Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/156

146 of families soon vanished away and left no succession, for Hindoos and Mohammedans learned to perform duties which they saw bringing to the Christians so much honor and profit, and, as they did so, they necessarily hastened the removal of a religion which they detested. What is needed in India is a Christianity independent of the emoluments of office—one that shall take root in the soil, and be self-sustaining. But Romanism failed, and not from this cause alone, or even chiefly; its weak point was the fearful charge of idolatry which the Moulvies triumphantly urged against its priests on all occasions. The skeptical but honest Akbar—the Oriental head of a faith iconoclastic to the core—was confused, as well he might be, when he saw his own Moulvies able to quote the Christian Bible against professed Christian ministers to sustain this terrible charge. Denial of it would not avail; there were their own teachings and acts: worship and prayers to the Virgin Mary, invocation of saints, and prostrations before pictures and images. The subterfuge of a qualified homage was rejected in view of the prohibition of the Second Commandment of Almighty God, forbidding not only the act, but also its semblance, “Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them.” The priests were worsted; and Akbar and his people, knowing no Christianity but this, concluded that the religion of the Son of God was on a par with Paganism, and that Christians were idolaters. A revulsion set in, which the Empress Moomtaj afterward fully shared. In her case, the hatred of the Christian name was intensified by the remembrance of some insolence shown by the Portuguese at Hooghly, several years before her husband ascended the throne, and when he was a fugitive, after an unsuccessful rebellion against his father. When the power passed into her hands her hatred against “the European idolaters,” as she called them, led her to demand their expulsion, at least from Hooghly.

Accordingly, the Governor of Bengal received from Shah Jehan the laconic command, “Expel those idolaters from my dominions.” It was done. Hooghly was carried by storm, after a siege of three months and a half, involving a terrible destruction of life on