"PERPETVAM. SEDEM NVTRITOR FOSSIDES IPSE HIC MERITVS FINEM MAGNIS defvncte PERICLIS "You, our nursing father, occupy a perpetual seat, being dead, and deserving an end of your great dangers. Here happy, you find rest, bowed down with years. Here lies the most holy Pope, who lived seventy years. Buried on the Nones of November, our Lords Arcadius for the second time, and Flavius Ruffinus being consuls." "The date of this consulate is fixed at 392, in which year no bishop of Rome died. Siricius was made pope in 385, and lived to 396. Yet the reference to a perpetual seat, added to the title papa sanctissimus, strongly indicates episcopal rank." -(P. 185.) How the "perpetual seat" which this papa is said to have occupied," being dead," could "indicate episcopal rank," we confess ourselves so blind as not clearly to see. We humbly opine, that it was only in heaven where the good man could occupy a perpetual seat. And though there was no bishop of Rome at that time whose name is to be found in Romish catalogues, we see no reason to doubt that there were many good pastors, to whom, especially after reaching the patriarchal age of seventy, the title of papa, or father, might be very properly applied, without supposing him to be a bishop in the diocesan sense, though we are aware that at this time that term had begun to be applied to the preses of the presbytery, or leading presbyter of the Church. Dr Maitland informs us that a great many bishops of Rome were interred in these catacombs. comes it to pass that he cannot give us a single inscription containing the title of Episcopus, Præsul, or any name denoting episcopal rank-any thing, in short, but papa and presbyter, and pastor and deacon? But in the absence of all elements of proof, it is impossible to prosecute this investigation. How The following is an interesting specimen of the customs of the ancient Church : "The original Agape, or love-feast, was a truly catholic element of ancient Christianity. Begun in the purest spirit, it shared the fate of some other ordinances, till, in the fifth century, it became a scandal to all Christendom. It is first mentioned by St Jude, in the passage, These are spots in your agape, rais ayazais iuwv, translated in our version, feasts of charity.' The feast, as held in the catacombs, is represented in a picture found in a subterranean chapel, in the cemetery of Marcellinus and Peter. In this painting the three guests are seen seated, and a page supplies them with food from the small round table in front, containing a lamb and a cup. The two matrons who preside, personifying Peace and Love, have their names written above their heads, according to the Etruscan practice. "In a city rich as imperial Rome in historical associations, where the very stones are piled in chronological succession among triumphal arches and trophies, among the ruins of temples and palaces, can the miserable painting of a subterranean cell offer any thing worthy the attention of the traveller? Let us try. "In a dismal cavern, only accessible to the well-provided explorer, among tombs and vaulted chambers, where every thing bears marks of high antiquity, is found a rudely-designed picture, attributed by the most skilful connoisseurs to the third or fourth century; and this on excellent grounds. Its style marks the decline of art soon after the time of the Antonines. Its subject is connected with a religion not brought to Rome before the reign of Nero, and which did not employ painting till the third century. The ceremony it represents was almost universally discontinued in the fifth, and the pictorial details closely correspond with the descriptions left by the poets of the Augustan age. The design, so carefully finished in its parts, and every where abounding in information, is generally wrong in perspective, and destitute of taste. In short, nothing is wanting to prove its authenticity to any one conversant with ancient art of an inferior class. "These facts are established by the picture: that in the third or fourth century certain persons, either from choice or from necessity, selected caves in the neighbourhood of Rome, and devoted much attention to embellishing them. One of the subjects there painted was a solemn feast, at which Peace and Love were supposed to preside. This is so often repeated in sculptures and paintings, that the ceremony must have been common, and some time established. Who are these peaceful refugees, apparently too gentle for the iron times of Decius and Diocletian? To what system of philosophy belong those magic words, Irene and Agape, altogether strange to heathenism, and indicating by their Greek form an Eastern origin? But one answer can be given to these questions. The most malignant sceptic must confess that the ancient Church in Rome, pacific and defenceless as it here appears, did conquer the proud array of pagan and imperial power; and the Christian, forced to admit a divine interposition in behalf of his religion, beholds therein a testimony from Heaven to its truth. Yet more, that religion, here seen through the vista of fifteen centuries, presents the same unworldly aspect as in the sacred writings