পাতা:তত্ত্ববোধিনী পত্রিকা (প্রথম কল্প দ্বিতীয় খণ্ড).pdf/১৩৯

তত্ত্ববোধিনী পত্রিকা । and wholesale declamation in the sacred cause of religion, our readers will be able to judge for themselves, from the few specimens, we shall presently lay before them. In the limited space of a little more than five pages, which may be said to be exclusively devoted to an investigation of the doctrines and sentiments avowed by the followers of the Vaids, we are not a little astonished to find, no less than fifty abusive expressions levelled against us. In one place, the works reveiwed are denounced in one sweeping assertion as “drivelling” “worthless” and “utterly beneath contempt.” They are said to be replete with fancies and fallacies, with erroneous and moongruous textures, with umpious misstatements and gross and horrible perversion of fact and truth. They are, in short, sweepingly stigmatized as “wretched “stuff—wretched in every respect,--wretched in “sense and sentiment, in spirit and manner, object “and end.” ln another place, it is very charitably insinuated, that we have no character or ಳ್ಗಣ್ಣ to lose, and that in our humble endeavours to disseminate the knowledge of One True and Living God, we have adopted a cause which in the opinion of the Reviewer, is “philosophically, morally and religiously a bad dne.” But we need not inultiply instances. Let the curious reader but peruse the article to satisfy himself of the spirit, in which it is written. Considering how far enthusiasin and over-zealousness, especially in matters of religion, go to mistify the most shining and lucid ounderstandings, we do not wonder, that such an article has been penned ; nor, from the general tone of ನ್ತಿ। 8ontributions whieh have appeared in some of the recent numbers of the Calcutta Review, and the character which that periodical has latterly obtained with the public, can we be at all surprized, that such a contribution should have found a place in its columns. But we may be permitted to Iament, as we sincerely do, that truth and decency should be so sacrificed at the shrine of bigotry, as they are, in the production, under consideration. Our readers will not deem it strange, that the article has sailed to provoke us into a recriminatory defence, as we are sure they will fully recognize the general rule, that in all philosophical and religious controversies, the party that has the least pretension to truth, is always the first to break through the rules of propriety. It would have been well for the Reviewer, had he remembered, ere he indited the article, that the same scurrility of language and opprobriousness of expressions, which have rendered the writings of Thomas Paiue, however memorable in other respects, disreputable, cannot fail to be equally fatal to the cause, which he deems it his duty to евроuse. After these preliminary remarks on the general character of the production, let us examine whether it F:ས་བསes any of those זW redeeming features, ich constitute the chief beauty of a Review, any sound and philosophi ২০৩ cal handling of a given question, any impartial criticism of the works, which are ostensibly the subjects of the writer's review. In this also we are sadly disappointed. Without examining any of the positions advanced in those tracts, without contesting on fair and logical grounds the arguments blought forward in then in defence of Hindoo Theism, without even attemptin. to controvert the objections raised in them against the prevailing doctrines of Christianity, the learned Reviewer expresses at the outset his “sincelest grief and sorrow” in being called upon to notice these productions, and in the next sentence all at once conderuns them as “drivelling” and “utterly beneath coiltempt.” If they are worthless because they inculcate the pure unmixed spiritual worship of god, they inay well afford to be so stigmatized. But when it is generally known, that these productions were given to the world, at a time, when a warm controversy was maintain d in this city between the Vaidantists and some of the most learned missionary gentlemen, that the former were induced to resort to the publications from consideratious arising out of these discussions, and that some of these tracts have rein ained unanswered up to this tirne, we naturally expected a fai different course of procedure from a person of the learned Reviewer's established reputation. We had thou.” ht, that the Reviewer whāse success in evange'leaf career is "generally believed to have been surpassed by noise of his fellow labourers, would turnish the world with a complete refutation of the arguments and positious which confounded the late Dr. Tytler, and were. left unrefuted by some of the most eininent persons. After what has just appeared from the pen of the learned Reviewer, may we not confidently and safely assert, that our positions are invincible and our arguments uncontrovertible ? *. A little further on, the Reviewer 86" CHunټ tں think, that the Editor of the Brahmunical Magazine was unsincere, when he wrote, that the political strength of the Fonglish was, through the grace of god.” gradually increasing. Great stress has been laid on the words ande quotation, which, when proceeding from the lips of a Vaidantist, are said to *xiiibit the “reckless audacity of the blasphemier” or “ the unthinking levity of the scoffer.” We freely consess, we do not comprehend the drift of the reasoning, or the soundness of the conclusion. We have carefully looked over several of our other works, in none of which have we been able to trace the least dissatisfaction with the increasing power of the British Government. In some, the dissolution of the Mehomedan power and the establishment of the British rule in its place, have been deemed a source of blessing to the people of this Country, and consequently, of gratitude towards the Supreme disposer of events. Even in one of the tracts under review where the sense cannot possibly be misinterpreted, allusion is majo.