323 



" In every view, political as well as religious, it is highly desir- 

 able that men of liberal education and exemplary piety should be 

 employed; who, by their manners, would improve the tone of 

 society in which they lived; and by the sacredness of their charac- 

 ter operate as a check on the tendency to licentiousness that too 

 frequently prevails. 



" The splendor of episcopal worship should be maintained 

 in India in the highest degree our church allows. On the natives, 

 accustomed to ceremonial pomp, and greatly swayed by external 

 appearances, it would impress that respect for our religion, of 

 which, I am sorry to say, they are chiefly by our neglect of it at 

 present destitute. The natural effect of which has been to excite 

 a doubt in the minds of the Hindoo of our own belief in that faith 

 we are so anxious to press upon him. 



" The native inhabitants may, indeed, from the sight of one 

 solitary church, believe that we have a national religion, but I 

 know of nothing that can give this information to the rest of our 

 eastern subjects. Whilst the Mussulman conquerors of India 

 have established mosques in every town of their dominions, the 

 traveller, after quitting Calcutta, must seek in vain for any such 

 mark of the religion of their successors." 



My opinions do not entirely coincide with those of Lord 

 Valentia respecting the insurmountable difficulty, or rather the 

 impossibility, of converting the brahmins and higher orders of Hin- 

 doos, as is evident throughout these volumes ; the cause of my 

 differing arises not only from my own observation in India, but 

 from what we know is now actually taking place in favour of 

 Christianity among the brahmins themselves. I acknowledge there 



