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68 MISSIONARIES IN INDIA.-MISSIONARY LABOURS.

MISSIONARIES IN INDIA,

THE plan, it seems, is this:-We are to educate India in Christianity, as a parent does his child; and, when it is perfect in its catechism, then to pack up, quit it entirely, and leave it to its own management. This is the evangelical project for separating a colony from the parent country. They see nothing of the bloodshed, and massacres, and devastations, nor of the speeches in Parliament, squandered millions, fruitless expeditions, jobs and pensions, with which the loss of our Indian possessions would necessarily be accompanied; nor will they see that these consequences could arise from the attempt, and not from the completion, of their scheme of conversion. We should be swept from the peninsula by Pagan zealots; and should lose, among other things, all chance of ever really converting them.-[E. R. 1809.]

MISSIONARY LABOURS.

PROVE to us that they are fit men, doing a fit thing, and we are ready to praise the missionaries; but it gives us no pleasure to hear that a man has walked a thousand miles with peas in his shoes, unless we know why and wherefore, and to what good purpose he has done it.[E. R. 1809.]

MISSIONARY PRETENSIONS.

THE missionaries complain of intolerance. A weasel might as well complain of intolerance when he is throttled for sucking eggs. —[E. R. 1809.]

EFFECT OF MISSIONS IN INDIA.

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EFFECT OF MISSIONS IN INDIA.

THESE men talk of the loss of our possessions in India, as if it made the argument against them only more or less strong; whereas, in our estimation, it makes the argument against them conclusive, and shuts up the case. Two men possess a cow, and they quarrel violently how they shall manage this cow. They will surely both of them (if they have a particle of common sense) agree, that there is an absolute necessity for preventing the cow from running away. It is not only the loss of India that is in question-but how will it be lost? By the massacre of ten or twenty thousand English, by the blood of our sons and brothers, who have been toiling so many years to return to their native country.--[E. R. 1809.]

CIVILISATION OF INDIA.

Ir may be our duty to make the Hindoos Christians -that is another argument: but, that we shall by so doing strengthen our empire, we utterly deny. What signifies identity of religion to a question of this kind? Diversity of bodily colour and of language would soon overpower this consideration. Make the Hindoos enterprising, active, and reasonable as yourselves-destroy the eternal track in which they have moved for ages and, in a moment, they would sweep you off the face of the earth.-[E. R. 1809.]

CONVERSION OF HINDOOS.

WHEN the tenacity of the Hindoos on the subject of their religion is adduced as a reason against the success of the missions, the friends of this undertaking are al

70 PROBABLE LOSS OF INDIA. CASTES IN INDIA.

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ways fond of reminding us how patiently the Hindoos submitted to the religious persecution and butchery of Tippo. The inference from such citations is truly alarming. It is the imperious duty of Government to watch some of these men most narrowly. There is nothing of which they are not capable. And what, after all, did Tippo effect in the way of conversion? How many Mahometans did he make? There was all the carnage of Medea's Kettle, and none of the transformation.- [E. R. 1809.]

PROBABLE LOSS OF INDIA.

UPON the whole, it appears to us hardly possible to push the business of proselytism in India to any length, without incurring the utmost risk of losing our empire. The danger is more tremendous, because it may be so sudden; religious fears are a very probable cause of disaffection in the troops; if the troops are generally disaffected, our Indian empire may be lost to us as suddenly as a frigate or a fort. -[E. R. 1808.]

DANGER OF INDIA.

NOTHING is more precarious than our empire in India. Suppose we were to be driven out of it to-morrow, and to leave behind us twenty thousand converted Hindoos; it is most probable they would relapse into heathenism; but their original station in society could not be regained. — [E. R. 1808.]

CASTES IN INDIA,

THE institution of castes has preserved India in the same state in which it existed in the days of Alexander;

HINDOO PROSELYTES.

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and which would leave it without the slightest change in habits and manners, if we were to abandon the country to-morrow. [E. R. 1808.]

HINDOO PROSELYTES.

THE duty of conversion is less plain, and less imperious, when conversion exposes the convert to great present misery. An African, or an Otaheite proselyte, might not perhaps be less honoured by his countrymen if he became a Christian; a Hindoo is instantly subjected to the most perfect degradation. —[E. R. 1808.]

SUPERSTITION BETTER THAN ATHEISM.

CONVERSION is no duty at all, if it merely destroys the old religion, without really and effectually teaching the new one. Brother Ringletaube may write home that he makes a Christian, when, in reality, he ought only to state that he has destroyed a Hindoo. Foolish and imperfect as the religion of a Hindoo is, it is at least some restraint upon the intemperance of human passions. It is better a Brahmin should be respected, than that nobody should be respected. A Hindoo had better believe that a deity, with an hundred legs and arms, will reward and punish him hereafter, than that he is not to be punished at all. —[E. R. 1808.]

RELIGIOUS EXCITABILITY OF INDIA.

No man (not an Anabaptist) will, we presume, contend that it is our duty to preach the natives into an insurrection, or to lay before them, so fully and emphatically, the scheme of the Gospel, as to make them

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RELIGIOUS EXCITABILITY OF INDIA.

rise up in the dead of the night and shoot their instructors through the head. Even for missionary purposes, therefore, the utmost discretion is necessary; and if we wish to teach the natives a better religion, we must take care to do it in a manner which will not inspire them with a passion for political change, or we shall inevitably lose our disciples altogether. To us it appears quite clear, that neither Hindoos nor Mahometans are at all indifferent to the attacks made upon their religion; the arrogance and irritability of the Mahometan are universally acknowledged; nor do the Brahmans show the smallest disposition to behold the encroachments upon their religion with passiveness and unconcern. —1808.]

[E. R.

RESPECT FOR OPINION IN INDIA.

How is it in human nature that a Brahman should be indifferent to encroachments upon his religion? His reputation, his dignity, and in great measure his wealth, depend upon the preservation of the present superstitions; and why is it to be supposed that motives which are so powerful with all other human beings, are inoperative with him alone? If the Brahmans, however, are disposed to excite a rebellion in support of their own influence, no man, who knows anything of India, can doubt that they have it in their power to effect it.

Our object, therefore, is not only not to do anything violent and unjust upon subjects of religion, but not to give any strong colour to jealous and disaffected natives for misrepresenting your intentions.

All these observations have tenfold force, when applied to an empire which rests so entirely upon opinion, If physical force could be called in to stop the progress

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