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"I have been applied to, to subscribe, seve"ral times since, and once before I left Eng

"land. The Catholic priests have been la

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bouring hard for nearly a century; but

"what have they done? Out of eighty mil"lions of Hindoos, how many proselytes "have been made? Sir J. Malcolm said at

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Murray's before several persons, that the "Padres, as he called them, had only made "six converts at Bombay during his time,

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and that even this black little flock forsook "their shepherds when the rum was out. "Their faith evaporated with the fumes of "the arrack. Besides, the Hindoos believe "that they have had nine incarnations: the "Missionaries preach, that a people whom "the Indians only know to despise, have had 66 one. It is nine to one against them, by "their own shewing.

"Another doctrine can never be in repute

among the Solomons of the East. It can"not be easy to persuade men who have had

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as many wives as they pleased, to be con"tent with one; besides, a woman is old at

What are men to

St. Anthonies.-I
A certain Signior

twenty in that country. "do? They are not all "will tell you a story. "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

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principal rôle, and is most troublesome to

"the Saint, most trying to his virtue. Very "few of the modern saints will have his for"bearance, though they may imitate him in "his martyrdom.

"I have been reading," said he one day, "Tacitus' account of the siege of Jerusalem, "under Titus. What a sovereign contempt "the Romans had for the Jews!

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Their

country seems to have been little better "than themselves.

"Priestley denied the original sin, and "that any would be damned. Wesley, the

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object of Southey's panegyric, preached the

"doctrines of election and faith, and, like all "the sectarians, does not want texts to prove "both.

"The best Christians can never be satis"fied of their own salvation. Dr. Johnson "died like a coward, and Cowper was near shooting himself; Hume went off the stage

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ments do not seem to have been clouded

A man

"by any fears of what was to come. "may study any thing till he believes in it. "Creech died a Lucretian, Burckhardt and "Browne were Mohammedans. Sale, the "translator of the Koran, was suspected of

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'being an Islamite, but a very different one

"from you, Shiloh *, (as he sometimes used "to call Shelley.)

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"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 Anychæan, or Anything-arian. “How do you like my sect? The sect of Anything-arians sounds well, does it not ?”

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* Alluding to 'The Revolt of Islam.'

Calling on him the next day, we found him, as was sometimes the case, silent, dull, and sombre. At length he said :

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"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

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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:

"LB

thought the question

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"set at rest in the History of the Decline

"and Fall,' but I am not so easily con

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vinced. It is not a matter of volition to "unbelieve. Who likes to own that he has "been a fool all his life,-to unlearn all that

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