DIFFICULTIES OF CONVERSION OF INDIA.

73

of error, we could afford to be misrepresented for a season; but 30,000 white men living in the midst of 70 millions of sable subjects, must be always in the right, or at least never represented as grossly in the wrong. Attention to the prejudices of the subject is wise in all governments, but quite indispensable in a government constituted as our empire in India is constituted; where an uninterrupted series of dexterous conduct is not only necessary to our prosperity, but to our existence. [E. R. 1808.]

DIFFICULTIES OF CONVERSION OF INDIA.

You have 30,000 Europeans in India, and 60 millions of other subjects. If proselytism were to go on as rapidly as the most visionary Anabaptist could dream or desire, in what manner are these people to be taught the genuine truths and practices of Christianity? Where are the clergy to come from? Who is to defray the expense of the establishment? and who can foresee the immense and perilous difficulties of bending the laws, manners, and institutions of a country, to the dictates of a new religion? If it were easy to persuade the Hindoos that their own religion was folly, it would be infinitely difficult effectually to teach them any other. They would tumble their own idols into the river and you would build them no churches: you would destroy all their present motives for doing right and avoiding wrong, without being able to fix upon their minds the more sublime motives by which you profess to be actuated.

If there were a fair prospect of carrying the Gospel into regions where it was before unknown, - if such a project did not expose the best possessions of the country to extreme danger, and if it was in the hands of men who

74

TYRANNY OF BISHOPS.—NON-RESIDENCE.

were discreet as well as devout, we should consider it to be a scheme of true piety, benevolence, and wisdom: but the baseness and malignity of fanaticism shall never prevent us from attacking its arrogance, its ignorance, and its activity. For what vice can be more tremendous than that which, while it wears the outward appearance of religion, destroys the happiness of man, and dishonours the name of God?-[E. R. 1808.]

TYRANNY OF BISHOPS.

BISHOPS are men; not always the wisest of men; not always preferred for eminent virtues and talents, or for any good reason whatever known to the public. They are almost always devoid of striking and indecorous vices; but a man may be very shallow, very arrogant, and very vindictive, though a bishop; and pursue with unrelenting hatred a subordinate clergyman, whose principles he dislikes and whose genius he fears. [E. R. 1809.]

PETTICOAT BISHOPS.

I HAVE seen in the course of my life, as the mind of the prelate decayed, wife bishops, daughter bishops, butler bishops, and even cook and housekeeper bishops. - [E. R. 1809.]

NON-RESIDENCE.

WE remember Horace's description of the misery of a parish where there is no resident clergyman.

'Illacrymabiles

Urgentur, ignotique longâ

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.'

[E. R. 1809.]

NON-RESIDENCE.-FORCED RELIGION.

75

PENALTIES OF NON-RESIDENCE.

EVERY lay plunderer, and every fanatical coxcomb, is forging fresh chains for the English clergy; and we should not be surprised, in a very little time, to see them absenting themselves from their benefices by a kind of day-rule, like prisoners in the King's Bench. 1809.]

[E. R.

FORCED RELIGION.

You may drag men into church by main force, and prosecute them for buying a pot of beer, and cut them off from the enjoyment of a leg of mutton;—and you may do all this, till you make the common people hate Sunday, and the clergy, and religion, and everything which relates to such subjects.-[E. R. 1810.]

RELIGION BY INDICTMENT.

A ROBBER and a murderer must be knocked on the head like mad dogs; but we have no great opinion of the possibility of indicting men into piety, or of calling in the Quarter Sessions to the aid of religion. 1810.]

[E. R.

OUTWARD CONFORMITY.

To compel men to go to church under a penalty appears to us to be absolutely absurd. The bitterest enemy of religion will necessarily be that person who is driven to a compliance with its outward ceremonies, by informers and justices of the peace.-[E. R. 1810.]

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OFFICIAL SUPPRESSION OF VICE.

RELIGIOUS DUTIES INDEPENDENT OF LAW.

To go to church is a duty of the greatest possible importance; and on the blasphemy and vulgarity of swearing, there can be but one opinion. But such duties are not the objects of legislation; they must be left to the general state of public sentiment; which sentiment must be influenced by example, by the exertions of the pulpit and the press, and, above all, by education. The fear of God can never be taught by constables, nor the pleasures of religion be learnt from a common informer.—[E. R. 1810.]

OFFICIAL SUPPRESSION OF VICE.

MEN, whose trade is rat-catching, love to catch rats; the bug-destroyer seizes on his bug with delight; and the suppressor is gratified by finding his vice. The last soon becomes a mere tradesman like the others; none of them moralise, or lament that their respective evils should exist in the world.-[E. R. 1810.]

LOVE OF OFFICE.

PROFLIGACY in taking office is so extreme, that we have no doubt public men may be found, who, for half a century, would postpone all remedies for a pestilence, if the preservation of their places depended upon the propagation of the virus.—[E. R. 1808.]

PLURALITY OF INFORMERS.

THIRTY or forty informers roaming about the metropolis, may frighten the mass of offenders a little, and do

INFORMERS. THE DRAMA.

77

some good; ten thousand informers would either create an insurrection, or totally destroy the confidence and cheerfulness of private life. [E. R. 1809.]

EXTORTION BY INFORMERS.

If it be lawful for respectable men to combine for the purpose of turning informers, it is lawful for the lowest and most despicable race of informers to do the same thing; and then it is quite clear that every species of wickedness and extortion would be the consequence.— [E. R. 1809.]

AUTHORITY OF VIRTUE.

Ir is of great importance to keep public opinion on the side of virtue. To their authorised and legal correctors, mankind are, on common occasions, ready enough to submit: but there is something in the selferection of a voluntary magistracy which creates so much disgust, that it almost renders vice popular, and puts the offence at a premium.-[E. R. 1809.]

THE DRAMA.

THERE is something in the word Playhouse which seems so closely connected, in the minds of some people, with sin and Satan, that it stands in their vocabulary for every species of abomination. And yet why? Where is every feeling more roused in favour of virtue than at a good play? Where is goodness so feelingly, so enthusiastically learnt? What so solemn as to see the excellent passions of the human heart called forth by a great actor, animated by a great poet? To hear Siddons repeat what Shakspeare wrote! To behold the child