VII.-New English School at Banaras.

A letter recently received from Banáras contains the following paragraph respecting a building about to be erected there, for the purposes of education.

"We are about," says the writer, "to have here also, a new building for the English school, under the care of Mr. Nichols, for which Government has given 10,000 rupees, with the understanding that the natives are to assist in making up the amount necessary for completing it in a solid and substantial style. In this way, I trust, the cause of English education will advance rapidly, though, I fear the cause of Christ will not be much advanced by it; as in this, as in all other Government institutions, Christianity is not only merely not taught, for that is right, but it is persecuted, and if a boy will read a book or ask a question on it, or make it the subject of conversation, in the eyes of the sage conductors of the school it would be ground sufficient for a pretty sharp rebuke."

Gentlemen, my object in forwarding the foregoing paragraph, is to call attention to the part I have put in italics. Constituted as the Government of this country is in relation to the overwhelming majority of its subjects, it is too much to expect that it should do any thing directly to accelerate the conversion of the people to Christianity; and I for one neither ask nor desire such an exercise of its power and authority, as, in my opinion, it would be a violation of its solemn engagements, and in all probability be as productive of evil as of good, in leading to a hypocritical, or merely nominal profession of the Christian faith.

But while we do not ask its aid in the work of conversion, is it unreasonable to expect that, as a Government professedly Christian, it will not oppose the conversion of its native subjects to that faith which its own members profess, and the practical influence of which is so directly calculated to promote the present moral and intellectual improvement, as well as the future happiness of men, beyond that of any other agency that can possibly be employed? And is it too much to expect of such a Government, that it will in its public acts, and in its plans for the instruction and improvement of those entrusted by Divine Providence to its care, scrupulously avoid whatever is likely to impede the progress of the cause of truth and righteousness in the land? That Christianity should not be taught in the proposed seminary at Banáras, or in any other Government schools, I am content; but it should not be proscribed and persecuted, nor should inquiries into it, not prosecuted in those seminaries, subject those, who dare to make them, either to exclusion, or to reprehension and reproofs from the conductors or managers. Cannot

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religion be pronounced perfectly neutral, so far as Government schools are concerned? These are intended not for the propagation of religion under any name or form, but only for natural science,-to qualify men for the business of life, not to fit them for heaven. Why then should the profession or rejection of a creed qualify for participation in the advantages such places afford, or occasion exclusion from them? If the inculcation of Christianity in the Government schools and colleges be prohibited, and no encouragement held out to induce to a profession of it, is not this sufficient without pains and penalties, or persecution under any form, being awarded those who may choose to inquire into the nature and evidence of the Christian religion -the religion professed, by the members of that Government, by which those institutions are supported, and who would be among the last to admit that such inquiries were really worthy of censure?

There may be some difficulty in so wording the regulations under which Government schools and colleges shall be conducted, as at once to afford protection to inquiring minds, and not to alarm the prejudices of the native community; but I do hope this difficulty, if it exist, will be shortly overcome, and that ere long nothing in the management of these establishments will, even in appearances, justify the notion that for a native youth to read the Bible, or inquire into the principles of our holy religion, is criminal in the estimation of our rulers. J. T.

[We cannot condemn unheard, but wait with anxiety for an explanation.—ED.]

VIII.-D. B. and Dr. Hengstenberg.

As the subject of my remarks, published in your last number, appears to me, in the present inquiring" temper of the times," of considerable importance, I trust that you will favour me by the insertion of a few words in reply to your note, (p. 203;) which, if left unanswered, might, in the opinions of some of your readers, be conclusive of the questions at issue.

These are: first, whether the voice of history be in favour of our admitting, without religious scruple, such unavoidable inferences, on the subjects of the creation, and ordering of the universe, as may result from the careful and unbiassed investigation of physical facts. Secondly; whether it be our religious duty, as far as circumstances may permit, not to confine our inquiries on these points to the written volume of inspiration, but to extend them to that book of nature, which is equally the work of the Deity. Thirdly; whether it be incumbent on those who approach these subjects, in the way of argument, to do so neither lightly, unpreparedly, uncandidly, nor intemperately. Fourthly, whether great harm be not done to the cause of revealed religion, by the revival of the unhappy and groundless, though, perhaps, inevitable, controversies on these matters, which disgraced the past two centuries.

