persecute the Christians of India, provided they would keep their Christianity to themselves; but those who attempt to convert others, are to be exterminated. Sir, I need not say to you, that this is not toleration, but persecution. Toleration is a legal permission not only to enjoy our own principles unmolested, but to make use of all the fair means of persuasion to recommend them to others. The former is but little more than might be enjoyed in countries the most distinguished by persecution; for few would wish to interrupt men, so long as they kept their religion to themselves. Yet this is the whole of what some would wish to allow, both in the East and West Indies. In former times, unbelievers felt the need of toleration for themselves, and then they generally advocated it on behalf of others; but of late, owing perhaps to the increase of their numbers, they have assumed a loftier tone. Now, though for political reasons, all men must be allowed to follow their own religion, yet they must not aim at making proselytes. Men who have no belief in the Christian religion, may be expected to have no regard for it; and where this is the case, the rights of conscience will be but little respected.

So far as my observations extend, these remarks are applicable to Deists in general; and where situations are favorable to their views, they may be expected to rise in their demands. In a letter from Mr. Carey, now before me, of a late date, he writes as follows:-"India swarms with Deists; and Deists are, in my opinion, the most intolerant of mankind. Their great desire is to exterminate true religion from the earth. I consider the alarms which have been spread through India, as the fabrications of these men. The concurrence of two or three circumstances, in point of time; namely, the massacre at Vellore, the rebellious disposition of the inhabitants in some parts of Mysore, and the public advertisements for subscriptions to the oriental translations, have furnished them with occasion to represent the introduction of Christianity among the natives, as dangerous."

While Mr. Carey was writing this letter, Sir, he might not be aware that a number of these men were preparing to embark for Europe, with a view to spread the alarm at home. Assuredly they have a cause in which they are engaged, as well as the Bible Soci

ety; and are not wanting in zeal to support it. Mr. Twining would be thought a Christian: but, if so, in what cause is he engaged? He may pretend that he is only pleading for toleration; but, in fact, he is pleading for the exclusion of what he acknowledges to be light and truth, and for the refusal of toleration to the religion of his Maker.

As "the religious opinions and customs of the natives of India" are a subject on which Mr. Twining's feelings are so "particularly alive," it may not be amiss to state what a few of these opinions are. It may not be necessary, Sir, for your information; but some persons into whose hands this pamphlet may fall, may be the better able to judge of the question at issue.

In the first place, then, the Hindoos acknowledge ONE SUPREME GOD: they do not appear, however, to worship Him, but certain subordinate powers, which, they say, proceeded from him. Of these, the three principal are denominated BIRMHA, the creator of all; VISHNOO, the preserver of all; and SEEB, the destroyer of all. Birmha is not worshipped at all: Vishnoo only by a few; but Seeb (the destroyer) by almost all: their worship, therefore, is chiefly the effect of superstitious fears. The foulest vices are ascribed to these subordinate deities in their own shasters; but that, which is sin in men, they say, is not sin in the gods. Besides these, they worship innumerable inferior deities, called debtas, chiefly, if not entirely, under an idea that it is in their power to do them harm. The lusts, quarrels, and other vices of these debtas also fill their shasters, as their images do the country. The chief use that they seem to make of the one Supreme God is to ascribe to him all the evil that they commit, and to persuade themselves that they are not accountable beings.

They have a most firm faith in conjuration, in lucky and unlucky days; and in almost all their civil concerns act under its influence.

A considerable part of their religion consists in self-torment. One will hold up a hand till it is grown stiff, and he is incapable of taking it down again: another will lie upon the points of iron spikes, just so blunt as not to pierce him to death, and this for years together; others, on certain days at the beginning of the new year, are

suspended in the air by sharp iron hooks, stuck through the skin on each side of their back, and continue swinging round in that position from five to fifteen minutes. At the worship of JUGGERNAUT, whose temple is in Orissa, this massy wooden god is borne in a carriage, drawn by the multitude; and while the air resounds with their shouts, happy are those who throw themselves under the wheels to be crushed to death! This, and every other species of self-torment and self-murder, gains admiration from the spectators.

Besides this, it is well known to be a part of their religion to favour the burning of widows with the bodies of their deceased husbands. Their shasters pronounce this to be a great virtue, and to render them a kind of celestial beings. And lest the circumstance of absence at the time of the husband's death should prevent it, their laws prescribe as follows: "If the wife be within one day's journey of the place where her husband dies, the burning of his corpse shall be deferred one day for her arrival. If he die in another country, the virtuous wife shall take any of his effects, a sandal for instance, and binding it on her thigh, shall enter the fire with it." Thus careful are these sacred laws to secure their victim. And, as if it were meant to outrage every vestige of humanity, and to refine upon cruelty, it is an established law, that the eldest son, or nearest relation, shall set fire to the pile!

