BENARES, THE HOLY CITY-THE MUTINY CITIES: LUCKNOW ALLAHABAD. ow pleasant, after a long wearisome railway journey of five hundred miles across the plains of Bengal, on reaching the terminus opposite the great stronghold of heathenism, Benares, the sacred city of the Hindus, with the mighty Ganges flowing between, to find Christians and friends waiting to receive you. So was it with us when on our arrival, a sayce, or footman, from the mission conducted us across the bridge of boats and through the city four miles to the European settlement and to our hotel; and when presently that eminent oriental scholar and missionary, the Rev. M. A. Sherring, whose premature death has since been announced, came to welcome and to guide us in our plans for sightseeing. Having crossed the Ganges, we were now in the North-West Provinces, and in the headquarters of idolatry in India. What Jerusalem is to the Jew, what Rome is to the Latin, what Mecca is to the Mohammedan, Benares is to the Hindu. It contains fourteen hundred Hindu temples, idols innumerable, and twenty thousand Brahmans. Like Paul at Athens, the Christian's spirit is moved within him as he sees the city wholly given. to idolatry. Troops of pilgrims are continually thronging its streets, and swarming up and down its ghats, or flights of steps leading down to the Ganges, along which the city stretches for three miles, rising gracefully upon the solitary cliff, up the face of which it is built tier upon tier. In Benares we see what Hinduism practically is. Students of the Vedas may restrict the term Brahmanism "to the purely pantheistic and not necessarily idolatrous system evolved by the Brahmans out of the partly monotheistic, partly polytheistic, partly pantheistic religion," expressed in those sacred songs. But it is the polytheistic element which has become its life and soul, embodied as this is in the Hinduism of India. Hinduism is, in fact, idolatry of the basest kind, the worship of Vishnu the preserver, and Siva the destroyer, represented by numberless idols and symbols of the most revolting character. Here in the North-West Provinces, and above all in Benares, Hinduism has acquired a stony compactness, and a solidity almost impenetrable. Here Brahmanism and caste hold sway. The Hindustani, stalwart, tall, strong-limbed, independent, solid, proudly rests on his good breed, good blood, and the associations of antiquity. He adores the social hierarchy; and all the great events of life, births, marriages, deaths, occupations, professions, are interlaced and enchained with the overgrown fabric of his idolatry. And Benares is the centre of all this. It is a very ancient city, and is frequently alluded to in early Sanscrit literature. For Endsay and A VISHNUVITE FAKIR. BENARES. the sanctity of its inhabitants, of its temples and reservoirs, of its wells and streams, Benares has been famed for thousands of years. Here, to quote the high authority of the lamented Rev. M. A. Sherring, "idolatry is a charm, a fascination, to the Hindu. It is, so to speak, the air he breathes. It is the food of his soul. He is subdued, enslaved, befooled by it. The nature of the Hindu partakes of the supposed nature of the gods whom he worships. And what is that nature? According to the traditions handed about amongst the natives, and constantly dwelt upon in their conversation, and referred to in their popular songs--which perhaps would be sufficient proof—yet more especially according to the numberless statements and narratives found in their sacred writings, on which these traditions are based, it is, in many instances, vile and abominable to the last degree. Idolatry is a word denoting all that is wicked in imagination and impure in practice. Idolatry is a demon-an incarnation of all evil-but nevertheless as bewitching and seduc tive as a Siren. It ensnares the depraved heart, coils around it like a serpent, transfixes it with its deadly fangs, and finally stings it to death." This is the testimony of a Sanscrit scholar who knew the Vedas well, and who lived thirty years among the Hindus, at the headquarters of Hinduism. One Sunday morning at seven, we drove outside the city to the Church Mission compound, and as we approached saw the native children of the girls' and orphans' schools walking in procession into church, all neatly dressed, and in excellent order, so that you might imagine you were not in Benares, but in some English country parish. The bell was tolling for service, and entering we found a goodly gathering of Hindus. The service was read and the sermon preached in the native language. The houses of the missionaries are within the large compound, which looked refreshingly green and shaded with trees. Afterwards, at the London Mission compound, which is more within the