a joyful serenity, worth all the jarrings of Chalcedon, or the proud seraphism of the Thebaid. "The feast, at first held as a part of regular religious wor ship, was in course of time reserved for marriages and deaths. At length the anniversaries of martyrdom became the chief occasion of its celebration. These days were called natalitia, or birth-days, because the saints were then borne to Heaven from the world. As long as persecution was likely to befall the Church, there was policy in commemorating annually the triumphs of her heroes. To meet by lamplight over the grave of a departed friend, and there to animate each other's faith by mutual exhortations; to partake together of the funereal meal before the tablet which covered his bones: in all this the faithful of that age found a constant stimulus to fortitude and zeal. But the natalitia, celebrated after the conversion of Constantine, tended to secularize religious worship in a lamentable degree. The festival was thrown open in the hope of obtaining converts; and many of the pagan poor, after having been fed at the expense of the Church, became suddenly convinced of the truth of Christianity." The following is curious, from its having met with something of a counterpart in modern times:"We have a distinct statement of Cyprian's opinion regarding the eucharist, in his 63d Epistle, written to Cæcilius on a remarkable occasion. It had been advanced, by the Aquarian heretics, that wine, from its intoxicating quality, was unfit for the celebration of the Lord's supper, and water was by them substituted for it. It must be borne in mind that the wine employed by the ancients at their meals was generally mixed with water when placed upon the table; it is, therefore, to this day a matter of doubt whether our Lord used pure wine, or wine and water, in the institution of the supper. It is impossible to imagine any such opinion as that of the Aquarians arising in a Church that held the doctrines of modern Rome. Cyprian's answer is also remarkable, and quite unintelligible, on the supposition that he believed in transubstantiation: 'Whereas Christ hath said, "I am the true vine," how can ought but wine be his blood? and how can the cup appear to contain blood, when destitute of that wine which throughout Scripture is the type of it?'” In concluding our brief notice of these "Memorials," we cannot help expressing our fervent desire that they may yet be investigated by-what has hitherto been a rare character in literature-a genuine Presbyterian antiquary, or, what we would esteem occupied by the dream of a regular hierarchy having the same thing, one whose imagination is not preexisted in Rome from the days of Peter. Now that recent events have thrown open the Vatican to more liberal investigation-now that there is no College of Cardinals jealously watching over these symbols of the Primitive Church, to hinder the inquirer, as it did Dr Maitland, from carrying away the full impress of them, for fear of the disclosures they might makeit becomes the duty of the Church to ascertain the real language of these tombs. And it will be very remarkable (though very like the ways of Him who "maketh the wrath of man to praise him," and who "ordaineth strength out of the mouth of babes") if the Vatican should thus be made to testify against itself, and the infant Church of Rome should rise up, as if from the grave, in judgment against its degenerate successor. OUR INDIAN EMPIRE-ITS RESPONSIBI FOR more than a year, Europe has been alternately astonished and awe-struck by the rapidity with which revolutionary movements have taken place. The best established thrones have been overthrown, almost in the twinkling of an eye. Governments that had gathered around them the hoar of ten centuries have suddenly passed away, and by the last of these spasmodic changes, the pompous, yet withal expressive, language of the Constituent Assembly of Rome is well-nigh justified" the glory of the republic is resumed." The Rome of to-day is connected, by manifestoes at least, with the Rome that was before Julius Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, and marched with his legions through the sacred territory against the Imperial city. But our eyes are now turned from the west to the east. The changes that have swept like a whirlwind over Europe appear to have produced their usual effects even on the banks of the Sutlej and in the Punjaub. The Prince of the kings of the earth is pointing attention to India, and warning us in providence of our immense responsibilities in connexion with that land of fable and of death. The unreflecting ferocity of a British soldier has given an advantage to a tribe whose dogged heroism is unspeakable, because it is based on fanaticism, and in a few hours ten thousand immortal beings have been swept from the earth. Some of the bravest of British soldiers are laid in an early grave. Mothers are robbed of their sons, wives are made widows by the ruthless hand of war, and, in the estimation of some, our dominion in the East, if not in jeopardy, has at least received a violent shock. Another mail may bring intelligence that the Affghans are again in