portentous figures in the cold dark night of ignorance, seem to be attenuated, and to evanish before the rising of the sun of knowledge.

In the whole of the preceding statements, if there be one characteristic more marked than another, it is the perpetual tendency to run out into the vast, the huge, the extravagant. Nothing seems worthy of being stated unless it has incredible magnitude to recommend it. The more any thing transcends the bounds of nature and of truth, the greater is the gravity with which it is asserted, and the more unquestioning the credulity with which it is received. When time is calculated, nought will suffice but millions and hundreds of millions of years. When earth is measured, we must have millions. and hundreds of millions of miles. When armies and battles are described, there must be introduced on the field of action, millions and hundreds of millions of soldiers and elephants. Whence the cause of a taste and a propensity which may truly be represented as national? That the wildest and the most incoherent fictions should be dreamed by a solitary ascetic "in the highest state of abstraction from all objects of sense, in the deep silence of a sultry noon; when of the whole man nothing is awake but the phantasy, and only the language of earth, in which his images are embodied, is remembered, with none of the thoughts or sympathies of human nature," seems nothing strange. But how comes a whole nation, all awake and alive to the tame and commonplace realities of every-day life, to listen to every recital of the prodigious, with such delighted and believing wonder? It may be that a religious faith which from the earliest infancy demands the unconditional surrender of reason, and can brook no mental state save that of unthinking acquiescence-It may be that the almost universal prevalence of such a faith has tended to generate and perpetuate nationally an intellectual imbecility and childhood which can only be regaled by the marvellous and the monstrous. It may be that other extrinsic causes co-operate in producing the same re

sult. Is it not a matter of common observation that climate and natural scenery do exert a peculiar influence on the mental as well as physical constitution of man? Who could reasonably expect a high poetic genius to be nursed and reared in a region of flats and fens, of swamps and marshes? If the great, the vast, the sublime in the objects of the external world, tend to excite and prominently to develope the conceptive and imaginative faculties in the soul, let us endeavour to realize the state of things in India. Think of those ocean-streams that roll fertility along their banks for thousands of miles; and on whose bosoms might be wafted the navies of a globe. Think of those immensely extended plains, bestrewn with such gigantic products of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, that, in their presence, the stranger instinctively stands still in dumb amazement. Think of those mountain-barriers in the north, emphatically styled by Bishop Heber the loftiest eminences beneath the moon. Think of those cataracts from the clouds, that pour down as if they threatened to renew the general deluge. Think of those mighty thunderings that sound as if they could rend creation asunder. Think of those lightning blazes that seem to shroud the concave of heaven as in a universal conflagration.-Think of these and all the other grand phenomena of nature which are constantly presented to the eye and ear of the natives of India ;—and say if they do not tend to expand the imagination beyond due limits; and cause it to soar into the regions of the vast, the supra-mundane, and the preter-human? Farther still, when we are apt to wonder why so many millions of human beings delight so exclusively in representations not only of what is rare and extraordinary, but of what glaringly exceeds all the bounds of truth and reason;-may not another solution offer itself to our consideration? May not this craving after, and delight in, the vast and the marvellous be, in fact, nothing else than the outgoing of an original principle in the human soul,-a principle which, like every other, naturally moves forth towards its appropriate objects; and in the possession of these, seeks the only means

of gratification? Man has affections;-and do not these pant after new pleasures? He has desires;-and do not these long for new possessions? He has an understanding; -and must it not have new objects of contemplation? He has a fancy;-and does it not frame unto itself new images that own no earthly pattern for their prototype? Man was made for immortality;-and is it not this alone, as natural theologists delight to assure us, that accounts for the vehemency, the impetuous propension, the sighing of spirit after the mysterious and never-ending future? Was not the soul of man also made and destined to repose on the infinite? -and hence the feeling or emotion of wonder and admiration, an emotion which the rudest savage experiences equally with the philosopher and the saint;-an emotion whose proper object is the great, the extraordinary, the infinite! And if the real object,-the true infinite,-be lost sight of, will not the soul strive to shape unto itself mimic representations,-forms,-idols of the infinite? In pursuit of such an object, do we not actually find it blending its being with the ages of a past eternity; and amplifying itself so as to embrace the eternal ages that are to come? Do we not find it diffusing and spreading itself over boundless heights and depths and breadths of space? It soars aloft; it dives beneath; it wings its flight into immensity;-and will not, cannot rest, till it finds its centre,-its couch of repose,―on the bosom of the Infinite! And do not such unconfined, such ceaseless and ever-active motions of the soul towards the great, the infinite,-assert and vindicate the nobility of its lineage, the more than nobility of its destiny? Worthless, therefore, and worse than worthless as the extravagances of Hinduism are when viewed as the pretended substitutes for true history, or true science, or true religion;— may they not possess some value however small, when viewed as monuments of the soul's original capacity and powers? In them we are carried up to the verge of the general deluge; in them we mingle with the wrecks of primordial traditionthe scattered remnants of antediluvian thought; in them we associate and blend with the ideas and imaginings of the

