Bigoted Attachment of the Brahmins to rupted he, "I say God is holy."-But you

their Shastres.

March 19, 1834. In the course of a conversation with an intelligent brahmin to-day, I asked him what he meant by the term infidel, which he used. He replied, "One who denies the divine authority of the four vedas."-Do you call Mussulmans, Christians, Jews, Chinese, and all Hindoos who do not receive the vedas, infidels?"No, they have each their own sacred books, which God gave them. If they follow these they do right."-Do you believe all these books are of divine origin? "Yes."-Has God then given contradictory laws to different portions of his creatures? "Yes."-How then is he just and holy? "He does what he will; how do I know the reasons for his conduct? It is the will of God that every man should walk according to his own religion."-To whom did God originally give Mohammedanism? "To the Mussulmans, of course."-Were there any Mussulmans before the days of Mohammed? "Yes they have existed from the beginning."

mean a different thing by the term holy from what I do. You talk of a brahmin's being holy after he has bathed and gone through a few unmeaning ceremonies, while at the same time he may be a liar or an adulterer. What do you mean when you say God is holy? Please give me your notions of the attributes of God. He answered, "God is possessed of three qualities, viz. truth, passion, and darkness." In his explanation of these three properties, he said that the first related to the reality and existence of God; from the second proceed several desires, covetousness, pride, falsehood, etc., and from the third, folly, delusion, ignorance, anger, the blindness of lust, etc. I told him these were the attributes of sinful men but not of God. He insisted they were the attributes of God too, and were represented respectively by Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Such notions of the character of God, said I, are consistent with the actions which you attribute to your gods, whom you profess to be the representatives of the supreme God, it is true; but how can any man in his senses worship and adore beings who possess such a character? What kind of worship or even respect can you pay to a deity who is said to have been a liar, a thief, or an adulterer? "None among These facts appeared new and aston- men, but such is the character of the ishing to him. He replied, "We are all gods as revealed in the shasters; and agreed in this, that we ought to worship what else can we believe?" You must the supreme God." I said, yes; but as examine whether your shasters be the soon as we come to inquire the character word of God, or only the fabrication of of God, and how he ought to be worship-man.-"No, no, never; who will ever at ped, we disagree again. You say he this late day call into question the vera40*

After stating to the brahmin the origin of Mohammedanism, and how it was propagated, Mr. Read proceeds

VOL. XXXI.

see not one in a hundred who fears to lie, cheat, deceive, and commit almost any sin. If you go on degenerating at this rate you will soon become devils. This is undoubtedly a fault of your religion. "It may be," said he, "but what can we do? God gave us this religion.”

I do not believe that a merciful and benevolent God gave you a system of religion which can only make you wretched in this life and entirely miserable in the life to come. If a man is afflicted with some awful disease, and takes some kind of medicine which he finds only

city of the shasters? Their truth has been established for thousands of years, and who are we, of this degenerate age, that we shall institute such an inquiry?" It is never too late to inquire after the truth, but what do you mean by saying the present is a degenerate age? "I mean that the brahmins have become lax-This is a point which I do not admit. in the performance of the rites imposed on them by the shasters, and the people are negligent of the performance of those duties." You say that your shasters are from God-and your only evidence is that your fathers believed so. Do you believe that all your shasters are from God? "Yes."-Are there not contradic-aggravates the disease, will he continue tions in them? "No."-Are there not several different accounts given of the origin of your gods, and no less than six different accounts given of the ascent of Turkaram into heaven? And are not these contradictory? "To man these appear to be contradictions; but they are not really so, because they are recorded in the shasters, and the testimony of the shasters is above all human testimony. Not only six, but a thousand apparent contradictions may all be true, if found written in the shasters." Suppose you were to find assertions in your shasters which are directly at war with your senses, as for example, that black is white, that there is no heat in fire, that wormwood is not bitter, that thunder is not attended by a noise, would you believe your shasters or your senses? "I would believe the shasters most assuredly."

May 8. I have to-day enjoyed a rare privilege of preaching the gospel to the poor. Nearly a thousand of the halt and the maimed and the blind were collected

to take that medicine? "Most certainly not."-Why then do you? You have tried one remedy for some myriads of years, (according to your account,) and have found no cure, but have, as you confess, waxed worse and worse. Why do you not now seek another remedy? He honestly confessed that he knew not what to answer.

