put to death immediately after birth. In one village, in which were twenty-two boys, not one girl was to be found. The vil lagers confessed that they had all been murdered. In another village were found fifty-eight boys and only four girls; in another, forty-four boys and four girls; and, in many other villages, the number of boys exceeded that of the girls in nearly the same proportion.

The Jerejas have a tradition, that a curse was once pronounced by a holy Brahmin upon all of their tribe who should suffer their female children to live. To escape the effects of this curse, and to avoid the trouble and expense of bringing up their daughters, whom they regard as worthless, they are induced to imbrue them hands in their innocent blood. Mothers are the executioners of their own children. They either strangle them or poison them with opium. That they should be the agents in sustaining so horrid a custom is the more extraordinary when the fact is known that they were born and brought up among other tribes, where female infants are reared with comparative kindness. But such is the debasing influence of heathenism, that natural affection is extinguished, and all the kind sympathies of the maternal heart give place to the most savage ferocity. The infant, after it is destroyed, is placed naked in a small basket, and carried out and interred by one of the female attendants.

The subject of engraving, number 37 is the interior of the mission chapel in the city of Cuttack, in the province of Orissa. It is an interesting fact, that this chapel stands upon the very spot where once stood a temple devoted to Shiva.

About one hundred miles south-west of Cuttack is the country of the Kunds. They worship a goddess called Bhuenee. To secure her blessing upon the soil they cultivate, they deem it important at certain times to offer human sacrifices upon her altars. The victims, who must be in the freshness and bloom of youth, are procured by stealing children from distant villages and rearing them until they become large enough to be acceptable to the goddess. At the time of sacrifice, the victim is tied to a post; the sacrificer, with an axe in his hand, slowly advances towards him, chanting to the goddess and her train the following hymn, which has been translated for me by Rev. Charles Lacy, one of the missionaries at Cuttack:

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"Hail, mother, hail! Hail, goddess Bhuenee!
Lo! we present a sacrifice to thee.
Partake thereof, and let it pleasure give,
And, in return, let us thy grace receive.
With various music on this festive day,
Lo! thee we honor, and thy rites obey.
Hail, all ye gods who in the mountain dwell,
In the wild jungle, or the lonely dell!
Come all together, come with one accord,
And eat the sacrifice we have prepared.
In all the fields and all the plots we sow,
O let a rich and plenteous harvest grow!
Ho, all ye gods and goddesses! give ear,
And be propitious to our earnest prayer.
Behold a youth for sacrifice decreed,
Blooming with tender flesh and flushed with blood!
No sire, no matron, rears him as a son;

His flesh, and blood, his life, and all, are thine.
Without the pale of sacred wedlock born,

We caught and reared him for thy rite alone.
Now, too, with rites from all pollution free,
We offer him, O Bhuenee! to thee."

As soon as this hymn is finished, with one blow of the axe the chest of the devoted youth is laid open. The sacrificer instantly thrusts in his hand and tears out the heart. Then, while the victim is writhing in the agonies of death, the multitude rush upon him, each one tearing out a part of his vitals or cutting off a piece of flesh from the bones; for, according to their superstitions, the pieces have no virtue unless they are secured before life is extinct. Immediately they hasten with their bloody treasure and bury it in their fields, expecting in this way to render them fruitful.

Please notice those boys sitting on the floor, according to native custom. There are ten of them, and they are Kunds. They had once been stolen from their parents, and were kept for the purpose of being sacrificed; and, had they not been rescued by the agents of the East India Company, they would have been destroyed in the manner just described. But now they attend the mission school during the week, and on the Sabbath they meet in this chapel to worship that God whose kind providence saved them from an early and cruel death.

Turn now to the young woman seated at the extreme left of the audience. She, also, when a child, was stolen from her

parents and reserved for the slaughter. She was kept until sho had attained her sixteenth year, and was rescued only four days before she was to have been offered in sacrifice. I heard the account of her sufferings from her own lips, and saw the scars made by the fetters with which she had been confined. But now she is a member of the mission church, and is exerting a happy influence in teaching others the way of life.

In the course of a few months, the agents of the East India Company rescued one hundred and eight children, whom the Kunds were preparing for sacrifice. It may with propriety be said, they were fattening them like beasts for the slaughter; for they believe that the goddess will not be pleased with the sacrifice of young men and women, unless they are healthy and blooming. How different this from the blessed training of our children in the Sabbath school, that they may present their bodies a living sacrifice to God! What a contrast between Paganism and Christianity! Here a Christian chapel has literally been built upon the ruins of a heathen temple. It has also been rebuilt and enlarged, to accommodate the increasing number of worshippers, more than one hundred of whom are communicants. What has produced this change? Why are not the cruel rites of Shiva still performed upon this spot? The humble and unobtrusive missionary has proclaimed the simple doctrines of the cross, and the Divine Spirit has blessed his labors.