for instance, when advanced to a high civilization,should reject christianity, and the land which Pomarre has covered with churches consecrated to the one God, should become again a land of idols; would Henry and Ellis and their companions be forgotten? Rather would their names be enrolled amongst the fancied deities of the nation; altars and temples would be raised for their worship; and poets would sing their labours, adding to real facts, all that a grateful imagination could invent of the wonderful and the mysterious.

The next point which may deserve our attention, is the schools of the missionaries. Let no one think that they are of no importance in the present subject. They are of great importance. The missionary extends his influence through all the future relations of his pupil, and in this way affects the literary interests of the people as truly as their moral and social interests. There is an intimate connexion between the literature of a nation and the early education of its youth. The most sanguine friends of American literature do not expect it to possess all the elegance and perfection of the English, so long as the boys in the English primary schools are made to carry their classical attainments beyond our Bachelors and Masters. Yet so long as our youth receive such instruction as they now do, there always must be a demand for the productions, and a love for the occupations of literature. This effect will be produced by schools in heathen countries. It is strikingly exhibited among the Hindoos. They had almost no schools before protestant missionaries entered India.(a) They placed no value upon learning. They had indeed few motives, for the Brahmins forbid them to read the sacred books, wishing, like the catholic priests, to foster in the people a spirit of ignorant and passive reliBut through the influence of

ance.

(a) See Winslow's Sketch, p. 103.

missions, schools are now extensively established, both Hindoos and Mussulmen are anxious to support and multiply them, and their effect in arousing the public mind is manifest. A native society has been formed in Calcutta to provide "books of moral and scientific instruction" for the benefit of their youth.

It must be remembered too that primary schools thus established in the pagan nations, will of course, introduce, sooner or later, higher institutions of more powerful and more extensive influence upon the progress of knowledge. Three such institutions have already arisen in the East; one originated by the Baptist missionaries, another by the societies of the Church of England, and a third by the Hindoos themselves. Those institutions will benefit perhaps, the whole of Southern Asia,and especially India, which seems, like China, to have attained to considerable cultivation, at some distant period, and to have been suddenly stopped in its progress, and stopped not with China to remain stationary, presenting forever, like the petrified city of the Arabian tales, the same unchanged and unchanging form; but to decline almost from year to year, even while surrounded with the monuments of former genius; to fall with their boasted philosophy, and their boasting priesthood, into deeper and deeper degradation. The Serampore College is designed expressly for the natives of India, both christian and pagan. The pupils will be instructed in the different languages(b) of the East, and particularly the Sangscrit in which the vedas (vads) and puraras are written, and which, through the artifice of the Brahmins, has in reality become a

(b)This will tend to make the literature of each language the common property of all. The translations made by Dr. Carey from the Sangscrit and Bengalee in

to Mahratta, for the students in Fort William College, have contributed to such an effect. See a Sangscrit and Mahratta Dictionary, made by the Missionaries.

dead language. The acquisition of this will enable the youth of India, not only to detect the impositions of their priests, but to understand and appreciate the literary works of their forefathers, and will awaken a spirit of research, which must ultimately exert a happy influence upon the literature of their country. Classes of the students will also be instructed in the learned languages, in law, in medicine, and theology, and thus the literature of the west will be introduced into India. Indeed India is already indebted to missions in this respect. Portions of Hume's England and Paley's Evidences have been published(b) for the schools. The Bombay mission has published a treatise on geography, of which subject the Hindoos are almost entirely ignorant. A son of one of the Serampore missionaries, (Dr. Carey,) has translated the dictionary of Johnson (c) into Bengalee, and published an Encyclopædia(d) in the same language.

The Bishop's (e) College is similar in its design to the Baptist College, and will produce similar effects; and the Hindoo College promises perhaps still more for the Hindoo literature and science. Its object is to enable the Hindoo youth to cultivate Asiatic and English literature in their various branches. It has ever met the approbation of the Pundits. One of them said at its formation, he rejoiced in having lived to see the day when literature, once successfully cultivated in his native country, but now almost extinct, was about to be revived with greater lustre than ever. It may be said there were literary institutions in India before. were.(f) But the benefits from the

There

(b)Mr. Bardwell's statements, verbal. (c)Christian Obs.

(d) Bap. Mag. Vol. 7, p. 423. (e) For accounts of these Colleges see Christ. Obs.

(f) An Academy at Tricinium on the Malabar coast. A Brahminic school in the Carnatic, which existed in the first

establishments now mentioned will infinitely transcend them; and these benefits flow from missions.

