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name of Catholic, and defending their claims with a boldness which is only equalled by their presumption.

But, my friends, we must exercise faith in God's Word. We have the promise that our "labour shall not be vain in the Lord"-do what you can-for His name's-sake and the Gospel. God will be with you and bless you.-I am more and more persuaded that the time is now short-the time of the end draweth nigh-the gathering in of the elect church is nearly completed. Now, therefore, to take up a position of NEUTRALITY, is downright TReason. If we are not for the Lord we are against Him. These are his own words, "He that is not with me is against me." He has intrusted talents to us, as Protestants, for the use or abuse of which a solemn account must one day be given. If, instead of using our talents for His glory, and laying them out, as it were, to usury in his service, we should be like the slothful, negligent servant who hid his talent in a napkin-He will take from us, at His coming, what we seemed to have, and cast us as unprofitable servants into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Stir up yourselves then, by fervent piety, by diligence in the use of means to a due appreciation and a faithful performance of your manifest duty as christian young men. Be not afraid of being called enthusiasts for acting upon the commands of your God. Regard not any foolish outcry as if you must be mad for loving your Saviour more than man. Turn not aside because the world cannot comprehend young men "seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." "The time past of your life," says St. Peter, "may suffice you to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when ye walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings and idolatries, wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot,” but take the Bible for your guide, let the Holy Spirit be your strength, and the glory of God your end. THEN fear not, "in due season you SHALL reap if you faint not." Gal. vi. 9.

A LECTURE,

BY THE REV. HENRY HUGHES, M.A.

PROBABLY there is no field of missionary exertion that has stronger claims on our regard than India. Its population is vast, for it numbers upwards of 100 millions of inhabitants; it is the seat of a refined system of idolatry, which enslaves the minds of the people, and inculcates as religion all that is licentious and impure; and moreover, it is a portion of our own dominions, the miserable idolaters of India are our fellowsubjects, entitled to the protection of the same government, and owing their allegiance to the same crown. This last circumstance renders it an object of peculiar interest, and over and above the ordinary considerations which prompt us to missionary efforts, lays upon British Christians an imperative obligation to communicate to their Indian brethren the same divine gift which they themselves enjoy.

In order to an intelligent apprehension of "the present state and future prospects of the missionary work in India," it is necessary that we should be able to form some idea of the characteristic features and effects of the religion professed by its inhabitants. About one-tenth of the inhabitants of British India are Mahometans, who are the descendants either of the Moguls who conquered the country in the twelfth century, or of Hindoos who embraced Islamism at the time of the conquest. The other nine-tenths are followers of Brahma. This religious system has endured 2,500 years, and including all who profess it, boasts of no less than 135 millions of obedient disciples. In British India alone its votaries are upwards of 90 millions.

It is impossible, within the limits allowed on the present occasion, to enter fully into the principles and doctrines of the religion of the Hindoos. Some few of its most striking features we will endeavour to describe.

1. The deities it proposes as objects of veneration and worship are of the most licentious and profligate character. These deities are almost innumerable. The heaven of the Hindoos is crowded with gods, the details of whose history are too disgusting for a pure mind to conceive, or for a chaste tongue to utter. Of one of these gods, Shiva, it is said by an excellent Missionary, "The history and worship of this idol are so shocking and obscene, that a description of it cannot be given: I could not offend the feelings of a christian heart by even a distant allusion to it. Shiva, in his character of regenerator of the earth, is a profligate above all measure; and not seldom do we see in the sculpture on the walls of his temples, historical illustrations revolting to the most common feelings of morality. This is one reason among many, why the children of European parents should be removed from India at as early an age as possible, for heathenism is polluting and injurious to their morals and purity." The worship supposed to be acceptable to such deities is congenial with their abominable character, and its effects on the morals of the Hindoos such as might be expected. Licentiousness of the grossest description prevails. Conjugal affection and fidelity are unknown. A Missionary once spoke with a Brahmin on the profligacy of the character of Krishna, another of their gods, when he replied, "Every house in Calcutta is a Krishna," a correct picture of the depravity of its inhabitants.

