rofessional men; or whether they are reverenced
for their supposed holiness; or for their real superiority in learning;
or whether the case wears the lowest aspect of all--when the clergy are
merely the jugglers and puppet-masters of the multitude. A patient
consideration of this will lead to a pretty safe conclusion as to the
progress the people have made in knowledge, and the spiritual freedom
which it brings;--a freedom which is at once a virtue and a cause of
virtue.

The observer must note what the clergy themselves consider their
function to be;--whether to guide individual minds; or to cultivate
theological and other studies, in order to place their results at the
disposal of the minds with which they have to deal; or to express in
worship the feelings of those minds; or to influence the social
institutions by which the minds of the people are modified; or to do any
other of the many things which the priests of different countries, and
ages, and faiths, have in turn included in their function. He will note
whether they are most like the tyrannical Brahmins, who at one
stroke--by declaring the institution of Caste to be of divine
authority--obtained boundless control over a thousand generations,
subjecting all intellects and all hands to a routine which could be
easily superintended by the forty thousand of the favoured priestly
race; or whether they are like the Christian clergy of the dark ages, a
part of whose duty it was to learn the deepest secrets of the proudest
and lowliest,--thus obtaining the means of bringing to pass what events
they wished, both in public and private life;--or whether they are like
such students as have been known in the theological world,--men who have
not crossed the threshold of their libraries for eighteen years, and who
are satisfied with their lives, if they have been able to elevate
Biblical science, and to throw any new light on sacred history;--or
whether they are like the American clergy of the present day, whose
exertions are directed towards the art of preaching;--or whether they
are like the ministers of the Established Church in England, who are
politically represented, and large numbers of whom employ their
influence for political purposes. Each of these kinds of clergy must be
yielded by a particular state of society, and could not belong to any
other. The Hindoos must be in a low degree of civilization, and sunk in
a deadly superstition, or they would tolerate no Brahm