Offices of this nature may have been absurd, but were comparatively harmless. Other orders enjoyed the public reverence, whose prescriptive duties were at once vile and mischievous. To them it belonged to preside over mysterious observances, in the gloom of midnight or in the recesses of the cavern; to revel in mystic dances along the streets and highways; to encourage, in the votary, the wantonness of indiscriminate obscenity; to celebrate the orgies of libertine and drunken riot; and to promote, and perhaps to share, the carnal worship of the obscene and popular Venus.

But, while ministers were thus provided to preside over rites of riot and wantonness, or to maintain, with minute and punctilious accuracy, the various formalities of sacrifices and processions, what voice was heard in the temple to teach and to guide the people? What priest was to visit the afflicted and infirm, and to soothe their sufferings and their sorrows? Who was appointed to teach wisdom to the poor, and to lead the ignorant to truth and holiness? Who was to bring back error to virtue, to kindle charity in the bosom of the affluent, or to soothe expiring mortality with the hope of a future and better world? On the contrary, amid all this pomp and variety of priestly function, we discover little that is not insignificant and corrupt. The busy show, the splendid ceremony, and the magnificent festival, were, indeed, to occupy the attention, and indulge

The aruspices were called cappomantes, or prophets of smoke. In the course of their observations, the bowels of the victim were divided into two parts, the familiar and the hostile; and from the first were collected the destinies of friends, from the second of enemies. Godwin. Rom. Antiq. pp. 50, 51.

the zeal and the passions of the populace; and, occasionally, the hymn in honour of the gods, and the admonitory voice of the unbribed oracle, might have been heard with salutary emotions within the walls of the temple; but the rest was merely a splendid or frivolous formality, or an impious and corrupting imposition on the credulity of mankind; and, instead of institutions tending to form or strengthen the habits of virtue, or elevate the mind to a sense of its proper dignity, we discover only a superstition occupying its votaries in unmeaning rites, or prescribing observances which operated with fatal influence in kindling the passions and perverting and tainting the heart.

In the religious institutions, then, of Greece and Italy, we discover few traces either of pious or of moral wisdom. Age followed age, and lawgivers and pontiffs were multiplied, in the lapse of time, but religion was little corrected and improved. If any thing were added to the first inventions or plagiarisms of the early bard, there was no purity infused into a system radically defective and corrupt. The splendour may have been increased, but the mischief remained. Whatever was done to form the citizen, there was no attempt to educate the man; and the citizen himself, as far as religion was concerned, was rather amused than instructed, and rather occupied than enlightened. The consul, the statesman, the philosopher, and the pontiff, found it expedient to preserve, and to employ, in the mechanism of civic regulation, a superstition which they had not wisdom, or authority, or, perhaps, inclination, to reform; and the two most accomplished and lettered nations of antiquity were surrendered to an idolatry, which, however it might have aided the policy of

government, contributed in many instances to mislead, in none to heighten, the virtues of the people; and which, whatever were its festivities and pomps, can scarcely be preferred to the most barbarous religion that has ever been embraced by the folly, the stupidity, or the passions, of mankind.

SECT. II.

Religious institutions of the Hindus-The sacrifice of the widowMotives-The slaves of the deceased often consumed at his funeral pile-Rites of Juggernaut-Magnificent throne and decoration of the idol-Emblematic sculptures of his temple-Obscenity and ferocity of the votaries—Barbarous sacrifices-Expensive provision for the table and household of the god--Pilgrimages-The mischiefs and miseries which they produce-The priesthood-Their unrestricted powers-The wanton rites over which they presideThe subjection af the people to their will-The castes-Unalterable condition and functions of each-Consequence of the loss of caste-The oppressive and injurious despotism of the institutionDrfects and mischiefs of the whole ritual.

THE rites and institutions of the religion of the Hindu, are, like his gods, of a various, and frequently of a contradictory, character. They are gay, wanton, terrific, awful, or mischievous. But this incongruity does not render them less powerful in their effects. They extend in their influence through every rank, and pervade every engagement and intercourse of life. Habits, sentiments, persuasions, and passions, are created or modified by them; and they give its complexion, and almost its form, to every class of moral and of political association.

The priests and legislators by whom this religion was framed, seem to have consulted, in a very especial manner, the voluptuous temper of the people they

were ambitious to rule; and the rites they have prescribed are, often, and in the highest degree, sensual and obscene. The choultries, occasionally, are converted into theatres of debauch. The dance and the song of the festival accord with, and stimulate, the gross propensities of the voluptuous worshipper; and the zealous votary, inflamed by the artful wantonness of meretricious beauty, is to demonstrate the holy fervour of his zeal by the ample indulgence of his sensuality.

But the seductions of gaiety and of pleasure are not alone resorted to by the priest, for the maintenance or the extension of his influence. The Hindu institutions are to unite the awe and obedience of a stern fanaticism, with the flowing dissoluteness of pious libertinism. Deities, at once lascivious and cruel, are to be propitiated by correspondent ceremonies and rites. The allurements of beauty are to be occasionally forgotten in the sacrifice of blood; and the votary is to mingle the impressions of holy obscenity, with the fears or frenzy of a sanguinary superstition.

I. The rites of the funeral pile are considered as of especial importance in the Braminical religion. The widow, decorated for the occasion in magnificent robes, is led with mysterious solemnity to the scene of her suffering or of his glory. Thrice is she conducted round the pile on which is placed the body of her departed husband. An antient Bramin accompanies her steps, and, watching her trepidations, admonishes her weakness, and dictates her prayers*. The aid of intoxicating drugs is occasionally employed to counteract the fears and emo

Orme. Hist. Milit. Transact. vol. i. Dissertat.

tions of nature; and, according to the reluctance or acquiescence of the victim, the wrath or the blessing of the gods is announced by the inspired voice of the priest. When the instinctive terrors of the heart are thus mitigated or subdued, and the faith and fervour of superstition become complete, the dreadful solemnity is no longer delayed. The devoted woman is deprived of the ornaments of her dress. Her anklets, her rings, her bracelets, are distributed among her relatives. A few white flowers, the coronal of death, are twined in the jetty darkness of her hair. The flames are kindled, sometimes by her own hand. The unfeeling multitude behold, with shouts of exultation, the hideous solemnity. The shriek of the expiring sufferer is drowned in the dissonance of unnumbered voices; and the countenance, perhaps, of supplication and agony, and

The arms, contracted, now, in fruitless strife,
Now wildly at full length

Towards the crowd in vain for pity spread,*

are witnessed by the surrounding fanatics, not with the compassion of men, but with the delight of monsters t.

Sacrifices of this kind are encouraged by all the artifices of superstition, and of the priesthood. The Suttee, or highest sphere of felicity, is the place, according to the holy books of the Bramin, destined for the immortal residence of those who have burned themselves with their husbands. To the hope of recompense which is thus excited, is superadded the

4

I borrow willingly from a beautiful passage in the Curse of Kehaina.

+ Appendix, Note L. L.

Preface to Code of Gentoo Laws, p. 48.