of trade; they pay
no taxes; they rise in the several services by rotation;[10]
religious feelings and opinions are by common consent left as a
question between man and his Maker; no one ever thinks of questioning
another about them, nor would he be tolerated if he did so. Most
people take it for granted that those which they got from their
parents were the right ones; and as such they cherish them. They
remember with feelings of filial piety the prayers which they in
their infancy offered to their Maker, while kneeling by the side of
their mothers; and they continue to offer them up through life, with
the same feelings and the same hopes.[11]

Differences of political opinion, which agitate society so much in
England and other countries where every man believes that his own
personal interests must always be more or less affected by the
predominance of one party over another, are no doubt a source of much
interest to people in India, but they scarcely ever excite any angry
passions among them. The tempests by which the political atmosphere
of the world is cleared and purged of all its morbid influences burst
not upon us--we see them at a distance--we know that they are working
for all mankind; and we feel for those who boldly expose themselves
to their 'pitiless peltings' as men feel for the sailors whom they
suppose to be exposed on the ocean to the storm, while they listen to
it from their beds or winter firesides.[12] We discuss all political
opinions, and all the great questions which they affect, with the
calmness of philosophers; not without emotion certainly, but without
passion; we have no share in returning members to parliament--we feel
no dread of those injuries, indignities, and calumnies to which those
who have are too often exposed; and we are free from the bitterness
of feelings which always attend them.[13]

How exalted, how glorious, has been the destiny of England, to spread
over so vast a portion of the globe her literature, her language, and
her free institutions! How ought the sense of this high destiny to
animate her sons in their efforts to perfect their institutions which
they have formed by slow degrees from feudal barbarism; to make them
in reality as perfect as they would have them appear to the world to
be in theory, that rising nations may love and honour the source
whence they derive theirs, and continue to look to it for
improvement.

We return to the society of our wives and childre