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rampore missionaries have given them in all the dia lects they were able. His outcry against the Scriptures, translated in any way whatever, is in reality the howl of infidelity at the impending death of idolatry; all his complaints for want of success, have been only so much real rejoicing that it had proved invulner~ able; and his professed despondency respecting the ultimate prevalence of Christianity has been, infidel dissuasion in a missionary garb, intended to unnerve the arm of the Christian public, raised to transfix idolatry with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God.”

It then appears that all this professed fanaticism which pretended to pry into God's secret decrees, and to ascertain that God has laid India with all its unborn generations "under an everlasting anathema," has been assumed for the sake of clothing in the language of an unsuccessful missionary, all those stale objections to. the Gospel's being given to India, the futility of which, the British public fully discerning ten or twelve years ago, decreed that Christianity should be withheld from India no longer. Our Author's grand design is unfolded by this letter; it is, that of persuading the Christian public to destroy the Indian versions of the Scripture, to give up schools, to prune off the monstrosities of Hindoo idolatry, and leave the tree in all its luxuriance to bless India with its fruit to the latest posterity! Thou worthy successor of the Jesuit twice-born! thy name shall be had in everlasting remembrance. While "they that turn many to righteousness, shall shine as the stars for ever and ever, -SOME shall awake to shame and everlasting contempt."

We shall point out only one of our Author's reasons. for leaving the Hindoo system in full vigor, after "taking off its enormities." It is, that "we must be dispos

ed to overlook in others the defects from which we are not entirely free ourselves." Christianity then is not entirely free from the fornication and filthiness inseparable from Hindoo idolatry. To prove this, our Author adduces among others the religious exercises of the Quakers, as given by the Quarterly Review, No. xli. pp. 145, 146, telling his Calcutta friend, “ after you have perused so disgusting an account, I boldly defy you to find out any thing among the bands of Baheraghees, Dassaroo, Andy and other Hindoo fanatics who flock to the temples of Teeroopatty and Jagghernat, which may be compared with the scenes of extravagances and madness, exhibited by that sect of Christians in their religious assemblies." We have not read this account of the Quakers' religious assemblies; but we have read the account our Author has given of the scenes which constantly take place in the temple at Teeroopatty; and we feel it our duty to quote it here, that our readers may see to what a pitch Christianity has arrived in England, and deliberate whether or not after pruning the Hindoo tree of "several monstrosities" it may not be proper to transplant a branch of it to Britain, to supercede at least the religion of the Quakers, those friends to the circulation of the Bible in every land.

We confess that we almot shudder at polluting our pages with the account of the deeds constantly done at this temple of Teeroopatty in the Carnatic. But they were published in London in 1817; and justice requires their being mentioned here that the public may see with what this hoary-headed missionary charges Christianity in the case of the Quakers, one of its most benevo lent and philanthropic sects. In doing this however, we shall not pollute our pen by relating the deeds of

these bands of fanatics, we shall confine ourselves to the scenes which regularly take place there.

"The temple of Teeroopatty," (Tirupati,) says our Au. thor, "Description" (p. 412) "sterile women frequent in crowds, to obtain children from the god Vencata Ramana who presides there. On their arrival they apply, first of all, to the brahmuns, to whom they disclose the object of their pilgrimage and the nature of their views. The brahmuns prescribe to the credulous women to pass the night in the temple, in expectation that, by their faith and piety, the resident god may visit them and render them prolific. In the silence and the darkness of the night, the Brahmuns, as the vicegerents of the god, visit the women, and in proper time disappear. In the morning, after due enquiries, they congratulate them on the benignant reception they have met with from the god; and upon receiving the gifts which they have brought, take leave of them, with many assurances that the object of their vows shall be speedily accomplished.”

"The women, having no suspicion of the roguery of the brahmuns, go home in the full persuasion that they have had intercourse with the divinity of the temple, and that the god who has deigned to visit them must have removed all impediments to their breeding." We now solemnly call on you, ye disciples of Fox, and Penn, and Barclay, to declare for the honor of Christianity, are these scenes of falsehood and filthiness to be found in your religious assemblies, with which these everyday scenes in the temple at Teeroopatty, cannot be compared? But if ye have not thus degraded Christianity below the level of Hindooism, if there be "none of these things done which he saith;" what shall we think of the aged missionary, who, knowing perfectly well what scenes he had described as constantly exhibited in

the temple of Teeroopatty, could coolly publish in London, that these, when heightened by the madness of the various bands of Hindoo fanatics who constantly flock thither, are not to be compared with the scenes of extravagance and madness exhibited in their religious assemblies, by a sect of Christians distinguished above all others by their simplicity and purity of manners, and their unceasing efforts to diffuse abroad the Sacred Scriptures, and alleviate the miseries of mankind?

CHAPTER VIII

The Abbé Dubois's Fifth Letter," Vindication of the Hindoo Females" examined. His last Letter noticed.

Our Author's Fifth letter dated "1st October, 1821," is addressed to Captain M. C. It contains thirty printed pages, and is headed "Vindication of the Hindoo Females." It is directed against an address to the Ladies of Liverpool by our late Colleague, the Rev. W. Ward, who before he left England for America in 1820, wrote to them laying before them the state of ignorance, degradation, and misery in which Hindoo Females are in general found, and urging the necessity of attempting something among them in the way of female education. This, as might indeed have been expected, has awakened all our Author's ire. When he had brought his Christian proselytes to so happy a state of ignorance, that among a whole village of them there is not one who knows the Gospel of St. Matthew in his own language from a book on magic; it was unpardonable for this Serampore missionary to talk of schools even for boys, but to talk ofinstructing Females, was beyond all endurance. Besides, as he is now willing to preserve Hindoo idolatry alive

and even luxuriant, (he says indeed "extravagant,") though pruned of its "monstrosities," the step recommended by Mr. Ward was like laying the axe to the root of this tree; for it is certain that they who teach Hindoo Females to read, will not scruple to put the Scriptures into their hands; and woe to all Hindoo Suttees when the women once begin to read the Scriptures! He has not, we will venture to affirm, heard of one Suttee among the Christian Native Females at Serampore in the whole of these twenty-four years, and yet the Scriptures teach women to love their husbands. Indeed nothing is more ominous to the system than their females learning to read the Scriptures. They have so much time, and so much influence over their brothers, their husbands, and their sons, that one "sensible girl's" learning to read, is more dreadful to our Author, and all other friends of "the good old system," than two or three stupid boys.

That this address should have called forth all our Author's wrath, therefore is no wonder; and we fear that it will not be asswaged by what we now have to add. So just and accurate did Mr. Ward's description of the state of Hindoo females appear to his countrywomen in the metropolis of India, where their state is so wellknown ; and so little convinced were they by all the Abbé has urged against it, that within three months after his book* had reached Calcutta, the British Ladies there formed themselves into "a Society for the promotion of Native Female Instruction throughout India," at the head of which is the Right Hon. the Lady Amherst herself. The number of Female Schools in Calcutta, Serampore, and its vicinity, we forbear to tell him, out of pure pity. Suffice it to say, that the desire for female

**In March, this year.

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