permit the destruction of such indecencies." The result of this policy of non-interference on the part of the authorities with the religious customs of the people is that, however much of a saturnalia their festivals and celebrations may become, they are free from legal restraint if their indecencies are becomingly pious and their wickedness is under the shelter of religion. The British Government has already accomplished a beneficent rôle of reform in several respects where the interests of humanity required it, and the time will come-Christianity indeed is hastening it—when the unclean scandals of Hinduism must go also, and the various unsavory abominations of temple, festival, and pilgrimage will be consigned to oblivion.

The Mohammedan lands of Afghanistan, Arabia, Persia, Turkey, and Northern Africa are not above other sections of Asia characterized by exceptional immorality among the sexes. Prosti

The status in Mohammedan lands, and in

and the Pacific Islands.

tution is not carried on as a profession, except in the larger cities, where it is as well known as elsewhere; South America, Africa, but easy divorce and lax arrangements as to marriage relations open the way for a whited-sepulchre species of promiscuity gratifying to the pious Moslem, since it is sanctioned by his religion and counted as socially respectable. As is usually the case, however, where the relation of the sexes is severely guarded by artificial restrictions in a low moral environment, the prevalence of unnatural vices shows that the stream of lust if barred in one direction makes for itself a channel in another. There are aspects of vice in Mohammedan lands, and indeed throughout the Eastern world, which can only be referred to in veiled phrases as veritable mysteries of iniquity.

The South American Continent is, with Central America, Mexico, and the West Indies, notorious for profligacy. The tone of society is dissolute. The influence and example of the Romish clergy are in favor of laxity. Society both high and low is exceptionally unchaste and vitiated by an atmosphere of suspicion, distrust, and prurient sensitiveness. Respectable parents guard their daughters with the utmost watchfulness until married, while their sons, with few exceptions, give way to vicious indulgence. The masses concern themselves little with legal restraints or formalities.1

If we turn now to the barbarous and savage races of the African Continent and the Pacific Islands, we find a state of morals which is truly ap

1 Statistics of illegitimacy in these countries are startling in their significance. In Central America they range from fifty to seventy per cent. In Jamaica they have been reduced within sixty or seventy years from one hundred to sixty per cent. "The forty-per-cent. rate of legitimate births is clearly the result of mission

palling in its bestiality.1 The morally gruesome details are too repulsive to admit of an attempt even to summarize them, and we must forbear.

5. Self-torturE.—This is usually practised under the stimulus of religious fanaticism either to secure merit or reverence or to quiet superstitious fears. It is especially common in India on the part of the devotees who court veneration on account of supposed sanctity. As the torture is self-inflicted, at first thought one is inclined to denounce its folly and withhold sympathy for the sufferer; but when we reflect that it is often endured with a sincere, although mistaken, zeal as a religious act, one is rather inclined to pity the victim of such a delusion. The system of ascetic legalism which encourages such selfinflicted pain is largely responsible for the folly of its victims, and the spirit of the Gospel only will banish the haunting consciousness of condemnation which drives men to such cruel expedients to secure the favor of God.

Self-torture in India, China, and Mohamme

dan lands.

There is a ghastly variety in the methods of self-torture practised in India. Some of them, such as hook-swinging, have been abolished by the British Government as offenses against society. In several of the native states, however, it is still in vogue, and recent reports in directions many seem to indicate defiant attempts to revive the barbarous spectacle even in British India. Devotees and fakirs are accustomed to give themselves up to torture by fire, or by reclining for a long period upon beds of spikes or sharp stones. Others will refuse to give themselves rest, or abstain altogether from sleep, or hold some limb in a painful position until it becomes shrivelled and rigid. Others will allow themselves to be fed on any kind of revolting or improper food, having made a vow to reject nothing which is offered them to eat. The tests to which they are put are often horrible in the extreme. If they should refuse what is offered them they would thereby forfeit their sanctity and the veneration of their credulous admirers. A common practice is to pierce the body with large needles. Frequently iron skewers are thrust through the cheeks and tongue, which are thereby

work." The ratio in the South American States is also high. Infants can be easily disposed of by placing them in the turn-cylinders provided at the convents.

1 Macdonald, "Religion and Myth," pp. 201-203; Slowan, "The Story of Our Kaffrarian Mission," p. 24.

2 The Missionary Herald, January, 1893, p. 16; July, 1893, p. 292; October, 1893, p. 38.

caused to swell to frightful proportions. The flesh is cut with knives. or pierced with wire. Men are sometimes buried to the neck, or are hung by the heels to a tree. The worship of some of the cruel Hindu divinities, especially the goddess Kali, is frequently attended with shocking exhibitions, which must involve intense suffering to the participants.2

In China a prominent motive to self-mutilation is devotion to sick parents. Dutiful sons and daughters will cut off pieces of their own flesh, of which soup is made and given to a sick or infirm parent.3 Other species of voluntary suffering, not always, however, from religious or filial motives, but with a view to gain, are walking with the feet or back bare in severe wintry weather, or appearing upon public occasions with iron chains around the body and heavy wooden collars around the neck, or swinging weighty censers fastened to the flesh by brass hooks, or causing self-deformity or loathsome ulcers upon the person with a view to excite sympathy and secure gain.

In Mohammedan lands religious celebrations are frequently attended with these fanatical cruelties. Devotees will pierce and mutilate themselves, and in some instances prostrate themselves upon the ground to be trampled upon by horses with riders seated on their backs. Hinduism and Mohammedanism seem to present almost the only exhibition of this delusion, although Romanism has encouraged in the shape of ascetic penances much grievous bodily suffering, while among the pagan Indians of British Columbia acts of extreme self-cruelty are known to be practised.

6. SUICIDE.-There is nothing distinctive in the act of self-destruction in non-Christian lands except its prevalence, or the fact that it results from some pessimistic influence of the environment.

alent in many lands.

It is more common in China than in any other Self-destruction prevnation of the earth,5 and is resorted to for reasons peculiar to Chinese modes of thought. Its frequency results, no doubt, from the frivolous estimate placed upon human life, and the strange notion that personal grievances may be avenged

1 Bishop Thoburn, "India and Malaysia," pp. 125–130.

. ་་ Popular Hinduism," p. 50, Papers on Indian Religious Reform, Madras,

1894.

Society in China," p. 183; Smith, "Chinese Characteristics,"

Du Bose," The Dragon Image and Demon," p. 265.

5 Ball, "Things Chinese," p. 434.