Page:Between the twilights being studies of Indian women by one of themselves (IA betweentwilights00soraiala).pdf/60

40 days like an English bedstead, with mosquito nets: and just as in the morning the devotee bathes and anoints the baby, leaving food beside it on the little altar, so at eventide she lights the nursery lamp and puts it to bed. … Is this Hinduism? I do not know. In practice it seems to me but the Mother-worship of the Child.

But in truth there is no one form or stage of Hinduism to be found in India, or, for the matter of that, in Bengal. … The great truths are eternal and prevail in every religion: yet all men are not capable of receiving the truth, and Hinduism recognizes this. In the actual worship of the idol are the illiterate and ignorant encouraged. “It would be sin to disclose to these the mysteries of a God not made with hands,” so says the wisest of my wise women … “for he who has heard and hearkens not, and understands not, hath the greater sin.” Yet that even a child may be capable of instruction she proves to you. I have seen many hundreds of babies under her roof, babies ranging from three to twelve years of age doing their morning pooja. It is “the worship of the possible” that she