sons, making their journey to some holy place-here passes a person, carrying a basket on his head, containing rice, sweetmeats, fruits, flowers, &c. an offering to his guardian deity— here comes a man with a chaplet of red flowers round his head, and the head of a goat in his hand, having left the blood and carcase before the image of Kalēē-there sits a group of Hindoos, listening to three or four persons rehearsing and chanting poetical versions of the pooranus-here sits a man in the front of his house reading one of the pooranus, moving his body like the trunk of a tree in a high wind-and (early in the morning) here comes a group of jaded wretches, who have spent the night in boisterously singing filthy songs, and dancing in an indecent manner, before the image of Doorga-add to this, the villagers, men and women, coming dripping from the banks of the Ganges -and the reader has a tolerable view of the Hindoo idolatry, as it stalks, every day, along the streets and roads, and as it may be recognized by any careless observer.

The reader will perceive, that in all these religious ceremonies not a particle is found to interest or amend the heart; no family bible, profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness, that men may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works;' no domestic worship d; no pious assembly where

learnt his lesson. The merit consists in having repeated the name of a god so great a number of times.

с

Reading a book, or having it read at a person's house, even though the person himself should not understand it, is a most meritorious action. The love of learning for its own sake is unknown in Bengal: a Hindoo, if he applies to learning, always does it to obtain roopees-or heaven. When he opens one of the shastrus, or even an account-book, he makes a bow to the book. A shopkeeper, when he is about to balance his books, uncertain how the balance will fall, makes a vow to some god, that if by his favour he should not find himself in debt, he will present to him some offerings.

The women and children take no share in the worship performed by the master of the family. It is not supposed to belong to them. See vol. ii. p. 36.

the village preacher' attempts each art, reproves each dull delay, allures to brighter worlds, and leads the way.' No standard of morals to repress the vicious; no moral education in which the principles of virtue and religion may be implanted in the youthful mind. Here every thing that assumes the appearance of religion, ends (if you could forget its impurity) in an unmeaning ceremony, and leaves the heart cold as death to every moral principle. Hence the great bulk of the people have abandoned every form and vestige of religious ceremony. The bramhun who communicated this information, attributed this general disregard of their religion to the kulee-yoogů; and consoled himself with the idea, that this deplorable state of things was an exact fulfilment of certain prophecies in the pooranus.

Some persons may plead, The doctrine of a state of future rewards and punishments has always been supposed to have a strong influence on public morals: the Hindoos not only have this doctrine in their writings, but are taught to consider every disease and misfortune of life as an undoubted symptom of moral disease, and the terrific appearances of its close-pursuing punishment-can this fail to produce a dread of vice, and a desire to merit the favour of the Deity? I will still further assist the objector, and inform him, that the Hindoo writings declare, that till every immoral taint is removed, every sin atoned for, and the mind has obtained perfect abstraction from material objects, it is impossible to be re-united to the Great Spirit; and that, to obtain this perfection, the sinner must linger in many hells, and transmigrate through almost every form of matter. Great as these terrors are, there is nothing more palpable than that, with most of the Hindoos, they do not weigh the weight of a feather, compared with the loss of a roopee. The reason is obvious: every Hindoo considers all his actions as the effect of his destiny; he laments perhaps his miserable fate, but he resigns himself to it without a struggle, like the malefactor in a condemned cell. To this may be added, what must have forced itself on the observation of every thoughtful observer, that, in the absence of the religious principle, no outward terrors,

especially those which are invisible and future, not even bodily sufferings, are sufficient to make men virtuous.-Painful experience proves, that even in a Christian country, if the religious principle does not exist, the excellency and the rewards of virtue, and the dishonour and misery attending vice, may be held up to men for ever, without making a single convert.

But let us now advert to the pernicious errors inculcated in the Hindoo writings, and to the vices and miseries engendered by the popular superstition :

