"One mode of worship yields to another; no religion "has lasted more than two thousand years. Out of the eight hundred millions that the globe contains, only "two hundred millions are Christians. Query,-What is 66 66 to become of the six hundred millions that do not be lieve, and of those incalculable millions that lived before "Christ? 66 66 People at home are mad about Missionary Societies, "and missions to the East. I have been applied to, to subscribe, several times since, and once before I left Eng"land. The Catholic priests have been labouring hard for nearly a century; but what have they done? Out of 66 66 eighty millions of Hindoos, how many proselytes have "been made? Sir J. Malcolm said at Murray's before "several persons, that the Padres, as he called them, had 66 only made six converts at Bombay during his time, and "that even this black little flock forsook their shepherds "when the rum was out. "fumes of the arrack. 66 166 Their faith evaporated with the Besides, the Hindoos believe that they have had nine incarnations: the Missionaries preach, that a people whom the Indians only know to 66 despise, have had one. 66 by their own shewing. It is nine to one against them, "Another doctrine can never be in repute among the "Solomons of the East. It cannot be easy to persuade men "who have had as many wives as they pleased, to be content with one; besides, a woman is old at twenty in that 66 66 country. What are men to do? They are not all St. Anthonies.-I will tell you a story. A certain Signior "Antonio of my acquaintance married a very little round "fat wife, very fond of waltzing, who went by the name of "the Tentazione di Sant' Antonio. There is a picture, a "celebrated one, in which a little woman not unresembling my description plays the principal rôle, and is most "troublesome to the Saint, most trying to his virtue. Very few of the modern saints will have his forbearance, though they may imitate him in his martyrdom. 66 66 66 "I have been reading," said he one day," Tacitus' ac"count of the siege of Jerusalem, under Titus. What a sovereign contempt the Romans had for the Jews! Their country seems to have been little better than themselves. 66 66 66 Priestley denied the original sin, and that any would "be damned. Wesley, the object of Southey's panegyric, preached the doctrines of election and faith, and, like all "the sectarians, does not want texts to prove both. 66 "The best Christians can never be satisfied of their own "salvation. Dr. Johnson died like a coward, and Cowper was near shooting himself; Hume went off the stage "like a brave man, and Voltaire's last moments do not seem to have been clouded by any fears of what was to 66 come. A man may study any thing till he believes in "it. Creech died a Lucretian, Burckhardt and Browne were Mohammedans. Sale, the translator of the Koran, 66 was suspected of being an Islamite, but a very different one from you, Shiloh, (as he sometimes used to call Shelley.) "You are a Protestant-you protest against all religions. "There is T will traduce Dante till he becomes a "Dantist. I am called a Manichæan: I may rather be "called an Any-chæan, or an Anything-arian. How do you "like my sect? The sect of Anything-arians sounds well, "does it not?" Calling on him the next day, we found him, as was sometimes the case, silent, dull, and sombre. At length he said: - * Alluding to the Revolt of Islam.' 66 "Here is a little book somebody has sent me about Christianity, that has made me very uncomfortable: the reasoning seems to me very strong, the proofs are very staggering. I don't think you can answer it, Shelley; at "least I am sure I can't, and, what is more, I don't "wish it." Speaking of Gibbon, he said : thought the question set at rest in “ L— B——————— thought the "the History of the Decline and Fall,' but I am not so 66 easily convinced. It is not a matter of volition to un"believe. Who likes to own that he has been a fool all "his life, to unlearn all that he has been taught in his "youth? or can think that some of the best men that ever "lived have been fools? I have often wished I had been "born a Catholic. That purgatory of theirs is a comfort"able doctrine; I wonder the reformers gave it up, or did "not substitute something as consolatory in its room. It " is an improvement on the transmigration, Shelley, which "all your wiseacre philosophers taught. "You believe in Plato's three principles;-why not in "the Trinity? One is not more mystical than the other. I don't know why I am considered an enemy to religion, " and an unbeliever. I disowned the other day that I was of Shelley's school in metaphysics, though I admired "his poetry; not but what he has changed his mode of 66 thinking very much since he wrote the Notes to Queen "Mab,' which I was accused of having a hand in. I know, " however, that I am considered an infidel. My wife and "sister, when they joined parties, sent me prayer-books. "There was a Mr. Mulock, who went about the Conti"nent preaching orthodoxy in politics and religion, a "writer of bad sonnets, and a lecturer in worse prose,"he tried to convert me to some new sect of Christianity. He was a great anti-materialist, and abused "Locke." On another occasion he said : "I am always getting new correspondents. Here are "three letters just arrived, from strangers all of them. "One is from a French woman, who has been writing to me off and on for the last three years. She is not only a "blue-bottle, but a poetess, I suspect. Her object in L |