Religious Festivals. It appears that the attendance was forbidden by two successive Commanders-in-Chief at Madras, but that their orders, after fifteen months' quiet and unobjectionable operation, were revoked, as will be seen from the following instructions, which were issued from the Government of India :

"That without formally cancelling the general orders of Sir R. O'Callaghan, forbidding the attendance of troops at Religious Festivals, those orders should be allowed to fall gradually into desuetude; and as the attendance of troops at popular Festivals, and on Natives of rank, as honorary guards, is a usage of long standing under this Presidency, the indulgence is not to be withheld (except under the permission of Government), even when Natives, to whom the complimentary observance is paid, may be proceeding to the performance of religious duties."

In consequence of these orders, the system of military attendance at these festivals is re-established. We have now introduced into this article documents sufficient to shew the British Connexion with Indian Idolatry, and the national disgrace which must hang upon England by such proceedings. The subject is becoming daily more and more interesting, especially as Lord Melbourne has promised to satisfy the most rigid inquiries relative to this important question. Let our Legislature secure, then, by their indefatigable exertion, attention to this subject. It is one that demands it-it is one that necessarily must have it. Doubtless the Natives have claims to our protection of their rights and religion, if we be guided by the spirit of toleration; but by no means let us patronize or encourage the most degrading system of idolatry, so as to inspire the people with a belief that we entertain respect for that worship which we know to be palpably opposed to the laws of God. It is the duty of a Christian people to discountenance the connection, because that connection, base and degrading in system, entails upon them national guilt. The countenance of idolatry by a Christian State is immoral and sinful. It was not the practice of the Apostles, who should be our examples, to countenance idolatry. No! they tore down the heathen temples, they demolished the rude altars, and built everywhere the true and eternal temples of the Lord. This was the practice of the Apostles, this the proceeding of the Army of Martyrs, but alas! we have "loved darkness rather than light" we have rather cherished the superstitions of a vast and increasing empire, than propagated and encouraged the spreadings of Christianity. "We have used our power," as the Bishop of Exeter observed, "employed our arms, dishonoured our soldiery, by making them the guards and outposts of the realms of darkness. We have made an unhallowed gain of Idol worship; we have drawn --and we fear still draw-an accursed tribute from the foulest and most debasing rites that Paganism ever devised." Surely national misfortune and discomfiture must follow, if there be a continuation in these things. The voice of an insulted God must cry "Shall I

not punish for these things?" Surely this wickedness must call down from heaven the heaviest curse, that can fall upon a nation hitherto blessed by prosperity and abundance. But may God avert the curse, and aid us in throwing off the connection of a system that has always received his wrathful indignation; so that at last, by his help, and our strenuous endeavours, Christianity may cover the earth as the waters cover the sea!

ART. VI.—An Analytical and Comparative View of all Religions now extant among Mankind, with their Internal Diversities of Creed and Profession. By JOSIAH CONDER, Author of "The Modern Traveller," &c. &c. London: Jackson and Walford. 1838.

THE Author's plan is very conprehensive, and is executed with great research and diligence. Other religions, as well as the Christian, are examined; the latter being subdivided under the following heads:-1. The Latin or Roman Catholic Church. 2. The Eastern or Orthodox Greek Church. 3. The Anti-Byzantine Eastern Churches of Armenia, Syria, Egypt, and Chaldea. 4. The Protestant Lutheran Churches, holding the Confession of Augsburg (1530). 5. The Protestant Churches, holding the Gallic, Helvetic, and Belgic Confessions. 6. The Protestant Episcopal Churches holding the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church. 7. The Protestants adhering to the Westminster and Savoy Confessions. In these the points of agreement and difference are shewn.

