Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/274

234 let them hear its ticking. "Oh! it goes! it goes!” they cried out. “Yes," answered Mr. S., “my watch goes, but in the temple out there !” This thought struck them very forcibly, and doubtless was more effectual than volumes of argument would have been.

Some of them had seen a “Matha Covil," or "mother temple," as the Roman Catholic churches are called, from the worship of the Virgin Mary as mother of God, and supposing them to be places of Christian worship, they wanted to know, with much simplicity, why we decried idolatry. “You too,” they said, “worship the cross, draw cars, ring bells, burn candles, &c.” “But," they were asked, “if a Pariah should put on the Brahminic thread, rub ashes on his forehead, and come to you, saying, 'I am a Brahmin,' would you receive him as a Brahmin?” “No, indeed!” "Then, if men walk contrary to the Christian Veda, (Scriptures,) shall we call them Christians? Look at the commandments of God in our Bible.” The second commandment was quite satisfactory to them; but to us it was a sorrowful thing to find the gospel thus misrepresented among the heathen. It is a difficulty, how-