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in which position he had remained for years. I once saw, at one of the landing places, by the side of the Ganges, at Calcutta, two men, each sitting, surrounded by and within three or four feet of three large fires, in which situation they continued during the da, the vertical sun beating on their bare heads; and at night, th men are said to have remained up to the neck in the Ganges; exposing themselves to the greatest extremity of heat and and thus drying up all the juices of the body, aspiring to a tence entirely spiritual. These and other austerities are led yoke, or joge, and hence the name commonly given to the ascetics, jogees.

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As a mimicry of the same system, many of the Hindoos have their hair clotted with dirt, and tied round the head as a turban, in imitation of Seeb, the great ascetic. Others have a tyger's skin thrown over the shoulder, to give the idea that they reside in forests; others go without clothes, to show that they are destitute of passions; and the names given to these mendicants are significant of the same fact soonyasee is a compound of soonya, destitute of, and asee, passion; and the term voiragee is compounded of voi, destitute of, and rag, passion. Other cruelties practised by the Hindoos, as a part of the popular superstition, are authorised by their sacred writings. For instance

At the annual festival in honour of Seeb, I have seen multitudes suspended in the air, by hooks thrust through the back, for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time; others have a large slit cut through the tongue; others have the sides perforated, and cords drawn between the skin and the ribs, as they dance through the streets; others cast themselves from an eminence of ten or twelve feet upon open knives. And these devotees close this festival by dancing upon burning coals with their naked feet.

I am not aware that the murder of female infants by the tribe of Rajpoots is authorised by the Shaster; but these immolations unquestionably owe their existence to a state of society arising out of the prevailing system of Hindoo manners. Amongst this tribe, not a single female child is permitted to survive. Čolonel Walker saved a few by persevering persuasions, but since his return to Europe, these very families spare their female infants no longer. I was informed, when in India, of a single instance, in which a Rajpoot spared his infant daughter: she grew up to the age of twelve; but the sight of a girl in the house of a Rajpoot was so singular, that nobody chose to solicit her in marriage; and the father, fearing she might bring dishonour upon his family, in a fit of anguish and disappointment, took a hatchet and cut his child to pieces.

The drowning of children is quite common in some parts of India. These children are sacrificed in fulfilment of a vow made at the time of marriage, viz. that if the deity would grant the bride the blessing of children, the first child should be offered to

this deity. Here the mother is seen encouraging her child to enter the Brumhu-pootru, or some other river; and after it has proceeded into the middle of the current, she abandons it; and stands an unmoved spectator of the cries and struggles of her infant, till it sinks to rise no more. What must be that superstition, which can thus petrify the heart, and transform a woman, a mother, into a monster, more savage than the tyger which prowls through the desert!

The Hindoo Shaster allows of Hindoos, afflicted with an incurable distemper, to put an end to life by falling under the wheels. of the car of Jugunnat'h, or by casting themselves into some sacred river, or by the purifying power of fire. This is the secret of the immolations in Orissa, described by Dr. Buchanan, in his Christian Researches. In the "View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos," several instances are given of these diseased persons voluntarily perishing in the Ganges; and Dr. Carey's second son states, that he saw near his own house, not long ago, a poor leper perish by fire. His relations had dug a deep grave, and kindled a large fire at the bottom of it. The leper, not being able to walk, rolled himself over and over, till he fell into the pit. But here his screams became most heart-rending; he called upon his relations, who were standing round the pit, to lift him out, in a manner so piteous, that the heart of a tyger might have been moved; but he cried in vain ; his own sister, instead of raising him out of the flames, pushed him back into them, and there she and others watched his writhings and agonies in the fire till he was reduced to ashes. To some this Hindoo provision of getting rid of a distempered body may appear reasonable, especially as the victim is promised a healthful body in the next birth; but how infinitely more excellent is the Christian sentiment, "All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come."

These Shasters have described the virtues of the Ganges in such terms, that the people not only bathe daily in the sacred stream, but carry the water hundreds of miles, for sacred uses; and all the dying are hurried to its banks to receive their last purification by the sight and the application of its waters. Here are seen the dying, exposed to the scorching sun by day, and ly. ing on the cold earth, to the dews and chills of the night, by which recovery is prevented, and the pains of dying a million-fold increased.

This idolatrous belief in the purifying nature of the Ganges, inculcated in the Shaster, leads multitudes, in a state of perfect health, to cast themselves into the stream, and perish. At Alla habad, in the north of Hindoost'han, where there is a junction of two sacred rivers, the Jumna and the Ganges, numbers annually perish.-Capt. Pudner, a gentleman now in England, saw sixteen females, with pans of water hanging to their shoulders, sink in

this river, in one morning as he sat at his own window there. They were assisted by the bramhuns (the priests) to climb over the side of the boat, and held up in the water till they had themselves filled the pans, and they then sunk, nothing but a few bubbles of water marking where they had gone down. While Dr. Robinson, lately deceased at Calcutta, resided at the same place, twelve men were immolated on the same spot, and by a similar process. Our own missionary there, Mr. McIntosh, in his letters to Serampore, frequently writes in the most distressing manner on the subject of these immolations.

