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KURRUM DOSS.

of sensible objects; he is glorious as the autumnal sky; he flatters none, he honours none; whether he practises and follows the customs of his country or not, this is his character."
Such are the aims and procedure of this strange doctrine, of which it is impossible to give a full idea in the space to which these illustrations are confined. The doctrines of Patanjuli would be necessarily impossible of practice by a people at large; but from the period they were promulgated, to the present, they have never lacked a proportion of votaries, who, in the spirit of the author of them, have desired the suppression and eradication of all sensual spirit, and abstraction of their souls into the divine essence. Mortifications and penances have from time to time been practised in all religions, and the Christian faith has had its share of them, which have vied with the Hindoo in austerity, yet have not attained the intensity of corporeal suffering which they involved. Hunger and thirst, exposure to the elements, to the blazing heat of the sun, intensified by large fires lighted around him, as well to frost and cold without clothing; his members distorted into painful postures, into which they become contracted--the Jogi seems insensible to pain, and pursues his meditation with apparent serenity. A strange infatuation certainly; yet it is impossible to withhold admiration of its steadfast continuance, and of the high aim of faith which makes it not only endurable, but creates an intensity of spiritual joy in the devotee which he professes himself unable to describe.
Jogies are of no particular sect, they may have been Brahmins, or belonged to lower castes; but when a man takes upon himself the vows of the order, he renounces all position, all wealth, as he strives to do all sensual perception. It may be asked who succeed?--possibly none, for the conditions of the order as regards absolute fulfilment, are impossible; but that does not prevent thousands of earnest men from attempting all, and either perishing in the attempt, or relapsing into a condition of worldliness, which brings with it a comfortable prosperity. In the subject of the illustration, we have no attenuated naked figure covered with ashes, his long matted hair wound round his head, his finger nails like claws, or one arm raised above his head, now stiffened in that position; we see a comfortable looking individual, clad in a quilted chintz tunic, with a muslin shawl thrown over his head and shoulders, and a chequered felt cap upon his head. Kurrum Doss is no ascetic, and though his beads are passing rapidly through his fingers his thoughts are hardly with them. Perhaps, in his own estimation, he has already attained one beatitude. Perhaps the roughest portion of the conflict is past, and he, in the words of the old philosopher, "hears celestial sounds, the songs and conversation of celestial choirs, and has the perception of their touch in their passage through the air; his taste has become refined, and he enjoys the constant fragrance of sweet scents." Such fruits of his work, however, "though they obtain the applause of mankind, obstruct the heavenward progress of the true Jogi." There