Connecticut western news., 1895-01-10

undertaking and to the Hindoo was so great the humslfimpossibility that they say the gods scooped out this structure from the rock and carved the pillars and hewed its shape into gigantic idols and dedicated it to all the grandeurs. We climb many stone steps before we get to the gateways. The entrance to this temple has sculptured doorkeepers leaning on soulptured devils. How strangel But have seen doorkeepers of churches and auditoriums who seemed to be leaning on the demons of bad ven- tilation and asphyxia. Doorkeepers ought to be leaning on the angels of health and comfort and life. All the sextons and janitors of the earth who have spoiled sermons and lectures and poisoned the lungs of audiences by inef- ficiency ought to visit this cave of Ele- phanta and beware of what these door keepers are doing, when instead of lean- ing on the angelic they lean on the de- moniao -..-=-. In these Elephanta caves everything is on Samsonian and Titanian scale With chisels that were dropped from nerveless hands at least eight centuries ago, the forms of the gods Brahma and Vishnu and Siva were cut into the ever lasting rock. Siva is here represented by figure 16 feet inches high, one-half man and one-half woman. Run a line from the center of the forehead straight to the floor of the rock, and you divide this idol into masculine and feminine Admired as this idol is by many, it was to me about the worst thing that was ever cut into porphyry, perhaps because there is hardly any ything on earth so ob- jeotionable as being half man and half woman. Do be one or other, my hearer Man is admirable, and woman is admi- rable, but either in flesh or traprock compromise of the two is hideous Save us from effeminate men and masculine womenl
 Sculptured Gods.
 Wonder is the King Ravana worship ing. Wonder is the sculptured repre-. sentatation of the marriage of Siva and Parhati. Wonder is Daksha, the son of Brahma. born from tho thumb of his right hand He had 60 daugh- ters. Seventeen of those daughters were
 
 mothers of the human race Wonder is god with three heads. The center god has crown wound with necklaces of skulls. The right hand god is in par oxysm of rage, with forehead of snakes, and in its hand is cobra The left hand god has pleasure in all its fea- lures, and the hand has a flower. But there are gods and goddesses in all di- rections. The chief temple of this rock Is 130 feet square and has 26 pillars rising to the roof. After the conquerors of other lands and the tor rists from all lands have chipped and defaced and blasted and carried away c,irios and me- mentos for museums and homes there are enough entrancements left to detain one unless he is cautious until he is down with some of the malarias which encompass this island or get bitten with some of its snakes. Yes. felt the chilly dampness of the place and left this congress of gods, this pandemonium of demons, this pantheon of indifferent deities, and came to the steps and look ed off upon the waters which rolled and flashed around the steam yacht that was waiting to return with us to Bom- bay. As we stepped aboard, our minds filled with the idols of tthe Elephants caves, was impressed as never before with the thought that man must have a religion of some kind even if he has to contrive one himself, and he must have a god even though he make 1t with his own hand. rejoice to know the day will come when the one God of the universe will be acknowledged throughout India.
 That evening of our return to Bom- bay visited the Young Mems Chris tian association with the same appoint ments that you find in the Young Mems Christian associations of Europe and America, and the night after that ad- dressed throng of native children who are in the schools of the Christian mis- sions. Christian universities gather un- der their wing of benediction host of the young men of this country. Bom- bay and Calcutta, the two great con- mercial cities of India, feel the elevat- ing power of an aggressive Christianity. Episcopalian liturgy, and Presbyterian Westminster catechism, and Methodist anxious seat, and Baptist waters of con- secration now stand where once basest idolatries had Indisputed sway. The work which Shoemaker Carey inaugu- rated at Serampore, India, translating the Bible into 40 different dialects, and leaving his wornout body amid the na- tives whom he had come to save, and going up into the heavens from which he can better watch all the field-that work will be completed in the salvation of the millions of Il sdia, and beside him gazing from the same high places stand Bishop Heber and Alexander Duff and John Scudder and Maekay, who fell at Delhi, and Moncrieff, who fell at Cawn- pur, and Polehampton, who fell at Lucknow, and Freeman, who fell at Futtigarh, and all heroes and heroines who for Christ's sake lived and died for the Christianization of India, and their heaven will not be complete until the Ganges that washes the ghats of heathen temples shall roll between churches of the living God, and the trampled wom- | anhood of Hindooism shall have all the | rights purchased by him who amid the I cuts and stabs of his own assassination cried out, Behold thy motheri' and from Bengal bay to Arabian ocean, and from the Himalayas to the coast of | Coromandel there be lifted hosannas to him who died to redeem all nations. In that day Elephanta cave will be one of the places where idols are least to the moles and bats. '
 If any clergyman asks me, as an un- believing minister of religion once ask ed the Duke of Wellington, Do you not think that the work of converting the Hindoos is all a practical farce?" I answer him as Wellington answered the unbelieved minister, Look to your marching orders, sir!" Or if any one having joined in the gospel attack feels l like ratreatino | sav tn him az Gannral