Great numbers of infants also are thrown into the river, as offerings to the goddess; and others, who refuse their mother's milk, are frequently hung up in a basket on the branch of a tree, to be devoured by ants, or birds of prey!

Whether all these customs be proper objects of toleration, may admit of a doubt. The British government in India seems to have thought otherwise. The Governor General in Council, on Aug. 20, 1802, is said to have passed a decree declaring some of them to be murder. We leave this, however, to the civil authorities. Our object is confined to remonstrance, persuasion, and the exhibition of truth and surely, if it be possible by such means to induce a people or any part of a people, to cast away these practices, it must be so far favourable to human happiness. If, Sir, there

were no hereafter, and we were merely to consult our own national interest, it were worth while, as far as possible, to endeavour to mitigate these evils: but if the good of the governed be allowed to have place in a government, it is still more so: and if there be a judgment to come, where governors and governed must each appear and give an account, it must be an object of the first importance. At that bar, Sir, the adversaries of those who peacefully endeavour to bring off the Hindoos from these abominations, will be ashamed to show their faces!

I

may be told, that the particulars above referred to are the most offensive parts of the system, and that other parts of it may be very good. It is true there are degrees in evil. All things pertaining to Hindooism may not be equally shocking to the feelings of an enlightened mind. I might safely affirm, however, with Dr. Buchanan, "The Hindoos have no moral gods: neither does any part of their religion produce a moral impression on their minds, but the contrary. As men, they are not worse than other men but by their superstitions they are becoming exceedingly corrupt.

,

"The natives of India," Mr. Twining tells us, "are a religious people; and in this respect they differ, he fears, from the inhabitants of this country. If, by the inhabitants of this country, he mean those Christians who are alarmed at the progress of Christianity, I fear so too. If the religion of the natives of India, however, have no influence on their morals, unless it be to corrupt them, it will argue nothing in its favour. And that this is the case, every friend to the morality of the New Testament, who has resided in India, can bear witness. I have read enough, Sir, of the communications of men of this description, to make me disregard the praises bestowed on the virtues of these people by others. I find these praises proceed either from deistical writers, whose manifest design is to depreciate the value of Christianity, or from persons residing in the country, who, "despairing," as Dr. Buchanan says, "of the intellectual or moral improvement of the natives, are content with an obsequious spirit and manual service. These they call the virtues of the Hindoo; and after twenty year's service, praise their domestic for his virtues."

"I know not," says Bernier, an intelligent French traveller, "whether there be in the world a more covetous and sordid nation. The brahmans keep these people in their errors and superstitions, and scruple not to commit tricks and villanies so infamous, that I could never have believed them, if I had not made an ample inquiry into them."*

"A race of people," says Governor Holwell, "who from their infancy are utter strangers to the idea of common faith and honesty. This is the situation of the bulk of the people of Hindostan, as well as of the modern brahmans; amongst the latter, if we except one in a thousand, we give them over measure. The Gentoos, in general, are as degenerate, superstitious, litigious, and wicked a people, as any race of people in the known world, if not eminently more so, especially the common run of brahmans; and we can truly aver, that during almost five years that we presided in the Judicial Cutchery Court of Calcutta, never any murder, or other atrocious crime came before us, but it was proved, in the end, a brahman was at the bottom of it."t

"A man must be long acquainted with them," says Sir John Shore, Governor General of Bengal, "before he can believe them capable of that barefaced falsehood, servile adulation, and deliberate deception, which they daily practise. It is the business of all from the Ryott to the Dewan, to conceal and deceive: the simplest matters of fact are designedly covered with a veil, through which no human understanding can penetrate."+

'Lying, theft, whoredom, and deceit," says Mr. Carey, "are sins for which the Hindoos are notorious. There is not one man in a thousand who does not make lying his constant practice. Their thoughts of God are so very light, that they only consider him as a sort of plaything. Avarice and servility are so united in almost every individual, that cheating, juggling, and lying, are esteemed no sins with them; and the best among them, though they

* Voyages de Francois Bernier, Tome I. pp. 150. 162, et Tome II. p. 105. + Holwell's Historical Events, Vol. I. p. 228. Vol. II. p. 151. Parliamentary Proceedings against Mr. Hastings, Appendix to Vol. II. VOL. III.

p. 65.

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