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importance to tribute or revenue, we should long ago have attempted it. We can claim no merit then for this forbearance, for it arises from our own unconcern about the Christian religion.

9. But so great is the truth and divine excellence of our religion, that even the principles which flow from it remotely, lead the heathens to inquire into its doctrine, the fountain. Natives of all ranks in Hindoostan, at their courts and in their bazars, behold an awful contrast between their base and illiberal maxims, and our just and generous principles. Of this they discourse to each other, and inquire about the cause, but we will not tell them. We are ashamed to confess that these principles flow from our religion. We would indeed rather acknowledge any other source.

10. The action of our principles upon them is nevertheless constant; and some aid of religious consideration, on our part, would make it effective. They are a divided people. They have no common interest. There is no such thing as a hierarchy of Brahminical faith in Hindoostan, fixed by certain tenets, and guided by an infallible head. They have no ecclesiastical polity, church government, synods, or assemblies. Some Brahmins are supported by hereditary lands granted to a family or attached to a temple, and pass their time in passive ignorance, without concern about public affairs. Brahmins having no endowment, engage in lay offices, as shopkeepers, money-lenders, clerks and writers; or in other inferior and servile occupations. Others seek a religious character, and prosecute study at some of the Hindoo schools, of which there are a great number in Hindoostan. These are, in general, supported by the contributions of their students, or by public alms. The chief of these schools are Benares, Nuddeea, and Ougein. Benares has acquired a higher celebrity for general learning than the other schools. But a Brahmin of Nuddeea or of Calcutta, acknowledges no jurisdiction of a Brahmin at Benares, or of any other Brahmin in Hindoostan. The Brahminical system, from Cape Comorin to Tibet, is purely republican, or rather anarchical.* The Brahmins of one pro vince often differ in their creed and customs from those in another. Of the chief Brahmins in the college of Fort William, there are few (not being of the same district) who will give the same account of their faith, or refer to the same sacred books. So much do the opinions of some of those now in the college differ, that they will not so much as worship or eat with each other. The Brahmins in general cannot read their sacred books. Their ignorance of writing and of the geogra• See Appendix H.

phy of the country is such, that there is no general communication among them, political or religious.

11. The natives of Hindoostan are a divided people. They have no common interest. To disseminate new principles among them is not difficult. They are less tenacious of opinion than of custom. In no other country has there been such a variety of opinions on religious subjects, for many ages past, as in Hindoostan. The aborigines of the country, denominated Hindoos or Gentoos, were not all followers of Brahma. Some were worshippers of the deity Boodh. The numerous nation

of the Sieks, which is a secession from Hinduism, forms another great class. The inhabitants of the hills to the south and north of the peninsula, (according to some, the oldest race,) are again different from the former, and from each other. All these different sects have their respective subdivisions, schisms, and contrarieties in opinion and in practice. And from all of them the Mahometans, who are now spread over all Hindoostan, are entirely distinct; and from these again, differ the various ramifications of the Christian faith. The sea coasts, for several centuries past, have been peopled by Portuguese, Armenian, Greek or Nestorian Christians; and now the Protestant religion flourishes wherever it is taught. In no other country is there such a variety of religions, or so little concein about what true religion is, as in British India. A man may worship any thing or nothing. When one native meets another on the road, he seldom expects to find that he is of the same cast with himself. It has been calculated that there are an hundred casts of religion in India. Hence the Hindoo maxim, so grateful to the philosophers, that the Deity is pleased with the variety, and that every religion, or no religion, is right.

To disseminate the principles of the Christian religion and morals throughout the provinces under our dominion, is certainly very practicable.*

CHAPTER II.

On the policy of civilizing the natives.

1. In governing conquered kingdoms, a Christian policy may be exercised, or a Roman policy.

A Roman policy sacrifices religion to every other consideration in the administration of the new empire. The religion of the native is considered as an accident or peculiarity, like

• See Appendix F.

that of his colour or form of body, and as being natural rather than acquired; and therefore no attempt is made to change it. And this is correct reasoning, on the principle that all religions are human and equal. The policy therefore founded on this principle, professes to cultivate the intellectual powers of the native in every branch of knowledge, except religion.

It is evident that the administration of India during the last forty years, has been conducted on the principles of the Roman policy. The religion of the natives continuing the same, they have been properly governed by their own laws.

2. A Christian policy embraces all the just principles of the Roman policy, but extends its aims of utility further by endeavouring to improve the inind of the native in religious knowledge, as soon as the practicability of the attempt shall appear obvious. The practicability will of course be retarded in some conquered heathen states, by particular circumstances. But a Christian policy ever looks to the Christian religion for the perpetuity of empire; and considers that the knowledge of Christian principles can alone enable the natives to comprehend or to appreciate the spirit of Christian government. Our religion is therefore inculcated for the following reasons generally:

1st. Because its civilizing and benign influence is certain and undeniable. We have seen that it has dispensed knowledge and happiness to every people, who have embraced it.

2dly. Because it attaches the governed to their governors; and facilitates our intercourse with the natives. There can never be confidence, freedom and affection between the people and their sovereign, where there exists a difference in religion.

