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THE WELSH CALTOISTIC METHODIST RECORD. JULY, 1852. THE EXTENT OF OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR RELIGIOUS IDEAS. The amount of responsibility attaching to each individual is in proportion to his particular advantages for attaining to a knowledge of truth and duty. All have not the same means for enlarging their acquaintance with religious truth. There are therefore gradations in responsibility. In heathen countries the materials are scanty and imperfect, while the poverty and ignorance of the people unfit them for using, as they otherwise might have done, the means they possess. But are these altogether irresponsible? By no means. Their condition, it is true, is partly the effect of the circumstances in which they are placed, but mainly the result of personal inclination and conduct. They love sin, therefore they choose darkness, and aim to deepen it. Dr. Carey said that many of the inhabitants of India, when he reproved them for lying and stealing, recklessly told him they had no souls, therefore his reproofs did not apply to them; thus proving, by their subtle cunning, the existence of their souls in the face of their own denial, but at the same time displaying a desire to disbelieve a fact which interfered with their sinful propensities. These are judged, but only according to what they might have known of God and his laws from the materials within their reach. . But how abundant and varied are the means placed at the disposal of the people of this land! How free is our thought to investigate, to doubt, to decide, as our own judgment may prompt! How advantageous the position to which our minds are raised for exercising themselves on the great subject of religion through the almost universal influence of education! We are alike strangers to the darkness wrhich overshadows Japan, to the ever-watchful tyranny which fetters the soul in Austria, and to the deplorable mental degradation of the millions of Russia. If our privileges are great, our responsibilities correspond.