for this country this is at least 24 per cent too little. Now 24 per cent is amply sufficient to defray the expense of management, and the occasional losses to which every such society is liable.

3. The tables give the rate of mortality ascertained from the dura tion of all lives; including equally those of healthy and of diseased persons. But this and all other Societies grant assurances only on the lives of those who are certified to be in good health when the policy is granted.

4. We cannot doubt that the value of life in India will greatly improve, by the amelioration of men's habits, the improvement of the country through cultivation, irrigation, &c. and the greater facilities for visiting healthier regions.

We have no personal interest in the Family Endowment or any other Assurance Society; but we deem it our duty to recommend it, as being in our opinion the most advantageous, to the support of the community.

The necessity for Christian Education to elevate the native character in India. An essay to which the Sir Peregrine Maitland prize has been adjudged by the University of Cambridge. By George Nugée, B. A. London, 1846.

THIS essay is the first fruits of a monumental prize-fund, instituted by the friends of Sir Peregrine Maitland, whose stand for Christian principle at Madras is fresh in the minds of our readers, and we trust, will be had in perpetual remembrance. The interest of a thousand pounds is to be applied to the grant of a prize once in three years to a student in the University of Cambridge for the best "English Essay on some subject connected with the propagation of the gospel, through Missionary exertions, in India and other points of the heathen world.” We know no better method of keeping up the memory of a distinguished man, and we trust that much good will result from it, not only by the publication of the essays, but still more by the direction of the attention of so large a body of the ingenuous youth of England to the state and prospects of India in connection with the spread of the gospel among its people.*

The author of the present essay very creditably belies his very unfortunate name; for his production shews a very proper seriousness, and is written in a vigorous chaste style, and is altogether less chargeable

*Such a result did unquestionably accrue from Dr. Claudius Buchanan's Prize Essays and poems. The literary productions that resulted from his munificent gifts are now little set by. But a careful observer of the progress of events cannot fail to estimate highly their influence in stirring up in the minds of many, an intelligent interest in the affairs of India.

with trifling than nine out of every ten of our Academical prize-essays. It is short, and comes to the point; and evinces within a small compass an amount of acquaintance with Indian subjects which it is pleasing to see exhibited by one who, we presume, has no special connection with the East. It is to the diffusion of an enlightened acquaintance with India, and India's people, that our own labors uniformly tend; and we hail the appearance of any production which indicates a sincere desire for the improvement of the condition of our native fellow subjects. In proportion to the amount of ignorance that is displayed by some, of whom better things might have been expected, is the satisfaction of seeing the essay of a youth, free, at least, from all glaring absurdities. The only exception that we have noticed in the course of our perusal of the essay before us, is contained in a note, occupying only a single line; in which it is stated that "The institutes (meaning the institutes of Manu) are called Devá Nágari, or work of the Gods." We trust there are not many of our readers who require to be informed that Devá Nágari is not the name of the institutes, but of the alphabetical character in which they, and all other Sanscrit works, are written. This is a slight, and a pardonable, mistake.

The plan and general contents of Mr. Nugée's essay may be very briefly stated. After a general introduction regarding the present state of the people of India, our author proposes two questions, as to the origin of the present debasement of the people, and the means to be adopted for its removal. The former question he answers by a denial that physical or political causes can account for the debasement, and the assertion that it is to be ascribed mainly to the false religion that prevails in the country. This conclusion he confirms by a specific consideration of the combined effects of the doctrines, moral code, and priesthood of Hinduism, on the moral, social, civil, and intellectual condition of India.

This answer to the first question naturally carries along with it the answer to the second; for as is the disease, so must be the remedy. Our author rejects the proposed remedies of the political reformers and the economists, as being inadequate to the production of the desired end, and thus reduces the question to a comparison of the claims of rationalism or secular education on the one hand, and Christianity or religious education on the other. The question thus restricted, he decides in favor of the latter branch of the alternative. In this conclusion we entirely agree. But as we have ere now alluded frequently to this subject, and shall in all probability have frequent occasions to allude to it again in future, we shall not at present enter into any dis. cussion on the question, but shall content ourselves with the extraction of a few passages from the essay before us, which will give our readers the means of forming a judgment as to its author's style and manner. Our first extract shall relate to CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS.

