Connecticut western news., 1894-12-27

recess after awhile in the ceremony, but it would be taken up again in ear nest at half past 12. We enjoyed what we had seen, but felt incapacitated for six more hours of wedding ceremony. Silently wishing the couple happy life in each others companionship, we press ed our way through the throng of con- gratulatory Parsees. All of them seem- ed bright and appreciative of the occa- sion. The streets outside joyously sym pathized with the transactions inside.
 Hindoo Customs
 We rode on toward our hotel wish ing that marriage in all India might be as much honored as in the ceremony we had that evening witnessed at the Parsee wedding. The Hindoo women are not so married. They are simply cursed into the conjugal relation. Many of the girls are married at and 10 years of age, and some of them are grandmothers at 30. They can never go forth into the sunlight with their faces uncovered. They must stay at home. All styles of maltreatmeut are theirs
 
 outcasts. A missionary told me in In- dia of a Hindoo woman who became a Christian. She had nine children. Her husband was over 70 years of age. And yet at her Christian baptism he told her to go, and she went out homeless AS long as woman is down India will be down. No nation was ever elevated except through the elevation of woman. Parsee marriage is an improvement on Hindoo marriage, but Christian mar riage is an improvement on Parsee mar riage.
 A fellow traveller in India told me he had been writing to his home in England trying to get law passed that no white woman could Se legally mar ried in India until she fad been there six months. Admirable law would that bel If white woman saw what mar ried life w;lf. Ca Hindoo is, she would never undertake it. Off with the thick and ugly veil from woman's facel Of with the crushing burdens from her shoulderl Nothing but the gospel of Jesus Christ will ever make life in In- dia what it ought to be.
 But what an afternoon of contrast in Bombay we experiencedl From the tenn. pie of silence to the temple of hilarity. From the vultures to the doves. From mourning to laughter. From gathering shadows to gleaming lights. From ob- sequies to wedding. But how much of all our lives is made up of such oppo- sitesl I have carried in the same pocket and read from them in the same hour the liturgy of the dead and the ceremo- the smile, and the dove meets the vul- ture.
 Thus have set before you the best of all the religions of the heather world, and I have done so in order that you might come to higher appreciation of the glorious religion which has put its benediction over us and over Christen- dom.
 A Comparison.
 Compare the absurdities and mum meries of heathen marriage with the plain II will" of Christian marriage, the hands joined in pledge "till death do you part Compare the doctrine that the deaf may not be touched with as sacred ard tender and loving kiss is ever given, the last kiss of lips that never again will speak to us. Compare the narrow bridge Chinvat over which she departing Parsee soul must trem- blingly cross to the wide open gate of heaven through which the departing Christian soul may triumphantly enter. Compare the 21 books of the Zend Avesta of the Parsee which even the t:holars of the earth despair of under standing with our Bible, SO much of it as is necessary for our salvation in lan- guage so plain that "a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. Compare the "tower of silence, with its vultures, at Bombay with the Green wood of Brooklyn, with it's sculptured angels of resurrection. And bow your selves in thanksgiving and prayer as you realize that if at the battles of Mar athon and Salamis Persia had triumph ed over Greece instead of Greece tri- umphanting over Persia, Parseeism, which was the national religion of Per sia, might have covered the earth, and you and instead of sitting in the noon- day light of our glorious Christianity might have been groping in the depress- ing shadows of Parseeism, a religion as inferior to that which is our inspiration In life and our hope in death as Zo- roaster of Persia was inferior to our ra- diant and superhuman Christ, to whom be honor and glory and dominion and victory and song, world without end. Amen.