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which they are invested , doe 8 not extend , and ought not to extend , to the command pf the religious opinions of their subjects . They have respected , they have protected , the national religious . This was their duty as
governors , and they have performed it * But this diity was not contrary to their duty , as men and as Christians , of enlightening their subjects , raising them gently ta a purer religion , and preserving them , by public authority , from actions contrary to all morality , to all progress in civilization , which the law Las always a right to repress .
The English are now animated by a religious zeal , an ardour for proselytism , which has no parallel in their own history , or in that of other nations . The consequence is , that even their language is seldom free from that affectation of devotion which is
called cant > and which sometimes excites distrust . Nevertheless , this national feeling is completely stifled by the interest which it is believed the India Company has in preventing the progress of civilization and the development of the minds of its subjects . When Mr . Wilberforce proposed , in 1813 , to Parliament to endeavour to
introduce Christianity into India , as a source of other ameliorations , Mr . Marsh , who undertook to refute him , and to shew the danger of the introduction of Christianity , insisted
particularly " upon the advantage of the institution of castes to repress the restlessness of ambition and the impatience at obedience . " Mr . Charles
Grant , who , in concert with his brother , Mr . Robert Grant , lias shewn himself one of the most skilful and constant apologists for the India Company , is not less explicit in his desire to preserve the religion of the
Hindoos j to preserve also , by its means , that part of the system which prevents most efficaciously all progress of civilization , all enlargement of the mind . " The institution of castes , " says lie , " constitutes a source of securitv for the
permanence of our government in the East Indies which cannot be equalled in the history of the world ; and as it is not probable that mankind will ever sec such another phenomenon , it would be a great pity were we to take measures which might destroy it prematurely . Here the maxim which all
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politicians maintain , divide et impera , has b ^ en established in practice aud consecrated By ike hand of time . " Such is the theory of men in power , and their practice is conformed to it .
They continue to permit , if not to favour , the sacrifice of widows upon the funeral pile , with the dreadful accompaniments which have very lately occupied the public attention . Five or six hundred women are the victims
every year in British India , of an odious rite , which the civil government may and ought to prosecute as a murder . A glorious reform has , however , begun to spread among the Hindoos . A Bramiu , whom those who know India agree in representing as one of the most virtuous and
enlightened of men , Rammohxjn Roy , is exerting himself to restore his countrymen to the worship of the true God , and to the union of morality and religion . His flock is small , but increases continually . He communicates to the Hindoos all the progress
that thought has made amongst the Europeans . He is among them , by a much juster title than the Missionaries , the true Apostle of Christianity . He had undertaken a periodical
publication in his native tongue , not with any views of interest , to which his large fortune makes him a stranger , but to extend the doctrines of
civilization . He was encouraged in this noble undertaking by the last Governor of India , the Marquis of Hastings ; but in the month of April 1823 , Mr . Adam , the new ( pro tempore ) Governor-General , in concert with the
Judge of Calcutta , Macnaghten , suppressed all liberty of the press , and obliged the illustrious Rammohun Roy to renounce his journal .
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Lord Bvlingbroke on North-West Passage . 67
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SIR , IN this day of scientific discovery , invention and improvement , changes are insensibly taking place of which we are scarcely aware . I have sometimes amused myself with thinking " bow many of the coknmpri-plac . es of eloquence are thus , one after another .
taken away . Many a simile and many a trope which once figured in the pages of the learned , are now abandoned to the humblest class of writers , and will soon be found ( thanks to Mechanics' Institutes and similar csta-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1825, page 67, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2533/page/3/
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