So he left his testimony to the need, and the power, of Him who will ultimately demolish Hindu temples and enthrone Christ in India.
From Calcutta we traveled about three hundred and seventy miles northward to Darjeeling. We wished to see the Himalayas. A most tortuous narrow-gage railway lifted us gradually to a height of seven thousand feet. And there we had the unusual privilege of seeing the sunrise tipping with rosy light the snowy peak of Kinchinjinga, twenty-eight thousand feet high and forty-six miles away. Mt. Everest, a hundred miles distant, is twenty-nine thousand feet high, but from Darjeeling is invisible. Kinchinjinga is nearly twice as high as Mont Blanc, and its glittering mass is a spectacle never to be forgotten. Curiously enough, upon the summit of Observatory Hill, from which we gained our view, the immigrant Tibetans had erected their shrine, and long, inscribed paper and muslin streamers, enclosing a large quadrangle, gave to the winds their prayers. No idol was to be seen. The worship seems to be far more spiritual than that of the Hindus. Nature seems to have taught that secluded race of Tibetans a more primitive religion than modern Hinduism. It is a religion mixed with Buddhism, but preserving the earlier view of a divinity in natural objects, which Hinduism has almost wholly outgrown.
Our next point of investigation was Benares, "the holy city," the Mecca and Jerusalem of the Hindus. It is a hotbed of heathen enthusiasm and of blinded devotion. The sacred river Ganges flows by, with tier upon tier of temples rising from its steep banks—such a congestion of religious edifices that one might almost doubt whether they had left room for any but priests to live. Every day, hundreds of pilgrims troop through its streets and throng these temples, presenting their flowers and their offerings, making their sacrifices, and listening submissively to the instructions and threatenings of the priests. Every temple has its sacred animals, to be sacrificed or worshiped. The "Golden Temple," so-named, is covered with gold-leaf from its spire to its base. The noisy crowd in its corridors, the noisome odors of its sanctuaries, the adjurations of its priests and their evident aim to turn religion into financial gain, disgust the Christian traveler, while they show him how deeply rooted in the human heart is this towering system of idolatry and superstition.
But only the water-view of Benares presents Hinduism in its most characteristic aspect. It is the sacred river that makes sacred the town. This river is regarded as itself divine, for it had its source in the mouth of Brahma. Hence it is endowed with life-giving and purifying powers. It is bordered for a full mile by a grand succession of palaces and temples, of bathing ghats and of burning ghats. Here the Hindu, often after long pilgrimage, washes away his defilement and prepares himself to die. When death actually comes, his relatives wash his body in the holy stream. But the bathing ghat only makes ready for the burning ghat. These burning ghats are castle-like edifices, from which the smoke of burning flesh ascends continually. Cremation, with the Hindu, takes the place of burial. The ashes are collected and are preserved in a tomb. To die in Benares, and to have a temple for a tomb, is the surest passport to happiness in a future state, since the transmigration of souls into higher or lower forms is an essential doctrine of modern Hinduism.
A wealthy resident of Benares courteously offered us the use of his observation-boat to view the scene upon the river in the early morning. This river-craft was a double-decker, propelled by oars from the lower deck. From the upper platform, one could overlook the ceremonial washings of hundreds of pilgrims. Stalwart men plunged themselves three times into the stream, looked toward the sun, joined their hands, spoke a prayer, rinsed their sacred cord, cleansed their raiment, and then, reclad, went to the priest on his platform, to be smeared with ashes on the forehead and marked with a little colored dot, as a certificate that they had correctly performed their vow. Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, had each his worshipers and his priests, to give the appropriate mark. The "holy man" was there, either upon his bed of spikes or in an attitude which suggested torture, and ready to receive the homage, and the money as well, of his benighted admirers. Mothers were present, immersing not only themselves but also their children. All the bathers must drink of the muddy and fetid water, for purification internal is as needful as purification external. And so, hundreds of worshipers every day, and on special feast-days thousands, drink this water of the "sacred Ganges," foul with the stains of disease and reeking with the sweat of the dead. It is no wonder that the burning ghats have no lack of business, and no wonder that medical experts have traced epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and plague, in Western lands, to this city of Benares, where "Satan's seat is." The throne of the great adversary, however, seems to be built on very insufficient foundations, for not a few of the temples which line the steep banks of the river have toppled over, or have sunk into the yielding sand. Their massive fragments, at the base of long stairways of stone, show how hideous is the ruin of any system of religion which is not founded upon Christ, the Rock.
VII
LUCKNOW, AGRA, AND DELHI
At last we are on Mohammedan ground—at least on ground where Mohammedanism has a powerful, and perhaps a controlling, influence. This northwest part of India was the scene of Moslem conquest in the ninth century. Mohammedans have always proudly contemned idolatry, and they have often been iconoclasts, as many headless Hindu images can witness. Northwest India saw the rise and the strength of the great mutiny of half a century ago, but it was Moslem rajas and faithful Moslem troops who helped to put it down.
Mohammedan faith in the unity and personality of God might at first sight seem to render its adherents more accessible than are Hindus to the gospel of Christ. As a matter of fact, however, the very elements of truth in their belief make them too often stout opponents of Christianity. They are religious bigots, as the Hindus are not. The Hindu has a pantheon to which he can, with some show of consistency, invite Christ. The Mohammedan declares that there is but one God, and that Mohammed is his prophet. So he denies Christ's claim to be either God or Saviour.