434 Voyage of the Novara. 



natives with the alternative of annihilation, but rather towards 

 political and commercial influences, we find the British Govern- 

 ment regarding with placid indifference the abominations of 

 Hindoo worship, which, even to this hour, take the form of 

 laceration of the flesh and self-immolation, rather than, by 

 ruling with the strong hand, fan the religious fanaticism of the 

 multitude, without the possibility of Christianity becoming a 

 gainer. Among the thousands upon thousands who were 

 celebrating the festival of Vishnu in such a heathenish fashion, 

 there undoubtedly were many who are in the employ of Govern- 

 ment, which has no scruples about appointing Hindoos of all 

 sorts to the various posts in the public service. The English 

 State Church which held that such appointments tended, not 

 very indirectly, to support heathenism,* earnestly remonstrated 

 against the practice, but the Government becoming daily more 

 convinced that the doctrines and homilies of the Christian 

 faith continued to be entirely a dead letter among the Hindoos, 

 seems to hold fast to a policy of seeking gradually to introduce 

 Christianity and European civilization among the Indian races, 

 by means of equality of rights and assimilation of laws, by 

 a system of well-organized national, trade, and industrial 

 education, and, above all, by the influence of personal example. 

 This, to be sure, is a very slow and arduous method of conver- 



* The East India Company even undertook the maintenance of tlie Hindoo 

 temples, and defrayed the receipts of the annual festival in honour of Vishni\ out 

 of the revenues. There exist in the Presidency of Madi-as alone 8292 Hindoo 

 temples, with an annual revenue of about i,'100,000, aU under tlie protection and 

 control of the Company. (See " India, Ancient and Modem," by David 0. AUen, 

 Boston, 185G.) 



