Whatsoever may be said or thought of the various religions which have prevailed throughout the world, there is one thing about which there can be no misunderstanding; that is, that the Brahminism of India and the Christianity of Christ can not be united together harmoniously. There are many reasons for this, apparent to every intelligent mind, but a few only are sufficient for present purposes. It has always been the central idea of the former that Brahma should be worshiped through a multitude of divinities, representing each passion and emotion of the mind; and that his wrath shall be appeased by sacrificial offerings, even of human beings, in order to reach total annihilation as the highest and most perfect state of beatitude after death; whereas the central idea of Christianity is that worship is due only to one God, the Author of all being and the Sovereign of the universe, so that when man shall reach "the last of earth," his spirit shall enter upon immortality. Brahminism held India for centuries in degrading bondage, and Christianity was designed to lift mankind to a higher plane of being. This belief was universal among all Christians, howsoever they may have differed in forms of faith and modes of worship; and none were louder in its profession than the Jesuits, who pretended that they alone were worthy to occupy the missionary field, and were specially and divinely set apart to spread the gospel among all heathen peoples. In carrying on their work, however, in India, they violated their solemn vow of fidelity to the Church by casting aside every pretense of Christianity, and openly, but with simulated professions of Christian zeal, adopting the idolatrous practices common to the natives. They shamelessly cast aside the profession of Christianity as if it were a thing of reproach, and performed with alacrity the most revolting Hindoo rites, seemingly as regardless of the obligation of obedience to the Church as of their own dignity and manliness of character. They substituted fraud, deceit, and hypocrisy for that open, frank, and courageous course of conduct which a sense of right never fails to suggest to ingenuous minds. They unchristianized themselves by becoming Brahmins and pariahs, crawling stealthily and insidiously into the highest places, and sinking with equal ease and skill into the lowest and most degrading. Even in this enlightened and investigating age, many intelligent people will wonder whether or no these things are possibly true, inasmuch as they shock so seriously every sense of personal honor and religious duty. But the verifications of them are sufficiently abundant to remove all possible doubt, furnished, as they are, not alone by the authors of general history, but by those friendly to the Jesuits, and usually prompt to apologize for them.