238 ESSAY ON 



a Christian. Whether he was sincere or not, is not 

 now the question: this was at least his ostensible 

 pretext. He never forced the Christians, in his own 

 dominions, to renounce Christ; but he wanted them 

 all to conform to the opinions of Nestorius, which 

 he favoured greatly. In short, he has been supposed 

 to have been a Christian : and certainly he had once 

 an idea of becoming a convert : for he consulted the 

 most respectable persons about him on that subject; 

 but they disapproved of it, for this single reason it 

 seems, that the Christians in general, were a perfi- 

 dious and faithless race. When he took Jerusalem, 

 instead of defiling and destroying the pale of the 

 true cross, he sent it to his beloved queen, who was 

 a Christian, under the care of the venerable Zacha- 

 RiAs, ^ditn2LVch o^ Jerusalem. Neither can I believe, 

 that he sold 90,000 Christians to the Jews; and that 

 the latter bought them for no other purpose, but to 

 put them to death next day in cold blood. 



Khosru, having taken Heraclius prisoner, made 

 peace with him,' and agreed to release him, on his 

 paying a certain sum of money. Heraclius feigned 

 that he could not raise that sum, unless he was al- 

 lowed to go and borrow it. Khosru set him at 

 liberty, on his pledging his word that he would re- 

 turn: but Heraclius never did, and employed that 

 money in raising another army. All those calumnies 

 were invented by Heraclius and his adherents, in 

 order to exasperate his own subjects, against Khosru 

 and the Persians. 



But let us return to the MdhratAs: According to 

 the Pauranics, Parasu'-Ra'Ma, having extirpated 

 the Cshettris, and filled the earth with blood, wanted 

 to perform a' sacrifice; but could find no Brahmen 

 to assist, on account of his being defiled with the 

 effusion of so much human blood. As he was stand- 