city, we found a small native congregation. Missions have been prosecuted here now for sixty years by various societies; but little perceptible impression has been made upon the citadel of heathenism. A faithful witnessing for JESUS is maintained, but the converts are few. Conversions belong to God; and nothing so tests and testifies the strength of the labourer's faith and zeal and love as persevering labour without apparent results. During the week I visited the London Missionary College, where four hundred native young men and boys are educated. And as I went from class-room to class-room, filled with scholars learning not only their native Hindustani, but Sanscrit, Arabic, and English, as well as arithmetic, mathematics, chemistry; as I sat in the head-master's room-Mr. Sherring's -and found him at work teaching the Scriptures to a class of intelligentlooking young men, all natives; as I spoke to them in English, and heard their shrewd questions and answers, I felt that certainly a powerful influence here is working and multiplying, shedding light upon many minds, awakening intellectual freedom, and producing a moral and religious life, before which idolatry must eventually totter and fall. Taking time by the forelock, and gladly seizing the cool of early morning, we started next day under the Rev. M. A. Sherring's conduct, to see the sights. And first we visited the mansion of the Maharajah of Vizianagram, furnished in European style, and showing the inroads of Western civilisation. Not far from this is the Durga Temple, at the southern extremity of the city. Bloody sacrifices are offered to the goddess Durga (or Kali) in front of her shrine every Tuesday. The temple swarms with reddish-brown monkeys in every nook, along every wall, and about the streets and bazaars. These monkeys are all regarded as living deities, gods and goddesses, and of greater sanctity far than the poor people living round about who are annoyed by them. Hinduism, instead of tracing men to monkeys like Darwinism, raises monkeys to be gods, a step higher than men. Proceeding to the Dasasamed Ghât, we left our carriage and ascended the Man-Mandil Observatory, containing several large astronomical instruments erected by the Rajah Say Singh in 1693. Here there is a beautifully-carved oriel window, commanding a fine view of the river. The Rajah The Rajah Si Bahadur received us with politeness. Close by is the temple of the rain god, supposed to exercise power over the clouds in procuring rain. The idol is placed in a cistern low down in the centre of the temple, and kept drenched with water. The Nepalese temple, rising from the banks of the Ganges near the Man-Mandil Ghât, is a strikingly picturesque object, and is now the only Buddhist temple in Benares. The Dasasamed Ghât is one of the five celebrated places of pilgrimage in Benares. Here we saw one of those religious devotees called Fakîrs, who live upon charity, and obtain a reputation for sanctity by abstinence, retaining the body in one position, and imposing severe penances upon themselves. They suffer their hair to grow in long shaggy locks, sometimes reaching to the ground, and their austerities are regarded with reverence and admiration. At the Burning Ghât, whither a boat conveyed us, there lay corpse with wood piled round it, prepared for cremation, and another funeral pile, with its smouldering embers just burnt out. Funeral rites are continually going on here; for many come to Benares as the goal of their hope and life on purpose to die. Several pairs of short slabs set up on end, called suttee, mark the spots where widows have been burnt alive on the pyre of their husbands. The word suttee means "chaste or faithful woman." The custom was prohibited by the government in 1829; but these spots are still the objects of worship. Our boat conveyed us next to the steps dividing the city along the river into two equal portions and leading up to the famous WELL OF SALVATION. At the top this well is twenty yards long and ten wide, and BENARES. flights of steps slope down the four sides like a pyramid reversed to a narrow trough of water at the bottom in which devotees were standing, washing face and head, and sipping the fœtid water from their hands. It is believed that this well, filled with the sweat of Vishnu, infallibly washes away all sin. The water is disgustingly dirty, as though it held in solution the sins it washed away. Near this well is the temple of Ganesh, the god of INDIAN FAKÎR. a bigot and a persecutor, the last, the most cruel, intolerant, and hated of the Moguls, 1658-1707. He imprisoned his father, Shah Jahán, murdered his brothers, imposed the Fiziah, a religious tax, on every one not Mohammedan, destroyed Hindu temples, and built mosques out of the materials, |