THE RIVER GANGES.
My dear Children--If you will look at the map of Asia, and find the
country of Hindostan, you will see running through it a very celebrated
river--the river Ganges. It is called the Ganges, after the goddess
Gunga. The Hindoos say that the goddess Gungu--who was produced from the
sweat of Vrishnoo's foot, which Brumha caught and preserved in his
alms-dish--came down from heaven, and divided herself into one hundred
streams, which are the mouths of the river Ganges. All classes and
castes worship her. The sight, the name, or the touch of the river
Ganges is said to take away all sin. To die on the edge of the river, or
to die partly buried in the stream, drinking its waters, while their
bodies are besmeared with mud, is supposed to render them very holy. On
this account, when it is expected that a person will die, he is hurried
down to the river, whether willing or unwilling. Sometimes the wood
which the people bring to burn their bodies after death, is piled up
before their eyes. O, how inhuman is this. After it is supposed that
they are dead, and they are placed on the pile of wood, if they should
revive and attempt to rise, it is thought that they are possessed with
the devil, and they are beaten down with a hatchet or bamboo.
Were you standing on the banks of the Ganges you might, perhaps, in one
place see two or three young men carrying a sick female to the river. If
you should ask what they are going to do with her, perhaps they would
reply, We are going to give her up to Gunga, to purify her soul, that
she may go to heaven; for she is our mother. In another place you might
see a father and mother sprinkling a beloved child with muddy water,
endeavoring to soothe his dying agonies by saying, "It is blessed to die
by Gunga, my son; to die by Gunga is blessed, my son." In another place
you might see a man descending from a boat with empty water-pans tied
around his neck, which pans, when filled, will drag down the poor
creature to the bottom, to be seen no more. Here is murder in the name
of religion. He is a devotee, and has purchased heaven, as he supposes,
by this his last good deed. In another place you might see a person
seated in the water, accompanied by a priest, who pours down the throat
of the dying man mud and water, and cries out, "O mother Gunga, receive
his soul." The dying man may be roused to sensibility by the violence.
He may entreat his priest to desist; but his entreaties are drowned. He
persists in pouring the mud and water down his throat, until he is
gradually stifled, suffocated--suffocated in the name of
humanity--suffocated in the name of religion.
It happens, sometimes, in cases of sudden and violent attacks of
disease, that they cannot be conveyed to the river before death. Under
such circumstances, a bone is preserved, and at a convenient season is
taken down and thrown into the river. This, it is believed, contributes
essentially to the salvation of the deceased.
Sometimes strangers are left on the banks to die, without the ceremony
of drinking Ganges water. Of these, some have been seen creeping along
with the flesh half eaten off their bones by the birds; others with
their limbs torn by dogs and jackals, and others partly covered with
insects.
After a person is taken down to the river, if he should recover, it is
looked upon by his friends as a great misfortune. He becomes an outcast.
Even his own children will not eat with him, nor offer him the least
attention. If they should happen to touch him, they must wash their
bodies, to cleanse them from the pollution which has been contracted.
About fifty miles north of Calcutta, are two villages inhabited entirely
by these poor creatures, who have become outcasts in consequence of
their recovery after having been taken down to the Ganges.
At the mouth of the river Hoogly, which is one of the branches of the
Ganges, is the island Sauger, which I saw as we approached Calcutta
after having been at sea for one hundred and twenty-eight days. Now, my
dear children, if you come out to India as missionaries, you will have
to sail nearly one hundred and thirty days before you can reach it.
Sauger island is the island where, formerly, hundreds of mothers were in
the habit of throwing their children to the crocodiles, and where these
mothers were wont to weep and cry if the crocodiles did not devour their
children before their eyes. Think what a dreadful religion that must
be, which makes mothers so hard-hearted. Did you ever take any corn or
Indian meal and throw it to the chickens? And what did these chickens
do? Did they not come around you and eat it? Well, just in this way the
crocodiles would come near those mothers, and devour their children.
Here is a picture of a mother throwing her child to a crocodile.
[Illustration]
I am glad to tell you, that the British have put a stop to the sacrifice
of children at that place; but mothers continue to destroy their
children elsewhere, and will continue to destroy them until Christians
send the Gospel to them. It is not improbable that vast numbers of
children are annually destroyed in the Ganges. Mothers sacrifice them,
in consequence of vows which they have made. When the time to sacrifice
them has come, they take them down to the river, and encourage them to
go out so far that they are taken away by the stream, or they push them
off with their own hands.
I just remarked, that mothers will continue to destroy their children
until the Gospel is sent to them. That the Gospel does prevent such
things, the following circumstance will show. Several years ago, a
missionary lady went from New England to India. As she was walking out
one morning, on the banks of the Ganges, she saw a heathen mother
weeping. She went up to her, sat down by her side, put her hand into
hers, and asked what was the matter with her. "I have just been making a
basket of flags," said she, "and putting my infant in it--pushing it off
into the river, and drowning it. And my gods are very much pleased with
me, because I have done it." After this missionary lady had heard all
she had to say, she told her that her gods were no gods; that the only
true God delights not in such sacrifices, but turns in horror from them;
and that, if she would be happy here and hereafter, she must forsake her
sins, and pray to Jesus Christ, who died to save sinners like herself.
This conversation was the means of the conversion of that mother, and
she never again destroyed any of her infants.
Such is the power of the blessed Gospel. And what the Gospel has done
once, it can do again. If Christians will send it to them, with the
blessing of God, the time will soon come when heathen mothers will no
more destroy their children. And have you nothing to do in this great
work, my dear children? When you grow up, cannot you go and tell them of
the Saviour? Here is a very pretty hymn about a heathen mother throwing
her child to a crocodile.
See that heathen mother stand
Where the sacred currents flow,
With her own maternal hand,
'Mid the waves her infant throw.
Hark, I hear the piteous scream--
Frightful monsters seize their prey,
Or the dark and bloody stream
Bears the struggling child away.
Fainter now, and fainter still,
Breaks the cry upon the ear;
But the mother's heart is steel,
She unmoved that cry can hear.
Send, O send the Bible there,
Let its precepts reach the heart;
She may then her children spare,
Act the mother's tender part.
I have heard of a little boy who learned this hymn. He was deeply
affected by it, and wanted very much to give something to send the
Gospel to India. But he had no money. He was, however, willing to labor
in order to earn some. Hearing that a gentleman wanted the chips removed
from the ground near his woodpile, he hired himself to him, removed the
chips, got his money, and, with glistening eyes, went and delivered it
up, to be sent to the heathen, repeating, as he went,
Send, O send the Bible there,
Let its precepts reach the heart;
She may then her children spare,
Act the mother's tender part.
About one hundred miles above the mouth of the Hoogly is the city of
Calcutta, and about five hundred miles above that city is the city of
Benares. In these cities, as well as in other places, we see how much
the heathen will contribute to support their wretched religion. A rich
native in Calcutta has been known to spend more than one hundred
thousand dollars on a single festival--the festival of the goddess
Karle--and more than thirty thousand dollars every year afterwards
during his life, for the same purpose. Not long since, a rich native
gave at one time to his idols more than one million two hundred thousand
dollars. And what have Christians ever done to honor their Saviour,
which will bear a comparison with what the heathen do for their idols?
Alas, alas, few Christian men or Christian women, in all the church, are
willing to give even one-tenth of their annual income to the Lord. Most
of those who are rich, hoard up their money, instead of spending it for
the purpose of saving souls. And there are many persons who have never
given a farthing to send the Gospel to the heathen. O, what will such
say, when they must meet the heathen at the bar of God?