Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877

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T.F. Unwin, 1884 - 392 pages

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Page 75 - Hundreds of devotees came thither every month to die, for it was believed that a peculiarly happy fate awaited the man who should pass from the sacred city into the sacred river. Nor was superstition the only motive which allured strangers to that great metropolis. Commerce had as many pilgrims as religion. All along the shores of the venerable stream lay great fleets of vessels laden with rich merchandise. From the looms of Benares went forth the most delicate silks that adorned the halls of St.
Page 87 - Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be ? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.
Page 75 - was a city which, in wealth, population, dignity, and sanctity, was among the foremost in Asia. It was commonly believed that half a million human beings were crowded into that labyrinth of lofty alleys, rich with shrines and minarets, and balconies and carved oriels, to which the sacred apes clung by hundreds. The traveller could scarcely make his way through the press of holy mendicants and not less holy bulls.
Page 323 - Mahomedans; while converts to Christianity were liable to be deprived, by reason of their conversion, not only of property, but of their wives and children ; and they seem to have been generally treated as a petty sect, with whom no one need be at the trouble of using any sort of consideration.
Page 367 - ... that our object in India ought to be to render the British Government paramount in effect if not declaredly so ; to hold the other States as vassals, though not in name, and to oblige them in return for our guarantee and protection to perform the two great feudatory duties of supporting our rule with all their forces, and submitting their mutual differences to our arbitration ". During his long reign he went far towards giving effect to the principles thus enunciated.
Page 375 - ... to pass as his own. In fact it was only his child by adoption, not by birth. But at the time of Clay's first appearance in the Senate there were two things giving that policy an especial impulse. One was a revenue beyond the current needs of the government, and the other was the material growth of the country. It would be difficult to find in the history of the United States a period of more general contentment and cheerfulness of feeling than the first and the early part of the second term of...
Page 293 - Whether we labour at home or abroad, we are required to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.
Page 341 - ... and arithmetic, || the general practice of hospitality and charity amongst each other, and, above all, a treatment of the female sex full of confidence, respect, and delicacy, are among the signs which denote a civilized people — then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe, and if civilization is to become an article of trade between England and India, I am convinced that England will gain by the import cargo."^[ My own experience with regard to the native character has been,...
Page 55 - All has been sacked and burned — priests, temples, idols, all together; for, in some places, bones, iron, wood and stone, are found in huge masses : and this has happened more than once.
Page xxi - I regard this book as possessing a rare interest, not only for the missionary student, but equally so for the general reader. The amount of information it contains, descriptive, social, evangelistic, and even political, is astonishing ; and the discursive and, in part, autobiographical form in which it is written, renders it so easy that he who runs may read.

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