Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/467

Rh of ants is accounted a mode of acquiring merit, to improve the condition of the soul in its next birth. Men may be seen going from ant-hill to ant-hill, and, with great care, sprinkling around each a circle of rice flour. How vain are these attempts to create a righteousness that shall save the soul from the wrath of God! How can the feeding of ants and monkeys, or the more arduous task, of penance, the fasting, cutting of the flesh, swinging on hooks, walking on nails, or laying down of life itself upon the funeral pile, cleanse the soul from the pollution of sin, or prepare it to stand before God? All is in vain! And equally vain is the confidence of the self-righteous in Christian lands, who look for salvation to morality, charity, amiability, or good works. Let us be thankful that we have a better righteousness to present before God, even the righteousness that is by Jesus Christ, who “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Bangalore has not been left without some to make known to its people the way of life. Both the London and the Wesleyan Missionary