had never assisted at an English service, we should find that, in spite of the simplicity and plainness of its language, it failed to convey to the uninitiated a clear idea of what he ought and what he ought not to do in church. The ancient Indian ceremonial, however, is one of the most artificial and complicated forms of worship that can well be imagined; and though its details are, no doubt, most minutely described in the Brâhma_n_as and the Sûtras, yet, without having seen the actual site on which the sacrifices are offered, the altars constructed for the occasion, the instruments employed by different priests--the _tout-ensemble_, in fact, of the sacred rites--the reader seems to deal with words, but with words only, and is unable to reproduce in his imagination the acts and facts which were intended to be conveyed by them. Various attempts were made to induce some of the more learned Brahmans to edit and translate some of their own rituals, and thus enable European scholars to gain an idea of the actual performance of their ancient sacrifices, and to enter more easily into the spirit of the speculations on the mysterious meaning of these rituals, which are embodied in the so-called Brâhma_n_as, or 'the sayings of the Brahmans.' But although, thanks to the enlightened exertions of Dr. Ballantyne and his associates in the Sanskrit College of Benares, Brahmans might have been found knowing English quite sufficiently for the purpose of a rough and ready translation from Sanskrit into English, such was their prejudice against divulging the secrets of their craft that none could be persuaded to undertake the ungrateful task. Dr. Haug tells us of another difficulty, which we had hardly suspected,--the great scarcity of Brahmans familiar with the ancient Vedic ritual: 'Seeing the great difficulties, nay, impossibility of attaining to anything like a real understanding of the sacrificial art from all the numerous books I had collected, I made the greatest efforts to obtain oral information from some of those few Brahmans who are known by the name of _S_rotriyas or _S_rautis, and who alone are the possessors of the sacrificial mysteries as they descended from the remotest times. The task was no easy one, and no European scholar in this country before me ever succeeded in it. This is not to be wondered at; for the proper knowledge of the ritual is everywhere in India now rapidly dying out, and in many parts, chiefly in those under British rule, it has already died out.' [Footnote 40: 'The Aitareya-brâhma_n_am of the Rig-veda,' edited and translated by Martin Haug, Ph.D., Superintendent of Sanskrit Studies in the Poona College. Bombay, 1863. London: Trübner & Co.]