may be the only name which lingers on the mind. But we must confess that, in the poem before us, Montgomery has gone far, very far beyond all this, and has written a tedious and dulsome description of a place in one of whose colleges he was fortunate enough to be novitiated. We do not, however, deny that there are some fine poetic passages even here; we think the conclusion of the poem worthy of quotation:

"Ye midnight heav'ns, magnificently hung,

In every age by every poet sung,

One parting glance, oh! let my spirit take,
Ere dawn-light on your awful beauty break.
With what intensity the eye reveres

Your starry legions, when their pomp appears,

As though the glances centuries have given,
Since dreams first wander'd o'er the vast of heav'n,
Had left a magic where a mystery shone,
Enchanting more, the more 'tis gaz'd upon.
Stars, worlds, or wonders, whatsoe'er ye shine,
The home of angels, or the haunts divine,
Wherein the bodiless, from earth set free,
Shine in the blaze of present Deity;
No eyes behold your ever-beaming ray,
But think, while earthly visions roll away,
In placid immortality ye glow,

Above the chaos of terrestrial wo!

Thy wings, Almighty! may they still o'ershade

A clime by Thee a matchless empire made :

Here in mute glory may Thine altars stand,

While smiles from heaven fall brightly o'er the land ;
And those pure worlds that have for ages roll'd

O'er these grand temples, still their gloom behold,

Till time be dead, eternity begun,

And darkness blacken round the dying sun;
The toils of fate, the pangs of being o'er,

Our doom completed, and the world no more."

And now our poet sings "The great Redeemer and the glorious Cross." This composes the last volume; and the poem is one, certainly, of a very high character. The life, miracles, discourses, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension, of our blessed Saviour, are depicted in a truly charming manner; and we come away from a perusal of the poem both pleased and edified. Two or three quotations from this excellent production will close our present paper:

"Salvation's prince appear'd,

And this thy greeting: Lo! at length he comes ;
Behold the Lamb of God! Oh! pure, above

All beings pure, from me this rite forego;

For I have need of thy baptizing grace,

How expressive is his description of the miraculous draught of fishes! We have now before us the cartoon of Raphael, representing that interesting scene, and these lines are a fit accompaniment to the piece:

"By the bright waters on the lovely beach

Of fam'd Tiberias, where a wond'ring crowd
Around him panted for immortal truth,
Was Jesus standing, while the fisher wash'd
His net, and dried it on the pebbly shore.
Two silent vessels on the lake repos'd;
The one he enter'd, and the people taught.

But, ere the music of his mighty words

Was still'd, Launch forth, and let your nets descend !'
The Christ commanded. Worn by fruitless toil,

All doubtingly did Peter's hand obey;

But when at once, with its enormous load,

The net uprose, till e'en the laden ship
Beneath her living burden sank and reeled,

Each sound departed! tongueless air was hush'd
As though creation wonder'd; then a cry
The multitude from off the shore produc'd
That scatter'd silence like a broken dream;
While Peter, quivering with unearthly dread,
Fell in amazement at Messiah's feet,

And utter'd, 'Leave me, Lord, for I am vile !"

One more extract, full of energy and beauty:

"And now the counsel of eternal love-
Tremendous, vast, unspeakably sublime!
Wrapt in the folds of the Almighty will
Before the universe was shap'd or born-
Concludeth: man's redemption is complete,
And sanctioned; all the archetypal plan
Of Deity for reconciling sin
With justice, by the mediating blood

Of covenant in Christ, has been fulfill'd:

The woman's seed hath bruis'd the serpent's head."

The volumes from which we have made extracts, all do honour very much to the head and the heart of their author. The poems, however, which please us best, are "The Omnipresence of the Deity," "The Messiah," and "Woman." The first mentioned

poem should verily place Montgomery among those poets of our country who have been destined to occupy the highest position which grandeur and sublimity have awarded to them. His "Messiah" is a beautiful description of our blessed Saviour's glorious course, and contains passages, which, for exquisite tenderness and fervent piety, we think can hardly be surpassed.

Welcome the minstrel who has so sweetly tuned his lyre to the notes of love and heavenly praise; and we congratulate Montgomery for having so well fulfilled the noble task of depicting scenes which the "angels desire to look into." Very lovely do the events of Bethlehem and Tabor, Gethsemane and Calvary, appear in the pictures of this pleasing writer; and we retire from the perusal of the "Messiah" grateful to the muse which conceived and completed so happy a performance.

"Woman" is exhibited, in the poem bearing that name, in her most attractive guise; she is presented to us as

"A creature not too bright or good,

For human nature's daily food."— Wordsworth.

It is a most graceful poem; decidedly one of our poet's most felicitous efforts. Some portions of the imagery are rather too fanciful to please our ears, yet the principal figures are appropriate. What we most admire in the poem is its harmonious versification: we have met with few pieces of this class so smooth, and at the same time so eloquent.

And now, having laid before our readers some of the proofs of that fine inherent poetic talent which is possessed by Robert Montgomery, we take our leave of him, grateful for the opportunities that have been afforded us of studying and appreciating his works; and fully sensible, not merely of the genius which is manifested by most of them, but also of that high moral tone and sacred feeling which clearly indicate that the author not only possesses an enlightened understanding, but likewise a holy and a spiritual mind. It has been well remarked, that his writings "stand forth distinguished by a spirit of orthodoxy, stern even in its nature." We fully concur with the author of this sentiment; and while we find in his works a pure and untainted stream of poesy, which justly qualify him for estimation as an excellent poet, we also discover so much truth and sound doctrine, and so much of the "wisdom that is from above," as to entitle him to the noble appellation of the consistent and Christian minister.

THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS AND PRACTICES OF

THE HINDUS.

BY G. L. BROWNE, S.C. L.

CHAP. I.-RISE AND PROGRESS OF HINDUISM.

THE influence which is exercised over every tribe and nation upon earth, by a prevailing and national religion, renders every enquiry into the religious opinions and practices of the families of mankind peculiarly interesting. When we consider the stake we have in the well-being and well-governing of the natives of India,—that in the case of the Hindu, religion, and religion alone, makes him what he is; that it is, indeed, about his bed, and about his path, and spieth out all his ways; and that nearly one half of the entire human race are the professors and followers of that mystical form of idolatry,we do not hesitate (under the guidance and teaching of the two volumes, in particular, whose titles appear at the foot of this page*) to claim a considerable portion of our readers' time in tracing out, at some length, the faith and practice of the Hindu.

It must not be believed that the Hindu faith, as it now appears in daily practice in India, is such as it was originally set forth by its inventor: for though it may be almost impossible to trace, with chronological accuracy, the introduction of each successive novelty, yet if we may believe those of the Hindu nation who have dared to reject the novelties of the system, and the researches of those of our countrymen who have laboured in the field of Sanscrit literature, "it exhibits unequivocal proof, that it is by no means of that unalterable character which has been commonly ascribed to it; and many are the indications, which cannot be mistaken, that it has undergone alterations at different periods, important in both form and spirit:" and it is such alterations as these that form the most convincing arguments for the missionary, who would find it impossible to overthrow the Hindu's belief in his religion by exposing the idolatry, folly, and debasing sensuality of its practices.

To the Vedas, the primary sources of the Hindu faith, Professor Wilson assigns the date of the thirteenth century before the Christian era. These writings, as far as they treat of abstruse metaphysical doctrines, such as the nature of matter, metempsychosis, and the theory of successive creations, even now form the standard faith of the speculative native. The practical portion, however, excepting some very small relics in the present services of marriage, purification, and burial, is entirely obsolete, and superseded by the novelties of the Puranas. The worship prescribed in these writings

* 1. Two Lectures on the Religious Practices and Opinions of the Hindus. By H. H. Wilson, M. A., of Exeter College, Boden Professor of Sanscrit, &c. Parker: Oxford. 1840.

2. Narrative of a Three Months' March in India, and a Residence in the Dooab. By the Wife of an Officer in the 16th Foot. With plates. London: R. Hastings, Carey-street, Lincoln's Inn. 1840.

As this chapter treats of the faith of the Hindu, the grounds of our assertions are the statements of the first of these works. Our examples of the practice will be mainly drawn from the other most interesting work.

was, in the main, domestic: oblations to the elements, the seasons, the heavenly bodies, to be performed by the family priest under the roof of the householder, for whom he was to supplicate a return of riches, life, posterity, and every earthly blessing. The worship thus paid to the creatures, and to the three mightier attributes of creation, preservation, and regeneration, under the names of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, was by no means an idolatrous worship of them as gods themselves, but only as personifications of the divine attributes. Monotheism was the primary faith of the Hindus; and in his most ancient scriptures, these personifications of the divine attributes are all of equal rank and dignity; no where invoked as in any way superior to the rest of the elementary deities, but addressed in common with the air, water, the seasons, and the planets, and no where worshipped under visible types. Again, though Vishnu, as a personified attribute of the one great God, is often mentioned with great reverence, yet it is doubtful whether even the names of his most popular incarnations, as Krishna, Rama, Govinda, or Juggernatha, can be discovered either in the Vedas, or the Sanhata, or collected prayers. As an independent deity, Brahma seems never to have been worshipped; the preferential adoration, which gradually arose, having been divided between the other members of the Hindu triad, Siva and Vishnu. From the feeble condition of the worship of Siva at the present day, and the probable destruction, by the more powerful followers of Vishnu, of the sacred records of the Saivas, it is impossible to trace the gradual rise of this form of faith: the little that is known of its sudden rise, and equally precipitate fall, will be mentioned hereafter, when we have spoken more at large of the preferential worship of Vishnu.

The incarnations of this deity are first mentioned in a set of writings known as the Upanishads, certain supplementary treatises of the Vedas, of much later date and very doubtful authority. The history there given of Rama and Krishna, as the two great Avatàras of Vishnu, was exaggerated by the authors of the mythoheroic poems with more than poetic license, professing to relate the adventures of these two quasi deities. In these poems, the two incarnations appear as true knights-errant, born to destroy giants, fiends, castles, and armies, and to rescue hapless virgins from violence and captivity. Innumerable and impossible are their deeds, save on one admission, namely, that it was the supreme deity who worked under their form. This principle, thus hinted at, was soon taken up, supported, developed, and widely disseminated, by the more modern Hindu scriptures, the Puranas.

These writings, in number eighteen, and varying in date from the eighth to the fifteenth century, exercise a most extended influence over the religious faith and practices of the Hindu. The exposition of some portion of them forms the daily public task of the Brahman. The service books are filled with prayers and texts from their holy pages; feasts, fasts, and pilgrimages are regulated by them; on their authority, one river or mountain is regarded as sacred; this town or that temple sanctified by legends said to be