Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1894 — A CITY OF BLOOD. [ARTICLE]

A CITY OF BLOOD.

Oriental Fanaticism and Its Bloody Deeds. The Horrible Massacre of Cawnpur the Natural Sequence of Hindoo and Mohammedan Creeds—Dr. Talmage’s Sermon. ** - - • Dr. Talmage, last Sunday, delivered through the press the second ot his round the world series of sermons, the subject being “The Citv of Blood,” and the text selected being Psalms cxii, 7 : ‘ ‘Our bones are scattered at the -grave’s mouth as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth: But mine eyes are unto thee, O God, the Lord.” Though you may read this text from the Bible, I read it as cut by g chisel into the pedestal of a cross beneath which lie many of the massacred at Cawnpur, India. To show you what Hindooism and Mohammedanism really are. where they have full swing, and not as they represent themselves in a “parliament of religions,” and to demonstrate to what extent of cruelty and abomination human nature may go when fully let loose, and to illustrate the hardening process of sin, and to remind you how our glorious Christianity may utter its triumph over death and the grave, I preach this, my second sermon, in the rtfund the world series, and I shall speak of “The City of Blood,” or Cawnpur, India. Two hours and ten minutes after its occurrence Joseph Lee, of the Shropshire regiment of foot rode in upon the Cawnpur massacre. He was the first man I met at Cawnpur. It seems that all the worst passions of the century were to be impersonated by one man,and he Nana Sahib, and our escort at Cawnpur, Joseph Lee, knew the man personally. Unfortunately, there is no correct picture of Nana Sahib in existence. From what Mr. Lee told me and from all I could learn in India, Nana f Sahib ordered the massacre in that; city from sheer revenge.- His father abdicated the throne, and the English paid him aifnnally a pension of ; four hundred thousand dollars. When the father died, the English government declined to pay the B.ame pension to the son, Nana Sahib, but the poor fellow was not in any Buffering for the lack of funds. His father left him SBO,OOO in gold ornaments, $500,000 in jewels, SBOO,OOO in bonds and other resources amounting to at least $1,500,000. Mr. Lee explained all this to me by the fact that Gen. Wheeler had i married a native, and he naturally | took her story and thought there was no peril. But the time for the j proclamation from Nana Sahib had j I come, and such a document went, forth as never before had seen the light of day, I give onlv an extract: “As by the kindness of God, and the good fortune of the emperor, all the Christians who were at Delhi, Poonah, Sattara and other places, and even those 5,000 European soldiers who went in disguise into the ' former city and were discovered, are destroyed and sent to hell by the pious and sagacious troops who are firm to their religion, and as they have all been conquered by the pressnt government and as no trace of rthem is left in these places it is the drlty of all the subjects and servants ! of the government to rejoice at the delightful intelligence and carry on ’ their respective work with comfort i and ease.” Naha Sahib resolved to celebrate an aniversarv. The 23d of June, 1857, would be 100 years since the battle of Plassy, when, under Lord Clive, India surrendered to England. That day the last European in Cawnpur was to be slaughtered. Other anniversaries have been adorned with garlands, this with drawn swords. Others have been kept with songs, this with execration. Standing in a field, not far from the intrenchment of the English, was a native Christian woman, Jacobee by name, holding high up in her hand a letter. It was evidently a communication from the enemy, and Gen. Wheeler ordered the woman brought in. She handed him a proposed treaty. If Gen. Wheeler aad men would give up their weapons, Nana Sahib would conduct them into safety. They could march out unmolested, the men, women and children; they could go down tomorrow to the Ganges, where they would find boats to take them in peace to Allahabad. There was some opposition to signing this treaty, but Gen. Wheel"er*s wife told him he could trust the natives, and so he signed the treaty. There was great joy in the intrencn- , ment that night. Without molestation they went out and got plenty of water to drink and water fora good wash. “Now,” said Mr. Lee, “here is the place to which Gen. Wheeler and his people came under the escort of Nana Sahib." I went down the steps to the margin of the river. Down these steps went Gen. Wheeler and the men, women and children under his care. They stood on one side of the steps, and Nana Sahib and his staff stood on the other side. As the women were getting into the '< boats Nana Sahib objected that only the aged and infirm women and children should go on board the boats. The young and attractive women were kept out. Twentyeight boats were tilled with men, women and children and floated out into the river. Each boat contained ten armed natives. Then three boats, fastened together, were brought up, and Gen. Wheeler and his ’staff got in. Although orders were given to start, the three boats were somehow detained. At thisjunc-

ture a boy twelve years of age hoisted on top of the Hindoo temple on the banks two flags—a Hindoo and a Mohammedan flag —at which signal the boatmen and armed natives jumped from the boats and swam for the shore, and from innumberable guns the natives on the banks fired oh the boats, and masked batteries above and below roared with destruction, and the boats sank with their precious cargo, and all went down save three strong swimmers, who got to the opposite shore. Nana Sahib and his staff, with their swords, slashed to pieces Gen. Wheeler and his staff, who had not got well away from the shore, j_

