“_obscenity was wit_,” we have little reason to reproach the Hindus with want of delicacy, when we find the exceptionable, though elegant, poetry of Little generally circulated and avowedly admired. We should also recollect the circumstances of Indian society, before we condemn their authors for the ungarbled expressions which we conceive to trespass upon the boundaries of decorum. _These authors write to men only, they never think of a woman as a reader._’” Moor in his “Hindu Pantheon,” bears general testimony to the perfectly decent character of Hindu worship, on the whole, whatever may take place in exceptional cases. Speaking of the sect of naked gymnosophists, called Lingis, and the Sactas, he says:—“In this last mentioned sect, as in most others, there is a right-handed and decent path, and a left-handed and indecent mode of worship; but the indecent worship of this sect is most grossly so, and consists of unbridled debauchery with wine and women. This profligate sect is supposed to be numerous, though unavowed. In most parts of India, if not in all, they are held in deserved detestation; and even the decent Sactas do not make public profession of their tenets, nor wear on their foreheads the marks of their sect, lest they should be suspected of belonging to the other branch of it…. It is some comparative and negative praise to the Hindus, that the emblems under which they exhibit the elements and operations of nature, are not externally indecorous. Unlike the abominable realities of Egypt and Greece, we see the phallic emblem in the Hindu Pantheon without offence; and know not, until the information be extorted, that we are contemplating a symbol whose prototype is indecent. The plates of my book may be turned and examined, over and over again, and the uninformed observer will not be aware that in several of them he has viewed the typical representation of the generative organs or powers of humanity.” “From the very nature, also, of this symbol,” says Kennedy, “it will be evident that it was never intended to be carried in the processions consecrated to Shiva,” and Abraham Roger, two hundred years ago, has in consequence correctly stated,—“Mais quand on fait la procession par les villes avec l’idole Eswara, ce qui arrive en certains temps, on ne la porte pas sous la figure de lingam, mais sous la figure d’homme: la raison est, comme le Brahmine témoignoit, pour ce que les hommes ont plus de plasir et de contentement en la veuë d’une figure humaine que dans la veuë du lingam, en laquelle figure il est dans son pagode.”[6] [6] La Porte Ouverte, p. 157.