arms; and should they and other disaffected tribes combine with the Sikhs-who, in fact, beat and insulted the British in the recent action on the Jhelum -then the most splendid empire under the sun, ruled over by the senate of Leadenhall Street, might begin to pass away from the hands of Britons. Alexander the Great defeated Porus near the spot of the recent engagement. The fabled Hydaspes saw him undoubtedly a conqueror, while the triumph of the modern is ambiguous and equivocal. Yet that conqueror passed away-no vestige of his victory remains, except in history; and shall we expect a different doom from all that heretofore have been the masters of India? Hitherto our march in that land has, on the whole, been forward and aggressive. But our recent checks warn us that it may not be always so, and it becomes us to pause and listen to the voice that is now addressing us from the Punjaub. There may be some exaggeration in the sentiment, and yet we cannot help recording it, that so critical is our position in India, that the welfare, if not the existence, of our empire there, depends on the person who shall henceforth lead our armies. Shall it be a man like Lord Gough, or a man like Sir C. Napier? On the answer is suspended our tenure in the East, and such a tenure, it will be confessed, is sufficiently precarious. In this posture of affairs it may not be uninteresting if we glance for a little at the strangely providential way in which India became subject to Britain. History contains no more instructive chapter than that which relates to our Indian empire, and the mode of acquiring it. Hindustan has from century to century been subject to foreign dominion; and it has been pronounced an historic law, that whichever nation possessed for the time the sovereignty or chief sway in India held the foremost place among the nations. So unvarying has that law been in its operation, that states, or even cities, in other respects insignificant, often ascended to grandeur in consequence of their connexion with the East. Arabia, Syria, Macedonia, all illustrate the remark. Alexandria, Bagdad, and Constantinople, all felt the effects of India's immense resources, as they were transported by thousands of merchants who rose from poverty to princedoms, in a manner that seemed to realize the gorgeous fables of the East, by intercourse with its people, and traffic in its productions. The results of these enrichments were felt far beyond the limits of the nations which we have named. Through various channels the wealth of India, at least in specimens, found its way to western Europe. Cities there also sprang suddenly into importance, and became incalculably rich by the spoils or the traffic of the exhaustless East. Venice, on the shores of the Adriatic, and Genoa, Pisa, and other places along the Mediterranean, felt these effects; and such was the stimulating result that all ranks of men began to turn their attention to the land whence riches of such incalculable value could so easily be gathered. It is well known that it was India that Columbus sought in his first adventurous voyage. His ardent mind had partaken of the fervour, amounting almost to mania, that prevailed in his age; and as he sailed in quest of India, his first discoveries were named the West Indies, and their inhabitants Indians-a misnomer that is perpetuated to this day. But what Columbus did not discover, Vasco di Gama accomplished. Towards the close of the fifteenth century he doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and landed on the western shores of the Indian peninsula. And speedily thereafter the effects of that voyage began to appear in Europe. Portugal took up a position among the nations such as only adventitious circumstances could confer. She superseded Venice and other cities, to be in her turn superseded by Holland; and for a time the wealth of India found a European depôt in the city of Amsterdam. Fostered and enriched thereby, Holland became a first-rate nation, and rose at once from her fens and marshes to be the queen of the ocean, and perhaps the richest among the nations.* But Holland is contiguous to Britain. The spirit of enterprise speedily crossed the sea that divides them and forthwith that spirit roused and stimulated the whole nation, as Portugal had formerly been roused, to seek a share of the fabled or really precious productions of the East. Experimental voyages followed in quick succession. Disaster could not damp the spirit of enterprise. In this instance hope deferred did not make the heart sick. Men were urged onward from this island to seek a share of Indian wealth, guided, we believe, by the unseen hand of Him who sees the end from the beginning. The miseries endured by squadron after squadron could not repress the survivors. The possession of India was still the master aim, and from that nothing could See Dr Duff's India and India Missions; or, for more full details, Mill's History of British India. divert the national mind. Passages were sought by the east and the west; schemes the most gigantic were projected; and some of the most enterprising men whom the world ever saw embarked with their