The chief discrepancies between the Eastern and Western Churches are the clause filioque in the Nicene Creed, relating to the procession of the Holy Spirit, which, on the authority of John xv. 26, is rejected by the Greek Church; the authority of the later General Councils equally rejected by it; the number of the Sacraments, in which the difference is little more than one of mere name; yet the Greeks allow both of the Eucharistical elements to be received by the laity, but not the Roman Church; the use of leavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist-the Greeks using leavened formed into a loaf, the Latins unleavened in the form of a wafer; the time of keeping Easter, the Asiatic Churches celebrating it on the day of the Jewish Passover and the Resurrection, three days afterwards; but the Western on the eve of the anniversary of the Resurrection; (the Council of Nice also ordained that Easter-day should be the Sunday after the Passover); the doctrine of Purgatory, which is rejected by the Greek Church; the lawfulness of adoring the graven images of Saints, which question occasioned great contention: now, however, the Greeks disuse them, but plentifully supply their places by paintings for the purpose of worship; the mode of making the sign of

the cross, which is different in each; the celibacy of the clergy, the bishops only in the Greek Church being prohibited from marriage, and the secular priests not before, but after, ordination; the use of the Holy Scriptures by the laity, which the Greek Church sanctions; and the supremacy and infallibility of the Roman Pope, which the Greek Church disallows. Most of these are pure logomachy, for four only really appear to exhibit a distinction; in the others either the practice or the doctrine is essentially the same. In the institutions and observances, which are common to both, Mr. Conder has ably shewn a striking analogy to the Pagan ritual and superstitions, retracing the customs of the priests and mendicant monks, the loose cloak and cowl, the sandal and the tonsure of the Franciscans to the servants of Isis and Serapis.

This is followed by a very interesting account of the orthodox Greek Church, in which 3,000,000 are estimated as the number of the œcumenical Patriarch's subjects; but including the Russian Church, which claims about 47,000,000 within its pale, the total may amount to 50,000,000: whilst the several Anti-Byzantine communions may perhaps comprise 4,000,000 more-altogether, probably, only half as many as recognise the supremacy of the Pope. Malte Brun indeed estimates the Roman Catholics throughout the world at 116,000,000, the Greeks at 70,000,000, and the Protestants at 42,000,000.

The Jacobites or Syrian Monophysites are vaguely estimated by Gibbon at an amount between fifty and eighty thousand; but we are of opinion that they exceed this number. A census of the Maronites, taken in 1784 gave 35,000 as the number of men capable of bearing arms, which authorises the conjecture of a population of at least 105,000: but with the inclusion of all classes, recent authorities average it at 120,000. This we are inclined to think underrated; because the German traveller, Scholz, asserts the Maronites to be the most numerous and powerful of all the Christian parties in Syria; and in the year 1822, when Scholz's book was published, they were enumerated at 200,000. When we consider how many places they occupy, and recollect that they have a Patriarch, six Bishops, and six titular Bishops, the number may be imagined greater, but cannot be pronounced less. The African Monophysites are the Copts and Abyssinians. The remains of the once famous Patriarchate of Alexandria are computed to consist of 100,000 native Christians; but Scholz maintains that the Copts, partly through the tyranny of their rulers, partly through the plague, cannot be reckoned to exceed 80,000 souls. They have altogether only one hundred churches, of which twenty-three are in Cairo, with six monasteries. Very few of the monks in Upper Egypt well understand the Coptic; nor do they seem to have any MSS. of ancient date, or of real interest. Their present Patriarch,

and doubt صاحب كرسي مارب مرقص الانجيلي takes for his title

less is as good a successor of St. Mark, as the Pope is of St. Peter. The Jewish tincture in the Abyssinian* customs and rites, which is continually observed, is very well elucidated by Mr. Conder. In the first ages, the Church of Alexandria contained many Jewish Christians: the Therapeuta or Essenians of lake Mæotis, a sect of Jewish ascetics, were the models of the Christian monks and hermits of the Thebaid; and from the blending of the Mosaic faith with the Platonic philosophy, which is ascribed to the Jews of Alexandria, arose the metaphysical theology of some Christian schools. Numbers of Egyptian Jews and Christians retired to Æthiopia, either in exile, or through persecution, the great emigration from Egypt thither amounting to 240,000 males, which Herodotus records is conjectured to have consisted of Jewish exiles by some. It is still further shewn, that the connexion, which was between Yemen and Abyssinia, of which the Hebrew Scriptures, and a remarkable monument found at Axum, give additional proof, co-operated to this effect.

