66 institutions. The mutual divisions of castes, hereditary trades, the worship of the ox, the resemblance between the linga and the phallus, the agreement of the mundane egg with the Hindu doctrine of creation; all convincingly attested a close connexion. The question arose, Which nation had taught the other. It was very natural that Europeans should at first attribute the precedency to the country from which the earliest lights of civilization had reached their own regions. But with the advance of knowledge opinion has gradually changed; and now the accurate author of the Theogony of the Hindus" appears to have set the question at rest, adducing proofs, that amount to all but demonstration, that Egypt derived from India, and not India from Egypt.* This point once conceded, we view a prodigious field, on which the mind of India has moulded the character of man. The prevalence, in times of authentic history, of the Hindu doctrine of metempsychosis, is a forcible proof of their religious ascendancy; for they not only impelled that dogma through the schools of Greece, but even into the credence of the Jews themselves. Whether we adopt the views of Mr. Higgins with respect to the "Celtic Druids," or place that remarkable hierarchy in the more sober position assigned to it by the author of the “Religion of Ancient Britain ;" and whether or not we join the Count Bjömstjerna in affiliating the Edda † of Scandinavian mythology to the Veda of India; we cannot doubt that at the time of our Lord's appearing, every civilized people in the world, except, perhaps, the Chinese, held religious doctrines adopted more or less directly from the Hindus. Since then a still more signal illustration has been given to their religious power. Shortly after the opening of the Christian era, Fo carried into China Budhism,—a religion which had sprung up in India as a reform of Brahmanism. Such has been its spread, that, according to some high authorities, it has now three hundred millions of disciples in that country; while, I believe, none would demand a larger deduction from this number than fifty millions. When to these are added the Budhists of Thibet, Tartary, Birmah, Siam, Japan, and Ceylon, we arrive at the unquestionable conclusion, that this creed far surpasses any other in the number of its adherents. If we take the Budhists at three hundred and fifty millions, (thirty millions less than they are estimated in the "Theogony of the Hindus,") and the adherents of Brahmanism at one hundred and fifty millions, we have then five hundred millions of the world's existing population under the power of creeds originated in India. Nor will any one attentively survey the countries over which these systems extend, and compare them with the whole world, without concluding, that, whether these numbers be too great or too small, at least one-half of the human race are worshipping at the altars of Budhism and Brahmanism. Until within the last eight centuries the Hindus enjoyed a singular * His proofs are: 1. It is testified by Herodotus, Plato, Solon, Pythagoras, and Philostratus, that the religion of Egypt proceeded from India. 2. The monuments of Egypt testify that the religious system gradually descended from the south toward the north. 3. The chronicles recorded by Josephus and Eusebius state that the religion of Egypt came from India. 4. Asia was first peopled. 5. Tradition marks central Asia as the first home of man; consequently, India would be peopled before the valley of the Nile. 6. We have history to this effect. 7. The Abyssinians have a tradition, that the first inhabitants of their country came, by way of the Red Sea, from a remote country in the south. + The Edda, though not composed till the eleventh or twelfth century, is supposed to embody the tenets introduced by the second or third Wodin before the Christian era; in which tenets the learned Count discovers Budhism. exemption from foreign rule. The ancient Persians held, for some time, a province on their north-west frontier; Alexander made a short inroad across the same frontier, which has not left even a trace in their histories; but their whole career, up to the above period, had been free from any grand conquest by a foreign power.* Hence much of their maturity in political and literary civilization; for, in domestic civilization, which Christianity alone creates, they have always been, and still remain, exceedingly backward. In the beginning of the eleventh century, the scimitar of Islam inflicted the first severe wound upon the independence of Hindustan. After the Princes of that fierce faith had been established for about seven centuries, the whole of India might be regarded as subdued, under the sceptre of Aurengzeb. By a succession of events, without any parallel in history, and without any explanation, but in the will of the supreme Ruler, those nations, so long exempt from conquest, and over which even Mussulmaun ardour so slowly won dominion, have passed one after another, until they are all now united, under the British power. This conquest, unique in its rapidity, has been not less unique in its results. The ordinary effect of conquest is to abase the vanquished, to abridge their liberty, check their enterprise, and preclude all improvement. In this case it has been just the reverse. The conquered have augmented their liberty, recruited their commerce, received a new impulse in literature, and had cast into their lap many of the fruits of western civilization. By this conquest, India, so far from being reduced in moral influence, has been raised to a position from which she will lead Asia in the modern march of civilization, as she did in the old. By its means, she, of all Asiatic countries, first receives the true philosophy, first knows freedom of person, freedom of commerce, freedom of conscience, and freedom of the press. She will also be the first on which the steam-engine and the railway will confer their prodigious influence. These things give her advantages to which none of her neighbours can