Priests. Nearly the whole of their Churches in the Interior are under the superintendencé of what they call the Black Clergy, (the de scendants of Portuguese born in India,) who were educated and ordained at Goa. In the District of Tinnevelly alone there are Eight of these Priests, besides upwards of Sixty Native Catechists; and I have occasionally met with a well-educated man amongst them. But the majority are extremely ignorant; none of them know any thing of the Scripture; and frequently have I heard the poor people under their controul complain of their avarice and oppression. Whether such a Clergy are calculated to promote the interests of True Religion, I leave the Reader to judge!

Equally essential is it to the welfare of Christianity, to educate our Children in the precepts and principles of the Bible. But the Roman-Catholics have very few Schools in India of any description. In the Tinnevelly District, where there are 30,000 Members of that Communion, they have only one School, containing Forty Scholars. They will plead poverty (as they have done to me) in excuse for this neglect of the Rising Generation: but I have offered to establish Charity Schools for them*, and to appoint one of

* Under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society.

their own Congregation for the Master, provided they could find a man qualified to teach, and would allow him to conform to our Regulations. At one place I opened a School, under a Protestant Master, which succeeded well for some time; until the Priest interfered, chastised the Children, and reproved their Parents for allowing them to attend. The Scholars were then reduced to so small a number, that, after persevering for a few months, under the hope of their coming to a better mind, the Master was at length removed to a more promising Station. One Priest only had the liberality to allow me to open a School, for the benefit of the Children of his Congregation; and he permitted a Catechist of his own to become the teacher.

We may now easily account for the decline of Christianity in India, as promulgated by the Roman Catholics. M. Dubois may have felt the inconvenience arising from the People's incapacity to comprehend his Discourses, or even his own simple Catechism (pp. 68 and 125); but to complain of it, is to reproach himself and his Brethren for their neglect to cultivate their Converts' intellectual powers! What else could be expected, when so little pains are taken to instruct the adults in the true nature of the Christian Religion, or to educate the children in the rudiments of

knowledge, and train them up in Christian Principles? To have found Four, or even One, among 7000 or 8000, or any given number of persons so entirely neglected, capable of understanding a Christian Treatise or Discourse, would indeed have excited astonishment! This were looking for fruit from an uncultivated vineyard. Even allowing that those who first embraced the Roman-Catholic Faith were Spiritual Converts, (which is more than the Abbé himself requires us to concede,) yet how were it possible to preserve their Christian Character by such means as the Jesuits employed? Ceremonies, Images, Processions, &c. may dazzle the eye and captivate the mind, but can never inspire holy affections, or engraft one Scriptural Principle on the heart. And certainly the Hindoos, who change their own Religion for one laden with such Superstitions as these, are not likely to remain "stedfast in the Faith," when their personal comfort or safety are endangered by their Christian Profession. M,Dubois has given one instance of their apostacy under such circumstances (p. 74): and though, when the storm of Persecution blew over, the majority of them returned to the bosom of the Church, yet he has good reason for placing no greater confidence in their sta

bility, should the trial of their Faith ever be. repeated (p. 75.) But he ought to attribute the diminution of their numbers, and the degeneracy of those who continue to profess the Catholic Faith, to the neglect of their Priests to adopt proper means for their mental and religious improvement.

He is of opinion that Xavier's disappointment "ought to have been sufficient to damp the most fervent zeal of the persons disposed to enter the same career:" (p. 4.) This I concede, provided those persons were actuated by his principles, and depended upon such means as he employed. The Abbé expresses himself as 66 fully aware that a great many over-zealous Protestants may be disposed" "to maintain that the Catholic Religion being nothing but a corruption of the Religion of Christ, and its Worship a human invention, the Divine Assistance can never attend the propagation of it; and that its failure in the business of Proselytism cannot be a matter of surprise:" (p. 24.) He declines entering into this discussion; and, in a Private Letter, his Correspondent might courteously dispense with it: but, in publishing that Letter to the world, it was by no means foreign to his subject to disprove the Protestants' objection. Indeed, his Cause demanded it;

for this question is the very hinge on which the controversy turns. If he can prove that Popery is not a corruption of Christianity, and that the means used by the Papists for its diffusion through the world are lawful and scriptural, and the best adapted to promote the interests of real Religion; he will then have fair premises for his conclusion, that to endeavour to convert the Hindoos is an impracticable task. As a Protestant, I might claim the privilege of assuming, that the Cause of Christianity and that of Popery are distinct from each other; and that when the Missionaries of the latter Communion laboured to further the objects of the Holy See in India, it by no means followed that they even thought of " forwarding the interests of the Gospel," in the Protestants' acceptation of the term. But my argument does not require me to enter into the question. If the Abbé Dubois can prove that this assumption is untenable, it will turn the discussion in his favour: but certainly the onus rests with him.

All comparison, however, between Protestantism and Catholicism apart-I have only to shew, that the measures adopted by the Roman-Catholic Missionaries for the evangelizing of India are unwarranted, by