In contemplating the subject which is now before us, we must not forget that missions carry with them the press, an engine of more stupendous power, and of more certain and universal influence, than any other invention of man. "When letters were invented," says a Chinese writer, "the heavens, the earth, and the gods, were agitated. The inhabitants of Hades wept at night, and the skies, as an expression of joy, rained down ripe grain." The language is not, perhaps, too strong to indicate the value of the invention. Surely then, if the press be added to this, if the art of writing and the art of printing be bestowed upon a nation at the same time, it is a favor indeed. It removes barriers to intellectual improvement, which had ever been considered as impassible. This," said an Hon. visitor of Fort William College, "exhibits a combination of ingenuity, skill, and persevering toil, of which there are few examples.' Now to know that the art of printing is in Asia, and is extending itself, is to know that the work of intellectual renovation is begun there. the enemies of missions will say, the press is delivering the Hindoo, the Mussulman, from superstition; the press bas compelled the cruel Juggernaut to retreat, with his car, and priests, and licentious festivals, into the interior of India. We say so too. But we ask to what are the Hindoo and the Mussulman indebted for the press?

Even

I cannot leave this topic without alluding to the press connected with our Palestine missions. The liberality, which formed that establishment was not misapplied. It has already made the voice of christian

century. The University of Benares, called by Robertson, the Athens of India. Robertson, however, was not much acquainted with the subject. The Jesuits found similar institutions in China; but their accounts are all exaggerations.

them to reject the gospel as foolishness, and cleave with increased eagerness, to those false schemes of religion, which it was designed to subvert and sweep from the face of the earth? Why did they really believe that Christ was an impostor, that the apostles were beside themselves, and that true religion consisted in the worship of idols? Why all these errors of opinion, these speculative mistakes, these false decisions of the understanding? To all these questions the language of the text supplies an answer, because of the blindness of their heart. Their feelings were wrong, and these distorted their views, perverted their judgment, and corrupted their opinions. The doctrine therefore, which we are to consider, is this:-The feelings of the natural heart exert a pernicious influence on the under standing.

As it will be impossible in a single discourse, to go into a full examination of this truth, I shall confine my illustrations of it to these faculties of the human mind-perception, memory, and judgment.

1. As it regards the faculty of perception. This is necessary to every act of the understanding; for without it, the intellect cannot act at all. But by a blinded or depraved heart, this eye of the mind is dimmed. It is not so quick to discern moral distinctions. This is the reason why so many perceive no harm in neglecting the sanctuary, in reading the news of the day, and in roving abroad on the Sabbath; no harm in profaneness, in tavern-haunting, in living without prayer, and in following the multitude to do evil. They perceive no evil in these things, not because the whole scope of the gospel does not condemn them, nor be cause they are deficient in natural discernment; but because their depraved inclination casts a blur over their mental eye, and thus hides from their view the moral deformity of their practice.

Of all the heedless youths in our galleries, who, by their indecorum,

cast contempt on the public worship of God, where is there one, ordinarily, that perceives any great harm in such conduct? They do not retire from the holy place which they have desecrated, with their countenance fallen, and their eyes streaming with tears, in view of the insult they have offered to the Almighty. And this, because their perception is obscured by the influence of their unholy feelings.

The same effect is wrought on the faculty of perception, when people who are justly charged with every moral delinquency, deny it, and even justify their conduct. The world is full of instances of self-justification, and even when the guilt is not only real, but flagrant and conspicuous. Where have you seen two members of the same family engaged in bitter contention, when each did not excuse himself, and condemn the other? Or where have you seen two neighbours embroiled in a contest, where both were not loud in their own justification? Hundreds of lawsuits are every year brought to the civil tribunal; and in all cases, the effort of the plaintiff, and the ef fort of the defendant, is to make it appear, if possible, that himself is in the right, and his antagonist in the wrong. But in all these instances, one, at least, of the respective contending parties, must be guilty; and why does he not perceive it, and desist from the controversy? The blindness of his heart impairs his vission, and thus prevents his perceiving what he could not but perceive, if he felt as he ought.

Why does the sinner whose conscience gives him no uneasiness on account of his neglect of repentance and increasing stupidity, perceive no guilt within him, and no danger before him? When the ambassador of Christ is proving to him his lost condition, exhorting him to flee from the wrath to come, and pressing him with every motive that can be derived from a violated law, a neglected gospel, and eternal perdition,-why does he look upon all this as

an