whole soul in these attempts. After many disappointments, which, however, produced no relaxation of zeal, a fleet sailed in the year 1601 from Britain for India, by the Cape of Good Hope. The East India Company, chartered by Queen Elizabeth in 1600, acquired possession of the trade for which it had so long panted, and suffered, and toiled. And not only so. In consequence of events the most remarkable that the history of the world records, our island not merely got possession of the commerce, but became in a sense proprietors of the soil of India; and now, at the expiry of two hundred years, our Queen reigns over a territory there which seems to make the empire of Alexander or Charles V. dwindle into a puny province. In as far as regards the great objects of human ambition—the acquisition of wealth, and gratifying the lust of power -Britain might be satiated with what it has thus acquired. Not merely has India become a new fountain of poetry to the imagination, so as in truth to have stamped a character of tameness and coldness on the poetic literature of the west-not merely has it regaled the mind and heated the fancies of men, by the immense productiveness and the gigantic scale of nature-not merely has it checked our insular vanity by making us acquainted with a kind of civilisation that was far advanced when Britain was peopled by roaming hordes and naked barbarians: far more than these --India gave rise to a new set of ideas-ideas which rule the mind and decide the destinies of man-and so helped forward the grand consummation when the dwellers on the globe shall recognise the God that made it, and when the hundreds of millions of Indian gods shall be swept away as surely as the flowers and the foliage of the summer that is past have decayed into rottenness. True, the process by which all this has been advanced has often been such as to make humanity shudder--and treasure up a store of retribution against the day of wrath. But meanwhile the consolidation of India has pioneered the way to its Christianization, the wrath of man will yet praise Jehovah there. We cannot minutely narrate the progress by which Britain thus became possessed of India. Portugal paved the way those who had gone from that kingdom to the East transferred thither their chivalry, their love of martial display, and soon found or fabricated pretexts for aggressive wars. Kingdoms were conquered-thrones were upset-new systems introduced-and in all this Portugal was just sowing that Britain might reap: and had she not enough to provoke her cupidity, in the accounts which her travellers and diplomatists transmitted regarding the state and possessions of Indian princes? Thrones covered with diamonds, pearls, and rubies; tables of burnished gold, and plate of the same metal set with pearls; swords and bucklers covered with diamonds and rubies; on one side of a turban a ruby as large as a walnut, on the other a diamond of the same size, in the centre an emerald larger still!—these and similar details, not circulated by romancers merely to astonish, but dispassionately reported by a British ambassador, sufficed to inflame the avarice and excite the minds of men. A single throne, moreover, which is said to have cost more than one hundred and sixty millions of our money, a single prince marching | amid an escort of a thousand elephants, with similar accounts, more than fed men's love of the marvellous. They produced that strong passion towards India which has never wholly subsided, and gave it such a place in the minds and the affections of Britons as render it well-nigh as sacred and as dear as the island of our home. Such was the hold which these things took on the national mind nearly two centuries ago, that nothing could appease or satisfy the passion but actual possession of the land whose facts outrivalled fable. Measures begun in ambition led to cruelty-to stratagem-to bloody war, and often dire oppressionand ended in the subjugation of India to the sway of Britain. For a length of time all was unpromising. The Portuguese had pre-possession-the Dutch were powerful rivals-the French were astute deceiversand our forefathers in India were, for a time, driven from station to station, often degraded, and always suffering. Thirty years after the signing of the Charter, a town began to be built under Mr Day, an Eng lish resident, and slowly the interests of Britain took root, till now they seem, for the present, naturalized to the soil. The distance of half the circumference of the globe could not damp the national spirit, urged on, as it was, by the thirst for gold; and at last the vast region, with its myriads of inhabitants, has, to its uttermost border, been subjugated to the uncontrol led dominion of the British sway. Whether we look at the grandeur of the prize thus secured, when weighed in the balances of earth, or think of the really paltry means by which all this dominion is maintained, we are equally surprised. Dr Duff has made it appear, that the myriads of India are guided and controlled by not more than forty thousand Europeans. Under such a sway, European principles of government, European science, European languages, and