as we found them?" A question of a similar tendency was last year addressed to a member of the Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews, by Manasseh, a learned, and respectable character under the Mosaical dispensation. What advantages, relative to their present and future happiness, will the Jews derive from their conversion to Christianity?" I avail myself of the answer to this interesting question, to strengthen what is said throughout this chapter on the conversion of the Hindoos.

"Previous to any remark on the subjects alluded to in your letter, I must, for myself and those with whom I am connected, sincerely and affectionately declare, that in whatsoever point of view our endeavour may appear to yourself, or others of your brethren, we are solely actuated by the pure motive of regard and tender anxiety for what we believe to be the true interest and happiness of all those who have not embraced Christianity. That very religion, by which we ourselves hope to be saved, enjoins it as a fundamental duty on Christians, to endeavour, by every lawful and charitable method, to bring all men to the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We certainly do aim at your conversion from an undue and misplaced reliance on mere forms and ceremonies, to that salvation through the Messiah, whom the prophet Isaiah describes as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; who was stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities.”

"In answer to the advantages that will be derived from this conversion, allow me, with the greatest solemnity, and sincerity of heart, to reply, much every way.' We believe, that by your conversion to Christianity, you would be freed from the slavery

of a mass of superstitious traditions, by which you are at present held in the greatest intellectual bondage: that you would be restored to the enjoyment of those privileges in the favour and communion of God, which you have so long utterly lost. That you would be, in the hands of the Lord Jehovah, the happy instruments of bringing multitudes of the unbelieving Gentiles to the standard of the Messiah, Jesus Christ: and above all, that you would, by a cordial, (for I never mean a merely nominal) reception of the truths of Christianity, have a certainty of that eternal salvation which we are taught to expect only through the name, merits, and sufferings of Jesus Christ.

"We view the present situation of your people, when spiritually considered, as peculiarly awful and dangerous; whilst we also believe, that by a real conversion to Christianity, you would be delivered therefrom, and brought into one which comprehends the highest and happiest privileges; both as it concerns your wellbeing and well-doing in this world; and your everlasting blessedness in that which is to come.

"Those who so anxiously labour and pray for your conversion to Christianity, are united and constituted on the broad and liberal basis of the Church Universal: they carry their ideas and designs far beyond that of proselyting to any particular sect or denomination of Christians. Many classes of Christians, differing indeed in a few matters avowedly of lesser importance, but all agreed in owning and worshipping Jesus Christ as the true Messiah, are united in endeavouring to accomplish the great end of bringing the Jews, by argument and persuasion, to do the same; looking to God alone to bless their aim and design.

"'These Christians are all agreed in viewing those points of worship, or opinion, wherein they differ, as being of infinitely less importance than the grand tenet in which they all unite, viz. that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, and that faith in him is essential to salvation. They are all agreed in their present cordial endeavour to bring the Jews to their acknowledgement of this same truth, as the foundation of their union with the Christian church; leaving it to the subsequent determination of the converts, into what particular community of professing Christians they may, after mature reflection, feel it their duty to enter.

"We are looking forward to that period, of which the prophets have spoken, when "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time, to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim." ISAIAH.

"At that period, which may God hasten! all lesser distinctions shall vanish in one true knowledge and love of God the Father, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. We hope that the very sub

ject of the conversion of the Jews is proving, and will prove a bond of union, whose influence will be peculiarly happy in strengthening the universal cause, and promoting the firm establishment of one united body of Jews and Gentiles in true church fellowship. You will judge for yourselves about things of lesser importance hereafter: in the mean time hearken to him, who declares, “I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no Saviour; come worship in his holy temple !"

"Thus we Christians invite you to the examination and reception of the truths of the gospel, regardless of our own inferior points of difference, and anxious on every principle of duty to God, and love to man, to manifest our perfect union, in wishing you to enjoy the blessing of that faith in Jesus Christ, concerning which we have but one and the same common feeling amongst us all. We all worship God in the same spiritual temple; and we, likewise, with one heart and voice, say to you, come and worship with us in that holy temple!"

This excellent reply to Manasseh seems to comprise all that is essentially necessary to the subject of conversion in general: surely those who object to that of the Hindoos in particular cannot have considered it in this light.

The unprejudiced mind will allow that a real Christian has, at least, as much charity and liberality of sentiment, as the deist or unitarian: he embraces all mankind as his brethren, and strives to render them as happy as himself, but he certainly views the most important of all concerns very differently from a modern philosopher. His mind having, by divine grace, been prepared for the awful truths of Christianity, he is assured, that without this knowledge, all other acquisitions are comparatively of trifling importance. "If," as a modern divine well observes, "our taste were the most correct, our learning the most profound, our information the most enlarged, and our fame the most illustrious that the world ever saw; if we could understand all the curiosities of science, and all the treasures of literature were poured at our feet; if we could embrace all that the restless mind ever conceived, so that nothing remained for the imagination to invent, or the desires to pursue ;-still, what is all this, if we are ignorant of ourselves, and of Christ and holiness? "What shall a man be profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or, What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" What indeed are all the fading scenes of this momentary world? The time is at hand, when the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The period is hastening apace, which will for ever put an end to this world and all its concerns; which, like a flood, will sweep away its pain and its pleasure, its applause and its frown, its learning and its ignorance, its distinctions and its disgrace, its good and its evil. The awful glories of the last judg

* Wilson.