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thousands of years. The Hindoo ever be holds it in one peculiar aspect, as a place of spotless holiness and heavenly beauty, where the spiritual eye may be delighted and the heart may be purified; and his imagination has been kept fervid from generation to generation by the continued presentation of this glowing picture. Believing all he has read and heard concerning this seat of ideal blessedness, he has been possessed with the same longing to visit it as the Mahomedan to visit Mecca, or the Jewish exile to visit Jerusalem; and having gratified his desire, has left the memory of his pious enterprise to his children for their example, to incite them to undertake the same pilgrimage, faithfully transmitting to them the high ambition which he himself received from his fathers. It would be difficult to count the small shrines, the larger temples, and the sacred niches abounding in the city.; and it would be an impossibility to enumerate the idols worshipped by the people, but they certainly exceed the number of the people themselves, though multiplied twice over. You may sometimes see twenty, fifty, and even a hundred or more idols gathered together in one shrine or niche, many of which will receive as much homage as the god who is exalted to the chief and most honourable It should always be remembered that the Hindoo is a religious man of very great earnestness, but his religion takes the form of idolatry. Idolatry enters into all the associations and concerns of his life. He can take no step without it. He carries his offerings publicly in the streets on his way to the temple in the morning, and receives upon his forehead, from the officiating priest, the peculiar mark of his god, as the symbol of the worship he has paid him, which he wears all the day long. As he walks about you may hear him muttering the names and sounding the praises of his gods. In greeting a friend he accosts him in the name of a deity. In a letter on business, or on any other matter, the first word he invariably writes is the name of a god. Should he propose an engagement of importance, he first inquires the pleasure of the idol, and a lucky day for undertaking it. In short, idolatry is a charm, a fascination, to the Hindoo. It is, so to speak, the air he breathes; it is the food of his soul; it is, alas! the foundation of his hopes, both for this world and for another.

seat.

It was a day of much importance in the history of Christianity in India when missionary operations were commenced in the

sacred city of Benares. Humanly speaking, were the city to abandon its idolatrous usages, and to embrace the gospel of Christ, the effect of such a step upon the Hindoo community over the whole of India would be as great as was that produced on the Roman empire when Rome adopted the Christian faith. We shall presently see what signs there are of the coming of such a day.

The three missions which were established in Benares, upwards of fifty years ago, continue to the present time. Though encountering opposition of a varied nature during parts of this period, all direct opposition has long since ceased. The people have gradually come to regard the missions as permanent institutions of the city, to respect the motives and aims of the missionaries, and to entertain for them sentiments of friendship and esteem. The Rev. William Smith, who was appointed to the Baptist mission in 1816, and continued at his post for forty years, furnished a remarkable illustration of the powerful influence which sanctity of life and unwearied kindness exert upon the minds of Hindoos in subduing their prejudice, and in exciting their confidence and good-will. It is a well-known fact, that on occasion of a great disturbance in the city, when the English magistrate durst not expose himself to the rage of the populace, on the approach of Mr. Smith the crowd parted, and allowed him to pass harmlessly through.

Many kinds of Christian work have been performed by the missions in Benares. Much has been done by them all in the way of preaching the gospel in the vernacular languages in the streets and bazaars of the city, and in the neighbouring villages. Much has been done also by the agency of schools, in teaching the youth of both sexes the great truths of Christianity. The Baptist mission has been mostly engaged in the former department of labour, namely, that of preaching, although for many years it possessed several useful schools, which were closed twenty years ago, at the request of one of the secretaries of the society, who thought that missionaries should devote their time and energies more especially to the direct. proclamation of the Gospel. The other two missions, however, have always paid attention to both branches of Christian effort. The Church Society's Mission has taken a very distinguished part in promoting the religious and intellectual welfare of the natives of Benares. It has ever had a considerable staff of vernacular preachers, consisting of missionaries and their native

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catechists, who have day by day expounded the Truth to the people. It has a large college of six hundred and fifty students, Hindoos and Mahomedans, with a few Christians, all of whom receive a sound Christian and secular education. This was established in the year 1817 by the Rev. Mr. Corrie, then Chaplain of Benares, afterwards Bishop Corrie of Madras. The mission has, in addition, many schools for the education of natives of both sexes; a large orphanage, in which more than a hundred children are supported, and are trained in the Christian faith; a normal institution, in which upwards of forty native Christian girls are educated, in order to become fitted to teach in the schools of this and other missions; an infant school; two native Christian villages, one for the residence of Christians in Benares, the other for those in the country who are farmers and agricultural labourers; a lace manufactory, for the support of widows and other females of the mission; and two Gothic churches, which are in the charge of two ordained native pastors. The London Society's Mission, while extensive in its range and operations, has never been in a position to attempt the multiform labours which the members of the Church Society have undertaken, and in prosecuting which they have been so successful. It should be added that ladies in connection with two other societies devote their time exclusively to giving instruction to native women and girls in the zenanas, or female apartments, in the large houses of the city.

