INDIA'S MILLIONS | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 27, 1890

INDIA'S MILLIONS.

THE population of India equals the combined population of the following countries: Russia, United States, Germany, France, Great Britain, Turkey proper, and Canada.

If each person in India could represent a letter in our English Bible, it would take seventy Bibles to represent the heathen population of India, while the Christian population could be represented by the prophecy of Isaiah.

The people of India, holding hands, would reach three times around the globe at the equator.

Put the people into single file, allow three feet space for each to walk in, and walking at the rate of ten miles a day it would take them forty years to pass a given point; or walking five miles a day, with the present increase of population by birth rate, the great procession would never have an end.

Could you put the women of India into a column eight deep and allow a foot and a half for each woman, thus walking in lock-step, you would have a column reaching eight times across the continent of North America.

Again, could you distribute Bibles to the women of India at the rate of twenty thousand a day, you would require seventeen years to hand each woman a Bible.

Could you put the children of India into a column four deep, and allowing a space of two feet for each child to walk in, you would have a procession reaching five thousand miles; and walking five miles a day, it would take them two and three-quarters years to pass a given point.

The widows of India would outnumber four cities like London, England. Give to each a standing space of one foot, standing ten abreast, and this closely-packed column would reach the full length of New York State.

One in every six of the females in India is doomed to a desolate and degraded life, and, in this awful proportion, to disgrace and crime.

The common term for widow and harlot in Bengal is the same.

The Indian Mirror, a vernacular paper published by a native in Calcutta, describing the degraded condition of the Hindus a few years ago, said:—

"A curious circumstance is brought to notice, showing to what depth Hinduism is degraded. Both in Madras and Bombay little girls are given in marriage to a deity, only that they may become 'licensed prostitutes,' or, rather, 'consecrated harlots.' They always have their dwellings close to the temple of the idol, and they offer themselves to the worshipers of the deity, and their gains are supposed to lead to the salvation of the worshipers! The deity to whom these girls are married in Bombay is styled Khundoba."

—Selected.