a crocodile.

[Illustration]

I am glad to tell you, that the British have put a stop to the sacrifice
of children at that place; but mothers continue to destroy their
children elsewhere, and will continue to destroy them until Christians
send the Gospel to them. It is not improbable that vast numbers of
children are annually destroyed in the Ganges. Mothers sacrifice them,
in consequence of vows which they have made. When the time to sacrifice
them has come, they take them down to the river, and encourage them to
go out so far that they are taken away by the stream, or they push them
off with their own hands.

I just remarked, that mothers will continue to destroy their children
until the Gospel is sent to them. That the Gospel does prevent such
things, the following circumstance will show. Several years ago, a
missionary lady went from New England to India. As she was walking out
one morning, on the banks of the Ganges, she saw a heathen mother
weeping. She went up to her, sat down by her side, put her hand into
hers, and asked what was the matter with her. "I have just been making a
basket of flags," said she, "and putting my infant in it--pushing it off
into the river, and drowning it. And my gods are very much pleased with
me, because I have done it." After this missionary lady had heard all
she had to say, she told her that her gods were no gods; that the only
true God delights not in such sacrifices, but turns in horror from them;
and that, if she would be happy here and hereafter, she must forsake her
sins, and pray to Jesus Christ, who died to save sinners like herself.
This conversation was the means of the conversion of that mother, and
she never again destroyed any of her infants.

Such is the power of the blessed Gospel. And what the Gospel has done
once, it can do again. If Christians will send it to them, with the
blessing of God, the time will soon come when heathen mothers will no
more destroy their children. And have you nothing to do in this great
work, my dear children? When you grow up, cannot you go and tell them of
the Saviour? Here is a very pretty hymn about a heathen mother throwing
her child to a crocodile.

See that heathen mother stand
Where the sacred currents flow,
With her own maternal hand,
'Mid the waves her infant throw.

Hark, I hear the piteous scream--
Frightful monsters seize their prey,
Or the dark and bloody stream
Bears the struggling c