"A horrid tragedy was acted on the 12th of September, 1807, at a place about three miles from Calcutta. A Brahmin died at the advanced age of ninety-two. He had twelve wives, and three of them were burned alive with his dead body. Of these three, one was a venerable lady, having white locks, who had been long known in the neighbourhood. Not being able to walk, she was carried in a palanquin to the place of burning, and was then placed by the priests on the funeral pile. The two other ladies were younger; one of them of a very pleasing and interesting countenance. The old lady was placed on one side of the dead husband, and the two other wives laid themselves down on the other side; and then an old Brahmin, the eldest son of the deceased, applied the torch to the pile, with unaverted face. The pile suddenly blazed, for it was covered with combustibles; and this human sacrifice was completed amidst the din of drums and cymbals, and the shouts of the Brahmins." "What horrid rites!" exclaimed Mr. Roscoe. "I fear they have been too long practised to be easily destroyed. I think Christianity ought to be established in India, for the moral benefit of our countrymen. Many of them go out when young--when their passions are strong--and when they have but very faint conceptions of the nature or the importance of religion; and as there are no Sabbaths--no religious ordinances or instruction--they must be in great spiritual danger from the contagion of evil by which they are surrounded." "I was intimately acquainted," said Mr. Guion, "with a very amiable young man, the son of a pious solicitor, who went to India, where he remained ten years, and then returned. He called on me some time ago, and I derived much information from him; but I was grieved to find, by his own confession, that he had become a deist. I asked him if his deism was the result of any fair and earnest investigation; and he very honestly said, 'No, I found my belief in the Divine origin of Christianity becoming weaker and weaker when I was separated from its ministry and institutions, till at length it became extinct; and though I have sometimes made an effort to recover it, yet I have not been able to do so.'" "But," said Mr. Roscoe, "though the establishment of Christianity in India might preserve our countrymen from infidelity, yet I do not think we can calculate on bringing over the natives to embrace it." "Why not? Is the conversion of a modern pagan to the faith of Christ more difficult than the conversion of an ancient one? If Greece and Rome were subdued by the preaching of the gospel, who can despair of India?" "If we had the same miraculous powers as those with which the apostles were endowed, we might anticipate similar results; but we have not; and I confess that, though I approve of the motive which originates and supports missionary institutions, yet I do not think they will ever prove successful."