When the great bells sound from the high, stone towers, the High-Castes go, richly dressed, into the Temples, uncover and bow the heads to the Idol, in silence—making Invocations, silently. By the command of the Jewish Sacred Writings the Seventh day (so, continuously, for ever) is devoted to the grand Worship in the Temples. This is a marked thing among the Western Barbarians—this devotion of one day in every seven to the Worship of Jah—as ordered in the Sacred Word. It is declared to be Jah's day—Holy-day. And it is so sacred, that there is danger of Hell to him who
"Does any work or play
Upon the sacred day,"
as the mongrel verse-makers of the Superstition have it! And the Priests vehemently denounce all who do not worship upon that day.
Some object to so great strictness; and the quarrel, as usual, is bitter between the strict and the not-so-strict Holy-day worshippers.
Those not-so-strict think that the poor, who work six days, should be allowed to go to the places of amusement on the seventh, and enjoy harmless recreations. The strict say they should be punished for desecrating the day by their neglect of worship; yet the poor cannot go in dirt and rags to the Temples. The High-Castes go there in rich attire, and would be incommoded by the poor—indeed, the High and Low Castes never mingle, not even in their worship. In truth, not many of any rank attend upon the Priests in worship. The devotees are mostly old women and older men, a few young people attracted by opposite attraction of sex, children and servants; a few pauper children may be huddled into a dark corner for fear of offending the idols.
The Priests face the Idol, and make Incantations, which are repeated, age after age, without any alteration; no Priest dare to make any the least change; the wrath of the gods would follow.
One peculiarity is, that the most abject confessions are made, by Priests and devotees, of heinous offences—making eternal punishment fitly their due. They beg for pardon and that salvation (meaning deliverance from the awful Hell) may be granted, not for any good in them, but wholly for the sake of the Son—the Christ. On my first attendance in a Temple, when I heard these fearful confessions and looked upon the fine women; the carefully dressed worshippers, I thought, "How dreadful, these High-Castes such wretches—incredible!"
I afterwards discovered that the sins [ly-ie], the offences confessed, were merely ecclesiastical (we have no term like it); nobody ever really confesses any wrong which he may have committed.
The grand act of worship is, however, the Creed (here again in our Flowery Land we have no term)—an Invocation and Declaration wherein all swear, under the awful penalty of eternal burnings in Hell and torments of Satan for ever, that they believe and worship all points of the Superstition with thankful hearts and undoubting minds. Repeating after the Priest, all standing, facing the Idol, uncovered, with eyes downcast and deep abasement.