But there is something infinitely beyond all this in horror, something which has no parallel in the annals of time, nor among the most barbarous and savage tribes. The scalping by your Indians is mere child's-play, compared with the burning of the Hindoo widow on the funeral pile. By an official statement put into my hands in the year 1818, and a copy of which I brought with me from India, it appears, that in 1815, between 4 and 500 females were burnt or buried alive in the presidency of Bengal alone; between 5 and 600 in 1816, and in 1817 (only three years ago) there were 706 widows thus roasted alive or buried alive in that part of British India. This is the official statement. But, Sir. I have no doubt, but that these immolations were far more numerous; that they were 1400, or perhaps 2800! Is there any thing like this to be found amongst all human records? Into what forest, Sir; amongst what tribe of savages shall we go for scenes of blood and murder like these? And yet these are the mild and innocent sons of Brabme.-I have seen three widows thus roasted alive! But the impressions made upon the mind by the sight of these horrible-these most horrible practices-are almost overwhelming; otherwise I could have been present at many of these immolations.-And all this proceeds from the same sacred writings, from the Shaster, which promises the poor widow, that, if she will burn, she shall, by the merit of this act, carry with her to heaven (a sensual paradise) fourteen generations of relations and her deceased husband, where they shall all remain while fourteen kings of the gods shall have succeeded to the throne of Indra.-The funeral pile consists of a quantity of faggots laid on the earth, rising about three feet from the ground. After bathing, and the performance of various superstitious rites, the widow comes to the pile; walks round it four times, scattering flowers and parched corn, and then lays herself down on the pile by the dead body, which she infolds in her arms. With two cords laid across the pile, the dead and living bodies are then tied fast together. More faggots are now laid upon the bodies, and two levers are brought over them, pressing down the living widow, and preventing her, after the flames begin to scorch her, from escaping from the hands of these "staunch murderers." The eldest son now sets fire to the pile, and, as the flames ascend,

the shouts of the mob and the noise of the drums, effectually drown the screams of the poor widow, who is thus pursued to death with as little pity as is felt by a parcel of rude boys while stoning to death some noxious animal. The widows of the Weavers are, when immolated, buried alive. In this case, a large grave is dug by her relations; and, after the performance of certain superstitious rites, the widow is let down into it, in the centre of which she sits, taking the dead body on her lap, and inclosing it in her arms. In this posture she sits, an unmoved unremonstrating spectator, while her children and relations throw in the earth, and while two of them, descending into the grave, trample it firm around her. She sees the earth rising higherand higher; till at length it reaches her head. All the rest of the earth is then thrown hastily upon her, and when the grave is full, these relations mount to the top of it, and tread the earth firm on the head of the suffocated victim! Why, Sir, one is ready to ask, whether this is hell or earth! And yet all this is practised in the face of the whole population; and this is a part of the religion of Brahme.

What then is the remedy for such a state of society as this? It is hoped, that the British government will ere long interpose, and interdict these horrible practices. But it is the introduction of Christianity alone which can effectually teach these people "the way of peace." It is in the dissemination of the Holy Scriptures, and by the spread of the gospel, that the Almighty will be known in India as "the Father of the fatherless, and the husband of the widow."

The Shaster is also the source of all those abominations connected with religious ceremonies which so much abound among the Hindoos. The songs, the dances, exhibited at their religious festivals, are so impure that the very natives themselves are ashamed, when called upon to offer an apology for them. Gopel, a learned bramhun, confessed to a friend of mine, that he was never present on these occasions without hiding himself behind a pillar of the temple.-And yet this is in, what is to them, the house of God; and these are a part of the services which they offer to the deity! And thus that which should be the source of illumination, is the very element of darkness; that which should elevate, debases and degrades, and that which should purify and save, becomes the poison of the soul, and accelerates its ruin.

Notwithstanding all the predictions of the enemies of missions, who declared that their strong holds in India were invulnerable, that the Hindoos, whatever other heathen might do, would never renounce every thing for Christ-as notwithstanding all the real and most awful obstacles in the way of the evangelization of this country-more than 600 Pagans have, in connection with one mission station only, renounced their gods and been brought to

own the Redeemer-the Holy Scriptures, in whole or in part, have been translated and published at Serampore, in 25 of the languages of India-languages in which they had never before appeared, and one of them the Chinese, spoken by 200,000,000 of men; these Scriptures are spreading a glorious light where they have been most read; and many Hindoos have been converted, comforted in sickness and supported in death by their perusal; more than 50 of these converted Pagans have become Christian teachers; 20,000 heathen children attend the schools established by Christians in India; and now a new college is founding at Serampore, that the converted natives may themselves, under the Great Head of the church, become the evangelists of Christ, and the saviours of their coutry.

I have every reason, Sir, to be grateful for the very kind manner in which I have been received in the United States, and particularly in New York. The support which I have begun to realize here, in reference to the Native Missionary College, also deserves my thanks. It was to be expected, that in a land where Christianity has been pouring forth her choicest treasures, such an object, though a distant one, would find many a heart warm towards it. Ah! Sir, the cries of 150,000,000 cannot be heard without the deepest sympathy, wherever the worth of the immortal mind, and of the everlasting gospel, is felt. Is there in any one country beside, China excepted, such a wreck, such a ruin as this? 150,000,000! And how should the wants of such a population, the individual instruction of all these millions, be met by foreigners, supported by public contributions? N, Sir, India can only attain a higher civilization, and a saving illumination, by the grace, the gifts, and the exertions of its own renovated population. Ever yours,

W. WARD.

CITY AFFAIRS.-INTEMPERANCE.

From the last Annual Report of the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in the City of New-York.

"The Managers say with regret, that the vice of intemperance in the use of ardent spirits, wear a magnitude and an aspect, that inspire the deepest apprehensions in this populous and growing city. To dwell on the awful calamities which it entails on individuals and communities, were to develope truths already deeply impressed on every reflecting mind. It consumes every virtue, dissolves every social tie, and destroys every noble faculty. It banishes industry, honesty, and self-regard. It forms the nursery of crime and outrage, and, perhaps, yields not to the sword in destroying the race of man-for who can count the monuments of its desolation, in the dark valley of death!

"In turning to the statutes of our legislature, and to the ordi

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