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proper to introduce several sublime passages from the Hindoo 

 scriptures into late publications. None can doubt of their sub- 

 limity; nor of their pious and moral sentiments, clothed with all the 

 beauty of oriental metaphor: but how few, among thirty or forty 

 millions of Hindoos, contemplate the beauties of the Shasta, or 

 practise the morality enjoined by the laws of Menu! This obliges 

 me to repeat an assertion from that code, formerly mentioned, 

 that " a brahmin, whether learned or ignorant, is a powerful divi- 

 nity; something transcendantly divine." Such a being, inflated 

 by pride and self-sufficiency, anticipates, no doubt, a glorious 

 situation in the Hindoo metempsychosis; but what becomes of 

 the poor Sudra, in another state of existence, who is not here 

 allowed any share in these spiritual blessings; nor is a brahmin, 

 by the same code, even permitted to give a Sudra temporal ad- 

 vice. Dr. Francis Buchanan, in numerous instances, relates the 

 opinion of the lower castes in India, respecting a future state; 

 from which we learn, that all their ideas of futurity are confused 

 and conjectural, and that some believe in annihilation. In con- 

 jectural confusion on this awful subject, the European unbeliever, 

 with all his wisdom and philosophy, is perhaps nearly on a par 

 with the unlettered Chandala. We know what the heathens of 

 antiquity thought of death, from the verses addressed by the em- 

 peror Hadrian to his departing soul: and we learn from other 

 records, that the same monarch having asked Secundus what 

 death was, received this memorable answer : " Death is eternal 

 sleep, the dissolution of the body, the rich man's fear, the poor 

 man's wish, an uncertain journey \" The first words of Secundus, 

 as most appropriate for the sad occasion, were placed over the 



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