"Ordinary effects are now to follow ordinary means, and truly may it be said that the careful instruction of the rising generations is the true cradle d

of the Church. Youth is the season in which the mind is most accessible to new information. Vice already formed, prejudice already imbibed, are almost beyond even the power of Christian redemption; it is only in the state of latent propensity, that we can reasonably expect to overcome them by the moral motives which we present, and to extinguish this propensity before it is even known to the mind in which it exists; to tame those pas sions which are never to rage, and to prepare the soil for the virtues of future years. Now, I would ask, how does the government scheme attain these objects? What are the motives which it presents? The ambition of the native student is that of gaining through such schools admission to official appointments, and a rise by gradation from the Zillah to the central Seminary, and from the scholarship to the revenue offices or subordinate judicial department. Such a system of emulation must doubtless work good, both as regards the increase of government agency, the acquisition to the Company of educated officials, and the sympathy of interest created between the governors and the governed. But in the absence of all the vital motives of religion, I see in the system only one of those ordinary steps such as legislative prudence would for its own sake adopt, and one quite independent of the duty upon which the inculcation of Christian knowledge and Christian principles alone rests. The dedication of man's rational powers to the knowledge of truth and morality, is the avowed object of Christian education; it does not merely elevate the intellect, but directs it aright, enlisting the understanding in the defence of rectitude; while it enriches the mind with all that is useful or ornamental in knowledge, it gives due regard to objects of yet greater moment, averting evil which all the sciences together could not compensate, or producing good compared with which all the sciences together are but as nothing-worth; it produces men not only able to understand the measures of government, but morally disposed to appreciate its good intentions, and co-operate in their execution. True religion+ is, indeed, the best support of an executive, which being founded on just principles, proposes for its end the joint advancement of virtue and happiness, and by necessary consequences, co-operates with religion in the two great purposes of exalting the general character, and bettering the general condition of man. Of every such government, by consent and concurrence in a common end, religion is the natural friend and ally, at the same time that by its silent influence on the hearts of men, it affords the best security for the permanence of order and liberty, the essential principles of every such constitution. The Christian fosters such liberty, not by idle and theoretical principles of natural equality and sovereignty of the multitude, but by planting in the breast the powerful principles of self-government-principles far higher as springs of action than any worldly motives and feelings. "The fruitful source of sedition and crime," says De Fellenberg, "is the erroneous education of the people; in the absence of worthy motives, vice necessarily accumulates with poverty:" the mind, destitute of fixed principles, either broods in listlessness, or seeks activity in the acquisition of gain and applause however dishonest, by means however base. It is said, indeed, by

cf "Whom shall ye teach knowledge? and whom shall ye make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept," &c. Isa. xxxviii. 9, 10.

+ cf. Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws, vol. i. b. 24. "The Christian religion, which ordains that men should love each other, would, without doubt, have every nation blessed with the best civil, the best political laws; because these, next to religion, are the greatest benefits that men can give or receive."

some moralists, that although industry and temperance may derive their ulterior and more weighty sanctions from religion, still they powerfully recommend themselves by the health they preserve, and by the comforts they bestow. But still to temperance religion gives the stability of principle, and to industry the incentive of duty; and those two virtues, when unsupported by her invigorating influences, are incapable of resisting the allurements of indolence and the impetuosity of passion.

