bigness, all of solid gold, most curiously wrought, but so thick set with precious stones, that the gold could hardly be seen for their sparkling and dazzling splendour. The chariot was drawn by ten thousand bright and nimble spirits, and a hundred thousand of nobler rank guarded the chariot before, and on either side, being commanded and led by Raphael, the archangel, as the rest of the army that followed the chariot was, by the great Michael, the first of all the archangels, and lieutenant-general to Christ himself, who rode in his golden chariot, and commanded all. Now, all languages fail me in setting forth the glories of this great General. He was of a most prodigious stature; as big as a thousand men, but most wonderfully beautiful and exactly symmatried. His face outshone the sun so far in splendour, as is beyond all conception. He had a prodigious flaming sword in his left hand, the sight of which was terrible; but in his right hand he had the ensign of the cross, which had a sanative virtue in it, to remove distempers, and cheer the heart; to recover the phrenzical and distracted, to raise the dead, and in a word to work all manner of miracles: to remove mountains,

dry up seas, &c. Now all tyrants and wicked men were convicted and punished by him, and the Roman empire destroyed. In the stead of which he raised up one Peter, a most eminently holy and excellent person, to rule the whole world for him, as his vicegerent." Having informed them of Christ's having invested the Popes, the successors of Peter, with the same authority, and promising that they should hear from him, as often as they desired, by a special messenger; and having represented the Saviour as returning to heaven in the same glorious manner in which he came, he proceeds, "He never failed to do so to Peter and all his successors, the Popes. So that the Pope that

now is, has had frequent messengers from Christ in heaven, commanding him to send holy men to the great empire of China, out of the great love he has for that learned, wise, and excellent people, to invite them to leave their idolatrous priests, and false worship, and own him and his vicegerent the Pope. Now, I am one of those holy missionaries, and I assure you that whosoever of you shall do as I direct, shall, when he dies, go into that glorious Paradise where Christ is; and that I may know who have a mind to be thus happy, I have here a book given me by the Pope, by order of Christ himself, that I may mark down in it the names of all those that desire his favour, which I must from time to time send to the Pope, that he may send it to Christ in heaven. And, I assure you, that all those who refuse to have their names thus recorded, shall be destroyed, at last, in a most terrible manner. Come, therefore, and let me have all your names; but know, that every one that expects this favour, must give me his offering in money, according to his ability, that the sincerity of his heart may be known."*

Such is the account said to have been given by this missionary to the Chinese of our Saviour's advent, and of the manner and end of it. A Church built upon such fables had neither foundation nor corner stone, and being a baseless fabric, its fall was a necessary consequence.

Next to the Chinese, the Hindoos have been the most celebrated of modern Pagans. Our Indian empire is said to be composed of about sixty millions of them. Some successful attempts have been made to awaken the people of this country, to a sense of the vast importance

• Fleming's Christology, quoted by Dr. Hurd, in his View of all Religions.

of sending them the gospel, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan, into the kingdom of God's dear Son; but every art has been employed to extinguish the heavenly spark of religious zeal and benevolence, that gives our feelings an interest in the happiness of our fellow men. Their religion was declared to be pure and rational. Its Vedam, or sacred book, was said to contain the principles of exalted devotion. The morals of that people, and particularly of their Brahmins, were said to be perfectly correct; so much so, that even Christianity could hardly improve, and was in some danger of contaminating them. In short, virtue was represented as having fixed her abode among that happy and wise people, and by consecrating all their rites, laws, customs, and manners in her sacred temple, to have stamped upon them her own image and superscription. To give these glowing descriptions of universal happiness the greater force, the danger of disturbing their peaceful efforts, in the cultivation of every perfection of our nature, by presenting to their view a new religion, and contrasting it with theirs, was strongly urged upon us. We were then told that they were jealous, irritable, and vindictive, and that there was the utmost danger, lest, by offering them the blessings of Christianity, we should make them suppose that we meant to force it upon them; and so incite them to a universal massacre of the English, and to overturn our empire in India.

Now, had those who spoke or wrote in this manner been the open enemies of Christianity, their declamation would have excited no surprise. Had the most zealous advocates for missionary exertions disgraced Christianity, by proposing to enforce that divine religion by any other

weapons than the mildness of persuasion, with which our Saviour's apostles successfully combated the prejudices of men, there had been some reason for alarm. But surely a religion so rational and mild as that of the Hindoos, and a religion, the disciples of which had cultivated every human virtue with so much success, is in little danger of being offended at Christianity, which can only be considered as a foil, to give a more striking lustre and brilliancy to its natural jewels and ornaments.

Let us, however, approach this venerable temple of the Hindoos, and collecting the scattered rays of its glory, let us behold at once its piety, its purity, and its mercy. Thus shall we be enabled to form a proper estimate of the panegyrics which have been so lavishly and so handsomely employed to decorate the code of the Brahmins, by our Major Scott Warings, and our Bengal officers, as well as by some of our parliamentary orators.

Every person who knows the character of Dr. Buchanan, late Vice-Provost of the College of Fort William,. in Bengal, knows that it stands as far above the suspicion of unworthy motives in describing what he saw, as it does above that of credulity and the want of discriminating powers. "It was," says Dr. Buchanan, "a chief object of the author's tour through India, to mark the relative influence of Paganism and Christianity. In order then that the English nation may be able to form a judgment on this subject, I will proceed to give some account of the Hindoos of Juggernaut, and of the native Christians in Tangore. The Hindoos of Juggernaut have as yet had no advantages of christian instruction, and continue to worship the idol called Juggernaut. The native Christians of Tangore, until the light of revelation visited them, worshipped an idol also, called the great Black

Bull of Tangore." And as in this brief work the author chiefly proposes to state, merely what he himself has seen, with little comment or observation, it will suffice to give a few extracts from the journal of his tour through these provinces.

Extracts from Dr. Buchanan's Journal of his Tour to the Temple of Juggernaut, in Orissa, in the year 1806.

"Buddruck, in Orissa, May 30, 1806. "We know that we are approaching Juggernaut (and yet we are more than fifty miles from it) by the human bones which we have seen, for some days, strewed by the way. At this place we have been joined by several large bodies of pilgrims, perhaps two thousand in number, who have come from various parts of Northern India. Some of them with whom I have conversed, say, that they have been two months on their march, travelling slowly in the hottest season of the year, with their wives and children. Some old persons are among them, who wish to die at Juggernaut. Numbers of pilgrims die on the road; and their bodies generally remain unburied. On a plain by the river, near the pilgrim's caravansery, at this place there are more than a hundred skulls. The dogs, jackals, and vultures seem to live here on human prey. The vultures exhibit a shocking tameness. The obscene animals will not leave the body sometimes till we come close to them. This Buddruck is a horrid place. Whereever I turn my eyes, I meet death in some shape or other. Surely Juggernaut cannot be worse than Buddruck."

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In sight of Juggernaut, June 12, 1806. Many thousands of pilgrims have accompanied