ABSTRACT
It is sad to think that a religious body, established as a protest against idolatry and the polytheism of the masses, should have so rapidly and so utterly failed to preserve its original standard; but it has only followed in the same downward path all the reformed Vaishnava and `Saiva sects. The `Srí-Náráyan creed, however, has encountered peculiar difficulties, against which it has succumbed. The lower Hindu castes, ever willing to repudiate Bráhmanícal interference, and assert spiritual independence, have always been notorious for profligacy and intemperate habits. Intoxication is with them an irresistible passion, and no threats or corrections have the slightest effect in weaning them from the vice. Faithful servants, kind parents, and affectionate husbands, they have no conception of a moral religion; and their untutored minds can neither understand nor comply with a faith inculcating morality and the mortification of all worldly lusts and passions.
