ing; diligence to the flothful; patience to those who are in pain; and thy celeftial aid to those who are in danger: Comfort the afflicted; relieve the diftreffed; fupply the hungry with falutary food, and the thirsty with a plentiful ftream. Impute not our doubts tọ indifference, nor our flowness of belief to hardnefs of heart; but be indulgent to our imperfect nature, and fupply our imperfections by thy heavenly favour. "Suffer not, we “anxiously pray, fuffer not oppreffion to pre if "vail over innocence, nor the might of the "avenger over the weakness of the juft." Whenever we addrefs thee in our retirement from the vanities of the world, if our prayers are foolish, pity us; if prefumptuous, pardon us; acceptable to thee, grant them, all-powerful GOD, grant them: And, as with our living voice, and with our dying lips, we will exprefs our fubmiffion to thy decrees, adore thy providence, and bless thy difpenfations; so in all future ftates, to which we reverently hope thy goodness will raise us, grant that we may continue praifing, admiring, venerating, wor Shipping thee more and more, through worlds without number, and ages without end! Jan. 1, 1782. I do not adduce this prayer as evidence of the belief of Sir William Jones in the doctrines of Jefus Chrift; although I think that fuch a compofition could hardly have been framed by an unbeliever in the Gospel, or, if this be deemed poffible, that a mind capable of feeling the fentiments which it expreffes, could long have witholden its affent to the truths of Revelation. It is evidently the effufion of a pious mind, deeply impreffed with an awful fense of the infinite wifdom, power, and benevolence of his Creator, and of the ignorance, weakness, and depravity of human nature; fentiments which reafon and experience ftrongly fuggeft, and which Revelation exprefsly teaches. Let it be remembered, that long before this prayer was written, Sir William Jon es had demonftrated* to his own fatisfaction, that Jefus was the Messiah, predicted by the Prophets; that amongst his pro*Memoirs, p. 115, vol. i. jected occupations in India, one* was to tranflate the Pfalms into Perfic, and the Gospel of Luke into Arabic,-a design which could only have originated in his conviction of the importance and inspiration of these divine books; that in the year after the date of the prayer, we have a direct and public avowal of his belief in the divinity of our Saviourt; and again in the next, another prayer by him expreffing his exclufive reliance on the merits of his Redeemer for his acceptance with God‡. Amongst the publications of Sir William Jones, in which his religious fentiments are expreffed, I fhall first notice, A Dissertation on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and Rome, written in 1784, but revised and printed in 1786, in which the following paffage occurs: "Dif 66 quifitions concerning the manners and con"duct of our fpecies, in early times, or indeed "at any time, are always curious at least, and amufing; but they are highly interefting "to fuch as can fay of themselves, with t Ibid. p. 9. vol. ii. *Memoirs, p. 4. vol. ii. "CHREMES in the play, We are men, and "take an intereft in all that relates to man"kind.' They may even be of folid import66 ance in an age, when fome intelligent and "virtuous perfons are inclined to doubtthe au"thenticity of accounts delivered by MOSES, "concerning the primitive world; fince no "modes or fources of reafoning can be unimpor"tant, which have a tendency to remove fuch "doubts. Either the firft eleven chapters of "Genefis, (all due allowances being made for a "figurative Eastern style,) are true, or the "whole fabric of our national religion is false; 66 a conclufion, which none of us I truft would "wish to be drawn. I, who cannot help believing the divinity of the MESSIAH, from the undisputed antiquity, and manifest completion of many prophecies, especially thofe "of ISAIAH, in the only perfon recorded by history, to whom they are applicable, am 66 obliged of course to believe the fanctity of "the venerable books, to which that facred perfon refers as genuine: but it is not the "truth of our national religion, as fuch, that "I have at heart; it is TRUTH itself: and if . any cool, unbiaffed reader will clearly con "vince me, that Mofes drew his narrative, 66 through Egyptian conduits, from the pri"meval fountains of Indian literature, I fhall "esteem him as a friend, for having weeded 66 my mind from a capital error, and promise "to ftand among the foremost in affifting to "circulate the truth which he has afcertained. "After fuch a declaration, I cannot but per"fuade myself, that no candid man will "be difpleased, if, in the courfe of my work, "I make as free with any arguments, that he may have advanced, as I fhould really defire " him to do with any of mine, that he may be Let not the candour of the declaration, contained in the preceding quotation, alarm the ferious Chriftian; the fair inference to be drawn from it is this, that Sir William Jones was incapable of affirming what he did not fully believe; and the avowal of his faith in the divinity of our Saviour, is therefore to be received as decifive evidence of the fincerity of |