THE GANGES. sin. 'Old elder B has rode two miles this cold morning to tell me he was greatly concerned for my salvation. What shall I do? what shall I do ?' "I do not know what you can do,' said my now astonished wife; I do not know what better you can do, than to get on your horse and go and see the elder. He can give you better counsel than I, and tell you what you must do to be saved.' "No sooner said than done. I mounted my horse and pursued after him. I found him alone in that same little room where he had spent the whole night in prayer for my poor soul--where he had shed many tears over such a reprobate as I, and had besought God to have mercy upon me. "I am come,' said I to him, 'to tell you that I am greatly concerned for my own salvation.' "Praised be God!' said the elder. It is a faithful saying, and worthy of acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, even the very chief;' and he began at that same Scripture, and preached to me Jesus. On that same floor we knelt, and together we prayed; and we did not separate that day till God spoke peace to my soul. I have often been requested to look at the evidence of the truth of religion; but, blessed be God, I have evidence for its truth here"-laying his hand upon his heart"which nothing can gainsay or resist. I have often been led to look at this and that argument for the truth of Christianity, but I could overturn and, as I thought, completely demolish and annihilate them all. But I stand here to-night, thankful to acknowledge that God sent an argument to my conscience and heart which could not be answered or resisted, when the weeping elder came to me to tell me how greatly concerned he was for my salvation. God taught him that argument, where he spent the night before him in prayer for my soul. Now I can truly say, I am a happy man. My peace flows like a river. My consistent, uncomplaining wife, who so long bore with my impiety and unbelief, now rejoices with me, that by the grace of God I am what I am-that whereas I was blind, now I see. And here permit me to say, if you would wish to reach the heart of such a poor sinner as I, you must get your qualifications where the good old elder did-in your closet; and as he did-on his knees. So it shall be with me. will endeavour to reach the hearts of my Infidel friends through the closet and by prayer." I He sat down overcome with emotion, amid the tears and the suppressed sobs of the assembly. All were touched; for all knew what he once was-all saw what he had now become. A IF you ask the Hindu how he hopes to obtain forgiveness of his sins and the salvation of his soul, he invariably points to the Ganges-here is his principal means of salvation. This deified river will heal and purify everything that is morally bad and corrupt in man. The origin of it is related in various ways. saint called Bhagiruth, led an ascetic life for many years. Upon his prayer, the Ganges descended from heaven; that is, the Himalaya Mountain. The gods would not agree to this descent, saying, they had many sins to wash off likewise. Brahma promised them that, although it descended to the earth, it should, at the same time, remain in heaven. Vishnu then gave Bhagiruth a shell; and whenever he blew it, the Ganges followed him at his heels. At a certain place he unfortunately carried away the brazen 321 vessel and flowers of a saint, which he was intending to strew in honour of Shiva. This saint, or sunyasee, in his rage, swallowed the whole river; but at Bhagiruth's request, he had to disgorge it again. Another miraculous story, related in the Shasters, of the origin of the Ganges is the following: Shiva's wife, Parbatti, touched his right eye; as this is the sun, a general confusion was caused in the creation. To prevent mischief, Shiva caused a third eye to grow out above his nose. His wife perceiving her imprudence, removed the finger, but a tear remained on it, and as this tear fell to the ground, the Ganges sprung out of it; hence, the water is so sacred that those who bathe in it wash away every sin. All the sects of the Hindus, and "their name is Legion," are agreed in this. Whatever may be their differences on other points, when meeting on the banks of the Ganges they cease to strive, and look on each other as friends. So sacred is the water, that the Hindu will swear by the name of any other god, rather than by Gunga. Hence, in courts of justice witnesses are generally sworn by holding a bason of Ganges water in their hands. At certain seasons and constellations, bathing in this river is exceedingly meritorious; the act delivers the sinner, with three millions of his ancestors, from the punishment of hell; and the crimes of a thousand former births are atoned for. At such festivals I have seen tens of thousands on the road, travelling to the sacred stream. The town of Burdwan was sometimes crowded with those pilgrims, and swarms of them were seen bivouacking at night under trees in the open air. These poor people often travel two or three hundred miles to obtain the benefits promised. On their return, they take kulsees, or large round vessels, full