The ceremonies of the Hindoos are dictated by the Brahmins and the sacred books; but to give you a detail of their number and absurdity, is a task to which I am altogether unequal, and which could neither instruct nor entertain the reader. I will, therefore, close this sketch with giving you a few translations from their Vedas or sacred books, which will give the reader some idea both of the doctrines and style of the Hindoos, as translated by a very able pen.
"1. By one Supreme Ruler is this universe pervaded, even every world in the whole circle of nature; enjoy pure delights, O man! by abandoning all thoughts of this perishable world; and covet not the wealth of any creature existing.
"2. He who in this life continually performs his religious duties, may desire to live a hundred years; but, even to the end of this period, thou shouldst have no other employment here below.
"3. To those regions where evil spirits dwell, and which utter darkness involve, all such men go surely after death, as destroy the purity of their own souls.
"4. There is one supreme Spirit, which nothing can shake, more swift than the thought of man.
"5. That supreme Spirit moves at pleasure, but in itself is immovable; it is distant from us, yet very near us; it pervades this whole system of worlds, yet is infinitely beyond it.
"6. The man who considers all beings as existing even in the supreme Spirits, and the supreme Spirit pervading all beings, henceforth views no creature with contempt.
"7. In him who knows that all spiritual beings are the same in kind with the Supreme Spirit, what room can there be for delusion of mind; or what room for sorrow, when he reflects on the identity of spirit?
"8. The pure enlightened soul assumes a luminous form, with no gross body, with no perforation, with no veins nor tendons, untainted by sin, itself being a ray from the infinite Spirit, which knows the past and the future, which pervades all, which existed with no cause but itself, which created all things as they are in ages very remote.
"9. They who are ignorantly devoted to the mere ceremonies of religion, are fallen into thick darkness; but they surely have a thicker gloom around them who are solely given to speculation.