godas were covered with paintings in a style no less indelicate *+."

On both fides of the comparison the popular religion had a strong establishment. In ancient Greece and Rome it was strictly incorporated with the ftate. The magistrate was the priest. The higheft offices of government bore the moft diftinguished part in the celebration of the public rites. In India, a powerful and numerous caft pofsess exclusively the administration of the established worship; and are, of confequence, devoted to its fervice, and attached to its intereft. In both, the prevailing mythology was destitute of any proper evidence; or rather, in both, the origin of the tradition is run up into ages long anterior to the exist

* Others of the deities of the East are of an austere and gloomy character, to be propitiated by victims, fometimes by human facrifices, and by voluntary torments of the most excruciating kind.

+ Voyage de Gentil. vol. i. p. 244-260. Preface to Code of Gentoo Laws, p. 57, quoted by Dr. Robertfon, p. 320.

3

ence

ence of credible history, or of written language. The Indian chronology computes æras by millions of years, and the life of man by thousands *; and in these, or prior to thefe, is placed the hiftory of their divinities. In both, the established fuperftition held the fame place in the public opinion; that is to say, in both it was credited by the bulk of the people †, but by the learned and philofophic

*"The Suffec Jogue, or age of purity, is faid to have lafted three million two hundred thousand years, and they hold that the life of man was extended in that age to one hundred thousand years; but there is a difference amongst the Indian writers of fix millions of years in the computation of this æra." Ib.

+"How abfurd foever the articles of faith may be which fuperftition has adopted, or how unhallowed the rites which it prefcribes, the former are received, in every age and country, with unhesitating affent, by the great body of the people, and the latter obferved with fcrupulous exactness. In our reasonings concerning opinions and practices which differ widely from our own, we are extremely apt to err. Having been instructed ourselves in the principles of a religion worthy in every respect of that divine wisdom by which they were dictated, we frequently exprefs wonder at the credulity of nations, in embracing fyftems of belief which

appear

philofophic part of the community, either derided, or regarded by them as only fit to be upholden for the fake of its political ufes *.

Or if it should be allowed, that the ancient heathens believed in their religion lefs

appear to us fo directly repugnant to right reafon; and fometimes fufpect, that tenets so wild and extravagant do not really gain credit with them. But experience may fatisfy us, that neither our wonder nor fufpicions are well founded. No article of the public religion was called in queftion by thofe people of ancient Europe with whofe hiftory we are beft acquainted; and no practice, which it enjoined, appeared improper to them. On the other hand, every opinion that tended to diminish the reverence of men for the gods of their country, or to alienate them from their worship, excited, among the Greeks and Romans, that indignant zeal which is natural to every people attached to their religion by a firm perfuafion of its truth." Ind. Dif. P. 321.

*That the learned Brahmins of the Eaft are rational theifts, and fecretly reject the established theory, and contemn the rites that were founded upon them, or rather confider them as contrivances to be fupported for their political ufes, fee Dr. Robertfon's Ind. Dif. P. 324-334.

generally

generally than the present Indians do, I am far from thinking that this circumstance would afford any facility to the work of the apoftles, above that of the modern miffionaries. To me it appears, and I think it material to be remarked, that a difbelief of the established religion of their country has no tendency to dispose men for the reception of another; but that, on the contrary, it generates a fettled contempt of all religious pretenfions whatever. General infidelity is the hardest foil which the propagators of a new religion can have to work upon. Could a Methodist or Moravian promise himself a better chance of fuccefs with a French efprit fort, who had been accustomed to laugh at the Popery of his country, than with a believing Mahometan or Hindoo? Or are our modern unbelievers in Chriftianity, for that reafon, in danger of becoming Mahometans or Hindoos? It does not appear that the Jews, who had a body of hiftorical evidence to offer for their religion, and who at that time undoubtedly entertained and held forth the expectation of a future ftate, VOL. II. derived

S

derived any great advantage, as to the extenfion of their system, from the discredit into which the popular religion had fallen with many of their heathen neighbours.

We have particularly directed our observations to the state and progress of Chriftianity amongst the inhabitants of India; but the history of the Chriftian miffion in other countries, where the efficacy of the miffion is left folely to the conviction wrought by the preaching of ftrangers, prefents the fame idea, as the Indian miffion does, of the feebleness and inadequacy of human means. About twenty-five years ago, was published in England, a tranflation from the Dutch of a hiftory of Greenland, and a relation of the miffion, for above thirty years carried on in that country by the Unitas Fratrum, or Moravians. Every part of that relation confirms the opinion we have stated. Nothing could furpass, or hardly equal, the zeal and patience of the miffionaries. Yet their hiftorian, in the conclufion of his narrative, could find place for no reflections

more