European habits, are slowly and silently diffused over that vast peninsula; and he is blind indeed who cannot see in this one of the most marvellous of all the political or moral phenomena which the infinitely diversified history of man can present. And what is the design of such a conjuncture? We find an answer in the parallel case of the Roman empire, when the Saviour came to our world. It then formed one grand and compact whole, so that what was done at Rome was soon carried throughout the world, as then known. A highway had been prepared that men might run to and fro, and knowledge be increased. They ran-knowledge increased-and, in three centuries, the religion of the Nazarene sat down on the throne of the Cæsars. Without pretending to predict, we may yet infer from the past to the future, that Jehovah designs, in the fulness of time, to repeat what the Roman world witnessed, when the desire of all nations came, and the bright and morning star arose on the hearts of men. We have said that we would abstain from any formal account of the mode in which India was subjugated to Britain, yet one incident we may mention as illustrative of the whole. Even prosaic men caught a portion of ardour under the sun of India. ss if all must needs be romantic or impassioned there. In the year 1751, war was raging in the Carnatic. At that time the British were despised as cowards; and the native tribes, officered by Frenchmen, threatened to eject our countrymen from the province. Matters seemed desperate. On the 30th of August, two hundred British and three hundred sepoys took possession of Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, in consequence of a panic that had seized the garrison. The band was led by a young clerk, of limited education and ungovernable temper, who, without military training or experience, had entered the army just at a time when the prospects of England were dark and lowering. Having got command of the detachment now referred to, with eight officers, of whom four had never left the desk, and two had never been in action, he marched against the fortress, manned by more than a thousand troops, and took it without firing a shot. It was one of the incidents on which mighty destinies hang. He kept possession of the fortress against appalling odds. Eighty Englishmen, and one hundred and twenty sepoys, at length formed his army. Yet he kept the place against ten thousand besiegers, aided by one hundred and fifty Frenchmen. He kept it, we say, for the little band with a bravery that was chivalrous, drove back the assailants, who might have crushed them by brute force. That intrepid clerk was Clive, subsequently 'governor of Bengal-a British peer-the boast of his country-the hero of his age; . . but his life of victorious aggrandizement and fame was closed by suicide." His position, however, and his heroism, were employed by Him who rules over all, to give Britain that prominence in India which will tremendously swell her responsibility when the King of nations shall arise to demand an account of the stewardship with which he has intrusted nations, as well as individuals. 66 Another case will illustrate our mode of governing India, as that of Clive illustrates our mode of acquiring it. Though the entire peninsula may be said to be subject to British sway, there are rajahs and princes who enjoy a kind of mock independence, and the terms of our alliances with these are sometimes such as should make us blush. Instead of using our influence to raise India from its degradation, there are cases not a few in which we lend it to stereotype and perpetuate the vices of that land. We might refer to the patronage of Idolatry, still so rife, and the countless channels through | which the government of India becomes partaker of the sins of its people; or we might speak of the widely ramified sin of imparting knowledge divorced from religion to the Hindoos. But passing from all these, we glance rather at our civil and political relations with some of the native princes, and on this point we consult a highly competent and impartial witness. Mr Macaulay, in his recently published History of England, speaking of a period when a king of England had degraded himself and his kingdom by becoming the pensioner of Louis XIV., observes, "The king's relation to Louis would closely resemble that in which the rajah of Nagpore and the king of Oude now stand to the British Government. Those princes are bound to aid the East India Company in all hostilities defensive and offensive, and to have no diplomatic relations but such as the Company shall sanction. The Company, in return, guarantees them against insurrection, as long as they faithfully discharge their obligations to the paramount power; they are permitted to dispose of large revenues, to fill their palaces with beautiful women, to besot themselves in the company of their favourite revellers, and to oppress with impunity any subject that may incur their displeasure." Such is the relation in which we stand to these Indian rulers; and even this passing allusion is sufficient to show that it is as disgraceful on our part as it is debasing on the part of