“But there are many circumstances in the state of the idolatrous nations of the east, that discover a still later acquaintance with Divine revelation, than the time of Noah. Many coincidences in the fabulous histories of the Hindoos with the writings of the Old and New Testament, indicate that the forefathers of that race were not altogether ignorant of the subsequent circumstances of the church of God. Their present deplorable ignorance and error, cannot therefore, be said to arise from any appointment of the Almighty; but from their wilful neglect of those notices of his will with which they were originally favoured. The sins of the fathers are thus, in an especial manner, visited upon their children. The neglect of parental instruction, by a just connection between guilt and punishment, involves their posterity in ignorance, which is the parent of superstition, and the fruitful source of their miseries and their crimes. This view of the subject ought, therefore, to be kept distinctly in mind; that we may not charge God foolishly with being, in any other way than by the instituted order of connection between cause and effect, the author of that blindness of mind, and hardness of heart, which excludes the heathen from the divine favour. The declaration of God, by the prophet Hosea, respecting Israel, is true also of the heathen, though in a subordinate degree: ‘_Thou hast destroyed thyself_.’ “These observations are in a particular manner applicable to the idolatrous nations of India. In their present circumstances, viewed by the light of revelation, they evidently appear ‘without God and without hope in the world;’ not only as they are without Christ, but as their own religious views and feelings render them totally incapable of enjoying God, or of participating in the happiness of the heavenly state.” Then after reciting many of the superstitious practices of the heathen, and shewing that the efficacy of any religious rite which they might perform, was not regarded by them as being, in any moral sense, dependent on the state of mind in the worshippers; whilst on the other hand their idea of sin, being connected with the neglect of ceremonial observances, and not with moral delinquencies,--they allowed themselves in all kinds of sensual indulgences, without any compunctions of conscience or feelings of shame; Mr. Corrie proceeded to observe:--