196 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
hands turned upward, as it were, to receive them, yet 
sloping downwards, so that they dropped from thence 
into a glowing furnace. To other gods they were 
otherwise slaughtered, and, as it is implied, by the 
very hands of their parents. What can be more 
horrid to the imagination than to suppose a father 
leading the dearest of his sons to such an infernal 
shrine ? or a mother the most engaging and affectionate 
of her daughters, just rising to maturity, to be slaugh- 
tered at the altar of Ashtaroth and Baal ? Such was 
their blind zeal, that this was continually practised, 
and so much of natural affection still left unextin- 
guished as_ to render the scene ten times more shock- 
ing from the tenderness which they seemed to express. 
They embraced their children with great fondness, en- 
couraged them in the gentlest terms, that they might 
not be appalled at the sight of the hellish process, and 
exhorted them to submit with cheerfulness to this 
fearful operation; if there was any appearance of a 
tear rising or a cry unawares escaping, the mother 
smothered it with kisses, that there might not be any 
show of backwardness or constraint, but the whole be 
a freewill offering. These cruel endearments over, 
they stabbed them to the heart, or otherwise opened 
the sluices of life, and with the blood, warm as it ran, 
besmeared the altar and the grim visage of their idol. 
These were the customs which the Israelites learned 
from the people of Canaan, and for which they were 
upbraided by the psalmist: r ‘ They did not destroy 
the nations concerning whom the Lord commanded 
them, but were mingled among the heathen and 
learned their works. Yea, they sacrificed their sons 