2. It inculcates a system of absolute fatalism. The Hindoo regards himself as subject to a fixed and unchangeable necessity. According to his belief, his moral and physical condition is settled beforehand, and engraven in indelible characters on his skull. Thus his mind is deprived of its freedom, while at the same time he rids himself of responsibility for his crimes. Another consequence of this is, an overwhelming and absorbing selfishness; it becomes the mainspring of every action, and all mutual confidence is destroyed. Hence he has no correct ideas of pity and compassion. If, for instance, a boat on the Ganges, full of people, is upset, a thing which frequently happens, no one cares for the cries of the drowning; the boatmen, who are only a few yards distant, remain unconcerned spectators, and continue smoking their hookah or eating their food, shouting, "Ishwurer ichas dubija giachen"— God has decreed it: they are drowned.

3. This religion is also the means of the degradation of the female sex. According to the teaching of the Shasters, woman does not properly belong to the human race at all, and is only to be regarded as a human being so far as she is associated with man. Moreover, her nature is so wicked and corrupt, that she is fit for no better condition than slavery. The low estimation in which woman is held under the teaching of Hindooism, may be gathered from a common proverb, intended to express the inferiority of her nature, as contrasted with that of man: "How can you place the black rice-pot beside the golden spice-box?" She is married at five or six years old to a husband she has never seen, and the bond once formed is indissoluble. Even if the husband should not live till they are brought together, she is his for ever, and must remain a widow, despised and wretched, till she dies. But what places her lower than all, she has nothing to do with the duties or consolations of religion, she must not even listen to the sacred books. There is another proverb; "A dog, a sudra, and a woman are not to touch the idol, or the godhead will escape from it." According to the laws of the Hindoos, the woman has three kinds of business to perform: first, to cook the food; secondly, to clean the house; and thirdly, to please her husband; and when she has done this, the end of her existence is accomplished. What an odious system of religious teaching this is, and how utterly subversive of the well-being and happiness of man! What must a people be, who are deprived of all the blessed influences which virtuous. females exercise over their husbands, over their children, over their households, over society at large! In India the husband has no wife whom he can love with a rational affection, the child, no mother whom he can learn to honour and respect; and not only so, but the man in degrading the woman has converted her from a blessing into a curse, and suffers in return from the miserable contamination of what he himself has compelled her to become.

4. There is one other subject connected with the religion of the Hindoos to which we shall advert, and that is, the worship of the river Ganges. In their estimation the river is a powerful god, and as such it is universally adored. Bathing in the waters is supposed to cleanse from all sin. At sacred spots, such as Benares, and especially at the time of an eclipse, 100,000 persons will sometimes assemble on the

banks; as soon as the shadow of the earth touches the moon, the whole mass, at a given signal, plunge at once into the stream, and such is the pressure of the living mass on the water, that a mighty wave rolls to the opposite shore, by which at times boats filled with people are upset. From the purifying property of the waters, the Ganges is made, when circumstances admit, the dying bed and grave of the Hindoo; when death approaches, he is carried by his friends to the river, and placed in the shallow water on the brink. The upper part of his person is smeared with the mud of the Ganges, and basons of its water poured on his head. The names of Gunja and other gods are called in his ear, and then he is left to die, with a full belief that he will thus gain admission to the glories of Shiva's heaven. The worship of this river draws millions away from their homes every year; fornication and every abomination is practised by the pilgrims on the way; and hundreds of thousands are dragged from their dying beds, to breathe out their lives in this watery grave.

Once a scene was witnessed by a Christian Missionary on the banks of the river, which placed in striking contrast the miserable superstitions of Hindooism and the faith and hope of the Christian. Two Hindoos had carried out their deceased or dying relative to the strand; they laid it down on the sand, walked round it several times, performing various unmeaning ceremonies, and then they took it up and flung it in the stream. Close by this very spot appeared a monument to a christian child: an English officer coming down the river from a distant station, had been deprived of his infant by death, and was compelled to bury it on a shore polluted by the abominations of heathenism. But he left there a memorial of christian truth, and of the consolations by which he had himself been sustained in the hour of his bereavement, for on the monument were inscribed these lines:

"Dear little babe! thy spirit's fled,

Thy tender frame lies here,

And o'er thy loved remains we shed

The bitter, bitter tear;

But faith within the Saviour's arms

Views thee removed from pain,

And faith the sting of death disarms,
And says, we'll meet again,

When we, through Christ, shall be like thee,
Heirs of a blest eternity."

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