"there are a hundred thousand hells, in which different kinds of torments are inflicted on criminals, according to the directions of the Shastras, and the nature of their guilt."

The torments of these hells, like the joys of the Hindu heavens, are not eternal. From the apprehended possibility of its own eternal fate, no guilty soul can brook the notion of everlasting torment. Hence, no doubt, the origin of a purgatory, whether announced by the heathen Shastras of the Hindu, or the equally heathenish traditions of an apostate Romish Church. In the former case, it is asserted that the torments of an individual soul may be prolonged from a few years to millions. Still they will have an end. What then becomes of the soul that has at length expiated its guilt? It ascends to earth, there to migrate anew through hundreds, or thousands, or millions of mineral, vegetable, and animal forms; till it reappear in the garb of humanity. Having once more assumed the human form, it may commit acts of merit which shall raise it to one of the heavens of the gods; or acts of demerit which shall cause it to be remanded to the abodes of woe. And thus, unless final deliverance or absorption has been secured, may every soul be alternately enjoying the sensual bliss of paradise, or undergoing the excruciating tortures of hell,-alternately elevated among princes and sages, or grovelling among monsters and reptiles, throughout the millions of millions of years which constitute the duration of the universe. When the great day of doom arrives, all souls whether in heaven, on earth, or in hell, with their ethereal or material vehicles, and the substantial fabrics of worlds which they occupy throughout the boundless void of space,-all, all, will be reabsorbed into the essence of the supreme sole-existing spirit. Even then the soul obtains not eternal rest. No:-Absorbed in the divine essence, it exists in a state of unconsciousness; rather it is reduced to a state of absolute nonentity for myriads of ages, till Brahm reawakens and wills anew to manifest the universe. Then are the same souls launched forth again, enstamped with a character allied to the predispositions contracted in their former state, and destined to pass through

M

the same endless round of changes, migrations, and births. Thus it has been with souls from all eternity, and thus will it ever be. For the best and holiest of souls, there can be no everlasting sabbatism. Hence much of the force and meaning of the description of the soul given by Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, in his address to the hero Arjuna in the midst of battle, in an episode of the Mahabharat, translated into prose by Wilkins, and into our "eight line measure without rhyme, (which in the number of its syllables, and as nearly as possible in its cadence, answers to the Sanskrit original,)" by a brilliant writer in the Quarterly Review :

Thou mourn'st for those thou should'st not mourn, albeit thy words are like the wise,

For those that live or those that die, may never mourn the truly wise.
Ne'er was the time when I was not, nor those, nor yonder kings of earth;
Hereafter, ne'er shall be the time, when one of us shall cease to be.
The soul, within its mortal frame, glides on through childhood, youth, and
age;

Then in another form renewed, renews its stated course again.
All indestructible is he that spread the living universe,
And who is he that shall destroy the work of the indestructible?
Corruptible these bodies are that warp the everlasting soul—
The eternal, unimaginable soul. Thence on to battle, Bharata!
For he that thinks to slay the soul, or he that thinks the soul is slain,
Are fondly both alike deceived; it is not slain-it slayeth not;
It is not born-it doth not die; past, present, future, knows it not;
Ancient, eternal, and unchanged, it dies not with the dying frame.
Who knows it incorruptible, and everlasting, and unborn,
What heeds he whether he may slay, or fall himself in battle slain?
As their old garments men cast off, anon new raiment to assume,
So casts the soul its worn-out frame, and takes at once another form.
The weapon cannot pierce it through, nor wastes it the consuming fire;
The liquid waters melt it not, nor dries it up the parching wind;
Impenetrable and unburned; impermeable and undried;
Perpetual, ever wandering, firm, indissoluble, permanent,
Invisible, unspeakable. Thus deeming, wherefore mourn for it?

Here we must pause. Not with greater delight can the toiling swain welcome the approach of eventide, with its refreshing repast and grateful repose; not with greater ecstasy of joy can the panting traveller in the desert hail the ap

pearance of some lovely spot of verdure, with its limpid fountain, and cool embowering shades,-than we are now ready to embrace the first form of sober truth, which may present itself to the weary mental eye, after roaming so long over the trackless wastes and dreary wildernesses of Hinduism. Again and again, both in story and in song, has India been celebrated as the fairest of all lands-a land, so gorgeously clad, that it has been emphatically styled "the clime of the sun." And truly it is so. For there he reigns as king. There, from his meridian throne, he pours down the full tide of effulgent glory, causing all nature to luxuriate in her rich magnificence. There, the glowing imagery of the prophet seems almost literally to be realized. The trees of the forest seem to clap their hands, and the little hills and the valleys seem to rejoice on every side. All bespeak the glories of a presiding deity, and recall to remembrance the bowers of Paradise. But, oh! in that highly-favoured land, we are ever made to feel, that in proportion to the exuberance of Jehovah's bounties, in very proportion is the vileness and ingratitude of man!

