DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.640#0114
ON THE HINDOO RELIGION. ci
deeply affected with the sound of an instrument which had been
actually employed to kindle the flame of that superstition, which
I have attempted so extensively to unfold. My transported
thoughts travelled back to the remote period, when the bramhun;
religion blazed forth in all its splendour in the caverns of Ele-
phanta: I was, for a moment, entranced, and caught the ardour
of enthusiasm. A tribe of venerable priests, arrayed in flowing
stoles, and decorated with high tiaras, seemed assembled around
me; the mystic song of initiation vibrated in my ear; I breathed
an air fragrant with the richest perfumes, and contemplated the
Deity in the fire that symbolized him.' In another place:-—{She
[the Hindoo religion] wears the similitude of a beautiful and
radiant Cherub from Heaven, bearing on his persuasive lips
the accents of pardon and peace, and on his silken wings bene-
faction and blessing.'
The sacred scriptures, of which this writer professes to be a
teacher, in every part, mark idolatry as the abominable thing
which God hateth. Mr. Maurice calls it, ' a beautiful and
radiant cherub from heaven.' How this Christian minister will
reconcile his ideas of idolatry with those of his Great Master
in the great day of final account, I must leave; but I recom-
mend to him, and to all Europeans who think there is not much
harm in Hindooism, the perusal of the following passages from
the word of the true and living God :—
* If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy
daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as
thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve
other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
(namejy, of th&.gods of the people which are round about you,
nigh unto thee, or IS off from thee, from the one end of the
earth even unto the other end of the earth;) thou shalt not con-
sent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye
pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal
him: but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first
upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all
deeply affected with the sound of an instrument which had been
actually employed to kindle the flame of that superstition, which
I have attempted so extensively to unfold. My transported
thoughts travelled back to the remote period, when the bramhun;
religion blazed forth in all its splendour in the caverns of Ele-
phanta: I was, for a moment, entranced, and caught the ardour
of enthusiasm. A tribe of venerable priests, arrayed in flowing
stoles, and decorated with high tiaras, seemed assembled around
me; the mystic song of initiation vibrated in my ear; I breathed
an air fragrant with the richest perfumes, and contemplated the
Deity in the fire that symbolized him.' In another place:-—{She
[the Hindoo religion] wears the similitude of a beautiful and
radiant Cherub from Heaven, bearing on his persuasive lips
the accents of pardon and peace, and on his silken wings bene-
faction and blessing.'
The sacred scriptures, of which this writer professes to be a
teacher, in every part, mark idolatry as the abominable thing
which God hateth. Mr. Maurice calls it, ' a beautiful and
radiant cherub from heaven.' How this Christian minister will
reconcile his ideas of idolatry with those of his Great Master
in the great day of final account, I must leave; but I recom-
mend to him, and to all Europeans who think there is not much
harm in Hindooism, the perusal of the following passages from
the word of the true and living God :—
* If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy
daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as
thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve
other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
(namejy, of th&.gods of the people which are round about you,
nigh unto thee, or IS off from thee, from the one end of the
earth even unto the other end of the earth;) thou shalt not con-
sent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye
pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal
him: but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first
upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all