Four native Christian communities are now scattered about Benares and its suburbs, the fruit of missionary labour, which hold their Sunday and week-day meetings for the worship of God through Jesus Christ His Son in as many churches and chapels. During the last twenty years the number of native Christians in the city has considerably more than doubled. The three missions had, in 1871, twenty-nine schools and colleges, with fortyeight native Christian teachers, and in these institutions two thousand two hundred and twenty Hindoo and Christian scholars, male and female, received a good education based upon the Word of God. They had likewise a staff of nineteen native preachers or catechists, of whom three were ordained.

These results, however, are no proper criterion of the great work which has been accomplished among the natives of Benares by the influence of Christian truth, of education, of just government, and of the general civilising elements which for many years have

Thus

been in operation in their midst. It is no exaggeration to affirm that native society in that city, especially among the better classes, is hardly the same thing that it was a few years ago. An educated class has sprung into existence, which is little inclined to continue in the mental bondage of the past. The men composing it may be compared to the bud ready to burst into the blossom under the united influence of light and heat. The religion of idolatry, of sculptures, of sacred wells and rivers, of gross fetichism, of mythological representations of many-handed, or many-headed, or many-bodied deities, is losing, in their eyes, its romance. They yearn after a religion purer and better. They want to know God as He is, not as symbolized in these mystical associations. Education, therefore, resting on the sacred Scriptures, has thus produced a revolution of thought in their minds. In the Government college and schools of the city the Bible is not permitted as a text-book; yet it is none the less true that the English education they impart, by reason of the study of such books as "Paradise Lost," and the like, which are suffused with Christian sentiments, is, in no slight degree, of a Biblical character. it has come to pass that the light which precedes and accompanies conviction has been shed upon many minds in this seat of Hindooism. A new era of intellectual freedom and religious life has already commenced. Of not a few it may be said, that "old things have passed away;" and of the great mass of the inhabitants, that "all things are becoming new." I believe very few indeed of the educated class in Benares-that is, educated on the English model-are thorough and hearty idolaters; and I am satisfied that there is not one who does not hold Hindooism with a lighter and looser grasp than formerly, or than would have been the case had his mind not been expanded and benefited by the education he has received. He knows too much to be an honest and a conscientious idolater. He is beginning to be scandalised by idolatry, and also ashamed of it. The fact is indisputable, that education, especially Christian education, de-Hindooises the Hindoo, breaks down idolatry, and inspires him with a distaste for it and a latent desire to be free from it. As I was conversing one day with an educated native gentleman of Benares, a near relative of the chief native prince of the city, he made a remark of great significance, as showing the feeling of men of his own class, attached by association to idol-worship, and yet prepared for

something better, if only a movement were commenced, and if some one of courage, of force of character, and of genuine enthusiasm, would lead the way. "We need," he said, "a Luther among us; as though he would say, that under the guidance of a Martin Luther he himself, with the rest, would break away from Hindooism, and that all who were longing for reform, who were ready to be tree, but not daring to be so, would rush eagerly to the standard of such a man, and under his leadership a new era of religious reformation would be inaugurated in the land.

It must not be imagined, however, that the outward manifestations of Hindooism have undergone much change. The superstitious observances connected with it are still kept up by the people generally, in the temples, at the sacred wells and tanks, on the

spacious stone stairs leading down to the Ganges, and in the holy streams, with enthu siasm and punctiliousness. Nevertheless, it is undoubted that there are thousands of persons in this city alone who, while accounted rigid Hindoos, and daily performing the customary rites, are altogether dissatisfied with them. In appearance, Christianity has been more successful in many places in India than in Benares; yet, when the peculiar difficulties and antagonisms which exist in that city are taken into consideration, I believe it is not too much to say that it has, in the aggregate, accomplished as much there as in any city of the land. One thing is clear and certain, the Gospel there is sapping, rapidly and effectually, the foundations of the most powerful form of idolatry.

THE LOVE OF MONEY THE ROOT OF ALL GOOD.
BY THE REV. A. K. H. BOYD, D.D., FIRST MINISTER OF ST. ANDREWS.
"For the love of money is the root of all evil.”—I TIM. vi. 10.

THE first thing to be done is to make sure

what the text means. Some men, trying to expound it, take the broad sense which first meets the eye, that the love of money is a thing standing by itself, so specially bad that it tends to lead people to every kind of wrong feeling and doing. A root of a mischievous weed, in the vegetable world (it has been said), springs up into only one kind of evil. But so does the course of things in the moral world give an advantage to what is wrong, that there one thing may be named as the root of all evil.

Several eminent scholars, startled by this statement, so sweeping and unrestricted, have recently pointed out that the proper meaning of St. Paul's assertion is, that the love of money is not the root, but a root of all evilone of many such-one of many tendencies within us which may cach lead us to many wrong doings; it being understood, too, not that literally all the evils there are spring from the love of money, but that it may be, and in fact often is, the cause of many and diverse evils. What St. Paul wrote, literally translated, is this: "For root of all the evils is the love of money:" the saying being almost a proverbial one, the like of it occurring many times in the classic writers: a saying to be understood reasonably by men of common sense; not implying things opposed to all our experience, as that the love of money stands alone, and that there

are not too many other roots of evil besides that; not implying, either, that nothing good can remain in the man who values worldly wealth unduly.

