to the end of October 1804, which amounted to 115, in six months. This report was made by persons appointed by the professor of the Shanscrit and Bengal languages, in the college of Fort William. By an account taken in 1803, the number of women sacrificed, during that year, within thirty miles round Calcutta, was 275.

The same reverend author, Dr. Buchanan, informs us that when the Marquis Wellesley was governor general of India, having been informed that "the Hindoos had a religious rite, consecrated by custom, of sacrificing children, in consequence of vows, by drowning them, or exposing them to sharks and crocodiles; and that twenty three persons had perished in the month of January, 1801, he immediately passed a law, declaring the practice to be murder punishable by death. The law is intitled, A regulation for preventing the sacrifice of children at Saugor, and other places, passed by the governor-general in council, on the 20th of August, 1802. The purpose of this regulation was completely effected: not a murmur was heard on the subject, nor has any attempt of the kind come to our knowledge since." This will certainly reflect the greatest honor on the humanity of that nobleman to the latest posterity. And if the same energetic measures were adopted, the horrid and

abominable practice of burning women alive at the death of their husbands, in the British dominions, would cease for ever.

By other gentlemen of respectability, and undoubted veracity, who have resided in India many years, I have been informed that the missionaries sent from this country to convert the natives to christianity, have at certain times had conferences with the chief men among them who reside in the British dominions. They have set forth the beauty of the religion of Christ, and the whole plan of salvation; which, when they have patiently heard, they answer thus: You have set forth, in a very engaging manner, the superiority of the religion you profess, but we do not see that the professors of the religion of Christ, who reside among us, prove by their lives and conversation, that these things are true. When we go into our temples, we take off our shoes, and appear before our God with that reverence which is due to him who fills the universe with his presence. When our worship is ended, we return to our homes, considering we have been paying our vows, not to the stones of which our altar is built, but to the invisible God: we injure none, nor do we condemn others for thinking differently on these subjects. But when your people go into your temples, though you inform

us that they believe God to be present, yet they conduct themselves as though they were in a place of amusement. When your worship is ended,

they go to riot and drunkenness, making use of every possible means to deceive others, and to gratify their unconquered inclinations, though it be the ruin of the unfortunate sufferers, who unhappily fall in their way. With these proofs of the lamentable conduct of the professors of your religion before our eyes, we do not see that we should gain any thing by changing our sentiments": there is no inducement for us to forsake the ancient profession of our venerable fathers.

When the missionaries inform them that there are two descriptions of professors among Christians, viz. those who worship God in sincerity with a pure devotion, and those who are careless concerning this matter; they reply, that it would not be pleasing to God, should they meet before him and worship in sincerity, in the company of others, who, to their certain knowledge, were living in open violation of the precepts of morality, and blaspheming the very God, whom they pretended to worship. I shall here extract a paragraph from the Rev. Dr. Buchanan's Christian Researches in India, which justifies the above remarks. Page 50, he says, "the missionaries told me that religion had suffered much

in Tranquebar of late years, from European infidelity, which was therefore hostile to the conversion of the Hindoos. It florishes more among the natives of Tanjore, and in other provinces where there are few Europeans, for we find that European example, in the large towns, is the bane of Christian instruction."

But there are other nations, in the more interior part of India, who worship idols literally. The idol Juggernaut is worshipped by immense numbers, who make a pilgrimage at their various feasts to the town of Juggernaut. On the 18th of June, at 12 o'clock, the idol is brought forth on a car sixty feet in height, amidst the acclamations of hundreds of thousands of deluded worshippers, who have resorted thither from various parts of the British dominions; so infatuated are these people, that many of them think it an honor to sacrifice themselves to this idol. This is said to be done in the presence of the company's servants, the country being under their jurisdiction. They have levied a tax' on this deluded people, which amounts to a great sum annually,

This tax was levied, according to Dr. Buchanan, p. 32, by the Bengal government, under “A regulation for levying a tax on pilgrims resorting to the temple of Juggernaut, and for the superintendance and management of the temple." Passed April 3, 1806.

sanctioning the worship of this idol, and permitting them to offer human sacrifices. Surely, the just judgment of God will fall on the heads of those, who are the authors and sharers of this bloody Molochian plunder.

THE

WORSHIP OF THE ANCIENT AFRICANS.

It has been supposed by some writers, that the descendants of Japhet peopled Europe; some might settle in this part of the world, though we have no satisfactory proof that this was so. But it will appear, if we consult the Hebrew scriptures, that a great part of his posterity were the first settlers in Africa.

The sons of Japhet were Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. Gen. x. 2. The grandsons of Japhet are also mentioned, who, with these, gave their names to their posterity, forming different nations, each preserving the rame of their progenitor. We are then informed in the fifth verse, as it stands in the translation, that, by these were the isles of the gentiles divided, in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations. But the word which is rendered gentiles, should be translated na