the native princes. We cannot compel them to be virtuous; we can still less force them to be Christians, and should not attempt it though we could; but these diplomatic relations of ours appear to be such as to implicate us in not a little of the guilt of these "besotted" rulers. Despots and oppressors as they are, our Residents and Government countenance and perpetuate the oppression. But we linger too long on what is after all only preliminary. That Britain has now possession of India is at once its boast and its glory. Baffled long, and sometimes in danger of losing its costly prey, it seems as if her power, up to the period of the recent checks, or reverses, had been paramount and consolidated. And need we ask, Why it is that so colossal an empire is intrusted to our sway? Is the seer's gift needed to enable us to tell why we have become the stewards of so much power, the wielders of such wide-spread influence? Is the design of the whole merely this-that Britain, like Palmyra, Tyre, Bagdad, Venice, and other cities, after being enriched for a while with the spoils or the produce of India, shall sink at last, as those cities did, under guilt and riches accumulated in equal proportions? Or is not hers a higher vocation, for she is the keeper of that pearl which transcends even those of the throne of the Grand Mogul? Is not Britain, in short, meant to be as one vast missionary to India, imparting the light and the knowledge before which its brilliant suns will pale, and its fabled science be detected as indeed science falsely so called? True, this high mission which we believe to have been entrusted to her is tardily carried out. It was on the last day of the sixteenth century that Queen Elizabeth signed the first charter of the East India Company. Two centuries and a half have thus rolled away since we had a footing in that empire; and yet, when this current century began, desperate struggles on the one hand were needed, and lynx-eyed watchfulness was exhibited on the other, ere a missionary, with the glorious gospel in his hand, could plant his foot upon the soil of India. Instead of fulfilling our high commission-instead of beckoning India to the knowledge which has made Britain what she is among the nations-we have hid the light under a bushel, and doomed the myriads to a prolonged darkness-we have actually patronized Juggernaut rather than propagated pure religion-the worship of Kali, with her ghastly necklace of human skulls and her hideous banquet of gore, has been countenanced rather than that of Him in whom all the families of the earth will yet be blessed. Our responsibility, instead of being discharged, has been utterly neglected, and we have waded through blood to conquest and aggrandizement, instead of advancing the kingdom of the Prince of Peace. And, if we look at the matter more in detail, our responsibility is enhanced-our peril, if that responsibility be neglected, is proportionally augmented. In India, it is computed, there dwells a sixth part of the world's inhabitants. Every sixth child that is born is born in India; every sixth soul that departs to judgment departs in India; every sixth wife that becomes a widow, every sixth child that becomes an orphan, is a native of that land. On the other hand, that land is subject to our sway. Speaking humanly, the Word of God might have free course through all its borders did Britain pronounce the word. And shall that word be withheld? Shall we not rather manfully look at the responsibility which we underlie, and believingly seek to discharge it, that the blessing of them that are ready to perish may come upon us? We do not speak now of governments. We address ourselves to Christians, to those that love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and truth, and cannot therefore withhold their love from sinners, and we say, Should not every man ponder and pray over the responsibility in which every man has a share? We do think that India does not bulk as it ought to do before the Churches as a missionary field. We are spending our strength too often for nought, in comparison with what might be achieved. Just as India has been the key to the world for many centuries, we think it would become the key to the world's heart were it won to the Saviour; and we cannot too earnestly record the conviction, that the cause of missions would be largely accelerated were the British Churches discharging to the full their responsibility to that land to which we owe so much. Some have begun to hint that our empire there begins to show symptoms of decay. We pronounce no judgment yet; but sure we are that no more direct course can be adopted to accelerate that end than to neglect or postpone the Christianization of India. We are responsible first for that, and secondly, for the right government of that empire; and, should the sun of Britain set in its Eastern dominions, sure we are, that, amid the dark clouds behind which it sinks, the densest will be the guilt contracted on account of a hundred and fifty millions left in heathenism, while we as a people revelled in the riches amassed in that land. British justice and British protection are