“holiness and fublimity of the Chriftian doc"trine of the Trinity, and that the tenet of our "Church cannot without profanenefs, be com 66 pared with that of the Hindus, which has an apparent refemblance to it, but a very differ"ent meaning." At the end of the fame treatife, Sir William Jones enumerates the fad obstacles to the extenfion of our " pure faith" in Hindustan, and concludes as follows: 86 "The only human mode perhaps of cauf ing fo great a revolution, is to tranflate into "Sanfcrit and Perfian, fuch chapters of the prophets, and particularly Ifaiah, as are indifputably evangelical, together with one of "the Gospels, and a plain prefatory discourse 66 containing full evidence of the very diftant 66 ages, in which the predictions themselves "and the hiftory of the divine perfon predict"ed, were feverally made public, and then quietly to disperse the work among the well"educated natives, with whom, if in due "time it failed of promoting very falutary "fruit by its natural influence, we could only "lament more than ever, the ftrength of pre"judice and weakness of unaffifted reason." That the converfion of the Hindus to the Chriftian religion, would have afforded him the fincereft pleafüre, may be fairly inferred from the above paffage; his wish that it should take place, is still more clearly expressed in the following quotation from one of his Hymns to Lachfmi, the Ceres of India, and a personification of the Divine Goodness. After defcribing most feelingly and poetically the horrid effects of famine in India, he thus concludes the hymn: From ills that, painted, harrow up the breast, To senseless nature bows, for nature's God. Meanwhile, may laws, by myriads long rever'd, Their strife appease, their gentler claims decide! To many a cherish'd, grateful race endear'd, Though mists profane obscure their narrow ken, The teftimony of Sir William Jones to the verity and authenticity of the Old and New Teftament is well known, from the care with which it has been circulated in England; but as it has a particular claim to be inferted in the memoirs of his life, I tranfcribe it from his own manufcript in his Bible: "I have carefully and regularly perused "these Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion, "that the volume, independently of its divine origin, contains more fublimity, purer mo rality, more important hiftory, and finer "ftrains of eloquence, than can be collected "from all other books, in whatever language 66 they may have been written." This opinion is repeated with little variation of expreffion, in a difcourfe addreffed to the fociety in February, 1791: 66 Theological enquiries are no part of my "prefent fubject; but I cannot refrain from adding, that the collection of tracts, which "we call from their excellence the Scriptures, 66 contain, independently of a divine origin, "more true fublimity, more exquifite beauty, ' purer morality, more important history, and "finer ftrains both of poetry and eloquence, "than could be collected, within the fame 66 66 compafs, from all other books that were ever composed in any age, or in any idiom. "The two parts of which the Scriptures con"fift, are connected by a chain of compofi"tions, which bear no resemblance in form or "ftyle to any that can be produced from the "ftores of Grecian, Indian, Perfian, or even "Arabian learning; the antiquity of those 66 compofitions no man doubts; and the un"ftrained application of them to events long "fubfequent to their publication, is a folid "ground of belief, that they were genuine ' compofitions, and confequently infpired. "But, if any thing be the abfolute exclu"five property of each individual, it is his be lief; and I hope I fhould be the last man "living, who could harbour a thought of ob ແ truding my own belief on the free minds of "others." In his discourse of the following year, we find him again mentioning the Mofaic history, under a fuppofition, affumed for the fake of the argument which he was difcuffing, that it had no higher authority than any other book of history, which the researches of the curious had accidentally brought to light. "On this fuppofition," (I quote his own words,)" that the first eleven chapters of the "book which it is thought proper to call Ge"nefis, are merely a preface to the oldest civil hiftory now extant, we see the truth of them "confirmed by antecedent reafoning, and by "evidence in part highly probable, and in part certain." But that no misconception might be entertained on this awful subject by the ignorant, and to avoid the poffibility of any perverfe mifapplication of his fentiments, he adds: "but the connection of the Mofaic history with that of the Gospel, by a chain "of fublime predictions unquestionably an |