16. Met a man going to Pundapoor, one hundred and fifty miles, measuring the distance by his own length.

Tamul People.

LETTERS FROM MESSRS.

AND TODD.

HOISINGTON

THE extension of the Ceylon mission, so as to embrace a portion of the Tamul people ou the southern part of the peninsula of Hindoo stan, and the commencement of a new station at Madura, were mentioned at p. 178.-The whole population speaking the Tamul language is supposed to amount to more than on a plain near my house, for the pur-10,000,000. Of these about 300,000 are found pose of receiving clothes from the hand of captain Molesworth, and mostly from his own purse. I addressed them for three hours, giving myself only short intervals of rest.

31. In conversation with a brahmin who has often told me that the present was a very degenerate age with the Hindoos, I asked him how he reconciled this degeneracy of the present age with his pretended excellency of the Hindoo religion, the object of every religion being to make men better. He replied that this degeneracy is a thing foretold in their sacred writings, and that their fulfilment is a confirmation of their truth, and of the truth of their religion. You believe, said I, that your ancestors were very holy men-they were angels or demigods; but that they have degenerated from generation to generation, till we

in the Jaffna district, which constitutes the northern portion of the island of Ceylon. To the population of this district the labors of the American mission in Ceylon have been mostly directed. The mass of the Tamul population is found on the adjacent continent, occupying the southern extremity of Hindoostan, and extending along the Coromandel coast some distance above Madras. Madura, the place at which the new mission is commenced, is a large city of the interior, situated in the midst of this population; and was formerly the seat of the Tamul power, as well as the centre of the literature and religion of the nation. Messrs. Hoisington and Todd, under date of December 24th, 1834, give the following account of the city and district in which they are laboring.

Extensive Field for Missionary Labor.

hearts, appears to us now like the gentle breezes of the west, when put in contrast with the clouds which surround us, and the thunders which roar over us. But in urging our claim for twenty-seven missionaries for the district of Madura, what shall we say, could we transfer our own thoughts and feelings to you, and through you to the churches, by packages of letters, we would send them. But we are persuaded that nothing but actual vision can produce a correct and adequate impression of the wants of the heathen. Still we will make a few statements in support of our claim.

While we thus plead for this district as a whole, we think it expedient, in this place, to mention some particular stations which should, if possible, be occupied immediately. The first station we would specify is Madura city. Two more missionaries, or at least one missionary, and one physician are now urgently needed for this city. We mention this place first, because we think it has the first claim. This city contains within its walls about fifty thousand inhabitants; and in the villages around, so near, and so circumstanced as to fall properly and necessarily within the limits of the city mission, there cannot be less than twenty thousand souls.

As we look around upon our field of labor, we discover an extent of country about one hundred miles square embracing a population of about one million one hundred thousand. This territory is divided into twenty-seven sub-divisions by government rule; each of these divisions is on an average, something more than nineteen miles square, and contains about forty-one thousand inhabitants. These estimates are not to be regarded as perfectly accurate, nor have we the means of making them so; but they probably do not vary far from the truth. The city of Madura is the capital of the district of the same name, and not far from the centre of it. So completely is this immense field unoccupied, except by us, that the nearest missionary stations are Palamcottah, eighty miles south, and Trichinopoly ninety miles northeast from the city. So far as we can judge, there is no prospect that any other than American missionaries will enter this district, at least for some time to come, if ever. This field has at no former period been occupied by missionaries, so that these hundreds of thousands might well say, "No inan hath cared for our souls." Now, as the only spiritual guardians of these immortal beings, is it too much for It is, we believe, regarded by all your us to ask of the American churches that missionaries in this part of the world, to they would send one missionary for each be of the first importance to commence of these subdivisions? Would our heav- a system of female education simultaenly Master be pleased with us, if we neously with that of the education of should speak of a smaller number? In males, if such a thing is in any sense America it is thought that one minister practicable. The state of things at Mais needed for every thousand souls. dura seems to be shaped for this in a Ought we then to rest satisfied with less most striking manner. In the city and than one missionary for forty-one thou-in many of the villages around there is sand ignorant, degraded, prejudiced hea- a large Roman Catholic population. then? When we think of the host of They have had two classes of priests, immortal beings crowding the way to French and Portuguese. These have death, our hearts are pained within us. quarrelled in such a manner among We try to lift up our thoughts to God. themselves, for the fleeces, as to have We then turn our eyes towards our na- driven themselves, both parties, almost tive land; and if our voice could be entirely from the field. And the people heard above the loud roaring of the are so disgusted with them all, that they oceans which roll between us, we would have declared their determination to say, Come over and help us. While in leave them and join the missionaries, if our native country we were permitted, any will come to be their teachers and for some years, to labor among feeble guardians. The Catholics in this city churches. We know, therefore, from have expressed frequently a desire to the testimony of our own eyes, some-join us. But as they are regarded by thing of the great want of ministers in America. But there the prospect was like the garden of Eden, in comparison with this dry and thirsty land. The sound of the desolations of Zion which we so often heard, and which was echoed and re-echoed through the land, affecting as it was then, and still is to our