I said that the young and attractive women were not allowed to get into the boat. These were marched away under the guard of the sepoys, “Which way?” I inquired. “I will shew you, ’ ’said Mr. Lee. Again we took .seats in the carriage and started for the climax’of desperation and diabolism. Now we are on the way to a summer house called the assembly rooms, which had been built for recreation and pleasure. It had two rooms, each 29 by 10, and some windowless closets, and here were imprisoned 206 helpless people. It was to become the prison of these women and children. Some of these sepoys got permission of Nana Sahib to take one or more of these, ladies to their own place on the promise they should be brought back to the summer garden next morning. A daughter of Gen. Wheeler was so taken and did not return. She afterward married the Mohammedan who had taken her to his tent. Then Nana Sahib heard that Havelock was coming, and his name was a terror to the sepoys. Lest the women and children imprisoned in the summer house, or assembly rooin should be liberated, he ordered that their throats should be cut. The officers were commanded to do the work and attempted it, but failed because the law of caste would not allow the Hindoo to hold the victims while they were being slain. Then Nana Sahib was in a rage and ordered professional butchers from among the lowest of the gypsies to go at the work. Five of them with hatchets and swords and knives began the work, but three of them collapsed and fainted under the ghastliness, and it was left to two butchers to complete^the slaughter. The butchers came out exhausted, thinking they had done their work, and ' the doors were closed. But when they were again opened three women and three boys were still alive. All these were soon dispatched, and not a Christian or a European was left in Cawnpur. The murderers were paid 50 cents for each lady slain. The Mohammedan assassins dragged by the hair the dead bodies out of the sumiher house and threw them into the well, by which I stood with such feelings as you cannot imagine. The well was not only full of human bodies, but corpses piled on the outside. The soldiers were for many hours engaged in covering the dead. It was about 5 o’clock in the evening when I came upon this place in Cawnpur. The building in which the massacre took place has been torn down, and a garden of exquisite and fragrant flowers surrounds the scene. A circular wall of white marble incloses this well. The wall is about twenty feethigh. Inside this wall there is a marble pavement. —In the center of this inclosure and immediately above the well of the dead is a sculptured angel of resurrection, with illuminated face and two palm branches, meaning victory. , “No emperor, unless it was Napoleon, eyer had more glories around his pillbwof dust, and no queen, unless it were the one of Taj Mahal, had reared for her grander cenotaph than crowns the resting places of the martyrs at Cawnpur.” But where rest the bones of the Herod of the nineteenth century, Nana Sahib? No one can tell. Two men sent out to find the whereabouts of the daughter of Gen. Wheeler tracked Nana Sahib during a week’s ride into the wilderness, and they were told that for a while after the mutiny Nana Sahib set up a little pomp in the jungles. Among a few thousand Hindoos and Mohammedans he took for himself the only two tents the neighbors had, while theylived in the rain and mud. Nana Sahib, with one servant carrying an umbrella, would go every day to bathe, and people would go and stare. For some reason after awhile he forsook even that

small attention and disappeared among the ravines of Himalayan mountains. He took with him in his flight that w hich he always took with him —a ruby of vast value. He wore it as some wear an amulet. He wore it as some wear a life preserver. The Hindoo priest told him as long as he wore that ruby his fortune would be good, but both the ruby and the prince who -wore it have vanished. These natives are at peace now, but give them a chance, and they will re-enact the scenes of 1756 and and 1857. They look upon the English as conquerors .and themselves as conquered. The mutiny of 1857 occurred because the British government was too lenient and put in places of trust and in command of forts too many of the natives. I call upon England to stop the present attempt to palliate the natives by allowing them to hold position’s of trust. I am no alarmist, but the only way that these Asiatics can be kept from another mutiny is to put them out of power, and I say beware, or the Lucknow and Cawnpur and Delhi martyrdoms over which the hem - ispheres have wept will be eclipsed by the Lucknow and Cawnpur and Delhi martyrdoms yet to be enacted.

I speak of what I have seen and heard. I give the opinion of every intelligent Englishman and Scotchman and Irishman and American whom I met in India. Prevention is better than cure. I do not say that it is better that England rule India. I say nothing against the right of India to rule herself. But Ido say that the moment the native population of India think there is a possibility of driving back Europeans from India they will make the attempt, and that they have enough cruelties, for the time suppressed, which if let loose would submerge with carnage everything from Calcutta to Bombay and from the Himalayas to Coromandel. Now, my friends, go home after what I have said to see the beauties of the Mohammedanism and Hindooism which many think it will be well to have introduced into America, and to dwell upon what natural evolution will do where it has had its unhindered way for thousands of years, and to think upon the wonders of martyrdom for Christ’s sake, and to pray more earnest prayers for the missionaries; and to contribute - more largely for the world’s evangelization, and to be more assured than ever that the Overthrow of the idolatries of nations is such a stupendous work that nothing but an omnipotent God through the gospel of Jesus Christ can ever achieve it. Amen!