their hearts: we shall be establishing an interior dominion, and may confidently reckon on the unshaken fidelity of every Christian convert. This is not mere conjecture: for in all the trying vicissitudes experienced by the British interests in India, the Hindoo Christians have invariably approved themselves our firmest friends and abettors. Though the writer of this is afraid of being tedious, there is another consideration connected with the present subject, which he deems of too much importance not to be mentioned. The possession of India, it is well known is an object to which our enemies are looking with eager desire; accompanied with malignant jealousy at that splendor which the vastness of our oriental empire confers on the British name and character. No efforts will they deem too great, no sacrifices too expensive, to rob us of so bright a jewel. What events may arise hereafter to facilitate the accomplishment of their wishes, it is beyond the power of human sagacity to conjecture; one thing is certain, that nothing will oppose a more formidable obstacle to their designs than the diffusion of Christianity. They who have received that inestimable blessing, will infallibly cling with ardor to the people to whom they are indebted for it. They will feel more than a natural affection to the country, which has opened to them the prospect of immortality, and nourished them with the bread of life. In all the struggles to retain or to acquire dominion in the East, the Christian portion of the population will, to a man, be the zealous partisans

of Great Britain; a firm and immoveable band, whose devoted attachment will in some measure compensate for their inferiority of number. In this species of policy too, in this most unexceptionable mode of conciliating esteem, we shall have nothing to apprehend from the intrigues of our rivals, who are equally indisposed and disqualified to engage in such an enterprise.

If we consider what may be the probable intention of Providence in opening so extensive a communication betwixt Europe and the most ancient seats of idolatry, and more especially of subjecting such immense ter ritories in the East to the British power, we can conceive no end more worthy of the Deity in these momentous changes than to facilitate the propagation of true religion.

Our acquisition of power there has been so rapid, so extensive and so disproportioned to the limits of our native empire, that there are few events in which the interposition of Providence may be more distinctly traced. From the possession of a few forts in different parts of the coast, which we were permitted to erect for the protection of our commerce, we have risen, in the course of less than half a century, to a summit of power,

whence we exert a direct dominion over fifty millions, and a paramount influence over a hundred millions of men. By an astonishing train of events, a large portion of the population of the oriental world has been subjected to the dominion of an Island placed in the extremities of the West of Europe. Kingdoms have fallen after king

ro

doms, and provinces after provinces, with a rapidity which resembles the incidents of a mance rather than the accustomed order of political events. It is remarkable, too, that this career of conquest has uniformly directed its steps towards those parts of the earth, and to those only, which are the primeval seats of pagan idolatry; forming an intimate connexion betwixt the most enlightened of Christian nations and the victims of the most inveterate and deplorable system of superstition mankind have ever witnessed. As we must be blind not to discern the finger of God in these transactions, it behoves us to consider for what purposes we are lifted to so high and awful a pre-emi

nence.

It is certainly not to be ascribed to a blind predilection, which aims at no higher object than to gratify ambition, by extending the power, and augmenting the grandeur of Great Britain, a motive too puerile to satisfy the requisitions of human reason, much more to limit the views of an eternal mind.

The possession of sovereignty over extensive kingdoms is a sacred trust, for which nations are not less responsible than individuals; a delegation from the supreme fountain of power; and as the unalterable laws of nature forbid us to confound men with things, or to forget the reciprocal obligations subsisting betwixt the sovereign and the subject, we can scarcely be guilty of a greater crime than to consider the latter as merely subservient to the interests of the former. Every individual of the immense population sub

