barbarous South Sea Islanders is regarded with the greatest abhorrence; but their ignorance and degraded condition lessens our condemnation of their abominable deeds. For the Thugs, an intelligent people, living in a semi-civilized land, with opportunities of getting knowledge far in advance of the Islanders of the Pacific, we can see almost no reason for hesitating to condemn most strongly their awful practices. What a contrast is here furnished between the religion of Jesus Christ, with its teachings of mercy and love, and the religion that not only tolerated, but even taught, that to murder was to render a service to the gods. [Illustration: GODDESS KALI, FROM A HINDU PICTURE.] Kali’s feasts were generally held at night. Great crowds of religious fanatics gathered around her most fearful images. These were generally placed in a grove for this occasion. In two of her four hands the idol held skulls; formerly these were human skulls, now they are made of wood. The devotees walk round and round the idol, bearing torches, beating drums, and dancing in odd ways. Kali is one of the most celebrated goddesses of all the Hindu worship, and is the especial favorite divinity of the people of Calcutta. Her images are very different, but she has always one character ascribed to her; she is cruel and revengeful. We meet her temples everywhere--by the roadside, in palm groves, under the wide-spreading banyan tree. This goddess of destruction being more feared than all others, is worshiped more than all. She is represented sometimes as standing on a lion or a prostrate man, always with four hands. These hold knives or skulls, or, perhaps, human heads, as already noticed. Often she wears a necklace of skulls. The Hindus bring to her idols the first fruits of the garden, vineyard or orchard. Some of Kali’s temples, like that at Calcutta, are beautifully sculptured, and her idols decorated with precious-stones. TEMPLE DECORATIONS. There is one thing which characterizes almost all of the better Hindu temples, this is the exquisite richness of the sculptures which decorate their walls. They seem to trust more to the impression which appeals to the sight make upon the minds of the people than to any oral teaching or readings from books. The Hindus are accustomed to depict in these decorations the whole of their mythology, the legends of the gods, the stories of the lives of their deities, their ideas of the future life, of the present world and the like. The preceding picture gives a sculpture representing the Hindu notion of the universe, and of the relative position of the world. To the untutored Hindu mind it answers fully the question, How is the world upheld? Of course those Hindus who have received the light of a truly scientific education laugh at such notions as are here indicated. They know far better, as do we. [Illustration: HINDU NOTION OF THE UNIVERSE.] [Illustration: GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE HINDUS OF UMRITSUR.]