of water, home with them, to convey some of the same blessings to their friends who have remained behind. At sacred spots, such as Benares, one hundred thousand men are often seen assembled on the banks of the Ganges, especially at the time of an eclipse. As soon as the shadow of the earth touches the moon, the whole mass, upon a certain signal given, plunge at once into the stream; and, from the pressure of the water, a mighty wave rolls towards the opposite shore, which sometimes upsets boats filled with people. When all is over, the poor people get out of the water, and return home, under the delusive idea of having obtained remission of sin and perfect purity. The sins which are afterwards committed run on to a new account, which is to be cleared off at their next visit. In performing these ceremonies, not the least idea of a deeper and symbolical meaning enters the mind of the Hindu-the Shasters teach nothing of the kind; no, the river is a god personified-it is the water which cleanses, sanctifies, and raises the soul to heaven. The mind has been petrified by the religion which ascribes divine virtue to visible and material things. The Ganges is the dying-bed and the grave of the Hindu. He is very anxious to breathe out his soul on its banks, in order that his last sins may be blotted out by the sight of its water. When the patient appears to approach death, he is removed from the circle of his friends, and carried away. Let the heat be parching, or the wind blow cold, the dying man is set down on the river's brink, being, when poor, sometimes barely covered with a rag. I have often been a spectator of this revolting scene. Once, I remember two sons prepared their aged father for death. It was a morning in January, when the piercing northerly wind is severely felt in Bengal. They poured several basons full of water over his head; and then they placed the shivering body in the stream, and rubbed the upper part of it with mud, at the same time calling the names Gunga, Ram, Narayun, in his ears. The sight of the dying father went through my heart: but this to die happily, in the opinion of the Hindus. The Shasters promise him all the glories of Shiva's heaven; he will shine there brighter than a thousand suns; and millions of virgins are standing ready for his service, with coaches and palankeens in abundance. Surely the shores of the Ganges belong to "the dark places of the earth, which are full of the habitations of cruelty." Once a wicked Brahman died, and Yama, the god of the infernal regions, took him into hell. His corpse was, as is usual, burned; a crow flew away with one of his bones, and let it fall into the Ganges; no sooner had it reached the water, than his soul left hell, riding in a splendid chariot to heaven. "Truly," said an excellent missionary, with the River Ganges in his sight, 66 no tyrant has ever brought greater misery over the earth, than those religious legislators have done who made a god of that river." Millions are, through this, annually drawn away from their homes; fornication, and other crimes are committed by the pilgrims on the way; and hundreds of thousands are dragged from a dry and clean dying-bed, to breathe out their lives in this watery grave. The dying person often sees the stake erected on which his corpse is to be burned: nor is the body allowed to get cold; but as soon as life is extinct, it is put on the pile, and the fire kindled. Instances are not rare, when the body was not really dead, and when it rose up, as the flame began to scorch it. In such a case the Hindus believe a bad spirit has entered the corpse, and knock it down with bamboos. The skull, which cannot be consumed in the fire, must be crushed by the nearest relative, that the soul may escape. In performing this dreadful operation he often sprinkles his garment with the brains, which have become liquid in the fire; the ashes are then thrown into the river. The poorer classes make far less ceremony, and throw the body in as it is, and frequently it is again cast on shore. I have seen dogs, jackals, and vultures, fighting for and devouring the corpses, and crows sitting on the floating carcasses, tearing off the flesh. In times when fevers and cholera prevail in large towns, hundred and thousands of bodies are daily and weekly thrown into the river, and the fires on which they are consumed continue burning day and night: in those seasons the shores of the Ganges resemble a charnelhouse. I one day witnessed on the shores of this river a striking contrast between Christianity and Hinduism. Ön walking along the banks near the town of Colgong, I discovered a monument in memory of the child of a British officer. During his passage down the river, from a distant station, his infant died, and he had to perform the mournful duty of burying the body on the shore, desecrated by heathen abominations. The following epitaph, which I read on the tombstone, called forth my deep sympathy: "Dear little babe, thy spirit's fled, But Faith within the Saviour's arms Shortly afterwards, I saw near the same spot two Hindus carrying the body of their