The number of females sacrificed in the provinces of Cutch and Guzerat, amounted (as was before mentioned) to three thousand and upwards annually. "The Jarejalis," says Colonel Walker, "will sometimes remark, that their Gurus "(or Priests) are poor and despised; which

they made no scruple of attributing to the "sin of Infanticide, and from the wrath of "God for having the weight of that crime on "their heads. This singular opinion, expressed

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nearly in their own words, instead of pro

ducing an abhorrence of the act, has served "to confirm their idea, that they have nothing "to do with its responsibility and punishment." -Par. 189. It is worthy of remark, that in almost all countries, it is usual to impose the chief responsibility for national immorality on the Priests; and we think with much justice. The moral turpitude of the rites of Juggernaut is, in this way, excused by the people.-“ It is,” say they," the, sin of the Priests, not ours." In Christian countries, also, there is sometimes a secret persuasion in the minds of men, that the Priest preaches the doctrine of "the God of this world, and not the doctrine of Christ." But they try to justify themselves in listening to it, and in "conforming to the world." It is, say they, the sin of the Priest, not ours. It

will, we apprehend, be found an awful consideration at the bar of God to have entered into the Priest's office.

A Jarejah chief, by name HUTTAJEE, who had preserved his daughters, contrary to the custom, brought them to the British camp to be vaccinated. They were between six and eight years of age, but they wore turbans, and were dressed and habited like boys, to avoid the taunts and reproaches of the people!"As if ashamed or afraid of acknowledging "their sex, (even to the English) they assured "Colonel Walker that they were not girls; "and with infantile simplicity, appealed to "their father to corroborate their assertion."

Par. 137. How shall we be able rightly to comprehend the mental debasement of this people! No sooner doth God create an im mortal soul in a female form, than the parent destroys it! And if, by any means, the infant escape for a few years, she is contemplated as a reproach to their cast! And yet, abhorrent to natural feeling as this may appear, it is certain that it is only the extreme degree of a principle, which is common to all the nations of the earth where Christianity is not known,-namely, a disposition to degrade the female character.For unless a man can consider woman as a

partaker of the immortality of the Gospel, and "as being an heir together with him of the

grace of life,"-1 Pet. iii. 7,-he will not account her his equal, or as entitled to equal honour. He will estimate her being in the scale merely of brute strength, and of intellectual power; that is, he will consider her as his inferior, and as formed to be the slave of his pleasures.-And, we may add, the infidelity of Europeans tends directly to the same result. It is on record in the annals of nations, that philosophy, as well as idolatry, debased thus the female sex. Christianity alone ever did, Christianity alone ever can, give due honour to the Character of WOMAN, and exalt her to her just place in the creation of God.*

1

It will give pleasure to the Mothers in Great Britain to hear, that a translation of the Holy Scriptures is preparing for the inhabitants of Guzerat.†

* See, on this subject, Appendix to the "Eras of Light," preached, by the Author, before the University of Cambridge.

+ The Guzerattee has been cultivated by Mr. Drummond, Surgeon on the Bombay Establishment, who composed a Dictionary and Grammar in that language. And it appears, from the Reports of the Missionaries at Serampore, that they had

TANJORE.
JORE

.

THE Letters of KING GEORGE the FIRST to the Missionaries in India, will form a proper introduction to the account which it is now intended to give of the Christian Hindoos of Tanjore. The first Protestant Mission in India, was founded by Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, a man of erudition and piety, educated at the University of Halle, in Germany. He was ordained by the learned Burmannus, bishop of Zealand, in his twenty-third year, and sailed for India in 1705. In the second year of his ministry he founded a Christian Church among the Hindoos, which has been extending its limits to the present time. In 1714, he returned to Europe for a short time, and on that occasion was honoured with an audience by His Majesty George the First, who took much interest in the success of the Mission. He was also patronized by "the Society for promoting Christian

commenced a version of the Scriptures in Guzerattee. The Jarejahs are described by Governor Duncan, of Bombay, as "possessing but a very slight sense of religion; professing, "indeed, but little more than nominally the Hindoo faith, and living almost indifferent to the doctrines of any of the "Sastras."Moor's Infanticide, p. 39.

Knowledge," which was superintended by men of distinguished learning and piety. The King and the Society, encouraged the Oriental Missionary to proceed in his translation of the Scriptures into the Tamul tongue, which they designated "the grand work." This was indeed THE GRAND WORK; for wherever the Scriptures are translated into the vernacular tongue, and are opened and common to all, inviting enquiry and causing discussion, they cannot remain "a dead letter." When the Scriptures speak to a heathen in his own tongue, his conscience responds. "This is the word of God." How little is the importance of a version of the Bible in a new language understood by some. The man who produces a translation of the Bible into a new language, like Wickliffe, and Luther, and Ziegenbalg, and Carey) is a greater benefactor to mankind than the Prince who founds an Empire. For the "incorruptible seed of the "word of God" can never die. After ages have revolved, it is still producing new acces. sions to truth and human happiness.

In the year 1719, Ziegenbalg finished the Bible in the Tamul tongue, having devoted fourteen years to the work. The peculiar interest taken by the King in this primary endeavour to evangelize the Hindoos, will appear from