Of all the systems of false religion ever fabricated by the perverse ingenuity of fallen man, Hinduism is surely the most stupendous-whether we consider the boundless extent of its range, or the boundless multiplicity of its component parts. Of all systems of false religion it is that which seems to embody the largest amount and variety of semblances and counterfeits of divinely revealed facts and doctrines. In this respect, it appears to hold the same relation to the primitive patriarchal faith, that Roman Catholicism does to the primitive apostolic faith. It is, in fact, the Popery of primitive patriarchal Christianity. All the terms and names expressive of the sublimest truths, originally revealed from heaven, it still retains; and under these it contrives to inculcate diametrically opposite and contradictory errors. Its account of the creation and destruction of the universe,-of the floods and conflagrations to which it is alternately subjected,—of the divine origin, present sinfulness, and final destiny of the soul,-together with many cognate and subsidiary state

ments, must be regarded as embodying, under the corruptions of tradition and the exaggerations of fancy, some of the grandest truths ever communicated by the Almighty to man, whether before or after the fall. Its nomenclature on the subject of the unity and spirituality of the one great, supreme, self-existent Lord, is most copious; but, when analyzed, it presents us with nothing better than an infinite negation. Its vocabulary, descriptive of the natural attributes of the Great Spirit, superabounds to overflowing; but it evacuates every one of them of absolute perfection. There is unchangeableness; though constantly subject at the confluence of certain cycles of time, not merely to alteration of plans and purposes, but to change of essence. There is omnipotence; but, bereft of creative energy, it is limited to the power of eduction and fabrication. There is omniscience; but it is restricted to the brief period of wakefulness, at the time of manifesting the universe. And so of other natural attributes. Instead of possessing moral attributes, the Supreme Spirit is represented as assuming, when he awakes, certain generalized active qualities, which admit of 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! Here we find the supreme, eternal self-existent Spirit,-Jehovah,-distinguished by all the marks and characteristics of inherent independent personality; and arrayed in all the glory and grandeur of attributes infinitely perfect. His unchangeableness is absolute; being that of unalterable rectitude of will,-immutable purity and excellence of nature and essence. His omnipotence is absolute; being the power which baffles all finite conception, the power of summoning every thing into being, out of nothing. His omniscience is absolute,-extending not merely to the actual knowledge of all things that now are, or shall be, but to a perfect knowledge of all the countless possibilities of things; and that too, throughout every moment of a never-ending eternity. And if the notices of Jehovah's natural attributes roll along the sacred pages with a sublimity of conception, a majesty of expression, a variety

of beauteous illustration,-all their own,-what shall we say of the Bible portraiture of His moral attributes? Transcendently glorious though the former be, they seem almost eclipsed by reason of the glory of that which excelleth. They are the latter, which, in the Bible, may be said to occupy the foreground. His goodness, ever delighting to communicate without being exhausted; His mercy, or disposition to forgive, unallied with weakness; His pity and compassion and loving-kindness, unsullied by any tincture of frailty—all are set forth and illustrated in terms of inimitable tenderness. His awful holiness, or consuming hatred of all sin, and burning love of all rectitude; His inflexible justice, and unspotted righteousness; His unerring truth, and unchanging faithfulness;-all are pourtrayed with a vigour, variety, and sublimity of language, that absorb, ravish, and overpower the faculties. And when the moral are viewed in their inseparable association with the natural attributes, the whole constitutes an absolute unbounded plenitude of perfection, in the eternal possession of which, Jehovah shines forth under an aspect of ineffable glory, majesty, and loveliness,―unapproached and unapproachable by the most seraphic spirit in his highest flight of meditative and adoring wonder.

To this combined portraiture of the natural and moral attributes of Jehovah, nothing similar, nothing second, nothing approaching by any assignable measure either in kind or degree, can be collected from all the writings of all the wise men of all countries and of all ages. Whence, we may be permitted to ask in passing, whence could prophets and apostles have derived such lofty conceptions of the true God? -conceptions which never entered the minds of the greatest philosophers of the east or of the west; but which, when distinctly announced, at once commend themselves as by the instinctive force of self-evident truth, to the largest and most enlightened reason? Will it be alleged that these sprung from their own cogitations; their researches into antiquity; their investigations into the constitution of the mental, moral, and physical universe? If so, how came they to