jected to our sway, has claims on our justice and benevolence which we cannot with impunity neglect: 'the wants and sufferings of exery individual utter a voice which goes to the heart of humanity. In return for their allegiance we owe them protec tion and instruction, together with every effort to meliorate their condition and improve their character. It is but fair to acknowledge, that we have not been wholly insensible to these claims, and that the extension of our power has been hitherto highly beneficial. But why, in the series of improvements, has Christianity been neglected? Why has the communication of the greatest good we have to bestow, been hitherto fettered and restrained; and while every modification of idolatry, not excepting the bloody and obscene orgies of Juggernaut, have received support, has every attempt to instruct the natives in the things which belong to their peace, been suppressed or discountenanced? It will surely appear surprising to posterity, that a nation, glorying in the purity of their faith as one of its highest distinctions, should suffer its transactions in the East to be characterized by the spirit of infidelity, as though they imagined the foundations of empire could only be laid in apostasy and impiety; at a moment, too, when Europe, convulsed to its centre, beholds these frantic nations swept with the besom of destruction. Their astonishment will be the more excited, when they compare our conduct in this instance with the unprecedented exertions we are making for the diffusion of religious

knowledge in other directions; with the operations of the Bible Society, which, formed for the sole purpose of conveying the oracles of God to all quarters, has risen to an importance that entitles it to be regarded as a national concern; where statesmen, nobles, and prelates, have enrolled their names, emulous of the honor of advancing to the utmost the noble design of the institution; with the Bartlett's Buildings Society, employed for upwards of a century in attempts to convert the natives of riindostan, which includes in the list of its members every bishop, and every dignified ecclesiastic in the realm; with the numerous translations going on in all the dialects of the East, to which the learned, both in Europe and in Asia, are looking with eager expectation. When posterity compare the conduct we are reprobating with these facts, how great their astonishment, to find the piety of the nation has suffered itself to lie prostrate at the feet of a few individuals, the open or disguised enemies of the faith of Jesus!

It is impossible, in connexion with the circumstances to which we have adverted, to mistake the real sentiments of the British nation, or not to perceive that the illustrious associations already mentioned are entitled, on a question of this nature, to be considered as its genuine and legitimate organ.

It ought never to be forgotten, in the consideration of this subject, that it is inseparably connected with liberty of conscience. Religious toleration implies not merely the freedom of thought, which no human

power can restrain, and which equally subsists under the most tyrannical and the most enlightened governments; it compre. hends, also, the freedom of communication, and the right of discussion, within the limits of sober and dispassionate argument. He who is impressed with a conviction of the importance of the Christian verities, it is reasonable to suppose, will be anxious to communicate them: he will probably feel as St Paul did in a similar situation, whose spirit was stirred within him when he beheld the city of, Athens wholly given up to idolatry: he may be touched with so strong a commiseration for the victims of religious imposture, and so powerful a sense of the duty of attempting to correct it, as to be ready to adopt the language employed on another occasion"We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”

If, at

None but the determined enemy of truth and decency will deny that such a state of mind is possible, or that it is more allied to virtue than to vice. this juncture, a superior power interposes, and says, You shall not impart your conviction, however strong; you shall not attempt to dispel delusions the, most gross, or correct enormities the most flagrant, though no other means are thought of but calm expostulation and argument, in what, I would ask, does such an interference differ from persecution? Here is conscience on one side, an enlightened conscience, as all Christians must confess, and force on the other, which is precisely the position in which things are placed by every instance of persecution.

If Christianity was ever persecuted; if the martyrologies of all times and nations are not to be exploded as mere fiction and romance, this is persecution, and persecution of a most malignant complexion, being inflicted for the support of a system we detest, on the teachers of that religion by which we expect to be saved. Here is a people, indignant posterity will exclaim, who profess subjection to the Savior of the world, and who hold in their hands the oracles which foretel the universal extension of his kingdom, who yet make it a crime to breathe his name in pagan lands, and employ their power to fence out the scene of his future triumphs, and render it, as far as posssible, inaccessible to his religion. Admirable successors of the Constantines and the Charlemagnes of a former age! Faithful stewards of the manifold gifts of God!