the heathen to be, as a body, of the lowest caste, we cannot deal with them in all things as we would, and yet carry on a system of labors among the strictly heathen population. It is clear, therefore, to us, that there should be at least one missionary ostensibly and really devoted to the catholic population of Ma

dura. And here should be commenced, || time, and we could not, therefore, depend

much on our own experience. But we have the favorable testimony of respectable Europeans who have long resided here. We can, moreover, discover no special cause for unhealthiness. The climate appears very much like that of Jaffna, and we are persuaded from the experience of nine months residence, as well as from the long continued good health of the mission there, that a more

at the outset, an extensive system of female education, not neglecting, however, the education of their boys. The bearing of this on the minds of the heathen we may hope would be most salutary. They would see that femiles are capable of being educated, and could not but be influenced by consideration of the good effects thereof; especially must this be true of the rising class, who would be themselves more enlight-healthy place than Jaffna can scarcely ened and better able to appreciate these things. On some other side of the city should be a system of schools for the heathen. These must necessarily be, probably for some considerable time, chiefly of boys, though every advantage should be industriously improved for the benefit of the female population.

We appeal to the American churches, and say, should there not be, with as little delay as possible, at least, two missionaries in this city.

be found on the face of the earth. Very few persons need to have any fears about coming to Ceylon or southern India. Most Americans will enjoy as good health, and many of them better, here than in their own land, and we think this remark will apply as well to persons from the northern as from the southern states.

2. We can avail ourselves of all the advantages of the long experience of the brethren in Jaffna. This is a matter of no small importance. In almost every new mission much time and money must be spent, and probably some lives lost, in merely exploring the country, and lay

But here the work is all prepared to our hands. The prejudices of the people and the peculiarities of their character are well understood. We would by no means assert that improvements will not be made in the method of conducting missions, yet we are persuaded that much practical wisdom has already been gained; and thus new missionaries here may, in a few months, be several years in advance of those who go to unexplored fields.

The next station we would name is Dindigal, a town forty miles northwest from Madura. We have not yet seen this place, but from what we have heard of it, and from its situation in the dis-ing the foundation for future operations. trict, being the principal town in the northern part, we regard it not merely as an important post, but as one which presents peculiar claims to be occupied immediately. Dindigal contains seven or eight thousand inhabitants and is surrounded, as other large towns are, with villages. There is nothing to prevent two mission families going there at any time; and it appears to us that they would find at once open to them, a wide and effectual door. While this place remains unoccupied, a large part of one district, and a vast multitude of souls, and those too most favorable to be reached, remain uncared for. We think, therefore, that two missionaries should be sent, without delay, to Dindigal.

Besides these places, which we think have in some respects the more urgent claims at this time, there are several large villages at the east, south, and west, some at least of which we think cannot consistently be neglected by the American churches at this time.

Reasons why the Mission in the Dis

trict should be greatly extended.

3. The sacred Scriptures are translated and printed, many tracts and school books are already prepared to our hands; and others, we may hope, will be furnished as fast as a demand for them can be created. There are connected with the different missions among the Tamul people several presses which are now in operation. Others may be had to any extent necessary. Thus we shall be able to obtain as many copies of the Scriptures, tracts, and books of every kind, as we can dispose of to advantage.

