When the Phansiagars become old, they do not quit the service, but act as watchers, and decoy the traveller, by some false tale of distress, into some distant place, where he is murdered.

Women are sometimes admitted to the society of these plunderers, and, on some occasions, are allowed to apply the noose.  They select a handsome girl, and place her in a convenient spot, where, by her beauty, or by a false story of distress, she may decoy some unsuspecting traveller, and be the means of his destruction.  Should he be on horseback, she will induce him to take her up behind him; after which, when an opportunity offers, she throws the noose over his head, leaps from the horse, drags him to the ground, and strangles him.  I will mention an instance.  It happened that a horseman of Coorg, in the Madras presidency, was passing by a spot where one of these interesting-looking girls was stationed.  She told him a piteous story of having been robbed and badly treated, and begged him to assist her.  Feeling sorry for her, he offered to take her behind him, on his horse, and thus assist her a few miles on her journey.  She expressed much gratitude for his kindness, and mounted.  Soon afterwards she suddenly passed a noose over his head, and, drawing it with all her might, endeavored to pull him from his saddle.  At this moment, a number of Phansiagars started from the neighboring thicket and surrounded him.  The murderess then slipped from the horse; but the Coorg striking his heels into the horse’s sides, it threw out its hind legs with great violence, and struck to the ground the girl, who immediately let go the cord.  He then drew his sword, and, cutting his way through the robbers, effected his escape.  He wounded two of them severely.  These men were shortly afterwards taken, and, through their means, twelve others fell into the hands of the judicial officers of the king of Coorg, including the girl who attempted the murder.  They were all put to death.

And is it possible that such persons can go to heaven?  How could such ever relish its pure joys?  What would they do, could they be admitted there?  My dear children, it is a charity which has no foundation, to suppose that the heathen can go to heaven.  I have preached the Gospel to tens of thousands of them, but I never saw one who had the least atom of a qualification for that holy place.  “They have all gone out of the way.”  Every crime which the apostle Paul speaks of in the latter part of the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans, they commit, and crimes of so dreadful a nature that I cannot mention them—­crimes which, should they be written in the Bible, would cause the Bible to be a sealed book for ever.

CHAPTER XV.

SELF-TORTURES OF THE HINDOOS.

My dear Children—­As the heathen have no Bible to direct them, they have devised various means by which they expect to obtain the favor of their gods, and get to heaven.  I will mention some of these.