pretend, and by which she will excite the emulation of them all. Geographically, she occupies the very focus of Asiatic power and refinement, having on the one hand and on the other the countries most important to be influenced, and most accessible to amelioration. The Budhist of eastern Asia looks to her as the father-land of his faith; the Mussulmaun of western Asia, as the region where sparkled the most gorgeous monarchy of Islam; while on her plains are the correligionists of the one and of the other, to carry out a grand mission when a regeneration shall have passed upon themselves. Up to the present day, Jerusalem, Rome, and Mecca, usually held to be the grand springs whence religious influences have gone forth upon the world, have not all of them together commanded the faith of so many human beings as Hindustan. The history of the past not only warrants, but demands, the expectation that the conversion of that country will bring results on a scale far grander than any that have yet been witnessed. It is strange with what coolness even well-informed persons speak and write of the few nations of Europe, as if they constituted the world. True, others are known to exist; but, in the usual thinking of most per"all the world" is at peace, when Europe reposes; "all the world" in pangs, when Europe is at war; and Wellington and Napoleon are celebrated "all over the world." Alas! how little is the world of most minds! sons, * I do not here touch the perplexed question whether the Brahmans themselves were not a race of invaders. how far short of the wide, wide field, all over which the hearts of men are throbbing! Far more than half the world never heard Napoleon's name; far more than half the world neither know nor care what are the relations of our potentates; far more than half the world could not tell you whether Europe is one country or many. We are not a quarter of the world's population; and yet, because we have received from Christianity elements of greatness that lift us above our fellows, we are ready to regard them as but distant retainers of the human family, we only constituting its circle. From the soil of Asia man was formed, in Asia he had his Eden, on a hill in Asia rested the ark that saved him in the day of ruins, in Asia he spent his early years, in Asia he has always had his chief dwelling, and on Asia dropped the blood that bought his ransom. The eye that watches all the world, has ever seen in Asia far most hearts beating, far most mothers rejoicing over their newly-born, far most houses mourning for their dead. If any section of the earth might call itself the world, Asia would be the world Europe does not contain half so many human hearts. The merchant sees the world where he sees trade, the literatus where he sees readers, the soldier where he sees renown, the man of fashion where he sees refinements, the politician where he sees power, and the unreflecting of all nations see the world in the sphere bounded by their own interests. But when the Christian would see the world, he looks for one thing,hearts, human hearts! These are the world to him, these are the seat of conflicts like to his own, these the field on which are decided the issues of eternity, on which is battled the cause of his God. Asia is the largest assemblage of human hearts: thither then should the human heart most affectionately turn. The darkness of Asia glooms more hearts than that of all the world beside, and its sunrise will gladden more. While Asia is alien from Christ, more than half the world is far away; but when Asia shall be brought nigh, it will indeed be the fulness of the Gentiles. Asia is Satan's stronghold, and wide and proud is the empire over which he boasts. The lessons of the past, the movements of the present, and the indications of the future, all unite in pointing us, for the key of Asia, to Hindustan. Let it be won to Christ, and it will win the tribes surrounding. And, wonderful Providence, the whole of that vast land from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin, and from the Indus to the Brumhapootra, is open to Christianity! Head of God's ransomed church, why hast thou placed before thy people this yawning door, through which we hear, coming from the valley and shadow of death, the wail of so many souls? What then is India? The region which of all upon earth has most affected the history and the habits of every other; the region to whose influence are traceable the most striking characteristics of ancient civilization, the most notable feats of modern enterprise; the region whence sprang the creeds that now possess the largest number of souls; the region that offers the best medium for transmitting moral influences throughout Asia; the region that embraces in her arms a host of human hearts, comprising at least one out of every six that beat, and, holding them up to the eye of Christian pity, tells her they are all open to her approach, and susceptible of her action. O that God would give his church a heart large enough to feel the sublimity of this call! Think, Christians, think on the state of the world! Think not of the Gospel as already known everywhere! Feel, O feel, when you pray, that one half of your brethren never heard of your Redeemer! Bone are they of your bone, flesh of your flesh, conflicting, sighing, bending to the grave like you; but crown for their conflicts, comforter in their sighs, hope in their grave, they see none. Think of every land where Satan has his seat, and give to them all a part in your prayer! But I think long on the land where the throne, whose sway you love, has heathen subjects outnumbering sevenfold the Christians of the British isles! Think long, long on the fact, "I belong to an empire where seven to one name not the Name that is life to me!" Think that yonder, under the rule of your own Queen, a full sixth of Adam's children dwell! take a little leisure, and say, "Of every six infants, one first sees the light there: to what instruction is it born? Of every six brides one offers her