rning, and
manners of the Hindoos, p. 48; quoted by Dr. Robertson, Hist. Dis.
concerning Ancient India, p. 236.)

I lament as much as any man the little progress which Christianity has
made in these countries, and the inconsiderable effect that has followed
the labours of its missionaries; but I see in it a strong proof of the
Divine origin of the religion. What had the apostles to assist them in
propagating Christianity which the missionaries have not? If piety and
zeal had been sufficient, I doubt not but that our missionaries possess
these qualities in a high degree: for nothing except piety and zeal
could engage them in the undertaking. If sanctity of life and manners
was the allurement, the conduct of these men is unblameable. If the
advantage of education and learning be looked to, there is not one of
the modern missionaries who is not, in this respect, superior to all the
apostles; and that not only absolutely, but, what is of more importance,
relatively, in comparison, that is, with those amongst whom they
exercise their office. If the intrinsic excellency of the religion, the
perfection of its morality, the purity of its precepts, the eloquence,
or tenderness, or sublimity, of various parts of its writings, were the
recommendations by which it made its way, these remain the same. If the
character and circumstances under which the preachers were introduced to
the countries in which they taught be accounted of importance, this
advantage is all on the side of the modern missionaries. They come from
a country and a people to which the Indian world look up with sentiments
of deference. The apostles came forth amongst the Gentiles under no
other name than that of Jews, which was precisely the character they
despised and derided. If it be disgraceful in India to become a
Christian, it could not be much less so to be enrolled amongst those
"quos, per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appellabat." If the
religion which they had to encounter be considered, the difference, I
apprehend, will not be great. The theology of both was nearly the same:
"what is supposed to be performed by the power of Jupiter, Neptune, of
Aeolus, of Mars, of Venus, according to the mythology of the West, is
ascribed, in the East, to the agency Agrio the god of fire, Varoon the
god of oceans, Vayoo god of wind, Cama the god of love." (Baghvat Gets,
p. 94, quoted by Dr. Robertson, Ind. Dis. p. 306.) The sacred rites of
the Western Polytheism we