THE YOUTH’S CABINET. .

The Hindoo Mother.

omE of you have very likely heard

that there is a river in the north

of Indja, called the Ganges, and
which the poor, ignorant people

there foolishly worship. They look upon

i's waters as very sacred, and fancy that
if they drink them, they will get a great
blessing from them; or if they wash in

them, they will come out quite cleansed
from their sin; or if they die in them,

will go, all bright and glorious, to Para-

dise.

The great value they thus set upon
the Ganges makes them offer to it very
costly things, and sometimes they will
throw into it all sorts of precious jewels,
in the hope that the goddess who rules
over it will do them good. Even little
children are sometimes thrown thus into

the river.

One day, a young Hindoo mother
was seen going down to the Ganges,
carrying a sweet little babe in her arms,

which she was loading with her kisses,
and bathing with her tears. The person
that saw her thought, “ Ah, poor Hin-
doo woman! she is going to throw that
child to the Ganges ;” so he watched
her. When she got down to the river,
he saw her lay her lovely babe upon
the grass, and then, going to the edge
of the stream, gather some of the long
reeds or flags that grow there: these
she plaited together, so as to make a
sort of little raft. She then gathered a
number of the beautiful flowers of the
lotus—a sort of water lily, and with

these she made a wreath all round the.

raft, Then, lighting a little lamp, and
placing it in one corner, she lifted up her
babe, again loaded it with kisses, placed

149

it in the midst of the flowers, and then
pushed all off upon the surface of the
stream, a beautiful offering to the god- -
dess. She thought that the stream.
would bear away her gift quite out of
sight ; that by and by, her darling babe
might, perhaps, fall off the raft, and’ be
drowned in the sacred river, and then,
as its blest spirit rose to paradise, the
goddess would pardon her sin, and bless
her soul. But it so happened ‘that she
did not push it far enough, and the
eddies of the river brought back the little |
raft underneath the overhanging branches
of some bushes at the side. The little
babe held out its hands to its mother,
and cried for her to take it up; but no,
she had given it up to the Ganges, and
she dare not take it back. At last, as it
passed under a branch, the little thing
caught fast hold of it, and lifted i:self up
a little from the raft. The moment the
mother saw that, she was seized with
fear, that perhaps, after all, it might
escape, and then a curse, and not a bless-
ing, would fal] upon her spirit. So she
rushed down to the spot, and scrambling
out to the end of the branch where her
little child clung, she seized hold of it,
wrung its little neck round and round, °
and then threw it out into the river,
where it sunk to rise no more! |

“O cruel Hindoo mother!” you all of
youcry out; but I would rather say,
“OQ ignorant Hindoo mother!” Poor
woman! she did not know that God had
given his Son to die for her; so she gave
her babe an offering to the Ganges,
Had she known what you know, of God

giving his Son for her sins, sne would

not have acted as she did. Oh, let us

send her word of the glorious Gospel of

God, and tell her she need not throw