being predicated of fire, or air, or water, or any other material substance, as well as spirit! What a contrast to all this do the statements of the Bible exhibit!" The God of the Bible is possessed of independent personality, of freedom of will, and of absolute power. There is a natural and moral attractiveness in Jehovah that invites the conscious sinner to draw nigh with confiding trust. The propensions of mercy, and its provisions too, are all clearly revealed in the Son of his love. Here all is solid rock. In Hinduism there is nothing but theory-nothing real-nothing satisfactory.

The voice of conscience, and the fragments of patriarchal truth traditionally conveyed to all nations, have indeed taught the Hindu that, to meet his legal destitution, some mode of expiation is absolutely necessary, to free him from the felt guilt of sin; and some laver of regeneration equally needed, in respect to the degradation and corruption of our moral nature. In accordance with these absolute truths, he seeks expiation by the endless ceremonies of his ritual, and he strives to appease the anger of revengeful and sanguinary divinities, not only by victims immolated at their shrines, but by self-inflicted tortures of the most shocking and horrid description. To procure the inward purity, without which all his rites and ceremonies must go for nothing, he has recourse to the supposed efficacy of oft repeated ablutions. By these he hopes to purify his spirit, and to prepare it for immortality. That he may elevate his soul, and assimilate his mind to the purity and dignity of the divine nature, he has recourse to continued and intense meditation. By these moral acts he endeavours to enthrone deity in his affections, and to attain divine attributes. In this effort, however, there is no tendency to intellectual and moral expansion, or the ennobling of the faculties, just the contrary. He is engaged in the constant endeavour to repress the natural and immortal aspirings of his nature, and to render himself insensible to those genial motives that alone can avail as the instruments of moral elevation. And the natural longing for immortality, which his system seeks

not to eradicate but to pervert, he is instructed to cherish, and to cultivate in connexion with expectations of almost endless mutations and migrations in successive births. The finality attained, and he is re-fused into the infinite and eternal essence of the great Supreme, where, bereft of consciousness as of individuality, he loses himself in what seems little better than cessation of being.

elaborate system conHow vastly superior

Such is the practical issue of the tained in the records of Brahmanism. do the teachings of the Bible appear! Here we have the grateful and tranquillizing announcement of "One God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all." How attractive is the character of God as exhibited in the Bible. His natural attributes sustain so fully, and harmonize so perfectly, with the moral qualities of his nature. His exuberant charity expands into the pitying and redeeming economy of vicarious atonement, renewing and sanctifying grace, salutary and saving discipline, hallowing and elevating and immortal hope, guarding and guiding providence. Here we have even the tomb illumined by the lamp of his love, beyond which we see, stretching into the depths of a boundless futurity, fields of intellectual and moral splendour, the glories of the beatific vision, the presence of the King Eternal; and all the endless felicities of those mansions which the glorified Redeemer has gone to prepare for those who confide in the infinite merits of his atonement. The objective and subjective glory will consist alike with individuality and with consciousness.

Having these hopes freely bequeathed to us in the course of a merciful providence, and taught as we are, that “He,” whom we have by happy experience ascertained to be gracious, "by the grace of God tasted death for every man," shall we conceal the secrets of redeeming love, put the light under a bushel, and allow our fellow-men, our fellow-subjects, in India, to descend to death bound by the adamantine chains of a merciless and destructive superstition?

CHAPTER XII.

HINDUS, THEIR EARLY CIVILIZATION.-SKILL IN THE ARTS, AGRICULTURE, TANKS. ASPECT OF THE HINDUS.-COSTUME.-HOUSES.-FURNITURE. VILLAGES. CHOULTRIES. TOWNS. -INDUSTRY. FOOD.

THAT the ancient Hindus had attained to a high degree of civilization, and equal eminence in the arts of social life, at a period long anterior to European history, has already been proved. The testimony of other ancient nations in regard to India, their commercial intercourse with its inhabitants, its manufactures, its own languages, literature, and science, all combine to show that its people occupied a distinguished place among the early nations of mankind. Though it is not the intention to enter into lengthened details on the arts, the manners, the customs, and the character of the Hindus, either as regards the past or the present, the scope of this little work requires some reference to these points. The refinement, the opulence, the splendour, and the luxury of the urban population of ancient India may be inferred from the following description of one of its cities. Being presented in a poetic form, there may possibly be some degree of exaggeration in the picture; yet the semblances will enable us to form a tolerably correct idea of what the social condition of the Hindus was three thousand years ago.

"On the banks of the Sarayu is a vast, fertile, and delightful country, called Cós'ala, abounding in corn and wealth. In that country is a city called Ayódya, greatly famed in this world, and built by Manu himself, the lord of men.

This great and prosperous city was twelve yojanas1 in length, and three in breadth, and stored with all conveniences. The streets and lanes were admirably disposed, and the high roads were all sprinkled with water. In this city lived Dasaratha, the most potent of monarchs, even as Indra lived in Amaravati. It was adorned with arched gateways and beautiful ranges of shops; it was fortified with numerous defences and warlike machines, and inhabited by all sorts of skilful artists. It was crowded with bards and musicians, filled with riches, and shone forth with unrivalled glory; it had lofty towers stored with fire-arms, and adorned with banners. It was constantly filled with female stage-players; it was beautiful with gardens and groves of mango-trees, and enclosed with high walls. It was surrounded by impassable ditches, and secured by fortifications difficult of assault by foreign kings; it was full of horses, elephants, cattle, camels, and mules. It was ornamented with palaces of exquisite workmanship, lofty as mountains, and enriched with jewels, abounding with beautiful houses consisting of several stories, and it shone like Indra's heaven. It was crowded with tributary princes, purified with sacrificial rites, and filled with merchants of foreign countries. Its aspect had an enchanting effect, and the whole city was diversified with various colours, and decorated with regular avenues of sweet scented trees. It was full of precious stones, and resplendent with stately edifices and beautiful apartments. It was filled with buildings erected close to one another, and without intermediate voids, and situated on a smooth level ground. It abounded in delicious rice, and water sweet as the juice of sugar-cane. It incessantly echoed with the sounds of kettle-drums, tabors, cymbals, and lutes; this city truly surpassed any that was ever beheld on earth. The houses which it contained resembled the celestial mansions which the Sidd'hás obtain through the virtue of their austerity."

The professions mentioned incidentally in numerous works 1 One yojan=9 miles. 2 The capital of Indra, the regent of heaven.