Equally unfair, and equally insensible to all the appeals of religious fervour, is the article on Indian Missions, for which, fifty years after, Archbishop Tait found it hard to forgive him.[133] Here again the artificial quaintness of religious phrase and thought gave him the necessary material for his fun.  As he had found delight in the proper names of Methodist ministers—­Shufflebottom and Ringletub[134]—­so he delighted in lampooning “Ram Boshoo,” and “Buxoo a brother,” and “the Catechist of Collesigrapatuam.”  The saintly and scholarly Carey[135] ought to have been safe from his attacks, but the Baptist Missionary Society rather invited ridicule.—­

“Brother Carey, while very sea-sick, and leaning over the ship to relieve his stomach from that very oppressive complaint, said his mind was even then filled with consolation in contemplating the wonderful goodness of God.”

And Brother Carey’s own journal was calculated to raise a smile.—­

    “1793.  June 30.  Lord’s-day.  A pleasant and profitable day:  our
    congregation composed of ten persons.”

    “July 7.  Another pleasant and profitable Lord’s-day:  our
    congregation increased with one.  Had much sweet enjoyment with God.”

    “1794.  Jan, 26.  Lord’s-day.  Found much pleasure in reading Edwards’s
    Sermon on the Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners.”

    “April 6.  Had some sweetness to-day, especially in reading Edwards’s
    Sermon.”

    “_.1796.  Feb. 6_.  I am now in my study; and oh, it is a sweet place,
    because of the presence of God with the vilest of men.  It is at the
    top of the house; I have but one window in it.”

In reply to Jeffrey, who as Editor of the Edinburgh Review rebuked his contributor for “levity of quotations,” Sydney Smith wrote in 1808:—­

“I do not understand what you mean.  I attack these men because they have foolish notions of religion.  The more absurd the passage, the more necessary it should be displayed—­the more urgent the reason for making the attack at all.”

This is at any rate an explanation, even if it does not amount to a justification; but what is lamentable is that, as in the case of the Methodists at home, he seems frankly unable to conceive of the passion for spreading the Gospel which drove men from all that is enjoyable in life to slave and die under Indian suns.  He seems genuinely to believe that the spread of the Christian religion in India will produce a revolution, and he turns the ludicrous blunders of religious men into arguments for slothfulness in evangelization.—­