I have never, till now, asked your attention to this grave matter. It is a matter well worthy of some thought. It is worth while, if possible, to clear up our ideas as to what is the New Testament teaching in regard to worldly wealth, and the desire for it.

Probably there is no subject on which a greater quantity of exaggerated and insincere nonsense has been talked and written by good people than the message of Christianity as to money. I have read it in a discourse by a good divine, who himself looked carefully, though not a whit too carefully, after what some folk call the main chance, that money is not to be wished for by a Christian man at all; that the only use of gold is to do what they do with it in heaven-trample it under our feet; that there is nothing God. hates like a hoarding Christian-that is, a Christian who tries to lay up a little store against a rainy day, a Christian who has an account at the savings bank; that God has stood drunken Christians, lying Christians, unclean Christians, but that there is but one Bible instance of a hoarding Christian-to wit, Lot-and God burned him out of it. Now, the result of that kind of teaching is, that the world, as some call it-meaning by the phrase average sensible men-just

quietly put aside the teaching of the Church and of religion on the matter, and hold by the teaching of plain common sense, which is, that money is a useful and good thing, if honestly got and rightly used; and that the desire to get it is the main impulse of all human industry and exertion. The best work of human hands and heads you get for money. The eloquent though unwise preacher, who declares that money is not to be regarded by Christian folk at all, you get his valuable services in return for a stipend of so much money. If, with extraordinary power, he shows that worldly wealth is of no account, he may be advanced to a charge where his income will be much larger. If, in another country, he shows eloquently the vanity of earthly rank, he may be rewarded with a seat in the House of Peers. The book that lifts you up, that touches and mends your heart -the author was paid for it in money. The wonderful intuition of that supreme medical genius that came at an anxious time into your home and saved a precious life-you could not have got it except by paying dearly for it. Now I do not say that such services as these those of the judge, the physician, the divine-are rendered only for a price; I know that where things are right there are motives far above that: and I know too that there are services for which no money can pay; we have all received such many times. All I say is that you cannot have these unless those who render them are provided with the means of living; that is, with an adequate supply of money. For when we say money we do not mean the mere gold and silver: we mean what they can buy. We mean all the material comforts and refinements of this life: yes, and the manifold moral and spiritual advantages which result from these. And the desire, within becoming limits, to gain these by fair and honest work, is a right desire, put into our hearts by Him who made them. It is not merely that a decent competency will keep the soul from care's unthankful gloom; will surround yourself with things needful and graceful; will make life modestly enjoyable but that it will enable you to give your children the priceless blessing of a good education; it will enable you to care for them when they are sick-many a precious life I have known lengthened because poverty was not added to other ills; many a weary heart I have seen wonderfully lightened by the gift of a little money. It means for yourself and others the elevating companionship of worthy books; the occasional

glimpse of the reviving scenes of sacred nature; the needful leisure that saves brain and heart from breaking down; the presence round you of that simple beauty which is an education. It means that when you die you will not leave your wife and your little ones to the killing anxieties and the sordid shifts of awful want. My friends, there are certain rich and good human beings, both living and dead, for whom I act as almoner: I am trusted with the administration of what they gave and give of their kind hearts and from their abundant wealth, for the succour of the deserving poor. I have beheld a gush of thankfulness that was painful to see, follow the gift of a very little sum. I know what money can do, under a kind God. It can do mighty good: from building or endowing a church down to feeding a little starving child. I will never speak lightly of it: never! "The love of money," says St. Paul, ❝is root of all evil." Yes, it may be. There is a love of it which may prompt to infinite evil; to fraud and to violence; to the vulgarest and most despicable mammon-worship: which may result in that covetousness, which is idolatry; in that purse-pride, which is hatefullest of all pride. But the reasonable desire for "the glorious privilege of being independent," through long, steady work and self-denial: for the welfare in this life and another of the dear ones you will some day leave behind you: I am bold to say it, and I know St. Paul would say amen to it: That kind of the love of money is the root of all good.

I repeat it. In the same large, general sense, easily understood by all candid men, in which the wrong love of money is the root of all evil, the right love of money, the healthy instinct of acquisition, is the root of all good.

It is not that St. Paul was behind the present day in his teaching. I do not say to you (what I have heard said from a pulpit), "Yes, St. Paul said what he says in the text, but he said it because he knew no better. He was wrong." St. Paul was right. It is just here as it is in fifty other things; there is the use of a thing and its abuse. The love of anything may be the root of much evil. The love of orthodoxy, of sound doctrine, what can be better than that? And yet I have known it lead to misrepresentation, lying, slandering, malice, and all uncharitableness. The love of country, patriotism, I fear has led natives of both sides of the Atlantic to ridiculous boastfulness about

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