When the parallel betwixt the conduct of modern missionaries and the first preachers of the Gospel is insisted on, it is usual to attempt to annul the conclusion deduced from the comparison, by remarking that the latter were possessed of miraculous powers, to which the former make no pretensions. That this circumstance occasions a real disparity in the means of insuring success will be readily acknowledged; but that it makes any difference whatever in the right of imparting instruction, will not hastily be conceded. Had such supernatural interpositions never accompanied the publication of the Gospel, it had wanted its credentials, and been essentially defective in the proof of its divine origination. It was

necessary for a new dispensation, when first ushered into the world, to be accompanied with a direct appeal to the senses, with the visible signatures of a divine hand; and it is the glory of our holy religion to possess them in a variety and splendor that astonished mankind, and laid a foundation for the faith and obedience of all succeeding ages.

At its entrance such an economy was requisite to prepare the way. But when these miraculous occurrences, after enduring the severest scrutiny, under circumstances the most favorable to impartial investigation, were committed to writing, and formed a compact body of external evidences; when the supernatural origin of the Christian faith had taken its place amongst the most indubitable of recorded facts, it was no longer necessary to be continually repeating the same proofs; nor consistent with the majesty of Heaven, to be ever laying the foundation afresh. It was time to assume the truth of religion as a thing proved.

As we were none of us eyewitnesses of the miracleswrought in the primitive ages, but rest our belief on historical documents, it is not impossible, as far as the truth of Christianity is concerned, to lay open to pagans the sources of our conviction, and by that means to place them in nearly the same situation with ourselves; to say nothing of that internal evidence which commends itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. This is actually the mode in which the light of Revelation has been chiefly diffused since the cessation of miraculous gifts; which, in the

opinion of some, terminated with the apostles, in the judg ment of others, were continued through the three first centuries, but are universally allow ed to have ceased long before the conversion of the northern and western parts of Europe. Did the disciples of St. Columba, who spread Christianity through the German provinces on the Baltic, through the kingdoms of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, owe their success to miraculous powers? Did St. Austin and his associates, who laid the foundations of the present religious establishments, make such pretensions?

To demand miracles in order to justify the propagation of Christianity in pagan countries, is to attribute to it a state of perpetual weakness and pupilage: it is to cancel all that is past, to accuse the most illustrious missionaries of enthusiasm, and the faith of our forefathers of folly and credulity. The principle we are attempting to expose, not content with inAlicting a stigma on a particular sect or party, involves the whole Christian community established in these realms, in the foul reproach of being the illegitimate offspring of fanaticism, or imposture. It is only necessary for us to place ourselves in imagination at that period when the foundation of the Church was laid in this and in other European countries, to perccive that the same objections, which are made to the present efforts of missionaries, apply with equal force to those that are past. They who first exhibited the mystery of the cross to the view of our rude ancestors, were VOL. IX.

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equally destitute of miraculous powers with ourselves. they felt the power of the world to come: they were deeply impressed with the dignity and excellence of the Christian dispensation, and touched with a passionate regard for the honor of God and the salvation of souls. These were the motives which impelled them forward; these the weapons of their warfare. The ridicule attempted to be poured on men of the same principles and character, engag ed in the same object, is, in fact, reflected on these their predecessors, and is precisely a repetition of the conduct of the stupid and impenitent Jews, who honored the memory, and built the sep ulchres of departed, while they were imbruing their hands in the blood of living prophets. We collect, with eager veneration, the names and achievements of the first heralds of the Gospel; we dwell with exultation on the heroic fortitude they displayed in encountering the opposition of fierce barbarians, amidst their efforts to reclaim them from a sanguinary superstition, and to imbue their minds with the principles of an enlightened piety.

We look up to them as to a superior order of beings, and in the character of the instructors of our species in the sublimest lessons, consider them entitled to a distinction above all Greek, above all Roman fame; yet, with ineffable absurdity, and a most despicable littleness of mind, if it pleases Providence, at distant intervals, to raise up a few congenial spirits, we are prepared to treat them with levity and scorn. is the misfortune of some men 51

It