Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/226

194 genuflexions, with the business air of a man who has something to do and is getting through it as fast as he can. The idea of the offering of love, thanksgiving, and heart-service is a stranger to his mind. His only thought is of certain ceremonies which are in themselves pleasing to the god, without any regard to the holiness or unholiness of the worshipper. It is a religion, not of life and heart, but of forms and ceremonies: to god, how utterly worthless! for man, how completely unavailing!

With such notions of the worship that is acceptable to the gods, the commands of the Bible sound strangely to the Hindu. When told that God is a Spirit, almighty but invisible, he asks, “Do you pretend to say that we are to worship God?” When you answer that you do, he triumphantly exclaims, “Here is a man who says God is invisible and intangible, and yet that he is to be worshipped! How can you put flowers before him? How can you wash and paint him, if he is an invisible Spirit?" His idea of worship is to do puja, (worship;) that is, offer incense, flowers, and sacrifices, to adorn with paint and shawls, to wash and carry abroad, &c. He conceives, therefore, that to speak of worshipping an invisible being is absurd.