declares the law to a servile man, and he who instructs him in the mode of expiating sin, except by the intervention of a priest, sinks with that very man into the hell called Asamvrita.”

7. The priesthood maintains the existence of a tradition of equal authority with the written word.

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By Scruti, or what was heard from above, is meant the Veda; and by Smriti, or what was remembered from the beginning, the body of law. Those two must not be oppugned by heterodox arguments, since from those two proceed the whole system of duties."

8. Those who believe and obey both shall attain heaven.

"No doubt that man who shall follow the rules prescribed in the Scruti and in the Smriti, will acquire fame in this life, and in the next inexpressible happiness."

9. Those who read heretical books, and deny the equal authority of tradition and of the written word, are to be viewed as atheists, and to be excommunicated. "Whatever man of the three highest classes, having addicted himself to heretical books, shall treat with contempt these two roots of law (the Scruti and the Smriti), must be driven, as an atheist and a scorner of revelation, from the company of the virtuous."

10. There ought to be Mendicants, Eremites, Flagellants, and other self-tormentors, in the priesthood.

"Each day let a Brahmin student receive his food by begging with due care from the houses of persons renowned for discharging their duties, and not deficient in performing the sacrifices which the Vedas ordain."

"Having thus remained in the order of a housekeeper

as the law ordains, let the twice-born man, who had before completed his studentship, dwell in a forest, his faith being firm, and his organs wholly subdued."

"Let him (one order of them) wear a black antelope's hide or a vesture of bark; let him bathe evening and morning; let him suffer the hair of his head, his beard and his nails, to grow continually.” "His (an

other order of them) hair, nails, and beard being clipt, bearing with him a dish, a staff, and a waterpot, his whole mind being fixed on God, let him wander about continually, without giving pain to animal or vegetable beings."

"In the hot season, let him sit exposed to five fires blazing around him, and the sun above him; in the rains, let him stand uncovered, without even a mantle, where the clouds pour the heaviest showers; in the cold season let him wear a humid vesture, and let him increase by degrees the austerity of his devotion."

These extracts will serve to give a sufficient idea of a Brahmin and of the Brahminical system, which may, as I have shewn, be taken as the most fully developed type of what a self-constituted and unresisted priesthood tends to, where reformation is prevented, and time allowed for the full development of the system, and the complete subjugation of all the other orders of society.

But to give a just idea of the narrow and straitlybound superstitions which these priests have imposed upon the people, to tell how they have split the people down into mutually jealous castes, in order that the popular power might be spent upon itself, and thus their own supremacy easily maintained,-to shew how helpless they have made the people, and how completely they have vested in themselves all religious duties, in order that the people may be under the necessity of consulting them on every occasion,-to shew how complete

ly they have made the whole of piety to lie in the exact observance of ordinances of their own invention, which, of course, they pass off upon the people as the ordinances of God,―to shew how they have placed the whole of duty in obedience to their own authority, suppressing reason and conscience to the utmost in their power,―to enumerate the various articles of diet (exclusively vegetable) to which the higher castes are restricted-the purifications enjoined for the living and the dead-the complicated and fantastical penances and expiations required-the virtue attached to the observance of the five sacraments-the purgatories and transmigrations invented for souls not fully purified at death-the image-worship and the complicated system of idolatry, and the oblations to departed saints and angels or demons,-all which, mainly for the purpose of aggrandizing their own order, they have built upon the sublime religion of the patriarchs, and in which they have long since involved the millions of India,this would require volumes.

Such has been the state of things in the East, from the earliest antiquity to which we can ascend, down to the present day. The priesthood, instead of continuing the ministers of a pure patriarchal religion, soon assumed a spiritual despotism; soon practised upon the degenerate tendencies of the multitude, and made primæval revelation of none effect through their traditions; soon directed the minds of the devout, or at least suffered them to attach to created forms and figments of fancy, instead of the Almighty, the only living and true God.

Yet, bad as Brahmins are, who will venture to say that things had not been worse without them? When we condemn any one class of men, let us not forget that the sentence of a just God is out against the whole race.

THE PATRIARCH.

Now from this state of things, or rather a state of things tending rapidly to this, from Ur of the Chaldees, which, though we know not exactly where it was (nor even whether it was a place or a state of religious society), yet certainly lay far in the east, God calls Abraham and his family towards the west, takes him under the peculiar care of his providence and grace, imparts to him direct intimation of his will, and, in a word, rescues and restores, in his person and family, the true religion. And from this newly opened fountain of the will of God, which still continues to flow down to us in the page of Inspiration, what do we learn as to the catholicity of true religion? Do we find a large place given to the complicated system then reigning in the East? Do we find a positive precept given to regulate every proceeding, and straitly binding rules, to which all must conform on the pain of excommunication? Quite the reverse. Though Abraham's name be so similar to that of the Inlian priesthood (a coincidence which has been made an argument for connecting the Patriarch with the Brahmins), yet how different in every feature is his spirit from theirs! How different the religion in which God builds him up, from that in which that priesthood has built itself up! In the religion of Abraham all is true piety, true liberty. To him either the direct voice of God, or else reason and conscience, which are but the echoes of that voice in the inner man, are every thing. Except in the matter of sacrifices, which, as has been shewn, reason and conscience cannot regulate, Abraham is everywhere left to the guidance of these principles. He is the head of his family, and as such both a priest and a prince, and performs every office, both civil and

sacerdotal. The faith and the spirit of enlightened piety which he enjoyed, were his unfailing guides. Though he was the greatest moral and religious hero that ever existed, yet he was a most considerate and sober-minded man. Even his faith was but a nobler sort of reason. It was indeed wholly a divine gift, and it was purely faith. But it was not a faith that was alone. It was a faith that brought forth fruit, by the use and influence of reasonable considerations. Unlike the fanatical impulses of turgid imaginations, which will not fraternize with reason at all, Abraham's great deeds were all conducted by reason. His faith gave him first principles and energy of character. His reason gave him conduct. And thus, by their mutual and fraternal aid and guidance, Abraham always acted with admirable composure, and always displayed a singularly happy combination of firmness and of tenderness.

Thus, in reference to the offering up of Isaac, faith here gave him three great principles, without which he could not have gone one step (so that it may well be said, that "by faith Abraham offered up Isaac"). But his faith was not alone. His actual conduct was regulated by three arguments of reason, grounded on these three principles which faith inspired. Of these principles, the first was, that all God's commandments must be obeyed ; and to this, reason added, God has commanded me to sacrifice Isaac, therefore I must do it. The second was, that all God's promises must be fulfilled; and to this, his reason added, that, since God has promised that my race shall be gloriously continued through Isaac childless as yet, my son will be somehow preserved though I sacrifice him. The third was, that God is omnipotent; and to this, reason added, Omnipotence can raise the dead, I account that God is able to raise Isaac from the dead.* Thus did *Heb. xi. 17.