Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1894 — BEAUTIFUL BENARES [ARTICLE]

BEAUTIFUL BENARES

The Hindoo Mecca bv thet ’Ganges' Side.~~~“ The Repulsive Picture Presented by Heetlien Devotees—Dr. Talmage’s Sermon for the Press. The Rev. Dr. Talmage last Sunday delivered the third of his series of round-the-world sermons Through the press, the subject being the “Burning of the Dead, ” and the text; “They have- hands, but they handle not; feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them.”—’Psalm cxv, 7, 8.

The life of the missionary is a lux’ urious and indolent life. Hindooism is a religion that ought not to be interfered with. Christianity is guilty of an impertinence when it invades heathendom. You must put in thq same line of reverence Brahma, Buddha, Mohammed and Christ. To refute these slanders and blasphemies now so prevalent, and to spread out before the Christian world the contrast between idolatrous and Christian countries. I preach this third sermon in my round-the-world series- “

In this discourse I take .you to the very headquarters of heathendom, to the very capital of Hindooism, for what Mecca is to the Mohammedan, and what Jerusalem is to the Christian, Benares, India, is to the Hindoo. We arrived there in the evening, and the next morning we started out earjy, among other things to see the burning of the dead. We get into a boat and were rowed down the river Ganges until we came opposite to where five dead bodies lay, four of them women wrapped in red garments and a man wrapped in white. High piles of wood were on the bank, and this wood is carefullj’ weighed on large scales,- according as the friends of the deceased can afford to pay for it. In many cases only a few sticks can be afforded, and the dead body is burned only a little and then thrown into the Ganges. But where ’the relatives of the deceased are well-td-doan abundance of wood in pieces four or five feet long is purchased. Two or three layers of sticks are then put on the ground to receive

the dead form. Small pieces of sandalwood are inserted to produce fragrance. The deceased is lifted from the resting place and put upon this wood. Then the cover is removed from the face of the corpse, and it is bathed with water of the Ganges. Then several more layers as wood are put upon the body, and other sticks are placed on both sides of it, but the head and feet are left exposed. Then a quantity of grease sufficient to make everything inflammable is put on the "wood and into the month of the dead. “ Then one of the richest men in Benares, his fortune made in this way; furnishes the fire, and after the priest has mumbled a few words the eldest son walks three times around, the sacred pile and then applies the torch, and the fire blazes up, and iq a short time the body has become the ashes which the relatives throw into the Ganges. Benares is the capital of Hindooism and Buddhism, but Hindooism has trampled out Buddhism, the hoof of the one monster on the grizzled neck of the other monster. It is also the capital of filth, and the capital of malodors, and the capital of indecency. The Hindoos say they have 300,000.000 gods. Benares being the

headquarters of these deities, you will not be surprised to find that tho making of gods is a profitable business. Here are carpenters making wooden gods, and brass workers making brass gods, and sculptors making stone gods, and putters making clay gods. Benares is imposing in the distance as you look at it from the other side of the Ganges. The forty-seven ghats,- or flights of stone steps, reaching from the water’s edge to the buildings high up on the banks, mark a place for the ascent and descent of the sublimities. The eye is lost in the bewilderment of tombs, shrines, minarets, palaces and temples. It is the glorification of steps, the triumph of stairways, but looked at close by, the temples, though large and expensive, are anything but attractive. The seeming gold in muny eases turns out to be brass. The precious stones in the wall turn out to be paint. The marble is stucco. The slippery and disgusting steps lead you to images of horrible visage, and the flowers pnt on the altar have their fragrance submerged by that which is the opposite of aromatics. After you have seen the ghats the two great things in Benares that vou must sec are the Golden and Monkey temples. About the vast Golden temple there is not as much gold us would make an English sovereign. The air itself is asphyxiated. Here we sec mon making gods out of mud and then/putting their hands together in worship of that which they have made. Sacred cows walk .up and down the temple. Hera stood a fakir with his arm uplifted and for so long a time that ha could not take it down, and the nails the hand . had grown until they looked like serpents winding in and around the palm. The god of-the Golden temple is Siva, or the poison god. Devils wait upon him. He is the god of war, of famine. Of pestilence. He is the destroyer. He has around his neck a string of skulls. Before him bow men whose hair never knew a comb.

