Page:Deplorable effects of heathen superstition.pdf/14

 consciousness of doing wrong in witnessing it. I was also somewhat appalled at the magnitude and horror of the spectacle; I felt like a guilty person, on whom all eyes were fixed, and I was about to withdraw. But a scene of a different kind was now to be presented. The characteristics of Moloch’s worship are obscenity and blood. We have seen the former. Now comes the blood.’

After the tower had proceeded some way, a pilgrim announced that he was ready to offer himself a sacrifice to the idol. He laid himself down in the road before the tower as it was moving along, lying on his face, with his arms stretched forwards. The multitude passed round him, leaving the space clear, and he was crushed to death by the wheels of the tower. A shout of joy was raised to the god. He is said to smile when the libation of blood is made. The people threw cowries, or small money, on the body of the victim, in approbation of the deed. He was left to view a considerable time, and was then carried to the Golgotha, where I have just been viewing his remains, How much I wished that the Proprietors of India Stock could have attended the wheels of Juggernaut, and seen this peculiar source of their revenue.

The horrid solemnities still continue. Yesterday a woman devoted herself to the idol. She laid herself down on the road in an oblique direction, so that the wheel did not kill her instantaneously, as is generally the case; but she died in a few hours. This morning as I passed