the

sent the upper Solstice; and Pushan, riding on his goat, lower, on capricorn. Such a position they actually held between 500 and 600 B. C. Vedic astronomy therefore was of the rudest. How baseless are the notions of it derived from the Puranic age may be judged of by the fact, that Bentley, from astronomical observations, places Rama about 900 years before Christ, and Krishna 600 years after the Christian era. We suspect he really wrote 600 before it.

There is a curious abstract of Vedic astronomy in the 2nd Ashtaka, Vol. 2, pp. 126, &c., of which the following is an epitome. "I have seen the Lord of men with seven sons. Sayana explains these to be the seven solar rays, whatever that may mean. Compared with other passages it would really seem to mean the seven colours of the spectrum. In vol. 1, p. 62, there is a dis.. tinct allusion to the Zodiacal light.

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The 2nd verse shows that they had a week of seven days. They yoke the seven to the one-wheeled car: one horse, named seven, bears it along."

The 11th and 48th verses intimate the division of the year into 12 months, 360 days, or 720 days and nights. "The felloes 'are are twelve; the wheel is one-within it are collected 360, "which are, as it were moveable and immoveable," v. 48. "Seven hundred and twenty children in pairs abide in it (the 'twelve spoked wheel.")

For the cycle of five years, the earliest in India, we have " all 'beings abide in this five spoked revolving wheel." V. 13.

They divided the year into three seasons, as we now do, the hot and cold weather, and the rains; and into six (perhaps a more ancient division) of two months each. The earliest names known to us for these are the following, whether they were Vedic names is another question:-Vasanta (spring or flowery,) Grishma (the hot season,) Varsha (the rainy,) Sarada (the sultry season,) Hemanta (the frosty season,) and Sisira (the dewy season.) The Hemanta indicates a Northern people; and the whole arrangement reminds one of the French Directory, with its Floreal, Germinal, &c. For the three seasons, verse 2nd tells of "the three axled wheel:" for the six of two months each, and the one intercalary month, we find in v. 15,-" of those that are born together, sages have called the seventh the single born; for six are twins, and are moveable, and born of the gods." The luni-solar year and ascending and descending signs are noticed in verse 19, ending "Those (orbits) with thou, Soma and Indra, (the Moon and Sun) hast made, bear along the worlds." When, in a Sukta abounding in such minute details, we find no notice of the 27 or 28 lunar mansions, we may be very sure they were not known to the writer, and are therefore later than the latest JUNE, 1859.

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Vedic times. Any observations therefore, pretended to be founded on them, can only be forgeries, or parts of that elaborate system of computing backwards in later ages which has given a fictitious antiquity to the astronomy of the Hindus.

The Sukta from which we have quoted, is given to Rishi Dirgha-tamas, the son of Mamata: in other words, "long conti'nuing ignorance, the son of egotism," evidently a name for the nonce." It is very long, containing 52 verses, full of mysticism and fancy, and not without gleams of poetical genius. It has been asked how long time should be allowed for the interval between the rude, hearty, inartificial Vedic hymn, and the subtle and elaborate Upanishad. Unless the Suktas, ascribed to Drighatamas, are an interpolation, there was no interval at all. They are in form and substance an Upanishad, differing only from the other Upanishads in the absence of the puerility and the unutterable filth that characterize Brahminic literature. In the Brihad Aranyaka alone, we find page after page which the translator dared not render into English. The Vedic hymns are rarely coarse, still seldomer indelicate, and never filthy. That came in with Siva-personified foulness.

We cannot here enter on the interesting field of comparative philology; nor is it necessary. There is no dispute that the language of the Vedas and of the Persepolitan inscriptions was substantially the same.

We now take leave of the Rig-Veda, and submit the views which we have suggested, for the decision of those qualified to judge.

ART. VIII.—The Life and Times of Carey, Marshman and Ward, embracing the History of the Serampore Mission. By JOHN CLARK MARSHMAN. In two Volumes. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts. 1859.

THE prevalent feeling in this country in regard to Mission work is undoubtedly one of resignation. No class now ventures openly to deride or discountenance the object to be attained. Here and there, perhaps, some Hindooized European may still be found, who declares Christianity little better than Hindooism, holds Missionaries to be overpaid hypocrites, and would if he dared subject the "saints" to penal legislation. More frequently officials may be discovered who believe the Empire in itself so rotten, and religious discussion so politically dangerous, that their fears render them actively antagonistic" to the slightest. ' tendency to a proselytizing tone." Still more common are the men of decorous lives and unimpeachable "experience" who hold the attempt to convert, foolish or wise in other lands, a waste of power in Hindostan. This section includes many who are sincerely desirous of seeing Missionaries prosper, provided they have no trouble and are not unduly taxed, and whom success would warm into something like a temporary enthusiasm. On the other hand there are few now, even of the warmest friends of Missionary effort who look forward to any immediate result. There is perhaps not one, worker or layman, who dare affirm that India will be converted within the century. They are content to abide the will of the Lord, but manifest amidst their patient trust precisely the feeling entertained by the worldly section of the community. The latter hold the work good, even emphatically good, and to be pursued, subscribe when convenient, afford individual Missionaries every encouragement, resent any official check placed upon their efforts, but expect nothing. The disparity between the labour expended and the result obtained, the slight impression Christianity has made upon the mass of Asiatics, the low character of the majority of converts, the egregious vanity which obscures the virtues of the few, and above all the rooted conviction of white men that something more than Christianity is necessary to turn "natives" into men, all these causes have combined to produce a feeling of utter hopelessness. That God will one day reveal his power, and that preaching is meanwhile a duty, are principles they accept. But they accept them as they accept the doctrine of non-resistance, of the unholiness of war, of the obligation of forgiveness, as things absolutely true, but which will never be carried out in their day. They are consequently wholly without energy in