They eatcarrion an(i“‘ttet’wtrictr worse. Bells and drums here set up a racket. Pilgrims come from hundreds of miles away, spending their last piece of money and exhausting their last item of strength in order to reach this Golden temple, glad to die in or near it and have the ashes pt their bodies thrown into the Ganges. We took a carriage and went still farther on to seethe Monkey temple, so called because in and around the building monkeys abound and are kept as sacred. All evolutionists should vtait this temple devoted to the family from which their ancestors came. These monkeys chatter ancLwink and climb and look wise and look silly and have full posses - sion of the place. We Were asked at the entrance of the Monkey temjple to take off our shoes because of jthe sacredness of the place, but a jsmall contribution placed in the hands of an attendant resulted in a permission to enter with our shoes on. As the Golden temple is dedicated to Siva, the poison god, this Monkey temple is dedicated to Siva’s wife, a deitess that must be propitiated, or she will disease and blast and destroy. For centuries this spitfire has been worshiped. She is the goadess of scold and slap and termagancy.

As we walk today through this monkey temple we must not hit or tease or hurt one of them. Two Englishmen years ago lost their lives by the maltreatment of a monkey. Passing along one of these Indian streets a monkey did not soon enough get out of the way, and one of these Englishmen struck it with his cane. Immediately the people and the priests gathered around these strangers, and the public wrath increased until the two Englishmen were pounded to death for having struck a monkey. No land in all the world so reveres the monkey as India, as no other land has a temple called after it. One of the rajahs of India spent 100,000 rupees in the marriage of two monkeys. A nuptial procession was formed, in which moved camels, elephants, tigers, cattle and palanquins or richly dressed people. Bands of music sounded the wedding march. Dancing parties kept the night sleepless. It was twelve days before the monkey and monkey ess were free from their round of gay attentions. In no place but India could such carnival have occurred; but, after all, while we can not approve of the monkey temple, the monkey is sacred to hilarity. I defy anyone to watch a monkey one moment without laughter.

And now as to the industrious malignment of missionaries. It has been said by some travelers after stheir return to America or England that the missionaries are living a life full of iqdolence and luxury. That ;is a falsehood that I would say i§ as high as heaven if it did not go down in the opposite direction. When strangers come into these tropical climates, the missionaries do their best to entertain them, making sacrifices for that purpose. In the city of Benares a missionary told me that, ,a gentleman coming from England 'into one of the mission stations of India, the missionaries banded together to entertain him. Among other things, they had a ham boiled, prepared and beautifully decorated, and the same ham was passed around from house to house as this stranger appeared, and in other respects a conspiracy of kindness was effected. The visitor went home to England and wrote and .spoke of the luxury in which the missionaries of India were living. Americans and Englishmen come •to these tropical regions and find a missionary living under palms, and with different styles of fruits on his table, and forget that palms are as cheap as hickory or-pine in America, and rich fruits as cheap as plain apples. They find here missionaries sleeping under punkas, these fans swung day and night by coolies, and forget that 4 cents a day is good wages here, and the man finds himself. Four cents a day for a coachman, a missionary can afford to ride. Thei;e have been missionaries who have come to these hot climates resolving to live as the natives live, and one or two years have finished their work, their chief use on missionary ground being that of furnishing for a large funeral the chief object of interest. So far from living in idleness, no men on earth work so hard us the missionaries now in the foreign field. Against fearful odds, and with 3,000,000 of Christians opposed to 250,000,000 of Hindoos, Mohammedans and other false religions, these missionaries are trying to take India for God. Meanwhile let all Christendom be thrilled with gladness About twenty-five thousand converts in India every year under the methodist missions, and about twenty-five thousand converts under the baptist .missions, and about seven tv-five thousand converts under all missions every year. But, more than that, Christianity is undermining heathenism, and not a city or town in the neighborhood of India but directly or indire tlv feels the influence, and the day speeds on when Hindooism will go down with a crash. There are whole villages which have given up their gods, and wherSe?'not an idol is left. The serfdom of womanhood in many places is being unloosened, and the iron grip of caste is being relaxed. Human sacrifices have ceased, and the last spark o! the funeral pyre on which the widow must leap has been extingushed.and the juggernaut, stopped, now stands as a curiosity for travelers to look at. AU India will be taken foi I Christ.