I will sincerely say, that it was in no spirit of fault-finding, but in what I felt to be merely an honest indignation at the flippant and supercilious tone, and mischievous tendency of the article originally commented on, and the superficial knowledge, or still more inexcusable and useless sophis try of its author, that I ventured to address you. His feelings cannot be

hurt, by what I now write, or have written; or my animadversions should have been expressed in more general terms; but in combating abstract principles, that form of expression is the most eligible, which employs the fewest and most forcible words.

The same regard for conciseness, and an unwillingness to encumber your valuable pages with any technical detail of so simple a matter, induced me to pass over Dr. Hengstenberg's "three blunders" about the polar star, with a mere reference to the three contrary facts, which he had overlooked. In self-defence against your severe censure, and serious imputation, I beg to say, that in your version of Dr. H.'s argument, you have omitted the important word "exactly;" which clearly implies that Dr. H. entertained the erroneous notion, ("popular." if you will,) that the pole-star is, and has ever been, truly situated in the prolongation of the earth's axis; and that, consequently, the star, if once seen, from a fixed point, to coincide accurately with the wire-like apex of a distant spire, would at all times be found to do so. It may be proper, after what has passed, to state that such would not be the case; precession, in the course of half a century, causing the prolongation of the fixed line, intercepted by the eye and the point of the spire, to travel, in right ascension, the full mean breadth of the moon away from the star; and nutation, giving at the same time, an undulation, nearly equal to 1-150 of that extent, to the cir cular arc, thus traced in the heavens. Let it not be said, that the united effect of these changes would, in the short course of six months, be too small to be regarded. Dr. H. has declared, that the star's apparent place would be exactly the same; and I will point it to any person who has given two thoughts to the subject, whether any one versed in astronomy, (for that is the question,) would ever have thought of employing so fallacious an illustration. Or, if you still remain of opinion, that Dr. H. was aware of the progressive motion of his supposed fixed line, and is justifiable in neglecting the half-yearly accumulated effort of a change, which becomes sen. sible to good instruments in the course of a single week; what say you to his still stranger forgetfulness of the fact, that at the end of "six months," the star, instead of "exactly" coinciding with the apex of the spire, would be about double its north polar distance, or more than five times the moon's mean breadth, from its supposed place of re-appearance ?—an effect resulting from the circumstance that the polar star does not, as supposed by Dr. H., intercept the pole of the equator.-Again, if Dr. H. did not suppose, that the polar star was the only one destitute of appreciable parallax, why should he have fixed upon it exclusively, as a proof of the apparent fixity of the earth in space.

Your young Hindu readers, the "hope of their country," will read this discussion not without interest, nor, I humbly hope, without benefit, after the perusal of Dr. Hengstenberg's Review. May they profit by the past history of half-bigot, half-infidel, (because half-instructed,) Europe; and may we never fail to revere and cherish that lamp of science, under whose mild radiance alone, with the Divine blessing, Great Britain has maintained her political independence, and the western world has been, as the eastern will be, delivered from civil and religious tyranny.

10th April, 1835.

D. B.

NOTE. Our friend D. B. seems determined to prove Dr. H. to be no astronomer. Nevertheless, as the pole star on the night of the 21st December may pass the meridian twice, and as the united effects of precession and nutation in six months, would not displace it to the eye by so much as the thickness of a little finger, we think Dr. H. has used no greater liberty, in writing as he has done, than is common even in popular astronomical works. Who, for instance, ever thinks of distinguishing be tween real and apparent sunset, except when it is necessary to explain the difference between them? Can any thing, indeed, be looser than Dr. H.'s expression, “ exactly over the spire ?" he does not say in contact with it, nor does he even allude to an hour. D. B. must excuse us, if we still think him hyper-critical.-ED.

REVIEW.

An English and Japanese and Japanese and English Vocabulary, compiled from native works, by W. H. Medhurst, Batavia, 1830.

