naturally expect. To whom he alludes as "new reformers" we cannot say, as we know of none who bear this designation. From his saying in the second of these letters, (p. 180,)" having in a former letter adverted to another attack made by that author on the Hindoos in general," we presume, however, that he thus stigmatizes our dear deceased colleague, Mr. Ward.

In examining this letter we shall pass by his regret, (expressed p. 146,) at seeing the suspicious accounts and wild theories of men of mediocrity listened to, as this was natural to a man so convinced of his own superiority. Nor shall we notice his pretended charge on himself as strongly biassed in "favor of the Hindoos," as it means; "I am sorry that what I wrote respecting the evil of Hindooism a few years ago, should stand in the way of my now proving, that India needs not Christianity." We shall merely say that the Rev. Mr. Ward's testimony Is FULLY SUBSTANTIATED BY HIS OWN FOR

MERLY GIVEN.

"That in every relation of man to man the natives of India are thoroughly depraved," and that in this Pagan nation we have the absence of all virtue and the disposition to every vice; is proved by Scripture, which declares of idolaters; "They are all gone out of the way; there is none that doeth good, no not one ;" and these testimonies our Author declares to be applicable to the Hindoos above all others. That "in ignorance, in vice, and immorality the Hindoos are far below the most savage nations," our Author himself testifies, (p. 112,) "The inferiority of the Hindoo brahmuns to all other Pagan nations with respect to religion is the more striking as they have not in general been able to distinguish what is a virtue and what is not,"

His weak subterfuge that he meant the brahmuns only,

W

in those and such like passages, is worse than childish. It never yet happened that a people under teachers from whom they derived their every idea both of vice and virtue, were greatly their superiors. The only instance in which the scale of virtue has turned against the teachers in favor of the taught, has been in those countries in which the Sacred Scriptures have been so freely circulated, that by reading them the common people have become wise unto salvation, while by neglecting them, their teachers have sunk into every vice; a catastrophe against which our Author and his brethren have carefully guarded, by inflexibly refusing to give their proselytes the Scriptures at all. But when the teachers, like the brahmuns, have monopolized all knowledge and intercepted the progress of every idea, "like priest like people," has been no less true than the adage, “like people like priest." If the "impostors" be inferior to all other Pagan nations, our Author may be assured that the "dupes" do not rise far above them in morals and virtue. If a brahmun therefore, be "an ant's nest of lies and impostures" as he declares, p. 177, of his "Description," adding, "it is not possible to describe them better in so few words;" he may be assured, that the "dupes" have in reality little more love to truth.

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Indeed had it not been for his wretched memory, he might have recollected, that in his Chapter in that work on the Manners of the Brahmuns," he had declared, (p. 189,) the greater part of what I have to say, will ap ply, not to the brahmuns only, but to Hindoos of all other castes." But what shall we say to the following testimony? (See p. 191.) "The stories of the dissolute life of their gods; the solemn festivals so often celebrated, from which decency and modesty are wholly excluded; the abominable allusions which many of their daily prac

tices always recall; their public and private monuments, on which nothing is ever represented but the most wanton obscenities; their religious rites in which prostitutes act the principal parts; all these courses and others that might be named, necessarily introduce among the Hindoos THE UTMOST DISSOLUTENESS OF MANNERS.' After this, what becomes of his "indignation" at seeing "every kind of insult and abuse lavished not only on their religion, but on their institutions both sacred and profane !!"

Still it appears absurd to him to enlighten the pagan Hindoos by the circulation of the bible among them, We ask him then, since he has not circulated the Bible among them in these thirty years, how many has he enlightened without it? Not one, he himself being witness. He has found out in his Matà however, that the new reformers, "have altered their plan, and that their only ambition now seems to be to remove the clouds of ignorance which hang over these people." Wonderful discovery! Did he before think that they expected the Bible to work a change in men without being read, like an amulet or charm?

He now in effect lays aside the missionary, and asks, (p. 152,) "Is it the HINDOOS or OURSELVES who stand in need of reform on these several matters? Is this the missionary of thirty years' standing? We ask, how can it be the Hindoos? They have only arrived at THE UTMOST DISSOLUTENESS OF MANNERS, the unavoidable effect of their worship and most solemn institutions. But "London and Paris have forty thousand prostitutes." Still this is not the utmost dissoluteness of manners, when the females in London exceed four hundred thousand. But" our cities are filled with thieves, sharpers, pick pockets," &c. &c. Still our cities have

not reached "the UTMOST DISSOLUTENESS of manners;" for every man is not thus dishonest, "Our high roads

are infested by robbers, murders," &c True, but there are more innocent widows burnt alive in one month within twenty miles of Calcutta, than there are persons hung for murder in a year throughout the whole of Britain. And while all this falls unspeakably short of the UTMOST dissoluteness of manners, the whole arises from individual neglect of the Bible!

But how was it that this superiority of the Hindoos in virtue did not occur to his mind twenty years ago? Might it not have saved him at least twenty years of useless privation ? Now indeed common humanity seems to demand that he should have taken a cargo of Hindoos with him to England; for in his Mata near Seringapatam, December, 1820, of course before his embarkation, he "apprehends that in education and manners, the Hindoo shines far above the European ;" that is, he apprehends that Europeans are gone BEYOND the utmost dissoluteness of manners. Unless therefore, his proper element be a pitch of manners BEYOND the utmost dissoluteness, we may soon expect to see him in India again, as the most virtuous country of the two; and in this case, as he is so much disgusted with Mysore, he may probably take up his future residence somewhere near Serampore.

Our Author, while he has discovered however, that the existence of a few drunken sailors in Britain, whom the friends of the Bible are using every means to reclaim, causes manners throughout England to rise far above the utmost point of dissoluteness, has also made another happy discovery. It is, that darkness and ignorance may bless a nation; "for" says he (p. 161) “it is not always the best civilized and most enlightened na

This may

tions that are the most just and virtuous." account for his not wishing to give the Bible to the Hindoos; and for his seeking to bless them by adding the darkness of Romish superstition to that of Brahmanism, without one invidious ray of light to render the darkness visible. But it seems that darkness is not favorable to making Christians: they are the children of light. Although the darkness of Hindooism had so far succeeded in rendering the Hindoos "just and virtuous," that the manners of all classes had only attained "the utmost pitch of dissoluteness;" still the union of Brahmanic and Popish darkness, has not, by our Author's testimony, succeeded in producing "one sincere, undisguised Christian.”

His assertion (p. 161,) that "the vices of the Hindoos originate in their natural indolence and apathy, and that the latter proceed from the climate or elements under which they live, and over which we can exercise no kind of controul or influence," fills us with astonishment. We certainly did not expect to find him so completely a Hindoo, as to stand forth the open advocate of the vilest of all their doctrines, that God is the author of all their falsehood, and lewdness, and fraud,— and not they themselves. Before he prove this however, he must blot out all he has written respecting the dissolute lives of their gods, the filthiness of their solemn festivals from which decency and modesty are excluded, and the other causes, producing throughout all classes of society, the utmost dissoluteness of manners; as well as what he adds, "Description," (p. 424.) "Every excess of debauchery or libertinism, is countenanced by the irregular lives of their gods; and by the rites which their worship prescribes." Now as he knows that these gods NEVER lived, but in their vile legends, in saying