extended alike to all: why, why should British religion not follow in their train? But, in truth, whether we will or no, the religion of the Redeemer is spreading in that land. God will work, and none can hinder. When he gives the word, great is the company of those that publish it. The strongholds of superstition are gradually undermined; and an eye that is at all philosophic in its survey, can see that the bold navigator, the indomitable soldier, the sagacious legislator, have only been the pioneers and precursors of the truth that will finally triumph. Godless men may found godless colleges the heathen may rage-and apostate Europeans may guide them in their assaults against the truth; but, in spite of all, the principles which revolutionized the Roman empire will revolutionize Hindustan. The Lord will be exalted, however heartless or supine multitudes may be. And this is no theory-no airy, unsubstantial dream. The progress of the cause of truth is marked and cheering. First, the old and hackneyed objections against missions to India are fast disappearing. It is years since we heard any one repeat the stale sophism about the impossibility of breaking up caste -or the power of usage-or the fixedness of Indian manners, religion, and institutions. Even the grossest worldling that returns from that land of the sun, speaks more temperately than his predecessors did a quarter of a century ago. The plain reason is, caste, with all its magic power, has been dissolved-Hindus have been converted-their habits have been thoroughly changed. Nay they have, in considerable numbers, actually become preachers of righteousness; and before these stubborn facts even godless men have been quelled into a sullen silence. Secondly, the very infidel notices and laments the progress which truth is thus making against a thousand adverse powers. Swartz could with difficulty find a pious Christian in India. Our religion was seen only in gross superstition or grosser vice-Englishmen were less devoted to the living God than to the idols of Hindustan; but this is largely changed, and perhaps some of the most devoted followers of the Lamb are now to be found in India. Infidelity, we say, has noticed and deplored it. A French writer, De Warren, thus caricatures the religion of India in 1840, while contrasting it with what it had been during a former visit:-"The saints," he says, "have spread themselves like a leprosy over all society. A dark fanaticism, excusable when it is sincere, but odious when it is a hypocritical mask, assumed by avarice or ambition, has invaded every thing." He adds"In place of dinners and balls, which once cost them much, they now entertain you with sermons, which cost them nothing. Young men who wish to advance in life also put on the same mask, that they may find favour with the powerful, and obtain appointments for them." Now, this is a scoffing unbeliever's mode of confessing that the truth is prevailing. lives of such Christians will preach even more than their lips-the living epistle will convey the mind of Him that sent it-and European Christians will thus be blest to bring Hindus to Him who has an elect people in every tribe, and country, and kingdom, and tongue. The A few years ago serious fears were felt lest our Indian empire were about to be so convulsed as to be endangered. That fear was hushed, but it has just been revived; and these periodic alarms give premonition that the day may soon come when we must hear the providential verdict, "You may be no longer steward." And surely that should rouse the Churches to activity in behalf of India. But, though no such danger threatened, there are others to be dreaded. "The sorceress in scarlet"-Rome-is in India, as elsewhere, plotting against the truth; and that forms another reason for the energies of all believers being combined in an effort to rescue that land from the galling vassalage of sin. Hinduism and Popery are in nature homogeneous; and if we would not see the stupendous system of Pantheism, which has made Hindustan a moral waste, reinforced or buttressed by the system which has inflicted so deep a curse on Christendom, we should give God no rest till he make Jerusalem a praise in all the earth. There is no more instructive lesson for the mind of man to ponder than the fall, the utter extinction, of nearly all the ancient nations. Where is the empire of Alexander? Scattered like the dust of the conqueror himself. Where is the dominion of that proud king whom all hell was moved to welcome! It exists only in some masses of ruins, where the antiquarian can, with difficulty, spell or syllable a name. Where is the dominion of Greece? where the world-wide empire of Rome? All has erumbled into ruins and the mumbling of a priest has, for more than a millennium, supplanted the sway of the Cæsar. Our empire in the East resembles some of these in extent. Shall its history be a parallel to theirs in what remains? The answer depends on the use which we make of our power. Be that use what reason and religion alike prescribe-and we have chosen the blessing, and perpetuity. Be our power abused-and we have chosen the curse, with eventual extinction. |