the cause, subscribe-but not liberally, approve-but lend no personal aid, read reports-but never bring the weight of their opinion to bear upon Missionary bodies. The public dictates arrangements in finance, but it never presses for any special Missionary arrangement, never attempts to compel any particular course of action,-as for example a parochial concentration of effort, a pet notion of said public-never even suggests disapproval at the choice of unfit or disqualified Missionaries for the work. One plan is in the public belief as good as another, for all are righteous and all will fail. One man is as good as another, for none without miracles will succeed, and the miracle may be vouchsafed to Balaam as well as to Elijah. The apostle and the professional, the Missionary whose tongue is tipped with fire, and the Missionary who can preach in no language but his own, are accepted with equal respect, and equal coldness. The Indian world, in fact, on Missions is simply resigned.

We may discuss hereafter to what extent this feeling, which though it resembles indifference is in fact widely apart from it being positive and not negative, is justified by existing facts. At present our object is simply to point to the narrative which affords a title to this article as an admirable corrective to a state of thought which, however natural, is to be regretted. Mr. Marshman's work-the "Lives of Carey, Marshman and Ward"is not simply a great contribution to Protestant Hagiology. It is a history of the Missionary cause during its first struggles, of its toilsome march up the Hill Difficulty before it reached that dangerous because enticing plateau, that pleasant arbour where one loses the roll, where it now appears to pause. There is no difficulty which now besets Missions which these three men did not meet and in large measure overcome. There is no difficulty which can impede any undertaking, be the obstacle social, or personal, or political, whether it spring from religious bigotry or profligate licence, whether it be created by the envy of friends or the malignant calumnies of opponents, by the direct hostility of power or the silent hostility of circumstances, which they did not survive. And when, in the fulness of time, the labourers begin to reascend, when in the course of ages they draw nearer to that summit on which the sunshine from on high perpetually rests, there will be we believe no impediment in their path which the Serampore Missionaries had not foreseen, no chasm for which they had not planned a bridge. Wise as they were however it is not wisdom which is to be learnt from the story of their lives, or we could spare the tale. There is wisdom enough in a dozen sentences of St. Paul to feed all the Missions these generations are likely to see established. The assurance which those lives convey is that effort is not resultless, that the difficulties are

not insuperable, that if in the faith of the Most High we have the courage to endure and to attempt, the patience and the effort are certain of their reward.

William Carey, the founder of Missions, was in 1786 a cobbler, and a bad one. That he was a cobbler we know from his own repeated statement, made without humility as without exultation. That he was a bad one may be guessed from the fact that while a good workman could make four shillings a day he could barely earn bread to eat. He had to hawk his shoes about on his back, but with their sale, and some trifle of stipend as minister of a little congregation at Moulton, he still had the utmost difficulty in getting enough. He carried traces of that discipline to the grave, one of the most conspicuous being that utter fearlessness of poverty, that cool determined contempt for anything the future could do to him, which men of the day so universally want. Though thus engaged he seems to have acquired some store of knowledge. He was fond of reading, knew a little Latin, and had picked up here and there some acquaintance with Geography, the study which of all others seems most to embarrass the unlettered Englishman. Mr. Marshman calls his knowledge at this time extraordinary. It may have been for his time and position, but we suspect the boundless acquirements of later years shed back an unreal radiance over this period of his life, and that, save in one respect, he differed little from dozens of reading artisans, from Lackington for example who in a similar position devoted equal energy to the lower task of accumulating a fortune. That one respect however changed the course of Carey's fortunes. Throughout his career, whether wearily teaching unruly cubs their alphabet, or making bad shoes, or translating Hebrew, or lecturing in Sanscrit before Marquis Wellesley, one passion pervaded his life. It was the desire to reveal Christ to men who knew not of his message. A strong natural benevolence had been intensified by deep piety, and warmed and elevated by the grace of God, until his heart glowed with that settled fervour which has animated few men since the days of the Apostles, but which, wherever found or however manifested, whether compelling Whitfield to carry the word of life to the heathen of England, or urging Xavier into the secret recesses of Asia, or driving John Howard into the chosen homes of pestilence and crime, or lending Wilberforce strength to stand up against the friends of his youth, and plead to angry eyes and brazen brows the cause of the slave, has always been ultimately resistless. This was the key at once to his powers and his career. Whatever he knew-and he did not know a great deal it was not knowledge which compelled him, a