r 



ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 51 



backward. But we would hope the best, and, without detract- 

 ing from the well-merited praise of yourselves and your pre- 

 decessors, we would rather believe, that possibly, from want of 

 sufficient experience of the character of the people, expressions 

 have proceeded from your pen, which set forth their declension 

 in a rather magnified form. It has long been found that they 

 are a people who have almost no knowledge of their heathenish 

 religion, not a single tenet of which they are able to state ; 

 knowing nothing more than that there are good and evil hours 

 to men, ascertained from certain prognostications, that the 

 heavenly bodies are the guardians of human life, which how- 

 ever they cannot in the least explain or account for, (supersti- 

 tions from which even many European protestants are not 

 free). Exorcism, transmigration of souls into certain animals, 

 distinctions of caste (if indeed this be a part of their religion) 

 are matters, from which, as experience teaches, they are easily 

 recovered by means of good instruction and even led to regard 

 them as ridiculous deceptions. We should also be cautious 

 lest we designate some as attached to heathenism, who may 

 not in reality be so, or of whom it cannot be asserted on good 

 authority ; for remember that not all the inhabitants of the 

 Galle district belong to the schools ; the majority are profes- 

 sed heathens ; that these publicly practice their superstitions 

 is obvious, but we should carefulty distinguish such as attend 

 our schools and churches, though it may be that some of the 

 former class creep in." 



In 1724 a Resolution of the Politic Council proposed that 

 since the vigorous prosecution of the translation of the Scrip- 

 tures into Singhalese was highly desirable, the Rev. Mr. Conyn 

 who had already translated the three gospels, should proceed 

 with the rest of the New Testament, and that he be assisted 

 by the Rev, Wetzelius, who had applied himself with success 