3dly. The Christian religion is inculcated on account of its ETERNAL SANCTIONS; and the solemn obligation of Christians to proclaim them, whenever an opportunity shall be afforded by Providence of doing it with probable success; it being by no means submitted to our judgment, or to our notions of policy, whether we shall embrace the means of imparting Christian knowledge to our subjects or not; any more than it is submitted to a Christian father, whether he shall choose to instruct his family or not.

These motives will acquire additional weight, if, first, the natives be subject to an immoral or inhuman superstition; and, secondly, if we voluntarily exercise dominion over them, and be benefitted by that dominion.

3. The question of policy, regarding the instruction of our native subjects, the Mahometans and Hindoos, is to be determined by the consideration of their moral state.

The Mahometans profess a religion, which has ever been characterised by political bigotry and intemperate zeal. In

this country that religion still retains the character of its bloody origin; particularly among the higher classes. Whenever the Mahometan feels his religion touched, he grasps his dagger. This spirit was seen in full operation under Tippoo's government; and it is not now extinguished. What was the cause of the alarm which seized the English families in Bengal after the late massacre of our countrymen at Benares, by the Mahometan chiefs? There was certainly no ground for apprehension; but it plainly manifested our opinion of the people. We have consolidated our Indian empire by our power; and it is now impregnable; but will the Mahometan ever bend humbly to Christian dominion? Never, while he is a Mahometan.

4. Is it then good policy to cherish a vindictive religion in the bosom of the empire forever? Would it not accord with the dictates of the soundest wisdom to allow Christian schools to be established, where the children of poor Mahometans might learn another temper; the good effects of which would be felt before one generation pass away? The adult Hindoo will hardly depart from his idol, or the Mahometan from his prophet, in his old age; but their children, when left destitute, may be brought up Christians, if the British parliament please. But as matters now stand, the follower of Mahomet imagines that we consider it a point of honour to reverence his faith and to despise our own. For he, every day, meets with Europeans, who would more readily speak with disrespect of their own religion, than of his. No where is the bigotry of this intolerant faith nursed with more tenderness than in British India. While it is suffering concussion in every other part of the world, even to Mecca, its centre, (as by a concurring providence, towards its final abolition,) here it is fostered in the peaceful lap of Christian liberality.

5. A wise policy seems to demand that we should use every means of coercing this contemptuous spirit of our native subjects. Is there not more danger of losing this country, in the revolution of ages, (for an empire without a religious establishment cannot stand forever,) by leaving the dispositions and prejudices of the people in their present state, than by any change that Christian knowledge and an improved state of civil society, would produce in them? And would not Christianity, more effectually than any thing else, disunite and segregate our subjects from the neighbouring states, who are now of the same religion with themselves; and between whom there must ever be, as there ever has been, a constant disposition to confederacy and to the support of a common interest? At present there is no natural bond of union between us and them. There is nothing common in laws, language, or relig

ion, in interest, colour or country. And what is chiefly wor thy of notice, we can approach them in no other way than by the means of our religion.*

6. The moral state of the Hindoos is represented as being still worse than that of the Mahometans. Those, who have had the best opportunities of knowing them, and who have known them for the longest time, concur in declaring that nei ther truth, nor honesty, honour, gratitude, nor charity, is to be found pure in the breast of a Hindoo. How can it be otherwise? The Hindoo children have no moral instruction. If the inhabitants of the British isles had no moral instruction, would they be moral? The Hindoos have no moral books. What branch of their mythology has not more of falsehood and vice in it, than of truth and virtue? They have no moral gods. The robber and the prostitute lift up their hands with the infant and the priest, before an horrible idol of clay painted red, deformed and disgusting as the vices which are practised before it.t

7. You will sometimes hear it said that the Hindoos are a mild and passive people. They have apathy rather than mildness; their hebetude of mind is perhaps their chief negative virtue. They are a race of men of weak bodily frame, and they have a mind conformed to it, timid and abject in the extreme. They are passive enough to receive any vicious impression. The English government found it necessary lately to enact a

"The newly converted Christians on the coast of Malabar are the "chief support of the Dutch East India Company at Cochin; and are always ready to take up arms in their defence. The Pagans and Mahometans are naturally enemies to the Europeans, because they have no sim"ilarity to them either in their external appearance, or in regard to their "manners, their religion, or their interest. If the English therefore do not "endeavour to secure the friendship of the Christians in India, on whom 66 can they depend? How can they hope to preserve their possessions in "that remote country?-In the above observations may be found one of the reasons why neither Hyder Ali nor Tippoo Sultan could maintain their "ground against the English and the king of Travancore on the coast of "Malabar. The great number of Christians residing there, whom Hyder "and his son every where persecuted, always took part with the English." See Bartolomeo's Voyage, page 207, and note.

"Ten thousand native Christians lost their lives during that war." Ibid. 149.

†The Hindoo superstition has been denominated lascivious and bloody. That it is bloody, is manifest from the daily instances of the female sacrifice, and of the commission of sanguinary or painful rites. The ground of the former epithet may be discovered in the description of their religious ceremonies" There is in most sects a right-handed or decent path; and "a left-handed or indecent mode of worship."

See Essay on the religious ceremonies of the Brahmins, by H. T. Colebrooke, Esq. Asiat. Res. Vol. VII. p. 281. That such a principle should have been admitted as systematic in any religion on earth, may be considered as the last effort of mental depravity in the invention of a superstition to blind the understanding, and to corrupt the heart.

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