The account of the Nestorians is particularly well written; and the extent of their sect and influence was formerly so great, that their numbers, which under the Caliphs were diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyprus, were computed with those of the Jacobites to surpass the Greek and Latin communions. Those remote branches have long since decayed; and the number of three hundred thousand is allowed for the whole body, who are often called Chaldeans or Assyrians. The schisms in the Nestorian Church are noticed; and we remark respecting that, whose patriarch takes the title Mar Shimon, whose residence is at Kochannes, in the heart of the mountains of Kurdistan, to the west of Urmiah, that we suspect the expedition now on its way there, under the conduct of Mr. Ainsworth and Mr. Thomas Macnamara Russell, will not find

* As there exists no probability that Scholz's Travels will be translated, we may be excused for making an extract from them on Abyssinia. "No one can doubt, that the way from Egypt to Abyssinia by land is ex tremely dangerous, and that the water should be preferred. Among other things, I received some information about Axum. I was assured that there was no Mohammedan city there, but that only some few Mohammedans lived there, who lived and dressed themselves as Christians. Shoa also, Machedo, and Noari are Christian cities: the last is five days' journey distant from the Nile, and its language is the Malhas." He then mentions, that the people, speaking thirty-one various dialects, which he enumerates, are Christians. In the specimen given of two of the dialects, we perceive a small mixture of Hebrew or Arabic words; and the comparison of the dialects leads us to rank them as distinct languages. Thus, in one the foot is ikri, in the other tarna; in the one the hand id (the Hebrew and Arabic yad), in the other donga: there is also an equal disparity in the numerals. How much, therefore, remains to be known about Abyssinia.

the descriptions given to them of the religion of these Nestorians verified. Their customs are fully disclosed by Mr. Conder, and by Mr. Smith in his researches; and our Libraries are already furnished with the Liturgies which they use; so that in this respect but little information can be required. Those who acknowledge Mar Shimon as their spiritual head, have been estimated nearly at 320,000 souls. Their religion is partly popish; but auricular confession and sacerdotal absolution have long been abolished, and extreme unction and confirmation are not observed. Transubstan

tiation, however, is an article of faith; but there is no distinction in the Eucharist with respect to the wine between the clergy and laity. They revere the See of Rome, and the Bishop of Rome, as the representative of the head of the Apostles; notwithstanding which, they are strongly prejudiced against the Roman Catholics, and acknowledge not the personal authority of the Pope. In like manner, they pray to the Saints, as mediators, and venerate their relics; but admit neither pictures nor images into their churches, accounting them idolatrous: they honour the Virgin, as the mother of Christ, but call her not the mother of God; they pray likewise for the dead, under the idea, that, between death and judgment, their prayers may avail for the unpardoned; but they have no notion of a Papal Purgatory. Their fasts are numerous and rigid, being kept from sunrise to sunset: on all festivals they abstain from labour, and always from evening-prayers or sunset, on the Saturday, to day-light or morning-prayers on the Monday. The Sunday they hold in an especial respect; and they observe a curious fast of three days, called that of Jonah, in which they remain in the church from morning to night, weeping, praying, and fasting. They pretend to have descended from the ten tribes of Israel, but do not practise circumcision, which they account a Mohommedan rite: their æra is the Seleucidan; and their Easter and some of their festivals agree with the Armenian Calendar.

The Indian branch of the Syrian Church is affirmed to acknowledge the Patriarch of Antioch, as its head; but the origin of the colony is involved in some obscurity. It is clear, that their bishops were formerly of the Nestorian creed; but this church no longer adheres to that communion. It disclaims several ancient heresies, and seems very like in faith to the western churches; it has no images, but has paintings, and uses the Liturgy formerly adopted in the Patriarchate of Antioch. The Christians of St. Thomas are divided into the Syrian Christians of Malayala, who retain their primitive tenets, and into Syro-Roman Catholics: of the first there are fifty-seven churches, and 13,500 families, or 70,000 individuals : of the latter ninety-seven churches and 90,000 persons, which, with the many converts obtained from other tribes, make 150,000 individuals.

The Armenian Church has suffered various vicissitudes, and has