4. We notice the particular state of the people. There is evidently much less attachment to idolatry than formerly. Many of the temples are going to decay, and seldom are new ones erected The ceremonies are becoming less pompous, and are not so numerously attended. Many of the people are losing con1. The healthiness of the place. We fidence in idol-worship and are becomhave resided on the continent but a shorting infidels. This state of things results

Having made these specifications we now proceed with some considerations in support of the plan for the district.

the grain has arrived to maturity, and thus the field is white to the harvest; but we will say that the field is ready for cultivation, and we may labor in hope.

5. We attach great importance to combined efforts among missionaries. Their stations, as far as possible, should be so near each other that they can frequently meet and counsel together. This is necessary for their own spiritual good. When far removed from the society of intelligent friends, and laboring under numerous discouragements, there is great danger that their faith will become weak, and their labors and success decrease in proportion. Besides they need each other's advice. Cases of difficulty are frequently occurring. The principles to be adopted, and the plans to be pursued require much calm deliberation. Whilst the great rules of the Bible are to be invariably regarded, much wisdom is necessary to show how far and in what particulars we must consult the peculiar situation and prejudice of the people. To those who have the most practical acquaintance with the whole subject, the

we apprehend, not so much from the influence of missionaries, as from the change of the government. The missions have certainly done much good, and to a limited extent, have had an influence on the people. Still, the great body of the people have been very little,|| if at all, affected by them. This is most evidently true in relation to this district. For here the mass of the community are as profoundly ignorant of Christianity, as if such a religion had never existed. When the government of the country was in the hands of the natives, a large revenue was collected. A few individuals became eminently rich, and they usually spent a considerable portion of their property in building temples and supporting a large number of brahmins and other persons to perform the services of the temples. Such appropriations were held in high esteem by the people;|| and hence those who were able were disposed to make them. And then again, the fact that the places of idolatry were thus patronised by the rich and the great, contributed much to give them favor in the eyes of the people. Thus very pow-difficulties appear numerous and great. erful causes combined to render idolatry Our experience is limited to a single as fascinating as possible. But now the year. Yet we have seen enough to conscene has changed. The present gov- vince us that missionaries need sound ernment does not deprive existing tem- heads as well as good hearts. The wise ples of any revenues which they former- man tells us, "In the multitude of counly possessed; but all the remaining rev- sellors there is safety." And this is as enue goes into the hands of government; true respecting missionaries as any class a large portion of which is carried out of of people. Combined effort is important the country, and only a small part returns also for the natives. To place one misinto the hands of the natives who are sionary among many thousand heathen government servants. Hence it is not is like kindling up a fire in the frozen in the power of the people to build new regions with the hope of melting the temples, or to keep all the old ones in || polar ice. His influence is comparatively repair. And further, many persons who lost. But where inany missionaries are once received their support by perform- laboring in the same region, they help ing various offices at the temples, are each other in their work. Though the now obliged to procure subsistence by natives of this country are not specially some other means. Hence the number inquisitive, yet they are in some measure of those who have a personal interest in influenced by the feelings and conduct the support of idolatry is continually de- of those among them. Before Christiancreasing. The people are probably no ity can get a firm footing in India, the more favorably disposed towards Chris- whole community must in some measure tianity than formerly. They are as ig- be brought under its influence. We are norant and as depraved in heart as ever. persuaded that a great labor must be But now they are within the reach of in- performed before the gospel will here struction. Once they would have turned generally prevail. As much as we value us from their houses and driven us from native agency, and believe that, eventtheir country; but now we can live in ually, it will be sufficient for the wants safety among them, and by kind treat- of the people; yet, at present, very little ment, can, to some extent, gain their dependence can be placed upon it. Conconfidence and good will. Many of verts are mere children. They are inthem will listen to us with a good de- valuable assistants to missionaries, but gree of candor. The truth of the Bible will accomplish almost nothing when may be brought before their minds, and left alone. On this point our minds have thus, with the blessing of God, they may been much exercised and pained. We be converted. We would not say that had supposed that men who had just 41

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