by savages and barbarians, but by those whose language and literature are the oldest in the world, and whose progenitors were engaged in the contemplation of the sublimest doctrines of religion and philosophy at a time when their Anglo-Saxon and Gallic con- temporaries were deeply immersed in darkness and ignorance. And if, owing to eight hundred years of Mohammedan tyranny and misrule, this great nation has sunk into sloth and lethargy, it has, thank God! not lost its reason, and is able to make a difference between the followers of a religion which inculcates the doctrine that should be propagated at the point of the sword, and that which offers compulsion to none, but simply invites inquiry. However we may differ with the Christian Missionaries in religion, I speak the minds of this Society, and generally of those of the people, when I say that, as regards their learning, purity of morals, and disinterestedness of intention to promote our weal, no doubt is entertained throughout the land, nay, they are held by us in the highest esteem. European history does not bear on its record the mention of a class of men who suffered so many sacrifices in the cause of humanity and education as the Christian Missionaries in India; and though the native community differ with them in the opinion that Hindustan will one day be included in Christendom, (for the worship of Almighty God in his Unity, as laid down in the Holy Vedas, is, and has been, our religion for thousands of years, and is enough to satisfy all our spiritual wants,) yet we cannot forbear doing justice to the venerable ministers of a religion who, I do here most solemnly asseverate, in piety and righteousness alone are fit to be classed with those Rishees and Mohatmas of antiquity, who derived their support and those of their charitable boarding-schools from voluntary subscriptions, and consecrated their lives to the cause of God and knowledge.
“It is not, therefore, likely that any little monetary aid that may have been rendered by the Governor General, in his private capacity, to Missionary Societies, should have sown the germ of that recent disaffection in the native army which has introduced so much anarchy and confusion in these dominions.”