The Bhŭgůvůt-Gēēta contains the following most extraordinary. description of God:- Sunjuyu. The mighty compound and divine being Huree, having, O raja, thus spoken, made evident unto Urjoonŭ his supreme and heavenly form; of many a mouth and eye; many a heavenly ornament; many an upraised weapon; adorned with celestial robes and chaplets; anointed with heavenly essence; covered with every marvellous thing; the eternal God, whose countenance is turned on every side! The glory and amazing splendour of this mighty being may be likened to the sun rising at once into the heavens, with a thousand times more than usual brightness. The son of Pandoo then beheld within the body of the god of gods, standing together, the whole universe divided into its vast variety. He was overwhelmed 'with wonder, and every hair was raised an end. He bowed down his head before the god, and thus addressed him with joined hands :-Urjoonů. I behold, O god! within thy breast, the dévus assembled, and every specific tribe of beings. I see Brumha, that deity sitting on his lotus-throne; all the rishees and heavenly oorŭgus: I see thyself, on all sides, of infinite shape, formed with abundant arms, and bellies, and mouths, and eyes; but I can neither discover thy beginning, thy middle, nor again thy end. O universal lord, form of the universe! I see thee with a crown, and armed with club and chŭkrů, a mass of glory, darting refulgent beams around. I see thee, difficult to be seen, shining on all sides with light immeasurable, like the ardent fire, or glorious sun. I see thee of

valour infinite; the sun and moon thy eyes; thy mouth a flaming fire; and the whole world shining with reflected glory! The space between the heavens and the earth is possessed by thee alone, and every point around; the three regions of the universe, O mighty spirit! behold the wonders of thy awful countenance with troubled minds. Of the celestial bands, some I see fly to thee for refuge; whilst some, afraid, with joined hands sing forth thy praise. The muhurshees, holy bands, hail thee, and glorify thy name with adorating praises. The roodrus, the adityŭs, the vŭsoos, and all those beings the world esteemeth good; ŭshwinŭ, and koomarů, the mŭroots and the ooshmŭpas, the gundhurvus and yŭkshus, with the holy tribes of ŭsoorus; all stand gazing on thee, and all alike amazed! The worlds, alike with me, are terrified to behold thy wondrous form gigantic; with many mouths and eyes; with many arms, and legs, and breasts; with many bellies, and with rows of dreadful teeth! Thus as I see thee, touching the heavens, and shining with such glory; of such various hues; with widely-opened mouths, and bright expanded eyes; I am disturbed within me; my resolution faileth me, O Vishnoo! and I find no rest! Having beholden thy dreadful teeth, and gazed on thy countenance, emblem of time's last fire, I know not which way I turn! I find no peace! Have mercy then, O god of gods! thou mansion of the universe! The sons of Dhritŭrashtrů, now, with all those rulers of the land, Bhēēshmů, Dronů, the son of Sõõtŭ, and even the fronts of our army, seem to be precipitating themselves hastily into thy mouths, discovering such frightful rows of teeth! whilst some appear to stick between thy teeth with their bodies sorely manglede.'-It should be observed, that this frightful description of the Hindoo Supreme Being does not relate to the ferocious Kalee, drinking the blood of the giants; but it is the playful Krishnů who thus shews his dreadful teeth, with the mangled bodies of the family of Dhritŭrashtrů sticking between them.

No question occurs so frequently in the Hindoo shastrus as this

• Wilkins's translation of the Bhŭgŭvůtů-Gēēta.

"What is God?' To know whether he exists or not, page upon page has been written; and this question has been agitated in every period of Hindoo history, wherever two or three pundits happened to meet, with a solicitude, but, at the same time, with an uncertainty, which carries us at once to the apostolic declaration, 'The world by wisdom knew not God.' Some pundits call him the invisible and ever-blessed; others conceive of him as possessing form: others have the idea that he exists like an inconceivably small atom; sometimes he is male; at other times female; sometimes both male and female, producing a world by conjugal union; sometimes the elements assume his place, and at other times he is a deified hero. Thus in 330,000,000 of forms, or names, this nation, in the emphatical language of St. Paul, has been, from age to age, feeling after' the Supreme Being, like men groping in the region and shadow of death;' and, after so many centuries, the question is as much undetermined as ever-What is God?

One day, in conversation with the Sungskritů head-pundit of the College of Fort William, on the subject of God, this man, who is truly learned in his own shastrus, gave the author, from one of their books, the following parable :-In a certain country there existed a village of blind men, who had heard of an amazing animal called the elephant, of the shape of which, however, they could procure no idea. One day an elephant passed through the place: the villagers crowded to the spot where the animal was standing; and one of them seized his trunk, another his ear, another his tail, another one of his legs. After thus endeavouring to gratify their curiosity, they returned into the village, and sitting down together, began to communicate their ideas on the shape of the elephant to the villagers : the man who had seized his trunk said, he thought this animal must be like the body of the plantain tree; he who had touched his ear was of opinion, that he was like the winnowing fan; the man who had laid hold of his tail said, he thought he must resemble a snake; and he who had caught his leg declared, he must be like a pillar. An old blind man of some judgment was