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India's eeligion^ and social characteristics. 223
quilly along the placid waters of life, present a striking
contrast to the impatience, ambition, and dictatorial spirit of
Anglo-Saxons. Each and all, however, fill their places in
the pantheon of history.
THE ELALI GHAUT AND SLAIN GOATS.
Religion, when unenlightened by education and unguided
by reason, degenerates into superstition. The Kali temple,
situated in the suburbs of Calcutta, sacred to the ugly-looking,
bloodthirsty goddess Kali^ was to me a deeply interesting
sight, because showing unadulterated Hindooism in its
present low, degraded state. The shrines and the altars,
the flower-covered ling^ and the crimson yard all wet and
dripping with the blood of goats sacrificed at the rising of
the sun, forcibly reminded me of the Old Testament sacrifices
offered as sweet-smelling savors to Jehovah, the tutelary
god of the Jews. The bowing of the face to the earth,
the kissing of cold stones, the smearing of the face with
mud, the liturgical mutterings, and the howling beggary by
the wayside, were all repulsive in the extreme. The temple
was only a coarse, ordinary structure. Being Christians, we
were not permitted to pass the threshold. These temples
are not constructed, as are churches, to hold the people ; but
rather as imposing shelters
for the gods, priests, and sacrificial
offerings. The worshipers around them are generally
of the lower castes. Conversing on the spot with one of
these officiating Brahman priests, he assured me that the
throng present did not worship the Kali image. " It is a
symbol," said he, " leading the mind to
invisible."
the higher and the
Doubting his statement, and pondering, I silently
said. Here is retrogression^ for the most ancient of the
Vedas taught the existence of one infinite God. The Orientalist,
Prof. Wilson, says, " The Aryans believed in one
God, who created the world by his fiat, and organized it by
his wisdom." After the composition of the first Vedas,
with the post-Vedic priesthood, came mythology, and the
different castes.