orship of goddesses, is widely prevalent
and almost paramount in influence. It is really the worship of power under
a female form; and the power which these goddesses exercise is mostly
malevolent in its character. The terrible wife of Siva, in all her dread
manifestations, is the most popular deity, because the most feared in the
land.

It is natural to inquire whether this characteristic of the Hindu pantheon
is not a reflection of the Hindu mind as to the influence of woman, and as
to the belief of man in the evil character of that influence. As is the
place and power of woman among the men so is the character and place of
the goddesses in the pantheon of that people.

The famous religious reformer Chunder Sen, though he adopted and used the
Lord's Prayer, changed the form of address from the masculine to the
feminine and said, "Our Mother who art in heaven!" The adoration of the
female in Hindu worship was never more marked than at present. What has
Christianity to meet this bent of the Hindu mind? Or should it be
discouraged as an element in worship? The Romanists meet it by exalting
and giving preeminence to the Virgin Mother. The Protestants have nothing
corresponding to this.

Socially, the Hindu woman is a reactionary of the most pronounced type;
she opposes social reform at all points--nowhere more than when it is
directed to ameliorate her own condition. Religiously, as we have seen,
she is the slave of man by law and teaching; yet she rules her household,
even in these matters, with an iron hand.

From her throne in the home she so wields her sceptre that it is felt also
throughout the whole social fabric. Her beloved lord has perhaps passed
through a university course, is a pronounced social reformer and
discourses in eloquent English, before large audiences of his admiring
countrymen, concerning the mighty social evils which are the curse of the
country; he, with his ardent fellow-reformers, frames rules which shall
soon usher in the millennium of social reform and progress! And then
he--this man of culture, of eloquence, of noble purposes and of altruistic
ambitions--goes to his home and meekly submits to the grandmotherly tyranny
which has shaped his life much more than he knows, and which vitiates and
renders nugatory all his social and other schemes! As man has narrowed the
scope of woman's life in that land, so she has given it intensity of
power.

And what is more significant, she has become sup