Thread by @HindooHistory

The Grenada sentinel, 1894

"BURNING THE DEAD"

"Rev. Dr. Talmage Discourses on the Hindoo Custom"

"Refutation of Slanders Upon the Missionaries to India, and a Contrast Between Christianity and Idolatry Drawn"

#HindooHistory #Benares

"The following discourse by Rev. T DeWitt Talmage, being the third of his round-the-world press series, is on the subject of 'Burning the Dead,' and is based on the text:

"They have hands but they handle not, feet have they but they walk not. neither speak they through their throat. That they make them are like unto them"

"The life of a missionary is a luxurious 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 the 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 tis sermon..."

"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 early, among other things to see the burning of the dead. We saw it, cremation, not as many good people in America and England are now advocating it"

"namely the burning of the dead in clean, and orderly, and refined crematory, the hot furnace soon reducing the human form to a powder to be carefully preserved in an urn; but cremation as the Hindoos practice it"

"We got 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 the wood is is carefully 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 ar ewell-to-do, an abundance of wood in pieces four to give feet long is purchased. Two or three layers of stick are then put on the ground to receive the dead form."

"Small pieces of sandal-wood 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"

"We saw floating past us on the Ganges the body of a child which had been only partly burned, because the parents could not afford enough wood."

"While we watched the gloating form of the child a crow alighted upon it. In the meantime hundreds of Hindoos were bathing in the river, dipping their heads, filling their mouths, supplying their brass cups, muttering words of so-called prayer"

"Such a mingling of superstition and loathsomeness, and inhumanity I had never before seen. The Ganges is to the Hindoo the best river of all the earth, but to me it is the vilest stream that ever roiled its stench in horror to the sea"

"I looked along the banks for the mourners for the dead. I saw in two of the cities nine cremations, but in no case a sad look or a tear. I said to friends: 'How is this? Have the living no grief for the dead?'"

"I found that the women did not come forth on such occasions, but that does not account for the absence of all signs of grief. There is another reason for potent. Men do not see the faces of their wives until after marriage"

"Marriages thus formed, of course, have not much affection in them. Women are married at seven and ten years of age, and are grandmothers at thirty"

"Such unwisely formed family associations do not imply much ardor of live. The family so poorly put together-- who wonders that it is easily taken apart? And so I account for the absence of all signs of grief at the cremation of the Hindoos"

"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 building high up on the banks, mark a place for 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 stair-ways. But looked at close by, the temples, through large and expensive, are anything but attractive"

"The seeming gold is many cases 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 put upon the altar have their fragrance submerged by that which is the opposite of aromatics. 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 has around his neck a string of skulls. Before his bow upon whose never knew a comb. The cat carrion and that which is worse. Bells and drums here set up a racket."

"In one of the cities for the first time in my life I had an opportunity of talking with a fakir, or a Hindoo who has renounced the world and live son alms. He sat under a rough covering on a platform of brick."

"But as I looked upon the poor, filthy wretch, bedaubing himself with the ashes of the dead, I thought the last thing on earth I would want to become would be a Hindoo."

"I expressed to a missionary who overheard the conversation between the fakir and myself my amazement at some of the doctrines the fakir announced."

"The missionary said: 'The fakirs are very accommodating, and supposing you to be a friend of Christianity he announced the theory of our God, and that of rewards and punishments"

"The Church Missionary society has its eight schools, all filled with learners. The evangelizing work of the Wesleyans and the Baptists is felt in all parts of Benares. In its mightiest stronghold Hindooism is being assailed"

"And now as to the industrious malignment of missionaries: It has been said by some travelers after their return to America or England that the missionaries are living a life full of indolence and luxury"

"That is a falsehood that I would say is 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 entertaining them, making sacrifices for that purpose"

"They find here missionaries sleeping under punkas, these fans swung day and night by coolies and forget that four cents a day is good wages here"

"Meanwhile let all Christendom be thrilled with gladness. About twenty-five thousand converts in India ver year under the Methodist missions, and about twenty-five thousand under Baptist missions, and almost seventy-five thousands converts under all missions every year"

"But more than that, christianity is undermining heathenism, and not a city, or town, or neighborhood in India but directly or indirectly 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 where 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 of the funeral pyre on which the widow must leap has been extinguished, and the juggernaut, stopped, now stands as a curiosity for travelers to look at"

"All India will be taken for Christ. If anyone has any disheartenments let him keep them as his own private property; he is welcome to all of them."