considered, the more clearly, we believe, will this original distinction, yet gradual intermingling, of the Aryan and pre-Aryan faiths become visible and acknowledged, even though it is unsuspected at present by the Brahmans themselves.

The existence of these different layers of population, and their partial intermingling, we maintain, is the true key to the many enigmas and incongruities in the social, and espeeially in the religious, history and condition of India. More than a year ago, in an article on the " Religions of India" (Dec. 1857), we first prepounded this view, applying it to the externals of Indian religion, as we now apply it to the creeds and to the castes. Once stated and illustrated, as we have attempted to do, we feel confident it will commend itself to every intelligent and independent investigator of Indian history and civilisation.

The fruit of this change, the gospel of the new conglomerate religion which thus arose, is the Puranas (a series of writings, eighteen in number, beginning about 800 A.D., and successively added to till about the fifteenth century), in which the grotesque popular legends, and the extravagant fancies of the poets, have been brought together, and which in general estimation are respected as much as the Vedas or the Code. In fact, just as the Code is erroneously held to be based entirely on the Vedas, so these Puranas are likewise imagined to be in entire accordance with the spirit and text of the Vedic Scriptures. Nothing can be further from the truth. The Puranas contain theogonies, cosmogonies, mythologies, legends, and fragments of history, philosophical speculations, and instructions for religious ceremonies, and are not only quite inconsistent with the Hindoo Scriptures, but are entirely at variance with one another. Some are written by worshippers of Siva, others by followers of Vishnoo, and others still by the upholders of the old faith in Brahma. In these Puranas the grand grotesqueness and incongruity of the Indian mind appear at every turn. Never elsewhere did mythology revel in such extravagance.

VOL. LXXXV.-NO. DXXI,

The churning of the ocean by the gods and Asuras, for the purpose of procuring the nectar of immortality, and the subsequent stratagem by which the gods defrauded their coadjutors of the prize obtained ;--the descent of the Ganges from heaven on the invocation of a saint, and its falling with violence on the head of Siva, wandering for years amidst his matted locks, and tumbling at last in a mighty stream upon the earth with all its train of fishes, snakes, turtles, and crocodiles;-the production of Ganesa, without a father, by the intense wishes of Devee-his temporary slaughter by Siva, who cut off his head and afterwards replaced it with that of an elephant, the first that came to hand in the emergency,-such narratives," says Elphinstone, "with the quarrels of the gods; their occasional loves and jealousies; their wars with men and demons; their defeats, flights, and captivity; their penances and austerities for the accomplishment of their wishes; their speaking weapons; the numerous forms they have assumed, and the delusions with which they have deceived the senses of those whom they wished to injure :" all this would be necessary to show fully the religious beliefs of the general population of India. As we see them in the Puranas, the Indian gods are often enraged without a cause, and reconciled without a motive. "The same deity is sometimes powerful enough to destroy his enemies with a glance, or to subdue them with a wish; and at other times is obliged to assemble numerous armies to accomplish his purpose, and is very near failing after all."

Amidst all this religious absurdity and spiritual grossness, pure Brahmanism has never become extinct. Down the long and ever-broadening stream of Indian history, growing darker and more jumbled as one after another the many cross currents have blended together, Brahmanism-with its high faith in the One Supreme and the soul's immortality — has floated steadily above the troubled abysses; even like those votive lamps of light which one sees by night on the broad bosom of the Ganges, launched by

Y

pious hands, and glimmering on with ruddy flame amidst the shadows of darkness. In India, above all countries of the world, we must learn to discriminate. Even in Europe, do we not behold the worship of images and of pictures-the adoration of relics-the institution of vain rites, from the observance of which the people are taught to expect salvation-an infallible Pontiff, like a Lama or Budha, by whose lips the Deity is supposed to speak,-Christ obscured by the worship of the Virgin and saints, and God the Father as removed from the thoughts of the people as any Indian God of the Void while witchcraft, miracles, saintly apparitions, divination, and a hundred follies, disport themselves amongst the masses? And yet amidst all this rubbish and unintentional profanity, pure Christianity lives on and grows more spiritual still. Even so, it is but just to say, have the high faiths

which belong to Brahmanism lived on, and live still, amongst the select minds of that race, above all the filth, folly, and spiritual darkness which pervade the bulk of the popu lation. Turn to the Bhagavat-gita, a poem written in the seventh or eighth century of our era, and see in what lofty emphatic language the soul's nature and immortality are described. The passage is addressed to the brave chief Arjuna, who hesitates to engage in battle because his kinsmen are in the hostile ranks ; but to whom his divine counsellor Krishna makes reply, that, as a Kshatriya, it is his duty to fight,that duty requires men to act without concern for the result,—and, moreover, that he need not grieve at the thought of death, "because the soul neither killeth nor is killed; it is without birth, and cannot be destroyed in this its mortal frame:"

We have shown the idea of God which the Aryans held in the periods of the Vedas and of the Code of Manu. Sixteen hundred years

after the latter of these periods, the Bhagavat-gita represents the Deity thus speaking of himself:

they have been stirred up to reassert their own more spiritual doctrines, and, discarding the Puranas, to revert to their early standards of faith. The movement is as yet but a tendency, but it will gather strength. The publication of the pure text of the Vedas, with a translation, now being made at the expense of the Indian Government, and a more careful study of the Code of Manu, will by-and-by suffice to show the Brahmans that, as a body, they have grossly and shamefully declined from their old faith.* Per haps, too, they will come to see how, in the last two thousand years, they have been entrammelled by the usages and leavened by the spirit of a population distinct from and inferior to their own; and pride of nation will thus co-operate with other influences in producing a spiritual revival amongst the Brahmanical Aryans. And they are the hereditary leaders of India. Where they go, the rest of the population, to the extent of their faculties and opportunities, will be willing to follow.

