A Brahmin who had become a Christian, once told a celebrated traveler, that the people of lower castes than his own had often asked him to stop and wash his feet in the water of the street, so that they might drink it! The whole system, this traveler goes on to say, is a cold and cruel thing, which hardens the heart against natural compassion. Against its oppression there is no power of resistance; it extinguishes every element of human brotherhood. Hinduism is, take it all and all, one of the vilest, most despotic, most degrading systems of religion. In almost every other faith there is some redeeming feature; in Hinduism we seek in vain to find any element of truth. There is nothing in it worthy of being placed in comparison with Christianity. Yet the task of persuading the Hindu people of this is a very difficult one. The missionary seems as but a youthful David with his sling and stones in the presence of this very Goliath of Heathenism. But he has God standing with him, and by His aid the work will finally be successful. [Illustration: GOD OF HELL, FROM A HINDU PICTURE.] HUMAN BEINGS KILLED IN SACRIFICE. Very early in the history of the Hindu religion, human beings were sacrificed to the gods. Both children and adults were slain before Kali’s altars, especially. Sacrifice of human beings is referred to in the sacred books; for instance, it appears in the following Brahmana: King Hariscandra had no son; he then prayed to Varuna, promising, that if a son were born to him, he would sacrifice the child to the god. Then a son was born to him called Rohita. When Rohita was grown up, his father one day told him of the vow he had made to Varuna and bade him prepare to be sacrificed. The son declined to be killed, and ran away from his father’s house. For six years he wandered in the forest and at last met a starving Brahmin. Him he persuaded to sell one of his sons named Sunahsepha, for a hundred cows. This boy was bought by Rohita and taken to Hariscandra and was about to be sacrificed to Varuna as a substitute for Rohita. At this moment, on praying to the gods with verses from the Veda, the boy was released. Some of the Hindu gods are, in accord with this idea, horrible imaginations, as the god of Hell. In contrast with such, is Amadeo, god of Love, the cupid god of the Hindus. [Illustration: AMADEO, GOD OF LOVE.] But the Hindus were averse to human sacrifice, and so they found a way to get around it. They introduced this passage into their sacred books: