fhame; but many of them lived to a very great age, to one hundred and fifty, and fome to two hundred years; to which undoubtedly their temperance greatly contributed.-It does not appear that they had any of the frightful idols, in those days, like to those which are found among them at prefent; although they adored a plurality of Gods; but their chiefeft adoration was to that great Spirit whom they looked upon to be the father of all things.-Their wisdom was so highly esteemed, that fome of them were always employed to advise their kings and governors, on all occafions, and to inftruct them in justice and piety. Their fortitude was astonishing, in the enduring of all evils, of pain, and of death; as, during the time that they did their penances, fome would ftand, or fit, whole days together, without any motion, in the fcorching fun; others would stand whole nights upon one leg, and holding up a heavy piece of wood or ftone in both hands, without ever moving. They frequently ended their lives by their own choice, and not by neceffity, in cafes of fickness, or great misfortunes, or even upon a mere fatiety of life, and most usually by fire, and taught their followers to do the fame.

These were the Brachmans of India, by the most ancient accounts we find of them in hiftory; and we may from hence perceive, that the priests, which are at prefent among the Gentoos, of the Brachman race, although degenerated, and fallen

into the groffeft idolatry, have derived from them many of their customs and opinions, which are ftill very like to what they were two thousand years fince.

I think it is very probable that, from these famous Indians, not only Pythagoras learned, and tranfported into Greece and Italy, the greatest part of his natural and moral philofophy, rather than from the Egyptians, as many have fuppofed, but that thofe of Democritus, who travelled into Egypt, Chaldea, and India, and whofe doctrines were after improved by Epicurus, might have been derived from the fame fountains; and that, long before them both, Lycurgus, who likewife travelled into India, brought from that country alfo the chief principles of his laws and political fyftem: for we do not find any mention made of the tranfmigration of fouls among the Egyptians, more ancient than the days of Pythagoras; on the contrary, Orpheus is faid to have brought out of Egypt all his myftical theology, with the stories of the Stygian Lake, Charon, the infernal Judges, &c. which were made a part of the Pagan religion, fo long obferved by the Greeks and Romans and it is obvious, that this was, in all refpects, very ferent from the Pythagorean opinions, which, though they were long preferved among fome of the fucceeding philofophers, yet never were generally believed by either the Greeks, or the Romans. Moreover, from what has been before obferved, of the learning and opinions of the an

dif

cient Brachmans, we shall not only difcover among them all the feeds of the Grecian ethics, and inftitutions, introduced by Pythagoras, fuch as the tranfmigration of fouls, the four cardinal virtues, the long filence enjoined his scholars, the propagation of their doctrines by tradition, rather than by letters, and the abstinence from all kinds of meat that had animal life; but the eternity of matter, with perpetual changes of form, the indolence of body, and the tranquillity of mind, introduced by Epicurus; and, among the inftitutions of Lycurgus, the care of the education of children, even from their birth, the auftere temperance of diet, the enduring pain and toil with patience and refignation, the neglect or contempt of life, the ufe of gold and filver only in their temples, the defence of commerce with ftrangers, and several other regulations established, by this great lawgiver, among the Spartans, seem to be all of Brachman original, and were different from any other religious or political institutions that ever appeared in Greece, either in that, or in any other age.

From all that we can difcover of thofe oriental fages, therefore, I think it will be allowed that, for many centuries, they took the greatest pains to carry human knowledge, by every prudent method, to the highest degree that it was capable of being carried; and fuch an opinion had the greatest part of the inhabitants of the then known world of their wisdom, reason, piety, and univer

fal learning, that the most learned men of thofe days, even the founders of the Grecian and Roman philofophy and morality, thought themfelves not properly inftructed, till they were admitted into their mysteries, and taught all their inftitutions. But when thofe fages directed their ftudies to discover the myfteries of the Supreme Being, by the force of their reafon only, what did all their wisdom end in? Does it not appear that human understanding is not equal to the task? And that, after many centuries of application and study, they have verified the words of the apoftle Paul, "That God has made foolish the wisdom "of this world, that no flesh fhould glory in his 66 prefence." For we find that, fince mankind have been more enlightened by the doctrines of Jefus Chrift, all their system of theology was only the wild flights of their imagination; that it is difagreeable to human reafon; and, like all the other systems of this kind, will either be totally rejected, or end in idolatry.

LET us turn our attention from hence towards the great continent of America, where we shall discover a people very different from those of whom I have been treating; a people who were in their native innocence and fimplicity, when the Spaniards came among them; who, in many parts of the great empire of Mexico, had no thought of business, further than the most natural pleasures or neceffities of life; and who spent their lives

either in the most innocent entertainments, of hunting, fishing, or feasting, or in the most trifling amufements. They lived at this time in a state of the most grofs and cruel idolatry; and were under the dominion of Montezuma, one of the most abfolute and cruel tyrants that ever disgraced the human species. One of the principal tributes which he imposed upon the people, was, a certain number of men to be facrificed every year, to abate the fury of an ugly deformed idol, which was fet up in the great temple of Mexico. Such numbers of poor victims, as the emperor pleased, were laid upon every district, city, or province, who were chosen by lot, to fatisfy the fury of their gods. But these taxes were frequently influenced by the priests; who, when they saw a man wanting in respect to themfelves, or in devotion to their abominable idols, would tell the emperor that the gods were hungry; and thereupon the common tribute was immediately raised; so that, according to the Spanish accounts, the very year that Mexico was by them invaded, there had been a facrifice of above thirty thousand men to this cruel fuperftition. All those who have wrote the history of this country, represent their superstition fo tempered with cruelty and human blood, that even the idolatrous nations of Europe and Afia could not regard them without horror.

But in a very different state was the empire of Peru, when it was firft difcovered by the Spaniards. It exhibited a civil and well-regulated government;