vows there to what affection is she destined? Of every six families one spreads its table there: what loves unite their circle? Of every six widows one is lamenting there: what consolations will soothe her? Of every six orphan girls one is wandering there: what charities will protect her? Of every six wounded consciences one is trembling there: what balm, what physician does it know? Of every six men that die, one is departing there what shore is in his eye?" "THOU ART MY HIDING-PLACE." PEOPLE that have never been in battle may discourse of it; but it will be in a very different way from what a soldier would speak about it. Religion is a warfare; and the man who has maintained the conflict, and who has made extensive observations, will speak of it in a very different way from others who merely speculate upon it. David had been a military man, and his life had been preserved, more than once, by finding a hiding-place, when he was "hunted as a partridge upon the mountains ;" and though he had frequently escaped by these means, yet he knew that there was but one true place of safety: therefore he looks beyond the means, and says, "Thou art my hiding-place." The language of the Apostle expresses the same sentiment: "I know in whom I have believed;" I can place everything in his hands; everything that concerns my body or soul; everything that concerns time or eternity. Every true Christian triumphs in this, namely, that he has a constant refuge: he says, not only, "Thou hast been," but, "Thou art," my hidingplace, which presents itself upon all occasions: when sin would allure and betray; when the enemy comes in like a flood, and I am ready to be driven away by the torrent of temptations by which he assaults me; when I travel through the deep waters of affliction; when the terrors of the law threaten and alarm; in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment,— still in all," Thou art my hiding-place.”—Cecil. THE RICHES OF CREATION. THE works of creation, spread around us in an infinite variety of forms, each form exhibiting in itself all the elements of perfect order, whether as regards its structure or the more secret but no less recognisable condition of its composition, naturally become the objects of contemplation and research to the philosophic mind. Within the limits of human observation, we have the cloud-like nebulæ in the far depths of space, from which " we descend, step by step, through the stratum of stars to which our solar system belongs, and at length set foot on the air-and-sea-surrounded spheroid we inhabit." We may then examine the myriad forms of animal and vegetable life upon its surface, with all the physiological phenomena which they exhibit, beginning with man, or the majestic creatures which he subjects to his rule, and ending with the infusorial animals, to whom a drop of water is a world, and a brief hour of time an existence; or, first examining the majestic developments of a tropical vegetation, proceed downwards to the habitants of temperate climes, and tracing the stunted vegetation of arctic regions or of alpine heights, and with the microscopic conferve of a stagnant pool, or the minute lichen which specks the otherwise naked rocks of our tempest-beaten shores. Nor need we stop here: the story of the earth's creation, or rather of the earth's mutations, is written in enduring characters on the rocky crust, upon which is life in all its beauty and motion; and in the silent depths of the mine we may examine, locked in their stony caves, the remains of organisation as beautiful and as curious as those now basking in sunshine, which moved over the surface of this planet myriads of ages since. The forests of an old world, great in their ferns and palmated trees, its oceans with their saurian reptiles or their trilobites, so beautiful in form, and its lakes instinct with life, from whose remains some of the most splendid temples of our land are built, are exposed to the search of an inquiring eye. The sources, therefore, which are open to the researches of man, are neither few nor limited. Nor are the powers with which he is gifted in any respect inferior to those required for the full investigation of the material universe. In the supine state in which, too frequently, under the influence of luxurious civilisation, our intellectual powers are allowed to rest, content with pleasures which are, after all, but the refinements of sensuality, an enervated condition is induced, and the mind wearies under the weight of contemplations which alone are worthy the dignity of man.—Athenæum. ANECDOTE OF THE REV. JOHN WESLEY. MR. DULEY was one evening taking tea with that eminent artist, Mr. Culy, when he asked him whether he had seen his gallery of busts. Mr. Duley answering in the negative, and expressing a wish to be gratified with a sight of it, Mr. Culy conducted him thither; and after admiring the busts of the several great men of the day, he came to one which particularly attracted his notice; and on inquiry found it was the likeness of the Rev. John Wesley. "This bust," said Mr. Culy, "struck Lord Shelburne in the same manner it does you; and there is a remarkable fact connected with it, which, as I know you are fond of anecdote, I will relate to you precisely in the same manner and words that I did to him." On returning to the parlour, Mr. Culy commenced accordingly: "I am a very old man ; you must excuse my little failings; and, as I before observed, hear it in the very words I repeated to his Lordship. My Lord,' said I, 'perhaps you have heard of John Wesley, the Founder of the Methodists.' 'O yes,' he replied; he that race of fanatics!' 'Well, my Lord; Mr. Wesley had often been urged to have his picture taken: but he always refused, alleging, as a reason, that he thought it nothing but vanity; indeed, so frequently had he been pressed on this point, that his friends were reluctantly compelled to give up the idea. One day he called upon me on the business of our church. I began the old subject of entreating him to allow |