Let civilization, then, (so called) and Christianity, be diffused together by a system of religious education, admitting as an ingredient a certain amount of secular information. Let the "inertia" of the Hindu be overcome by transfusing through the mass of the people the "vis viva" of knowledge, but at the same time "let the children be taught of the Lord."*

Such a combination must ever prove superior to the cold and unedifying instruction obtained in institutions, which contain not in themselves the means of their own corrective. A real sympathy of feeling and belief is thereby inculcated and cherished, which, combined with true knowledge, cannot put prove the ultimate ground of a full assurance in the truth and practice of Christianity; in practice, I say, for in Christianity religion is not divorced from righteousness, but a high and faultless example illustrates her precepts, and imparts the most engaging beauty to the dead letter of the law. It does not fall within the scope of our Essay to enter into details concerning the nature of the secular knowledge to be imparted; whether, for instance," the leading principles of our literature and science should be transferred, by translation, into the Vernacular tongue," or "whether European philosophy should be communicated through the medium of the English language," or whether, "since an European education presents but little scope for native attainments, while it little fits them for the ordinary routine of native society, a native education should be adopted." With regard, however, to the other, the Christian department, this much we may affirm, that from a comprehensive view of the native character as modified by the Brahminical system; from the feebleness of impression on all youthful minds in matters of religion; from the inertia of the Hindu character, and obliterating tendency of heathenism; from the pressing wants and growing necessities of such a society; from the catalogue of past failures for want of a permanent process; it must be judged essential towards securing the full benefits of Christian education, that above the merely elementary schools, higher institutions should be founded for the purpose of turning the former to account, by drawing the noblest and brightest spirits into cooperation with us, and not throwing them back on their original ignorance, from want of opportunities of applying their knowledge.

But we need not refer to hypothesis or analogy, when we have before us such a system practically realized in elementary schools as connected with the high school of Madras, or the still higher institution of Bishop's College;† by such a gradation education works out and developes its own propagation, and by rearing a qualified native agency is not left to depend on home for labourers."

The view expressed in the following extracts has been very often expressed before; but we confess that the longer we consider such matters, the more are we convinced of its unsoundness:—

"And here we may remark, that amidst all the extravagance of the Hindu

cf. Isa. liv. 13.

† cf. Note D. Appendix.

religion, the several modes of Divine interposition, prophecy and miracles, visions and inspiration, the assumption of man's nature in semblance or by actual incarnation, are familiar to the pages of the Vedas:* whereby the difficulty in diffusing Christian doctrine and teaching is considerably lessened. For we have not now to bend the native mind to a belief of such truths in the abstract, but merely to the acknowledgement that what is actually related of such matters in our Scriptures, is clear, evident, and wholly divested of every thing extravagant, and contrary to belief. The facts alone have now to be insisted on. And here I feel assured, that with the learned amongst the Hindus, the investigation of the Sanskrit will effect a good deal towards this conviction. Long buried as it has been by the desolating "lava of successive invasions," much has already offered itself to the investigation of our scholars of a most gratifying and instructive character. Scarcely, indeed, is this "literary Herculaneum" entered, and fragments and remains of great weight and beauty meet us in every direction, relics of former ages, and wonderfully confirmatory of the antediluvian notices in the Mosaic writings. I forbear, however, to trace any fanciful analogies between the Hebrew and Hindu and even the Christian Scriptures. But I feel confident in the belief, that when all the corruptions are at length removed, which a long series of ages has heaped upon the primitive Creed of the world, we shall be acknowledged to have drawn from the same fountain, and to be the inheritors of the same traditions."

That there are many things in the Hindu Books which are clearly corruptions of primevally revealed truths, we are not at all disposed to deny; but that these place the Missionary upon any considerable vantage-ground is a position contradicted, as we believe, by all experience. Far more likely are they to produce the effect that similar analogies, real or supposed, between the Christian religion and the Greek mythology and philosophy did certainly produce in the third and succeeding centuries, the effect of corrupting and vitiating the pure Christian doctrine. The natural man, however aided, receiveth not the things of the spirit of God.

* Qu. Puranas? Ed. C. R.

+ cf. Halhed's Code of Gentoo, p. 17, where the doctrine of Atonement is said to be preserved in its proper type in their "Ashummeed Tugg."

SANDERS AND CONES, TYPS., No. 8, MISSION ROW, CALCUTTA.