Page:Deplorable effects of heathen superstition.pdf/5

This page has been validated.

5

hence the sex in India come into the world frowned upon by their parents and relations. Indeed in one of the Hindoo tribes, that of the rajpoots, it is customary to destroy every female when born, and the parents, it is believed, are the murderers, and now not one female child survives. The boys marry in the tribe next in rank to them.

To the Hindoo female all education is denied by the positive injunction of their Scriptures, and by the general voice of the population. With female domestic employment they have as little to do as with learning, and the Hindoo girl therefore spends the first ten years of her life perfect idleness, in the house of her father. Supposing her to be married she remains a prisoner and a slave in the house of her husband. They know nothing of the advantages of liberal intercourse with mankind, the females are treated in that, as if they were not rational beings, and are consequently the willing victims of superstition and vice.

Ye Christian Women! what has the benign influence of the Gospel done for you. It calls upon you, in a special manner, to exert all your sympathies in behalf of your sisterhood in heathen lands. And you have many opportunities of doing them good, by contributing of your substance. Many Societies exist who will be the means of conveying your bounty to those who are labouring in this good work, and who by the blessing of God upon their efforts, have done much in emancipating these victims of