As the Brahmans, in ages long past, accommodated or toned down their religious beliefs to suit the nonAryan population, so did the Roman Catholic missionaries, in their day, seek converts among the natives by making a compromise between Hindooism and Christianity. Had they been better versed in the religions of the country, they probably would not have hesitated to preach Christ as another Budha to the Budhists of Ceylon, to the people of Southern India, as an incarnation of Vishnoo, -and to the Brahmans as the holiest of all rishis or saints, and as the highest manifestation of the Supreme in this world. We Protestants, on the other hand, repudiate all such compromise as blasphemous and profane. We will not consent, by such means, to purchase the quick

triumphs of the Romanists; but, content to wait, we look for a purer and nobler triumph in the end. But we must bear our souls in patience. One false step may do more to retard the work, than ten or twenty years of labour will do to advance it. Christianity must grow upon the Hindoos. Anything like persecution would be as impolitic as it would be unrighteous. Persecution only hardens and makes fanatics. And under its pressure men go to the stake, glorying in their faith, who, if left to think over their opinions quietly, would in due time have abandoned them as unrighteous or absurd. Let missionary work go on as it is doing. But the best way to evangelise India is to promote the work of evangelisation at home. There is no preaching like that of personal example. We are the ruling class in India,-we are looked up to by the natives,-our officers are in every district, and every officer or judge or revenue collector is a centre of influence. Let these men do their duty, and we shall have an agency far more powerful than any possible development which we can give to missions. Let them, to use the admirable words of Lord Stanley, ever "remember that for an European in India there is, strictly speaking, no private life; he is one of the ruling race-the few among the many-one of a population some 10,000 strong among more than one hundred millions. There are, little as he may know or care about it, quick eyes to watch his conduct, and envious tongues ready enough to disparage his nation and his race. This is not merely a personal matter. A single officer who forgets that he is an officer and a gentleman, does more harm to the moral influence of this country than ten men of blameless life can do good."

IT wanted yet an hour to compline, when there came a low knock at Abbot Martin's chamber door. The good abbot was not asleep, yet he started at the sound. There lay a parchment-bound volume on the table, within reach, but it had formed no part of his studies that afternoon. Nevertheless, the abbot had been studying hard, and his brow had lines of care upon it, such as did not often show themselves on that open and good-humoured face. In fact, he had been engaged for some time before this interruption in that idlest of all studies,-thinking of his debts. Not that Abbot Martin had any special extravagance with which to charge himself, or that either his own private liabilities, or those of his house, were very formidable in amount; but he had succeeded to a revenue dilapidated by the negligence and waste of a long misrule of nearly forty years under Abbot Aldred, of whom the best thing that could be said was, that he had been an excellent son, brother, uncle, cousin, and, in short, had done all that a man could do for his family in the way of patronage. The best lands of the abbey were held on the most favourable terms by such of his relations as had any turn for agriculture; the richest churches in the abbot's patronage were filled by secular priests who had the good fortune to be his nephews or brothersin-law; and some of the best-paid offices within the abbey walls were served by those humble members of the clan, who, remembering that they had an abbot of Rivelsby to claim kin with, had felt a decided vocation for the cloister. The late abbot had sunk his family surname, if there was one, in his monastic title; so that there was no tell-tale evidence of that kind to remind every one of their little family arrangements; but when Brother Martin had first come as a stranger from the pleasant meadows

of Evesham to take possession of his new dignities, he had been constrained to express frequent surprise at the fruitful ramifications of his predecessor's family tree, and the wonderful adaptation of its members to all the good things at the abbey's disposal. "Well! peace be with him!" was the worst that Abbot Martin had ever been heard to say; but it was generally considered as a charitable formula to express a very hearty feeling that the abbey, at any rate, was well rid of him, and that he was much better where he was.

For indeed, what with paying the debts of one spendthrift nephew, and alienating the richest farm of the abbey for a mere nominal fine to another, and a very negligent management of his own and the general revenues, he had left a difficult task for his successor-difficult even to a man of shrewd business habits and stern economy; and Abbot Martin was hardly this. He liked the state and dignity of his office; and had that pardonable but mischievous pride in its old customs and hospitalities, which made him shrink from any real attempt at retrenchment. The tenants of the abbey had taken advantage, too, of the late abbot's mingled extravagance and carelessness, to commute for some small pecuniary assistance, when he most wanted money, the yearly rents and services of their holdings; and just when a strong will and a clear head were required, to reform abuses, reclaim lost rights, and break illegal leases, into the vacant abbacy, by royal writ, came excellent brother Martin, who could lay claim to no qualities of the kind, and was perfectly conscious of his deficiencies.

It was merely vexing himself to no purpose, therefore, when he sat down, as he had often done of late, to try to worm a way out of his difficulties: it was a sort of duty he set himself to discharge, as it were, without much