thirty years in India, it is impossible that a man so candid and impartial as he informs us he is, could deny to us the possession of the common powers of perception.

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Our author complains bitterly of the fruitlessness of all his exertions to plant Christianity in India, although he had" watered its soil with his sweats and many times with his tears," adding, that" the seeds sown by him have, fallen upon a naked rock, and have instantly dried away." Now while we respect labor bestowed on India, however it, may have been directed; we cannot but think that when our author saw nothing follow, not even a single bud of genuine Christian piety after thirty years of sowing, it behoved him to make strict enquiry respecting what kind of seed he had been sowing for so many years. He must have been aware that were a husbandman to sow chaff, or grain deprived of its vegetative principle, even on good ground instead of a naked rock, it would produce nothing, though he were to sow it for fifty years, instead of thirty, and during the whole of that period to water the soil with his sweats or even his tears. This however would excite no surprize in the minds of those acquainted with the nature of vegetation. Their wonder would indeed have been excited had a single living plant been produced by that which was devoid of all vegetative principle, and by the weakness of the husbandman, who had for so many years been expecting a crop from such seed. But what must have been their surprize had they seen this husbandman in consequence gravely write a treatise to prove, that this soil was certainly cursed with perpetual barrenness! that as his chaff or dead seed had not produced a single living plant in so many years, it followed as a self-evident proposition, that living seed sown in all

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its freshness and vigor, must be equally unproductive; and that indeed the very attempt to sow the best of seed in that soil on which his chaff had produced nothing, was little short of desperate madness!

It happens that on this point our Lord himself furnishes us with decisive information. In the parable to which our author alludes, we are informed that "the seed is the word of God." Now although our author does not particularly inform, us what he sowed, yet from his hostility to the Scriptures, and his decided opinion that the translation of them in any style would be detrimental to all prospect of a crop, (and we presume he has no higher expectation from their being circulated among the Hindoos in their Greek and Hebrew originals,) we may safely infer, that what he sowed was any thing rather than the simple, pure, and unadulterated word of God; that it was a preparation made at Rome, which, if it contained the least of scripture doctrine, so completely neutralized that little by "poojas, processions, images, holy water, idolatrous festivals, prayers for the dead, invocation of saints," &c. &c. as to suit the whole exactly to the taste of "a quite sensual people" and render it such, as an ignorant protestant, who calls a spade a spade, would term "idolatry in disguise."

From the testimony of our author however, it appears that relative even to this mixture, the laws of moral vegetation have not been violated. It is true that it

did not produce a crop of sincere. Christian piety; and had it, this would have been a greater miracle than any of those wrought by the hands of Paul; but this mixture of popish superstition and idolatry in disguise, produced a crop, of vice and immorality scarcely inferior to that arising from brahmanic superstition itself! At this none will be surprized who understand

the scriptures, and the nature of the moral vegetation they describe. They will only feel surprized that the Abbé should have been so weak as, to expect grapes from thorns!-and still more at the compliment he pays a protestant nation in gravely bringing the case before them, with the expectation that they would never advert to the nature of the seed he had been sowing for thirty years; or that when genuine, scriptural piety was the fruit desired, they would think it' quite immaterial what kind of seed was sown. It is true that a few so far gone in infidelity as to deem the Scriptures of no kind of value in producing the fruits of righteousness, may for a season be so far misled by our Abbé's statement, as to join in the senseless cry that if popish chaff will not produce the fruits of holiness among the heathen, neither will the living seed of the Divine word; that if thorns will not produce grapes, neither would the vine of Sorek. But we hope for the credit of a protestant nation, that those so ignorant of the scriptures are few indeed. And we expect, that when even these few recollect themselves, they will be ashamed of the credit they have so hastily given to ideas varying as much from reason and common sense, as from the scriptures themselves.

We might here indeed close our critique on our author's work; for this one fact is so decisive, that it furnishes a key to every thing he has advanced. If the seed sown by the Abbé and his predecessors, was not that incorruptible seed described by the apostle Peter, "the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever," but something provided by his reputed successors at Rome, it is no wonder that this should not have produced those converts as its living fruits, who could "add to faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and

Christian graces.

to knowledge brotherly kindness," with all its train of In other words it is no wonder that the fruit should correspond with the nature of the seed sown, and that Popish superstition and idolatry, sown with dissimulation, should have produced a crop of superstition, deception and immorality, little inferior to that produced by brahmunism itself. It will be easily seen, that had it been otherwise, a greater miracle must have been exhibited than any wrought by the apostles, that of superstition and deception, producing righteousness and true holiness! In expecting this, therefore, it is evident that our Abbé expected far greater miracles to follow his own labors, than ever followed those of the Apostles. They, it is true gathered converts from the heathen "filled with the fruits of righte ousness;" but then, as we have already seen, the seed they sowed was "the incorruptible word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." Could they have been brought to sow such a mixture as that since prepared at Rome, instead of the pure word of God ;-(but surely these simple fishermen had they come to India, would never have given themselves out for "brahmuns come from the West!"-) yet could they have been brought to sow such a mixture, and even with all the finesse, and dissimulation, and falsehood which the Abbé describes his predecessors as having used, would it even in their hands have produced the fruit which they reaped from sowing the pure word of God? We trow not,-and appeal on the subject to all our Protestant readers; from others we cannot of course expect less than a certain degree of bias towards the Romish preparation. our Abbé's having failed to produce the fruits of genuine Christianity even in a single instance, therefore, there is nothing wonderful,-beside his own simplicity

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in expecting that he could work greater miracles than the apostle Paul.

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This will completely account for the whole of the Abbé's work, particularly as he has now relinquished the work of sowing among the heathen altogether. requires but little knowledge of the human mind to sup-pose, that after he himself had thus relinquished the work, he would not be well pleased with any who might still remain in the field. Nor would his anger be likely to be least violent against those who continue to sow the seed which he views as so detrimental to the kind of christianity he wished to produce; since, if they should obtain but a small degree of genuine fruit, it would put to shame, not only the Abbé, but all his predecessors for three centuries,-and throw dishonor on their church itself for having substituted such a spurious mixture as the seed of Christianity among the heathen, for the pure, unadulterated word of God. We may therefore naturally expect, that if he cannot persuade them to desist wholly from their work, he will endeavor to starve them into it by persuading the public to withdraw every degree of aid.

We might indeed have feared, that to secure this, he would suppress every fact he was able respecting their success, and endeavor to distort and misrepresent the rest, had he not himself so fully informed us of his candour and impartiality. Indeed we are not quite certain that these qualities in him, form a sufficient security against every thing of this nature. We cannot suppose that all his Romish brethren in Europe, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuriès, were void of faith in their dealings with men in general; yet numerous instances remain on record to prove, that they thought nothing of this excellent virtue ought to