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the world, and if you tell foreigners that such a custom prevails in this country they will hardly believe it. This one illustration would therefore be sufficient to prove that the ind relizion is not conducive to morality. Should not all who have a regard for morality reflect upon this, and embrace that true religion which promotes virtue?
to Christians receive nck aid and encouragement in vir
tue from the example of(he Divine Guru, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The gods of this country having Deen culty of many immoralitics, 1lindfis are left destitute of the help which zood example affords. The Purfinas themselves relate that Brahmi told lies; that Siva smoked dang, cheated at dice and seduced the wives of the Rishis; that Krishna was a thief and a vagabond; that Subrahmanya assumed various disguises to carry off a concubine; that Vindvaka was a glutton; that Kali and the other female deities were revengeful; and that these and all the rest of the divinities were licentious in the extreme. I have often wondered that when the poets of this country were concocting stories concerning the gods, they contented themselves with inventing gods of bad character, and that it did not strike any of them to invent at least some one virtuous, benevolent divinity. Were it only for the novelty of the thing and for the sake of teaching virtue, could they not have composed some story about a virtuously disposed god ¥ The writers of the Purfinas, however, had not sagacity cnough for that, nor were they anxious that people who read their works should learn good morals. Somehow or another, from Dévindra, the first being who was worshipped as a god by the Mindds in Northern India, to
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