that to scale the heights of heaven, to behold the Sun of eternal truth, and receive his rays; to grasp the things of an everlasting age, and to be filled with all the fulness of God; to receive the first principles of heavenly science; to soar on the wings of contemplation, aided by the breath of the infinite Spirit; to explore the tracts of uncreated light, and dive into the things which are displayed in heavenly places by Jesus Christ; to be permitted to look into the unseen world, and peruse the records of the New Jerusalem; to be enabled by an infallible standard, more truly unerring than a mathematical axiom; to weigh and compare the things of redeeming love, and to live as seeing Him who is invisible, shall, without doubt, elevate the human mind, and dignify all who are so employed. There are now lending libraries, and reading societies among them: already are there several congregations of them as Christian worshippers, and some of them are engaged even in missionary operations. The Bishop's College, Calcutta, presents an opening and an invitation to such of them as shall prove themselves fitted for the good work of promulgating truth and peace. Many of them are enrolled among the liberal patrons of evangelical exertions, and are themselves monuments of what the Lord Jehovah has done by the instrumentality of missionary effort. It will be well when the congregations are supplied with duly qualified pastors of their own order: this would hold forth a stimulus to the early pious to seek the gifts and endowments which would adorn the Christian ministry, and be profitable for the instruction of the community. It might, too, exercise a diffusive influence, and inspire the body of the people, not merely with a desire to support their own religious teachers, but also with a zeal to become the labourers who shall long be required for the poor heathen; not as the colonial agents of a distant mother country, but as the principal and responsible representatives of their own church. In a multitude of instances, they are able to speak the language of the Hindoos; they are also conversant with the manners of the heathen; they might become even erudite in the literature of the Brahmins; and by a holy character, a temperate zeal, prayerful diligence, and unceasing application, they might become harbingers of good to the people, and faithful stewards of the manifold grace of God. THE influence of the wife and the mother upon society is so palpable and resistless in the most advanced stages of improvement, that the philanthropist will demand with anxious solicitude, after the recital of some scenes in these volumes, What is the character of woman in India? Let her history be developed to us; give us no exaggerated delineation, no distorted or extravagant caricature, no picture which may be regarded as an exception arising from peculiar circumstances. There are 4 general laws which affect the whole community; there is a common source from which every running brook is supplied; there is a river, the streams whereof pervade and moisten the whole social soil: the female character may be regarded as the fountain, the swelling tide which nourishes and bears onward the dispositions, the attachments, and the desires of each succeeding generation. The corrupt principles of the heart, the debased standard of morals, the diseased affections of a perverted nature, embodied in one representation, will be generally descriptive of the whole sex in India. Treated as beings of an inferior order; kept back from the commonest means of information and mental improvement, enjoyed by their sisters in western countries; excluded from the diffusive influence of expanding principle, and taught to look upon the present as the only moment of gratification; they are occupied in domestic toils without any cheering and heart-exciting affections, while they are denied all participation at the social board. Thrown too upon the resources of animal nature merely for any portion of enjoyment, they are accustomed to regard themselves as only the instruments of slavery or passion. In addition to which, the very objects of their worship-to the external symbols of which, as the profanum vulgus, their intercourse is solely limited, -are presented in the scenes of idolatrous festivity, as immersed in criminal indulgence. Would it be wondered that their character should be blindly selfish, and the motives of their conduct exclusively, and to the extreme, epicurean? The arrangement and the economy of the domestic circle cherish still more the luxuriant growth of these rank weeds in the feminine breast in India. The remains of the patriarchal state are perceptible in their internal management and government of social life, and to this the present condition of India may be ascribed. The patriarch's authority is even more jealously enforced now, and carried into the ramifications of the family than in ancient society. It is here systematized and secured by the sanctions of religion, as well as by the custom of ages. Every house presents the remote, as also the most subordinate division of genealogical relationship. There seems, too, the closest intercourse between the affiliated branches, so that the father of the last or preceding generation, exerts an authoritative influence, even more arbitrary than the power of an adviser. His sons, and their wives, their children also and it may be, their destined brides too-live within the same enclosure, and often under the same roof; so that sometimes it assumes more the appearance of a clan, than a single family. And hence, except among those whose habits have been changed, and whose origin or connexions have been interrupted by the invasion or policy of foreigners, there is an internal policy paramount to all civic control; and blind custom and ascendant authority are more consulted and obeyed than the rights and wishes of |