DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.640#0110
ON THE HINDOO RELIGION. xcvii
the conduct of its apologists, except in the recollection, that the
scepticalpart of mankind have always been partial to heathenism.
Voltaire, Gibbon, Hume, &c. have been often charged with a
strong partiality for the Grecian and Roman idolatries; and many
Europeans in India are suspected of having made large strides
towards heathenism. Even Sir Wm. Jones, whose recommen-
dation of the Holy Scriptures (found in his Bible after his death)
has been so often and so deservedly quoted, it is said, to please
his pundit, was accustomed to study the shastriis with the image
of a Hindoo god placed on his table:—his fine metrical translations
of idolatrous hymns are known to every lover of verse d. In the
same spirit, we observe, that figures and allusions to the ancient
idolatries are retained in almost all modern poetical compositions,
and even in some Christian writings.
However wonderful this partiality of professed Christians to
heathenism may be, it is not,more extraordinary than the ex-
travagant lengths into which some learned men have gone in
their expectations from the antiquity of the Hindoo writings.
Mr. Halhed seems to prefer Hindooism to Christianity purely on
account of its boasted antiquity4. Dr. Stiles, president of Yale
d ' I could not help feeling a degree of regret, in reading lately the
Memoirs of the admirable and estimable Sir William Jones. Some of his
researches in Asia have no donbt incidentally served the cause of religion;
but did he think the last possible direct service had been rendered to Chris-
tianity, that his accomplished mind was left at leisure for hymns to the
Hindoo gods ? Was not this a violation even of the neutrality, and an of-
fence, not only against the gospel, but against theism itself? I know what
may be said about personification, license of poetry, and so on: but should
not a worshipper of God hold himself under a solemn obligation to abjure
all tolerance of even poetical figures that can seriously seem, in any way
whatever, to recognize the pagan divinities, or abominations, as the pro-
phets of Jehovah would have called them ? What would Elijah have said
to such an employment of talents ? It would have availed little to have
told him, that these divinities were only personifications (with their ap-
propriate representative idols) of objects in nature, of elements, or of
abstractions. He would have sternly replied—And was not Baal, whose
prophets I destroyed, the same ?' See Foster's incomparable Essays.
' Is Mr. Halhed an example of the amazing credulity of unbelievers in
vol. i. n
the conduct of its apologists, except in the recollection, that the
scepticalpart of mankind have always been partial to heathenism.
Voltaire, Gibbon, Hume, &c. have been often charged with a
strong partiality for the Grecian and Roman idolatries; and many
Europeans in India are suspected of having made large strides
towards heathenism. Even Sir Wm. Jones, whose recommen-
dation of the Holy Scriptures (found in his Bible after his death)
has been so often and so deservedly quoted, it is said, to please
his pundit, was accustomed to study the shastriis with the image
of a Hindoo god placed on his table:—his fine metrical translations
of idolatrous hymns are known to every lover of verse d. In the
same spirit, we observe, that figures and allusions to the ancient
idolatries are retained in almost all modern poetical compositions,
and even in some Christian writings.
However wonderful this partiality of professed Christians to
heathenism may be, it is not,more extraordinary than the ex-
travagant lengths into which some learned men have gone in
their expectations from the antiquity of the Hindoo writings.
Mr. Halhed seems to prefer Hindooism to Christianity purely on
account of its boasted antiquity4. Dr. Stiles, president of Yale
d ' I could not help feeling a degree of regret, in reading lately the
Memoirs of the admirable and estimable Sir William Jones. Some of his
researches in Asia have no donbt incidentally served the cause of religion;
but did he think the last possible direct service had been rendered to Chris-
tianity, that his accomplished mind was left at leisure for hymns to the
Hindoo gods ? Was not this a violation even of the neutrality, and an of-
fence, not only against the gospel, but against theism itself? I know what
may be said about personification, license of poetry, and so on: but should
not a worshipper of God hold himself under a solemn obligation to abjure
all tolerance of even poetical figures that can seriously seem, in any way
whatever, to recognize the pagan divinities, or abominations, as the pro-
phets of Jehovah would have called them ? What would Elijah have said
to such an employment of talents ? It would have availed little to have
told him, that these divinities were only personifications (with their ap-
propriate representative idols) of objects in nature, of elements, or of
abstractions. He would have sternly replied—And was not Baal, whose
prophets I destroyed, the same ?' See Foster's incomparable Essays.
' Is Mr. Halhed an example of the amazing credulity of unbelievers in
vol. i. n