“ Sir, you are in danger; the people are to rush through the gate when it is opened for you. I immediately dismounted, and endeavoured to escape to one side; but it was too late. The mob was now in motion, and with a tumultuous shout pressed violently towards the gate. The guard within, seeing my danger, opened it, and the multitude rushing through, carried me forward in the torrent a considerable space: so that I was literally borne into Juggernaut by the Hindoos themselves. ”

“ I went on in the procession, close by the tower of Moloch; which, as it was drawn with difficulty, grated on its many wheels harsh thunder. After a few minutes it stopped; and now the worship of the god began.—A high-priest mounted on the car in front of the idol, and pronounced his obscene stanzas in the ears of the people; who responded at intervals in the strain. ‘These songs,’ said he, ‘are the delight of the god. His car can only move when he is pleased with the song.–The car moved on a little way, and then stopped. ”

“ With female domestic employment they have as little to do as with learning, and the Hindoo girl therefore spends the first ten years of her life perfect idleness, in the house of her father. Supposing her to be married she remains a prisoner and a slave in the house of her husband. They know nothing of the advantages of liberal intercourse with mankind, the females are treated in that, as if they were not rational beings, and are consequently the willing victims of superstition and vice. ”

“ HORRORS OF IDOL WORSHIP.
tour to the temple of juggernaut, in the year 1826.
We know that we are approaching Juggernaut, and yet we are more than fifty miles from it, by the human bones which we have seen for some days strewed by the road. At this place we have been joined by several large bodies of pilgrims, perhaps 2000 in number, who have come from various parts of Northern India. Some of them with whom I have conversed, say that they have been two months on their march, travelling slowly in the hottest season of the year, with their wives and children. ”

“ Some old persons are among them, who wish to die at Juggernaut. Numbers of pilgrims die on the road; and their bodies generally remain unburied. On the plain by the river, near the pilgrims′ Caravansera at this place, there are more than a hundred skulls. The dogs, jackals, and vultures seem to live here on human prey. The vultures exhibit a shocking tameness. The obscene animals will not leave the body sometimes till we come close to them. This Buddruck is a horrid place. Wherever I turn my eyes I meet death in some shape or other. Surely Juggernaut cannot be worse than Buddruck. ”

“ When, for instance, we turn our attention to the East, and contemplate the degraded state of that portion of the human race who inhabit the country of Hindoostan, where upwards of one hundred millions of our fellow creatures, under the influence of a most debasing and cruel superstition, in a land which has been characterised as full of dead idols, heathen temples, priests innumerable, are practising abominable idolatries ”

“ The anxiety of the Hindoo to obtain a son, who may present the funeral offerings, upon which he supposes his future happiness to depend, and the expenses attending the support and marriage of girls, makes the birth of a female an unwelcome event; hence the sex in India come into the world frowned upon by their parents and relations. Indeed in one of the Hindoo tribes, that of the rajpoots, it is customary to destroy every female when born, and the parents, it is believed, are the murderers, and now not one female child survives. The boys marry in the tribe next in rank to them. ”

“ He must tear from his heart every tender tie and recollection, and must hide his head amongst the most degraded outcasts, without the least hope of ever again seeing the faces of those who gave him birth. ”

“ At that awful and affecting moment, too, when body and soul are parting—and when those under the influence of our benevolent religion, are paying every attention which affection can suggest, to soothe the pangs of death, at such a time the Hindoo is hurried to the side of the Ganges, or some other sacred river, where he is laid, in the agonies of death, exposed to the burning sun by day, and to the dews and cold by night ”

“ All is barren and desolate to the eye; and in the ear there is the never intermitting sound of the roaring sea.
I have returned home from witsessing a scene which I shall never forget. At twelve o′clock of this day, being the great day of the feast, the Moloch of Hindoostan was brought out of his temple amidst the acclamations of hundreds of thousands of his worshippers. When the idol was placed upon his throne, a shout was raised by the multitude, such as I had never heard before. ”

“ Many Societies exist who will be the means of conveying your bounty to those who are labouring in this good work, and who by the blessing of God upon their efforts, have done much in emancipating these victims of Superstition from the thraldom of Satan. Of the fifty languages spoken in India, twenty-five have been acquired by the missionaries. ”

“ The grand Hindoo festival of the Rutt Jattra, takes place on the 18th inst. when the idol is to be brought forth to the people. I resided during my stay at the house of the Company′s collector of the tax on pilgrims, and superintendant of the people, formerly a student in the College of Fort-William; by whom I am hospitably entertained, and also by Captain Patten, and Lieut. Woodcock, commanding the military force. I was surprised to see how little they seemed to be moved by the scenes of Juggernaut. ”

“ He in vain looks through this inhospitable world; not a hut will open its door to him, and henceforth he can no more see the face of father, mother, brother, or, sister, or even of his wife or children. ”

“ The laws for preserving the different orders for ever distinct, enjoins, that higher orders shall not have the least communion with the tribe or tribes below them, in marriage, in eating, or in any degree of familiar friendship, on pain of degradation, and loss of all earthly connections.
The penalty connected with the loss of caste is the loss of the whole world. The offender is not only rejected by father, mother, brother, or sister, and all that are dear to him, but by all his countrymen. ”

“ Among the Hindoo tribes called the Jarejah, in the provinces of Cutch and Guzerat in the west of India, it is a custom to destroy female infants. The mother herself is commonly the executioner of her own offspring. Women of rank may have their slaves and attendants who perform this office, but the far greater number execute it with their own hands. ”

“ He was left to view a considerable time, and was then carried to the Golgotha, where I have just been viewing his remains, How much I wished that the Proprietors of India Stock could have attended the wheels of Juggernaut, and seen this peculiar source of their revenue.
The horrid solemnities still continue. Yesterday a woman devoted herself to the idol. ”

“ But if christianity has greatly conduced to raise the moral character of Man—it has in a very great degree retrieved that of woman from the degraded state in which heathenism places her; and in no country is their situation more debased than in Hindostan. ”

“ The deceased was supported all this time, and set upon his breech close by his wife, who never spoke after this, but made three salems to her husband, by putting her hands upon the soles of his feet, and then upon her own head. The deceased was then carried away and put upon the pile, and his wife immediately followed, with a pot under her arm, containing 21 couries, 21 pieces of saffron, 21 pons for betel-nut, and the leaf made ready for chewing : one little piece of iron, and one piece of sandalwood. ”