[Sidenote:  Treatment of women.  Widows.] The whole treatment of women has gradually become most tyrannical and unjust.  In very ancient days they were held in considerable respect; but, for ages past, the idea of woman has been steadily sinking lower and lower, and her rights have been more and more assailed.  The burning of widows has been prohibited by enactment; but the awful rite would in many places be restored were it not for the strong hand of the British government.  The practice of marrying women in childhood is still generally—­all but universally—­prevalent; and when, owing to the zeal of reformers, a case of widow-marriage occurs, its rarity makes it be hailed as a signal triumph.  Multitudes of the so-called widows were never really wives, their husbands (so-called) having died in childhood.  Widows are subjected to treatment which they deem worse than death; and yet their number, it is calculated, amounts to about twenty-one millions!  More cruel and demoralizing customs than exist in India in regard to women can hardly be found among the lowest barbarians.  We are glad to escape from dwelling on points so exceedingly painful.

IV.

CONTRAST WITH CHRISTIANITY.

The immense difference between the Hindu and Christian religions has doubtless already frequently suggested itself to the reader.  It will not be necessary, therefore, to dwell on this topic at very great length.  The contrast forces itself upon us at every point.

[Sidenote:  The Aryas and Israelites—­their probable future, about 1500 B.C.  Contrast of their after-history.] When, about fifteen centuries B.C., the Aryas were victoriously occupying the Panjab, and the Israelites were escaping from the “iron furnace” of Egypt, if one had been asked which of the two races would probably rise to the highest conception of the divine, and contribute most largely to the well-being of mankind, the answer, quite possibly, might have been, the Aryas.  Egypt, with its brutish idolatries, had corrupted the faith of the Israelites, and slavery had crushed all manliness out of them.  Yet how wonderful has been their after-history!  Among ancient religions that of the Old Testament stands absolutely unique, and in the fullness of time it blossomed into Christianity.  How is the marvel to be explained?  We cannot account for it except by ascribing it to a divine election of the Israelites and a providential training intended to fit them to become the teachers of the world.  “Salvation is of the Jews.”

The contrast between the teachings of the Bible and those of the Hindu books is simply infinite.

[Sidenote:  Hindu theology compared with Christian.] The conception of a purely immaterial Being, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, which is that of the Bible regarding God, is entirely foreign to the Hindu books.  Their doctrine is various, but, in every case, erroneous.  It is absolute pantheism, or polytheism, or an inconsistent blending of polytheism and pantheism, or atheism.