Whatever the Hindu conception of a god may be, their behaviour in their temples shows that it is something entirely different to the ideas which a Christian associates with the name of God. The greatest irreverence, from our point of view of what irreverence means, is continually going on in a Hindu temple in the presence of the idol, to which homage is done as to a god, and which is the object of a good deal of ceremonial attention from the person whose business it is to pay it. Talking loudly, and laughing and joking, children romping about; all this is evidently not felt to be out of place in the temple, because it goes on habitually, and apparently unrebuked. Card-playing is constantly carried on in those larger temples in which there is a space in front of the idol, and evidently nobody objects. Indians are great card-players, and they play with a persistency and absorbed interest such as the most inveterate bridge-player could scarcely emulate. They often play for the greater part of the day and half the night, and generally for stakes of some sort, however small. Nor does even robbing the god involve the idea that the god has power to take revenge, because some of the village boys have told me, as a huge joke, of their exploits in robbing their idol of the offerings made to it. People bring small gifts of money, or fruit, or sweetmeats, and deposit them near the idol. These are the recognised perquisites of the custodian of the temple. But in the case of a village temple this official is often also engaged in secular business, so that the boys watch their opportunity and, in his absence, appropriate the offering before he returns. Apparently burial in a river is a seemly way of disposing of a god. A man was anxious to sell us a plot of land in a certain village, but there was on it a very primitive temple, fenced in with a few sticks and stones. Within this enclosure were several shapeless stone gods, painted with vermilion. We said that if we bought the site the temple would have to be removed first. The man replied that there would be no difficulty about that, because the gods could be buried in the river. The god is then supposed to leave the stone and pass out into the sacred stream. The mud figures of the god _Gunpatti_, which people annually enshrine in their houses for ten days, are then taken in procession to the river and placed in the water, where, of course, they quickly dissolve.