aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

226 AROUND THE WORLD.
places for bodies awaiting the trump of the resurrection.
It is evangelical teaching, that the departed are " locked in the
embrace of death ; " that they have " fallen asleep in Jesus ;
"
or have died "in the hope of a glorious resurrection" of
their decomposing, putrefying bodies. As the shirt of Nessus,
so chngs superstition to the sectarist. The tendency
of solid thinkers, however, is turned towards cremation,
because a quicker method of turning dust to dust, as by the
"refiner's fire " of Malachi ; because less expensive than
burial ; because conducive to the general health ; because
preserving portions of the ashes in urns is less costlj" than
gravestones ; and because it obviates all fear of being
buried ahve. Science will readily devise means to deodorize
the gases given off during the process of burning;
while the ashy debris will the more readily revert back to
usefulness as fertilizers of the soil.
CASTE, AND BRAHMAN PRIESTS.
Under any sky, caste is an unmitigated curse.
Buddhism
in the sixth century B.C. was a brave inspirational protest
against Brahmanical assumption and caste.
Though Buddhistic
preaching and practice quite checked this caste system
for a time, it revived again with the revival of Brahmanism,
200 B.C. ; and, intensified by an unrelenting social
despotism, it is to-day the scourge of India. Women feel
the chains more keenly than men. This great nation is slow
to feel the pulsations of progress. English rule has done
little, nothing^ to tone down or overthrow the caste-venom of
the ages ; and how could it, when caste in English society
is nearly as marked as in Hindostan ?
This social pest pervades all gradations of life in India.
Each servant has his own sphere, and out of it
budge.
he will not
This necessitates in wealthy English families a large
retinue of servants. Brahmans, though sometimes poor,
never " sink " to be tradesmen ! They are generally clerks
and draughtsmen. And then there is the messenger, the