ble to slavery. In proportion as the religion tends
to asceticism, will be the amount (other things being equal) of the
hardship and want which they must sustain. In proportion as the religion
approximates to the moderate, (the use without the abuse of means of
enjoyment,) will the poorer classes rise to a condition of freedom and
comfort.

The character of the religion serves, in like manner, as an index to
that of the government. A licentious religion cannot be adopted by a
people who are so moderate in their passions as to be able to govern
themselves. One would not look for a display of meats offered to idols
in the Capitol of the American Congress. An ascetic religion, too,
inflicts personal and mutual wrongs which could never be endured among a
people who agree to govern one another. There is no power which could
induce such to submit to privations and sufferings which can be
tolerable to none but devotees,--a small fraction of every society.
Absolutism is commonly the character of the government of any country
where either of these religions prevails;--a despotism more or less
tempered by a variety of influences. It is the observer's business to
bring the religion and the government into comparison, and to see how
the latter is modified by the coexistence of the former.

The friendly, no less than the domestic and political relations of
society, are dependent upon the prevailing religion. Under the
licentious, the manners will be made up of the conventional and the
gross. A Burmese minister was sitting on the poop of a steam-vessel when
a squall came on. "I suggested to his Excellency," says Mr. Crawford,
"the convenience of going below, which he long resisted, under the
apprehension of committing his dignity by placing himself in a situation
where persons might tread over his head; for this singular antipathy is
common both to the Burmese and Siamese. The prejudice is more especially
directed against the fair sex,--a pretty conclusive proof of the
estimation in which they are held. His Excellency seriously demanded to
know whether any woman had ever trod upon the poop; and, being assured
in the negative, he consented at length to enter the cabin." The house
fixed for the residence of an American missionary was not allowed to be
fitted up, as it stood on ground which was higher than the king's barge
as it lay in the river; and such a spectacle would not become the king's
dignity. The prime minister of this same