that the vices of Hindoos proceed from the climate or elements, over which they can exercise no kind of controul or influence; he in reality says that God is the Author of these legends which cause their vices, and that vile as they are, the Hindoos had no controul or influence over them to prevent their being written, or these filthy rites being prescribed. It is wholly the act of God, without the influence or controul of man! Can any thing be more horrid ?

As our Author has here made a number of asser- ' tions respecting the superior moral character of ser vants and the lower classes among the Hindoos, the Serampore missionaries, who for nearly a fourth of a century have had occasion in their families and the extensive business they conduct, to employ a far greater number of natives than our Author can have employed, feel constrained to testify the truth respecting these, as they haye themselves found them.. They have in their constant employ, nearly a hundred domestic servants, of all ages, from fifteen to sixty; and they have no reason to believe that any person throughout the country has better servants. Yet they solemnly declare, that they know not one who would not steal from them, or cheat or defraud them, if it could be done without detection." There is no week in which there is not some act of theft or fraud discovered. Money of course is an instant prey unless the sum be precisely known. Since this bas been in the press, one of the family placed a hundred Rupees in ́ an inner drawer in a bureau, kept constantly locked, On coming to it a day or two after, forty-nine were stolen and fifty-one left. There were five or six servants who must have concurred with each other to render this robbery practicable. But no one had done it; no one knew any thing of it: and the most solemn imprecations

on themselves would have been uttered, had it been per mitted. Articles of apparel and bedding are constantly purloined. Eatables too, and not only bread, butter, su gar, tea, salt, &c. but wine and spirits, are carried off to be sold for a few annas, if scruples of caste prevent their being drank; and this, after the utmost vigilance used to prevent it. Yet these servants act with such softness of manner and such apparent simplicity, that you would suppose them any thing but dishonest. Still they are not ashamed when discovered, and seldom express remorse, unless likely to lose their places.

To this we may add their falsehood.

Indeed

We have no reason to believe that one of them would hesitate at uttering a falsehood were it convenient to him. they lie so shockingly in things by which they gain nothing, that no one is certain of the truth of what his servant says. But let there be something to be gained, or a fault to be covered, or a desire felt to injure another; and there are no bounds to their falsehoods, but the fear of detection. Their malice and hatred of each other, are al most beyond conception, particularly against those who may have detected them in fraud or theft. A brother will supplant a brother, a son a father without the least feeling, and sometimes even a father a son. To ruin a fel-low-servant, they will watch for months and even years, and often plan a false accusation for this purpose, which a European thoroughly acquainted with their language and habits can scarcely detect. In addition to this their lewdness and obscenity are dreadful. Though all married men, there is not one who thinks fornicationthe least sin. To forsake their wives for other women, is so common, that were we to dismiss every man who does it, we should scarcely have one to serve us. Hence while we frown on all indecent language, when they sup

pose they are out of our hearing, their obscenity is such as a European ignorant of their language, would not believe. A child left to them is in danger of having the mind polluted and ruined in its tenderest years.

Add to this their drunkenness. Often Hindoo bearers come so intoxicated to their work, that a sick person is afraid to go out with them for fear of being thrown down; and few things are more common than for one or two of them to be so intoxicated, that a journey out is laid aside. That this vice is not confined to these however, our Author himself testifies; see "Description," (p. 168,)" While it is a thing unheard of to meet a Brahmun drunk in public; I have been credibly informed that Brahmuns in small companies have gone very se cretly to the houses of Sudras they could depend upon, to partake of meat and strong liquors, which they indulged in without scruple."

Such has been uniformly the character of our Native servants for these twenty-four years, and yet they have been better perhaps than most of our neighbour's servants. To change, is perfectly useless. There are none different; all are of the same character. We have never seen any of a decidedly different character; unless the word of God had reached their hearts. Then indeed, there is such an alteration that they seem of a different nation altogether. Sobriety, purity, fidelity, immediately appear in them. But it is a fact that this different conduct is limited entirely by the knowledge of the Scriptures. We have here more than fifty christians of our Author's denomination, who have never had a bible in their own language given them by their own teachers; and in uncleanness, falsehood, and dishonesty, they scarcely differ at all from their Hindoo fellow-servants, unless one of them should read the Bengalee Scriptures and become

an altered character, and then he becomes a Protestant; and his conduct is pure, upright, and temperate, like that of the Native Christians. This we solemnly de

clare to have been the uniform result of our experience for twenty-four years. This brief sketch we could easily have enlarged; and if our Author should wish it, we can bring forward facts to substantiate it, which have passed under our own eye in these twenty-four years, sufficient to fill a volume as large as this reply.

Indeed another fact shews the power of the Divine word. If even a Native Christian be found to neglect the Bible and Divine worship, we have invariably found things going wrong with that man. In a few months it comes out that he has indulged in some immoral course. Some act of falsehood, or secret fraud, or possibly of uncleanness, is discovered, from which, if he be not instantly reclaimed and brought to love his bible again, he often proves a decidedly bad man to the end of life.

But is it a fact that our Author never intended in the thirty years of his ministry to bring off the Hindoos from any thing more than "the monstrosities" of their idolatry and that if he could have done this, he would have forgiven them the idolatry itself? or has he lately changed his mind? And does he add, (p. 170) that "if it were in our power through fair means to take off from the religion of the Hindoos its enormities, we ought perhaps to stop there and overlook all that is only extravagant in their worship? And has he filled the ears of the public with the doleful tale of his ill success, when he never aimed at really turning men from dumb idols to serve the living and true God? We are perfectly astonished. This dreadful state of mind inevitably implies one of two things. He all this time

either believed what the Scriptures declare respecting idolatry; "Be not deceived, neither fornicators nor idolaters shall inherit the kingdom of heaven;" or he did .not. If he believed that idolaters and fornicators perish, he knew also, that Hindoo idolatry nourishes fornication, for he says, "Description," (p. 193.) “The meré connection with unmarried women is not considered as an offence by the brahmuns; and those men who attach the idea of sin to the violation of the most trifling ceremony, see none in the greatest excess of profligacy, such as the institution contrived for their gratification, of the dancing girls or prostitutes, attached to the idolatrous rites in the different temples." Hence if he believed the scriptures, he knew that these were perishing in idolatry and fornication. And did he coolly give them up to death without even wishing to root out idolatry from their hearts? And if "its monstrosities" were taken off, would he leave them in idolatry still, and still certain of perishing? And can we conceive of a Christian missionary's doing this, without feeling our blood run cold?

But perhaps he did not and does not believe what the Scriptures declare relative to idolaters and fornicators perishing. With this indeed agrees his quoting the words of Montezuma as ordinarily putting an end to his religious discussions, of course because he could find no reply. "After all your religion is good for your country, and ours is good for India." And has he all this time disbelieved the Divine declaration, that no idolater shall inherit the kingdom of God? Then in all these years, under the garb of a Christian missionary, he has been a disguised infidel, friendly to Hindoo idolatry. This at once accounts for his refusing to give the Scriptures to the heathen, which are death to idolatry; and for the horror he feels because the Se