human mind thousands of years ago. And in the vastness of the erratic fancies; in the stupendous pilings of the marvellous which we encounter at every turn ;-may we not at least be made to see and feel, and acknowledge that nought but infinity can satisfy and replenish the soul of man? If the objects sought after have exceeded all finite bounds, though false and unnatural to a prodigy,-let us not condemn the propensity, but endeavour to substitute the proper object, the true Infinite,-in Christianity;—and that is, the triune Jehovah, who is emphatically "the infinite ocean of truth and goodness." And, after ages of ages have rolled their course, will the wonder and admiration of the adoring soul be increasingly enhanced, to find that this ocean is still without a bottom and without a shore !

We now come very briefly to show how the theory of Hinduism is reduced to practice. If, as already in substance remarked, the theory of Hinduism were a mere theory; if it were a mere series of barren speculations or inoperative dogmas; if it were confined to the musings of an eremitical phrenzy, or the revellings of a roving fancy; if it were wholly of an esoteric character, shaping the secret opinions of the learned, or prompting their idle and airy abstractions ;—if the Indian Meru, like the Grecian Olympus, were divested of all effulgence, save that of its everlasting snows; if the Hindu Benares, like the Athenian Acropolis or Roman Capitol, were emptied of the whole dynasty of immortals;—then, would we not waste precious time in expatiating on such profitless themes. But it is because the transcendental doctrines of the Vedas never were like those of the Grecian schools, wholly of an esoteric character-confined to a few -and absolutely uninfluential even in their conduct :—it is because for thousands of years they have been reduced to practice-moulding the feelings, thoughts, sentiments, affections, and faith of countless millions ;-it is because at the present moment they operate as living, all-prevailing principles in the hearts and understandings of so many

myriads of fellow-men and fellow-subjects:-it is because of all this that they must be fraught with such awful significance such thrilling interest-such incalculable importance in the estimation of all who have the sympathies of men, and the faith of Christians.

It is not necessary to particularise separately the peculiar modifications in practice to which the strictly spiritual and psycho-ideal systems give rise. The technical terms expressive of these are in constant use. They even spread far beyond the sphere of positive belief; they mingle and interblend in strange heterogeniousness with the terms expressive of the psycho-material system ;-giving to the whole in the eye of a novice, an air of hopeless inextricable confusion. Besides, as the adherents of the two former systems do allow that, owing to the illusive influence of the divine energy, we cannot help believing though falsely in the separate independent existence of material forms, they are found in practice to unite and amalgamate in great measure with the adherents of the more generally received systems.

At the time of the last manifestation or reproduction of the universe, how were all beings formed?-Very perfect? very good? No. The best of them were not absolutely perfect— absolutely good. Immediately on being emitted from the divine essence, they were, according to one of the Shastras, at once endowed by "the Supreme Lord" with the seeds of all manner of qualities, "noxious and innocent, harsh and mild, just and unjust, false and true," but in degrees and modes infinitely diversified. Does not this investiture of souls with evil qualities in embryo as well as good, make the Supreme Lord at once, doctrinally and systematically, the author of evil? And seeing that in consequence of this ordination, some, such as the superior gods, are happy ;-others, such as beasts and inferior beings, are miserable;-and others again, such as men, partake of happiness and unhappiness, must not unfairness and incompassionateness be imputed to him? No;-replies Vyasa, the inspired author of the Vedant, and compiler of the Vedas,-not at all. How then is the Supreme Lord to be vindicated from the charge?—