Thread by @HindooHistory

Elmore County Republican, 1913

"CURSE OF INDIA GETS FOOTHOLD IN AMERICA"

"Reverend Trawin of Baptist Church Issues a Stern Warning to Women of Country"

#HindooHistory

"Rev. C. L. Trawin, pastor of the Baptist church, preached a strong sermon Sunday, warning the women of the United States against the religions brought to the country by Yogis and Swamis from India under the guise of philosophy, reincarnation, and the so-called higher life"

"He said, taking the text from II. Timothy 3:6, 7 'Of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts, never learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth'"

"My purpose this evening in lifting the veil that hides India's crushed and sorrowing womanhood is to present a sufficiently dark background to bring out in terrible relief certain women of fairer skin who are moving into the foreground"

"Women of America with rhythmic movements and weird incantations and dreamy, eclipsed minds are under the subconscious spell of an eastern occultism that is leading their feet to take fast hold on hell"

"In every heathen land the heaviest burdens and the most heart-breaking sorrows fall to the lot of woman. Even at birth she is met with the question, as to whether she shall be allowed to live or exposed to die and ever unwelcome, her journey through life is a weary pilgrimage.."

"a starved existence ending in a foresaken and cheerless death. In no land are the sorrows of womanhood and the tragedies of motherhood more hopeless than in India."

"'There are many Hindu sects in India, but upon two main points they agree-- the sanctity of the cow and the depravity of woman.'"

"'Woman is a great whirlpool of suspicion, a dwelling place of vices, full of deceit, a hindrance in the way of heaven, the very gate of hell.' Hindu proverbs."

"The first duty of woman in India is that she must be married. The religious books teach that all unmarried women are going to hell, doomed to eternal punishment. Marriage is for woman the end and aim of life, and the only medium of regeneration"

"No other purificatory rite is permitted to her. Hundreds of thousands of girl babies are betrothed before they have reached their first birthday. The husband to be, may be of similar age or a man of mature years."

"Formerly the marriage was actually consummated when the girl had reached the age of eight or ten. This revolting custom frequently resulted in the death of these child wives in lingering and untold agony"

"Not until 1891 was a law passed forbidding actual marriage until the girl had reached the age of 12."

"Those familiar with conditions tell us that religious convictions are so strong that the law is frequently violated and the sacrifice of childhood upon the altar of superstition and lust continue"

"Pundita Ramabai, a cultured woman of India, declares it to be her belief that 700 out of 1000 of the girls of India are married under ten years of age. No high caste girl of that land is allowed by her parents to remain unmarried after she is 12 years of age"

"There is no limit to the number of wives a man may have, some high caste people have from 100 to 150 consorts. Since the husband is immortal, the Hindu religion says a woman may never marry again when her husband dies"

"Seventy years ago the widows were burned alive with the bodies of her husbands, but this is now forbidden, not by religion, but by English law. Today she must suffer the living death of widowhood"

"American disciples of Hinduism will please take notice what delightful experience await them when they have sufficiently progressed in the occult lore which is fascinating them with its philosophic mysticism"

"If the Indian girl is not to be married to a husband she must be married to a god. If the former is purgatory, the latter is hell. Just one horrible view of the coils of this slimy snake that is throttling the life of Indian girlhood"

"Just one glimpse behind the scenes in a Hindu temple at the writhing form of an innocent girl held by force upon the altar of lust until seared with the devil's hottest branding iron."

"Surely no sane American woman can look upon this scene and then become the senseless dupe of an Indian Swami..."

"Surely if ever a missionary's heart breaks it must break now as she sees her fair child into whose eyes was dawning the love of Christ, led away to be tied to a heathen altar with the cruelest ropes which satan ever twisted in deepest hell"

"There is no remed, nothing she can do. Dedicated to the god of lust this precious child for whom Christ died must meet the hot embrace of all who worship at that shrine until her tortured body wastes away in the fires of a living hell on earth"

"She is but one of hundreds of thousands who must pay the penalty of heathenism while American Christians trifle with the great commission of their lord and American society women give pink teas in honor of swarthy skinned Swamis from India"

"Pundita Ramabai, educated and cultured Christian woman of India, gives this interesting summary of what she terms India's Philosophy of Nothingness. It sounds strangely familiar. Was it in this land and day or in some previous incarnation that we heard it?"

"'According to the Indian philosophy, the whole universe is nothing but falsehood. You are to think that it does not exist. Everything that you see is falsehood. The birds and the beasts you see do not exist. You do not exist. I do not exist.'"

"'When you realize that you have no personality whatever, that you have no life, no knowledge, then you have attained the highest perfection which is called 'yoga.' You are now liberated from the thing of sense and become a god, like him without personality'"

"'Life is thus reduced to nothingness as the goal of all existence. Zero plus zero, minus zero, times zero, divided by zero, equals zero. Life is thing, nothing more'"

"By their fruits ye shall know them is universally true. What has this system done for India? If there is no reality in material things then there are no starving people in India, no suffering Indian mothers, no famishing children, no desolate widows"

"There can be no sympathy for what does exist. Hence there are in India no hospitals for the sick, no societies to prevent cruelty, no efforts to alleviate sweltering, suffering humanity"

"For the animals of India there is kindness. There are hospitals for them but none for her women. Departed loved ones may be reincarnated in these creatures. IN a hospital in Bombay there is a ward devoted to bugs and a man in constant attendance to feed and care for them."

"Indian philosophy is literally bug house."

"Our bacjground is complete and we turn to the strange figures emerging from this terrible setting to play their part on an American foreground. In 1896 at Green Acre, Maine, a summer school of philosophy was started, especially welcoming the Swamis of India"

"With such an introduction these turbaned teachers from the east proceeded to overrun the continent. At first they labored in the more populous cities. Now they are gathering disciples in the smaller towns and villages"

"On their banners and gowns some of these cults are emblazoning the serpent as their symbol, which should remind modern daughters of Eve of her experience in Eden. In certain circles the yoga class is as popular as the class for the study of Browning or Shakespeare"

"This is the Swamis favorite way of reaching the public. Yoga promising the secret of conquering natural law with consequent health and long life is a lure especially fascinating to the feminine mind."

"Nearly all of the converts are women with here and
there a college professor or professional man with tendencies toward mysticism. Yoga is a subtle dangerous knowledge for any but the best balanced brains"

"Miss Sarah Farmer, a wealthy New England spinster who gave her fortune to the founding of Green Acre. Later her religious studies unbalanced her mind and she is now an inmate of the insane asylum at Waverly, Mass."

"Mrs. Ole Bull of Cambridge, Mass., widow of the world-renowned violinist, was another convert who gave several hundred thousand dollars to the Vedantist society, but her will was set aside by the courts on the ground of mental incapacity and undue influence."

"A few years ago Miss Aloise Reiss, a cultured woman of Chicago, was carried screaming from the Mazdaznan temple of the sun in that city, to be incarcerated as a raving maniac in an Illinois asylum."

"Mrs. May Wright Sewell, club woman of national repute, is another sufferer from the practice of yoga. More recently the handsome and cultured wife of President Winthrop E. Stone of Purdue university, Indiana, abandoned husband and children to join the sub worshippers."

"Dr. Stone went before the board of the Presbyterian church and announced, 'I am utterly crushed' I want your prayers and your sympathy. I love my wife. She is as dear to me as she ever was. I hope she will yet come to her senses and return to me and the boys'"

"Only in briefest fashion can I dictate further incidents of this heathen invasion of America. The Swamis leave behind the hideous images of India, but they find there is a type of western mind peculiarly susceptible to the lure of the mysterious philosophy"