Page:Hindu Feasts Fasts and Ceremonies.djvu/143



[We are enabled to place before our readers to-day an admirable article on the Kaliyuga from the pen of a learned Hindu gentleman. The word “Kaliyuga” is constantly cropping up in native writings and speeches, and is likely to do so still more in the future, but a perusal of this article will explain the belief, for a superstition it cannot fairly be called, based as it is on writings held sacred by the people. That extraordinary divine, Dr. Cumming, used to startle periodically worthy British matrons and susceptible young men and maidens by proving to his and their complete satisfaction that the end of the world was near at hand. His prophecies were the result of abstruse mathematical calculations based on his interpretation of certain scriptural texts; but, so far as we are aware, he never brought forward such strong evidence as is furnished in the Puranic writings which fixes the exact hour of the dawn of the Last Day at 2 A.M. on the 25th November, 1899. The point, however, on which particular stress is to be laid is the difficulty that must naturally exist in dealing with people who