one has ventured to eulogize the virtues, or defend the religious practices of the Hindoos. In the second place, they established schools for the education of the youth of India, both male and female; and thus they have succeeded, to a very considerable extent, in diffusing both scientific and biblical knowledge, which is noiselessly but effectively rescuing them from the dominion of the debasing ignorance and superstition under which their forefathers had been living from time immemorial. And no one doubts, who is at all conversant with the present state of things in India, but the rising generation will far surpass any preceding one, in mental acuteness, in knowledge, and in moral character. In the third place, by their writings, their preaching, and their intercourse with the natives, they have proved useful pioneers in clearing the way for the peaceable introduction of the laws promulgated by the British government for the suppression of many of those cruel practices to which I have already alluded. In the fourth place, without employing any undue modes of attack and exposure, they have succeeded, to a very considerable extent, in shaking the confidence of the Hindoos in the truth of their national faith; and a powerful conviction is impressed on the Indian mind--an impression which is becoming deeper and deeper every day--that the days of their mythology are numbered, and that ere long its humiliation and subversion will be achieved. And, in addition to these proofs and indications of their success, I have to report another of their triumphs, and that refers _to your own fraternity_--the conversion of many of our own countrymen, who, on their settlement in India, became first speculative, and then practical unbelievers--rejecting, as visionary or fabulous, the faith of their early training, and often distinguishing themselves by their virulent hostility to the Christian missionary and his labours; but who now zealously co-operate with him in his exertions to spread the knowledge of the way of salvation." "To you, these doings of your missionaries are splendid triumphs in confirmation of the Divine origin of that faith, which restricts the bestowal of a state of future blessedness to the comparatively few who believe in Jesus Christ; but to me they appear nothing more than the natural consequences of a well-concerted attack on a long-established and nearly worn-out order of things, which we know invariably results in dividing popular opinion. On all such occasions _Divide and conquer_ is the motto, and when this is done, then the pruning off from the old stock of belief and opinion, and the engrafting on the new one, is an operation as natural as it is easy. Human nature is given to change; the love of it is an essential element in our mental constitution, and nothing is more common than going from one extreme to another, or more likely than the change from Brahminism or Buddhism to the faith of Christianity."