CHAPTER V.

THE SANGUINARY SUPERSTITION OF INDIA.

THE SUPERSTITIOUS INFLUENCE OF HINDOOISM ON ITS VOTARIES -THE JUGGLERS-THE FEARS WHICH A GIANTESS INSPIREDCHRISTIANS EMANCIPATED FROM SUCH EVILS-HUMAN SACRIFICES OF GOOMSUR-DEEDS OF BLOOD MINGLED WITH THE HABITS OF THE PEOPLE-THE SYSTEM OF THE THUGS-A DESCRIPTION OF THEIR DEITY-ATROCITIES REGARDED AS ACTS OF RELIGION-HORRID MURDERS-THE SYSTEM LICENSED BY FORMER AUTHORITIES-THE EFFORTS OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT TO PUT IT DOWN-HINDOOISM AS IT NOW APPEARS COMPARED WITH FORMER REPRESENTATIONS.

THE superstitions of the Hindoos, exercise an extraordinary influence over their minds, fill them with fear and terror, and give a surprising advantage to impostors, to astrologers, to magicians, and to others who are in league with the wicked one. It is impossible to enter fully into this subject, or to make a Christian people understand and appreciate aright, all the privileges which our holy religion has conferred upon the community at large. What has become of the ghosts, the witches, the fairies and all the strange and mysterious beings of other days? The light of the gospel has chased them

away, and their visits and their influence are now comparatively unknown. But in India, there is a darkness that may be felt; Satan reigns supreme over the minds, and among the habitations of its people. Individuals said to be possessed of the devil, obtain incredible power, and will run for miles, with a stone upon their heads, which would require many men to lift; and the land is full of jugglers, necromancers, and alchymists who, in your presence, will perform most incredible feats. I was one of those who are disposed to laugh at such deeds, and regard them as childish manœuvres. But a juggler called one day at my house, and I asked him to show me some of his exploits. After making ribbons, and performing some very curious deeds, he asked me if I had a rupee. Yes, I replied, I have one, and taking a rupee out of my pocket, I showed it, to him, in my hand. He was sitting on the carpet, and I was standing not less than five or six feet from him. "Well! sir," said he, "you are "O yes," I replied, and held it "Now," he said, "open your

sure you have it?"

with a firmer grasp. hand." I did so, very cautiously, lest any trick should be played; but all my caution was vain; my hand drew back with an involuntary shudder; there leaped out of it, a small snake, and sprang about on the floor. The juggler laid hold of the reptile and consigned it to his bag, and afterwards took my rupee out of his bag and gave it to me. How this was done, was always a mystery to me.

But amazing is the influence which their superstitions give to impostors and to knaves of every description, who work upon their fears and their apprehensions, and turn them to their own advantage. In the year 1831, and when the cholera was raging with terrific fury throughout the province, there came to Bangalore an immense giantess. Frightful in her appearance, she pretended to be the divinity who presided over the cholera; she passed through the streets and lanes of the town, and inspiring the people with terror, she cried aloud in the Canarese language, "Give me your plantains and cocoa-nuts, bring me out your fowls, hand me your money; depend upon it if you do not gratify all my wishes, I will enter into your houses, to-night, and destroy you all with the cholera." Then the people might be seen rushing out of their houses, falling prostrate at the feet of this infamous woman, and be heard crying aloud in reply, "Oh thou illustrious goddess! Have mercy upon us! have mercy upon us! pardon our iniquities; send not the cholera into our houses to destroy us and our children; preserve us, preserve us, O thou illustrious goddess!" After she had fleeced the people well, she commanded them to go to a certain part of the town and erect there a pandal or shed, to make an image to resemble her, and to bring their offerings and sacrifices to present them before her. Such was the terror with which she had inspired them, that they had only to obey her orders. She came and sat

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down as the presiding divinity; and they brought their sheep, their fowls, their goats and their buffaloes, and slew them, in order to propitiate her favour. After she had imposed upon the credulous people in Bangalore, she went off to the capital to act a similar part with its inhabitants.

In this manner, does idolatry and its superstitions exercise a debasing and pernicious influence over its votaries. They are afraid at the signs of heaven, at the changes of the seasons, at the fury of the elements, at the events of providence, at beings seen and unseen. An evil eye troubles them; the flight of a crow, or a similar unfavourable omen, will prevent them from undertaking a journey; their cattle and their children often die, as they suppose, from witchcraft; necromancers inspire them with terror; and Satan leads them, like his slaves, captive at his will. But strange is the effect which Christianity produces upon them in this respect. No sooner are heathens turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, than they set the powers of evil at defiance; they are emancipated from this thraldom; they seem to come under a new dispensation, and they rejoice in Christ as their great Deliverer. I have known the native teachers to stand in the porch of their temples, call upon the priests and devotees to do their worst, and show how little they regarded their power and their enchantments. Like the children of Israel while they were in Egypt, Pharaoh and

HUMAN SACRIFICES.

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his taskmasters ground them to the dust, made their lives bitter in hard bondage, and caused them to cry aloud for deliverance, but now that, like Israel, God has led them forth with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and has set them free from the power of their enemies, they stand upon the shores of the Red Sea, sing, in triumph, the new song of Moses and the Lamb, and render praise and glory to the God of their salvation.

The human sacrifices which Hindooism demands are frightful and appalling. Whatever may be the character of the people; and however quiet, and passive and submissive they appear, their superstition is the most cruel and barbarous that has ever been established. In Goomsoor, a province which has lately fallen into the hands of the British, the horrid scenes which have been discovered, are almost beyond credibility. Whenever a disease raged in the family of the monarch, a human sacrifice was demanded to appease the offended deity, and nothing less precious than the life of an only son would gratify the demon. Immured in houses and in dungeons, there were found hundreds of poor children who had been stolen from the adjoining territories; and for what purpose were they concealed and preserved? that they might be fattened like so many sheep and oxen for the slaughter, and might, at a suitable season, be offered up to the Moloch of the country.