deceased or dying relative to the river side. They deposited it on the sand, and walked several times round it, making various ceremonies. One of the men then laid hold of the head, and another of the feet, and having walked slowly into the water, and torn off the cloth in which it was wrapped up, they flung the cornse into the stream; they then washed their hands, and walked away in sullen apathy. Suicide is thought peculiarly meritorious when committed near this river. The wife belongs to her husband, even after his death, and great is her sanctity if she follow him immediately on his decease; hence the suttee, or the burning of widows with the bodies of their husbands; but this inhuman custom has been abolished by a law enacted by the East Indian Government. There are, according to an anatomical sketch of the Shasters, thirty-eight millions of hairs on the human body. The widow who allows herself to be burned will dwell as many years with her husband in heaven. In most instances the poor creatures are said to have been persuaded to it by the Brahmans. Many have jumped down from the pile as soon as the flame touched them, but have been forcibly thrown into the fire again. In holy places where two rivers meet, suicides by drowning are frequently committed. Leprous people kill themselves by having a grave dug on the banks; a fire is kindled therein, and the poor wretch throws himself into it. By this means he hopes to acquire the merit of entering into a healthy body at his next transmigration. And who can number the crowd of innocent babes who were sacrificed to Gunga, before the Government made it a capital crime? At a great festival in the island of Gunga Sagor, near the mouth of the Ganges, hundreds of mothers, who had made the cruel vow, threw their little ones into the water, to be devoured by sharks and alligators. One thing is certain-so long as Hinduism exists, human sacrifices will never be entirely abolished, though the Government may continue to issue orders against it. Many a cruel mother is yet throwing away her helpless babe to the jackals at night, especially if it be a girl. -Protestant Missions in Bengal. THE MONKS AT MOUNT SINAI. FROM the inmates of St Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, who, including both the regular clergy and their lay-assistants, are twenty-three in number, my fellow-travellers and myself received much kindness. Like all the other recluses of the Greek Church, the monks belong to the order of St Basil, the rules of which they rigidly observe. Their seclusion they do not seem to have improved for the cultivation of deep and rational devotion, for pursuits of study, or for evangelistic effort, in which-if their perpetual vows, through which they deprive themselves of their Christian liberty, could be overlooked-some apology might be found for their situation. Some of them confessed to me that, in the multiplicity of their public authorized services, they could dispense altogether with private prayer and the perusal of the Scriptures. It was painful, indeed, to witness the manner in which they conduct divine worship in the church of the convent, dedicated to the "metamorphosis," or transfiguration. The lengthy Greek service, they read and chanted with the greatest irreverence, and altogether unintelligible rapidity. Their ceremonious genuflections, and prostrations, and invocations, before the pictures of the saints, the MISCELLANEOUS. large cross on the screen which separates the altar from the nave, and at the feet of their own superior, bore but too certain evidence of their practice of idolatry under the very shadow of that mountain from which God himself spake the words: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth." When they showed us their library, in which we found a considerable number of works in the Arabic and Syriac, as well as Greek languages, both printed and in manuscript, they could give us no general account of its contents, and acknowledged that, excepting its ecclesiastical service-books, it was to them merely useless lumber. The copies of the Scriptures, too, which had been presented to them by Dr Joseph Wolff, during his first visit to the convent, for their individual use, had been added to the common stock, and were quite neglected. Only one or two of them appeared to be able to converse in Arabic with the surrounding children of the desert, the religious instruction of whom, they confessed, they entirely neglected. No greater proof of the want of pastoral care of themselves, or rather of their predecessors, can be found than the fact, that they have allowed the body of the Jebeliyah, or mountaineers, who are entirely dependent upon them, as their menial servants, and who are the descendants of Christian slaves said to have been sent to the convent by the Emperor Justinian, to become Mussalmans. I did not hear of a single Arab to whom they have access having been instructed by any of them in the faith of Christ. Except in as far as they practise hospitality to travellers who visit the grand and terrific scenery and hallowed localities among which they dwell, they seem never to aim at usefulness among their fellow-creatures.