties