Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/437

Rh tian heart, a little, bloodless, and most ordinary occurrence, which I noticed when last present at this festival, far more deeply pained and affected my soul. As I left the ground, a father just before me was leading by the hand a little girl some four years old. As they came before a small temple in which stood a black, misshapen god of stone, the father put his hand upon the child's head, made her fall down upon her face before it, worship it, and then raising her, gave to her some candy as a reward for her obedience. Poor child! my heart is sore for thee! How false and fatal are thy earliest thoughts of God! how deluded thy first acts of devotion! The first prayer lisped by thine infant lips is to a god of stone; thy first act of obedience to a father's teachings is idolatry; thy little hands are first clasped in homage to a thing of naught. And when thy childhood gives place to girlish thoughts and deeds, and the girl ripens into the woman, wife, and mother, darkness, degradation, and heathenism will be thy portion—thy portion to transmit to a coming generation. Will the name of Jesus, the only Saviour, ever fall upon thine ear? or wilt thou live and die as though Christ had not left heaven to save thee? And