-Dr Wilson's Lecture on Foreign Churches. A FEW FACTS ABOUT INDIA MISSIONS. "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."-MATT. ix. 37, 39. 323 of systematic murderers, called Thugs, and other bands of men who live by the fruits of violent burglaries, and perform religious ceremonies to Kali in celebration of their successes. 8. In the whole of the vast provinces of Bengal and Behar, it has been ascertained that the proportion of individuals who can even read is as five and a half to one hundred; and the lack of knowledge in some other parts of India is still greater. 9. A large body of the people of India are under the influence of such fearful superstitions, that myriads annually leave their families and homes, to undertake pilgrimages to distant temples, where, for the most part, the Brahmans whom they reverence, live in idleness and sin; and of these pilgrims many thousands die of cold, starvation, and diseases, on the roads. 10. It is an ascertained fact, that in some parts of India, mothers, from a depraved sense of duty, constantly sacrifice their female children. 11. So little has Christian England yet fulfilled her obligations to the people of India, that her Government has only within a few years ceased to support idolatrous temples, to compel her troops to pay homage to idols passing in procession, to administer idolatrous oaths in her courts of justice, and actually to teach in her colleges, together with the fallacious sciences of the Hindus, some of the very religious errors which the missionaries have to combat. 12. The expense of the Burmese war was twelve millions sterling, and the expense of the Affghan war was six millions; but not a single rupee does the Government spend on Christian missions. 13. The present state of the public mind in India, notwithstanding the comparative smallness of the Christian means that have been employed to elevate the condition of the people, shows that the labours of the missionaries have not been in vain in the Lord, and bids us thank God and take courage. 14. The Bible is translated into Bengali, Hindustani, Hindee, Tamul, Marathi, Urya, and nearly all the dialects of India; scriptural tracts and schoolbooks in all these languages are now prepared, and are annually circulated in great numbers; there is a thirst for education; the English language is spread 1. The population of British India is now consi-ing; old prejudices are giving way; the missionary dered, by the best statists, to be upwards of one hundred and forty millions. 2. For this population it is doubtful if there are so many as two hundred European and American missionaries; that is, only one missionary to every seven hundred and fifty thousand people. 3. If ministers of the Gospel were supplied to Great Britain and Ireland in the same proportion, there would be only eighteen in all England, four in Scotland, and eleven in Ireland-only thirty-three in the whole United Kingdom. 4. The population of the small district in which Calcutta is situated, called the Twenty-Four Pergunnahs, exceeds the population of the whole of the West India Islands, and there are several districts in Bengal which are still more populous. schools are well attended; and the Word of God is listened to attentively by crowds, at fairs and festivals. "The fields are white unto the harvest." "Who, then, is ready to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord?"-Calcutta Christian Herald. Miscellaneous. IDLENESS travels very leisurely, and Poverty soons overtakes her.-Hunter. HASTE NOT WISDOM.-Hasty conclusions are the mark of a fool: a wise man doubteth—a fool rageth, and is confident: the novice saith, I am sure that it is so; the better learned answers, Peradventure it may be so; but I prithee inquire. Some men are drunk with fancy, and mad with opinion. It is a little 5. There are several districts in Bengal, like Pubna, Rajshye, Bogora, and Mymunsing, in each of which the population exceeds a million; several large dis-learning, and but a little, which makes men conclude tricts and populous towns in other parts of India; hastily. Experience and humility teach modesty several extensive dependent countries, like Oude and and fear.-Jeremy Taylor. Gwalior; and several important neighbouring countries, like Cashmere and Nepal, which have no missionary at all. 6. There are several extremely populous districts, like Jessore, Midnapore, Dinagepore, Bheerboom, and Burdwan, which at present have only a single missionary each. 7. The state of the people who are thus neglected is such, that there exist among them religious bands COMPANY. No man can be provident of his time, who is not prudent in the choice of his company.Ibid. NEEDLESS ENMITIES.-That prudence which the world teaches, and a quick susceptibility of private interest, will direct us to shun needless eninities; since there is no man whose kindness we may not some time want, or by whose malice we may not some time suffer.Johnson. Baily Bread. FRIDAY. "The world is crucified to me."-GAL. vi. 14. Let all our actions tend To thee, their souree: thy love the guide- Crucify your sins, that have crucified your Saviour. They that are Christ's," saith St Paul, "have crucified the flesh, with the lusts thereof." Did the rocks rend when Christ died for our sins, and shall not our hearts rend that have lived in our sins? Oh! the nails that pierced his hands should now pierce our hearts. They should wound themselves with their sorrows, who have wounded him with their sins! That they have grieved his Spirit, it should grieve their spirits.-Dyer. SATURDAY. "The glory that excelleth."-2 COR. iii. 10. Who would not work for glory with the greatest diligence, and wait for glory with the greatest patience? Oh! what glories are there in glory! Thrones of glory, crowns of glory, vessels of glory, a weight of glory, a kingdom of glory. Here Christ puts his grace upon his spouse, but there he puts his glory upon his spouse; in heaven the crown is made for them, and in heaven the crown shall be worn by them; in this life believers have some good things, but the rest and best are reserved for the life to come.-Ibid. SABBATH. "Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great."-Ps. xxv. 11. Is it the greatness and the heinous nature of thy sins that afflict thee? Possibly thou mightst think I flatter thee, to tell thee thou shouldst gather ground of hope rather than of despair; for thou hast now a plea for pardon. See how the Prophet David urgeth this as an argument with God for the forgiveness of them: "For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity." Why? It may be they are so great that they cannot in justice be pardoned: yea, "O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great." It is a very strange argument, one would think, thus to plead with men : Pray, pardon me, because I have done you a great injury;" and yet, with God, whose thoughts are not as the thoughts of men, and whose ways are not as the ways of men, this strange argument is very forcible and prevalent: "Lord, pardon me, because I have sinned greatly:" thou speakest more reason by far, than if thou shouldst say, My sins are great and heinous, and therefore there is no hope of pardon for them.-Hopkins. MONDAY. "The god of this world hath blinded their minds."2 Cor. iv. 4. Wretches, who cleave to earthly things But are not rich to God, Their dying hour is full of stings, And hell their dark abode. As those that work in deep mines see not the sun, and know not how the day passeth away; so those earth-worms that toil and drudge to load themselves with thick clay out of the bowels of the earth, never consider how far their day is spent, nor how near their sun is to setting; never consider once how the day goes over their heads, but still work deeper and deeper, till they have opened a passage through earth into hell, into which at last they fall headlong.Ibid. TUESDAY. They shall look on me whom they have pierced, and shall mourn."-ZECH. xii. 10. Vouchsafe us eyes of faith to see To know thee, who thou art, And break my stubborn heart. evil of sin? Behold this sacrifice by faith, and try what efficacy there is in it to make sin for ever bitter as death to thy soul. Suppose thine own father had been stabbed to the heart with a knife, and his blood were upon it, wouldst thou delight to see, or endure to use that knife any more? Sin is the knife that stabbed Christ to the heart-this shed his blood. Surely, you can never make light of that which lay so heavy upon the soul and body of Jesus Christ. Flavel. Art thou too little touched and affected with the WEDNESDAY. "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils."— ISA. ii. 22. Commit thou all thy griefs And ways into God's hands- Who earth and heaven commands. There are two things that should deter us from dependence upon any man, viz., his falseness and his frailty. It was the saying of a philosopher when he heard how merchants lost great estates at sea in a moment, "I love not the happiness which hangs upon a rope." But all the happiness of many men hangs upon a far weaker thing than a rope, even the perishing breath of a creature. The best way to continue your friends to your comfort, is to give God, and not them, your dependence; and the best way to secure yourselves against the rage of enemies, is to give God your fear, and not them.-Ibid. THURSDAY. "Him hath God exalted to be a Prince."-Acts v. 31. All the heavenly hosts adore thee, Who can conceive the happiness of the saints in the presence-chamber of the great King, where he sits in his chair of state, making his glory eminently to appear in the man Christ? His gracious presence makes a mighty change upon the saints in this world: his glorious presence in heaven, then, must elevate their graces to their perfection, and enlarge their capacities. The saints do now experience that the presence of God with them, in his grace, can make a little heaven of a sort of hell; how great, then, must the glory of heaven be by his presence there in his glory! If a candle, in some sort, beautifies a cottage or prison, how will the shining sun beautify a palace or paradise ?