A few copies of the above work having been sent round to Calcutta for sale, we take occasion to make a few remarks: first, upon the work itself, and secondly upon the view it presents to us of the written language of the Japan Isles.

1. A short introduction states the sources from which the compilation is derived to have been "some native books in the Japanese and Chinese character combined." The compiler is, we believe, a respectable Missionary, competently skilled in the language of China. He speaks modestly of his work: "that it contains faults, he is aware, and that it comes far short of what is requisite, he is ready to acknowledge; but he is, at the same time, conscious of having strictly followed the best native works within his reach, and of having spared no pains to render it, as a first attempt, tolerable." "The printing needs a thousand excuses; but it must be remembered, that the work has been executed at a Lithographic Press, by a self-taught artist, and in a warm climate, where the lithography often fails; also that the whole has been written by a Chinese, who understands neither English nor Japanese." Indeed, under these circumstances, the book is surprisingly well executed, though certainly not in the first style of our Calcutta Press.

Little if any thing of the written or colloquial medium of Japan is yet known to Europeans generally, and Mr. Medhurst deserves very high credit for this most useful and acceptable contribution to the slender stock of which we are in possession. The toil he has undergone must have been considerable; and considering the disadvantages under which he has laboured, merits, and no doubt will obtain most thankful acknowledgments from all lovers of literature, from those especially who are devoted to the study of languages, not so much to gratify a laudable curiosity or propensity to such studies, to enlarge the sphere of our geographical knowledge, and of the habits and history of the various nations of our race, or for purposes of commercial enterprise, (all commendable in themselves,) as for the high and holy end of conveying to every people under heaven the glorious tidings of the blessed gospel of God and our Saviour, the great light that shineth in the deep and palpable darkness of heathen blindness, vice, and superstition, and the great moral instrument in the hands of the Almighty Father of the Universe, of recalling his wandering rebellious children to his worship and obedience; of

raising the moral dead to the life of righteousness, and of spreading holiness, peace, industry, and happiness over the whole

creation.

Shut out as we are from nearly all intercourse, in the way of commerce, with the singular people who inhabit the Isles of the "Eastern Britain,' if we may so speak, whose jealousy by no means causeless, it must be confessed, is kept alive as well by information gained from China and India of the encroaching domination of European foreigners, as by the indelible recollection of past dangers to their independance and religion from the craft and perseverance of the Jesuits of years gone by, we can scarcely hope to reach them with the blessed truths of God in any other mode at present than by the introduction of tracts and books in their own language among their population. The language must first be known; and every aid towards its attainment is most important, and therefore valuable. Mr. Medhurst modestly says, indeed, of his own work, what we can hardly admit; that "a mere vocabulary has been produced, and one too of few pretensions and many defects; but such as it is, the compiler casts it upon the indulgence of the public, hoping that it will not be hardly dealt with." We can venture confidently to assure him, it will not; and that so much meritorious and zealous labour, accompanied with so much modesty and candour, will not be unappreciated by the public-while the lovers of Eastern language and lore, and the Japanese student in particular, will deem the assistance thus offered to them too valuable to permit them to dwell upon the unavoidable defects, were they even much greater than in truth they are, of the mechanical execution; or to be severe on the faults, if such there be, of the compilation itself: of the latter, we are ourselves unable to form a judgment. "The arrangement is in the former part of the vocabulary, i. e. the English and Japanese, according to subjects, so that all words of the same class (of natural ideas) may be found together in the second or Japanese and English part, the words are arranged according to the Japanese alphabet."

A considerable mass of words is here assembled, each part exhibiting upwards of 6,000 words, and shewing the language to be both copious and expressive.

2. We shall now venture a few remarks on the specimen of the Japanese tongue here brought before us.

1. It is an alphabetic language; its alphabet contains 48 letters, having a two-fold form analogous to our printed and written character. Having no clew to the grammatical arrangement of the letters, as they appear in the table prefixed to the vocabulary, we are unable to say how far it may be the one ordinarily followed by the natives themselves. In the table, vowels and consonants follow each other, without any apparent