-Boston. Edinburgh: Printed by Jons JOHNSTONE, residing at 12, Windsor Street, and Published by him at 2, Hunter Square. London: R. GROOMBRIDGE & SONS. Glasgow: J. R. M'NAIR & Co.; and to be had of any Bookseller throughout the Kingdom. THE CHRISTIAN TREASURY. 325 LOOKING TO OUR WAYS. BY THE REV. JOHN FAIRBAIRN, ALLANTON. "My Memory tracks each several way, Since Reason did begin Over my actions her first sway; And teacheth me, that each new day "Poor bankrupt Conscience! where are those As no rent-day should be." HABINGTON. THAT is a good resolution of David's in the 39th Psalm: "I said I will take heed to my ways." May the Lord give us grace to take heed to our ways! There is hope of a man when, from true conviction of sin, and a sincere desire to escape from it, he resolves in his heart, with the help of God, to take heed to his ways. there be that go in thereat." You may think how wide that gate is, and how broad that way, at which the world enters-along which the whole world almost travels. You think there is no way like this. You are greatly taken with it. It falls in, to an hair's breadth, with your desires. "There is nothing," you say, "of Methodistic preciseness here-no stiff-necked formality-no sad-featured hypocrisy. It is a pleasant way to travel. What merry-making is there amongst the gladhearted multitudes that crowd along it! Out upon the fear of death, and the fear of judg ment! Eternity is yet a good way off. These we will think of in good time. Meanwhile we will not disturb ourselves with such gloomy meditations. Why spoil all by looking upon You may look to your ways from two points. such a death's-head? See how invitingly the You are to do so. You are to look back-you path winds along. It is all covered with are to look forward. When a traveller comes flowers. There is singing of birds on every side." to a hill top, he can take his breath there, and True-in one sense, it is all true; but, as you look back upon the track over which he has love your souls, be not deceived. The company journeyed. It lies like a chart stretched out at is great, but it is a company of hardened sinhis feet, and invites his perusal. Do you, who ners. These flowers, these blossoming lusts, are life's pilgrims, stop for a few minutes, and, are set with thorns; and would you have your as from a favourable eminence, look back upon souls stuck full of them? These songs shall your past ways. There is much to reflect upon. soon be changed into wringing of hands and To aid your reflections, recollect that eter- bitter curses. Broad and pleasant as the way nity is the end of your journey. You are get-now appears, it is a bad way; it leads to deting towards it. Each week, day, hour, brings struction. It is the way along which Satan you nearer it. You have not thought suffi- drives this world; and you know where the ciently on this. You were thinking, it is likely, end of his journey lies. What shall be said to on no such matter-supposing that all things you, if, on looking back, you find that this is were standing still, and you standing still in the way you have been travelling up till this the midst of them. To-day is so like yester-hour? But you have yet to look forward; for day, you thought there was no moving for- there is much in that direction also to think wards. Standing still! There is no standing upon. still; at least in this world there is none. You were once little helpless children. See what you are now. How far time has brought you on your life-journey! You started when you first discovered a grey hair in your head. You could scarce believe it. With some of you a black hair is as great a rarity as a grey one once was. You are getting near to eternity. What have you to say or think when you look back upon your ways? By what path have you been posting on all this while? According to the course of this world? Are you still in that way?-sailing with the stream? Matters are not well with you. Are you living without the knowledge of God-the fear of God-the love of God? You are as yet in "the broad way." It leads to perdition. Our Saviour describes it: "Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many No. 28. You must be reminded that your natural eyesight-the eye of a carnal heart-will not carry you so far as it is needful you should look. If you look no farther than it will carry you, you had almost as well not look at all. It will carry you no farther than to that dim boundary where eternity touches upon time. You may see the length of the border-land, and the river of death which flows between this world and the world to come. It is not only as far as eternity you are to look-you must look into eternity. You must do so through the Word of God. If you are in the way of the world, take the Word of God, and see where that way leads; whither it will inevitably conduct you, if you persevere in travelling along it. "There is no peace to the wicked." Would you but look forward, and see where it is you are going! Surely it would startle some to see how near they are to the pit-on its verge. No impenitent, unconverted sinner is far from September 5, 1845. |