were all crammed, might have been odors of sanctity to the believers in Vishnu; but to us they were oppressive and prevented as intelligent and close a study of the religion as some of us might have bestowed. Yet our procession was Oriental. The Commissioner, Mr. Daniels, had provided sedan chairs. for the party. These chairs were heavy, ornamented with gold and brass, mounted on poles, and carried on the shoulders of four bearers. They are used by persons of rank, and the rank is also expressed by carrying over the head an embroidered silk umbrella in gaudy colors. When we came to the outskirts of the town our chair-bearers were waiting for us, and the General was told that he might take his place. But the idea of swinging in a gaudy chair from a pole, with attendants before and behind calling upon the people to make way, and a dazzling umbrella over his head decorated with all the colors of the rainbow, was too much for the General. He preferred to walk. Mrs. Grant was put in one chair, and Mr. Borie, whose health is such as to make every little aid in the way of movement welcome, was in another. The General and the rest of the party made their way on foot. We were accompanied by several officers of the British residency, and, as we wound along the alleys from temple to temple, were quite a procession. In the eyes of the population it was a distinguished procession, for the uplifted chairs, richly decorated, the swaying of umbrellas covered with silver and gold, the attendants in the British government livery-all told that there was among us one whom even the Englishmen delighted to honor. But I am bound to say that the admiration, the respect, the wondering gaze, the lowbent salam, which everywhere met us, and which were intended for the General, were bestowed on Mr. Borie. The General, wearing his white helmet, walked ahead with Mr. Daniels unnoticed. Mr. Borie was in the chair of honor, and to the native mind the occupancy of that chair was the advertisement of his rank and fame. There was something, too, in our friend's white full beard, his thin gray locks, and the venerable features which was not unbecoming what the natives expected to see in the ex-President. Mr. Borie, who is as polite a man as ever 108 lived, returned all the salutes that were given him, and bore Benares, the holy city-holy even now in the eyes of more than half the human race-whose glories, religious and civic, have been forgotten in the noise and glitter of our recent civilization, leads me into a subject so profound and picturesque that the contemplation of it is bewildering. I mean the religion. of India. In all religious questions we who come from a Catholic and Presbyterian world are so accustomed to see nothing beyond our horizon that we are staggered when we come face to face with laws and commandments and institutions that ruled the civilized world long before Jesus sailed on the Sea of Galilee. Something of this we saw in Egypt, and there was a shiver to old traditions, to all we knew of Pharaoh and Moses and the lessons of the nursery, in what we saw on the Nile. Observation was a conflict between reason and education, and I am not sure where we should have fallen but for the consoling fact, from a religious point of view, that Egypt was in ruins, and whenever we found our faith coming to a precipice there was ruin around us, and we could turn to the prophets and read the lamentations and maledictions and see a fulfillment of everything, of the moanings of Jeremiah and the invectives of Isaiah, in the awful desolation which had fallen that upon and glorious land. So, taken as a whole, our sunny faith was strengthened and soothed by what we saw on the Nile. But no such comfort remains to us in India. There are no texts to explain Brahma or the mysteries of Buddha, and we are disconsolate over the idea that our holy seers confined themselves to so small a tract of the globe in their revelations and prophecies, and left behind them, almost unnoticed, this vast and teeming world. When we felt oppressed by the ruins THE RELIGION OF INDIA. 109 of Karnak or the crumbling splendors of Dendorah, when we found ourselves overmastered by the chronology of the pyramids or the tablet of Abydos, it was sweet to turn to Isaiah: "I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians; and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbor; city against city and kingdom against kingdom." So, on the whole, we came out of Egypt firmer in our faith, and not disposed to discredit the earlier teachings of life. But in India we are lost. There are no ruins to assuage our fears. We are in presence of a living and a continuous civilization, in whose presence even Paul was as of yesterday, and whose influence has been felt for centuries in our Christian world. Dynasties have fallen, empires have passed away, cities have been sacked. The Englishman quarters his troops in the palace of the Peacock Throne, and the descendant of Timur lives in Burmah on a pension of three thousand dollars a year; but the literature, the religion, the customs of Hindostan are as firmly planted as they were twenty centuries ago; and, although England has the power to dethrone every prince in India, and pillage every treasury and shrine as effectively as she pillaged the treasuries of Delhi and the shrines of Bhurtpoor, she has not been able to make a Hindoo gentleman break bread with an Englishman-not even with the Prince of Wales. There is a force here which is above the sword, and that force is embodied in the laws and religion of Hindostan. And here we are in presence of it, in holy Benares. I feel it incumbent upon me to tell you from this sacred city, the fountain-head, something of the religion of Hindostan. You can know nothing of India without knowing a little of the forms. of faith and the priestly government in a country the most devout and the most priest-ridden in the world. India is the paradise of priests. In other countries the sacerdotal function has to manage for itself. Even in Spain, perhaps the most advanced in a religious point of view of civilized nations, times are not as tolerant as in other days. But in India the priest is supreme. The parasite has covered the oak and smothered it, and all the best phases of Indian life are only seen in a priest In discipline. When he becomes a Brahmin he takes three vowsthat he should read the Vedas or Hindoo scriptures, perform the regular sacrifices, and beget a son. The idea of giving a son to the world is among the most sacred of his obligations. the early period of his priesthood he humbles himself by servile offices, and begs for alms from door to door. In the second period he lives with his wife, discharges family duties, reads the scriptures, teaches, begs, gives in charity. Under certain circumstances (and here a door is opened which has been taken advantage of largely by the priests) they may engage in trade, but they must neither sing nor dance nor engage in games nor do any light or trivial thing. The period of activity over, he goes into the woods and lives as an anchorite, "living without food, without a house, in silence, eating only roots and fruits." In the last period he returns to the ordinary walks of society, "cultivates equanimity," and meditates on the Deity, and so lives in composure until the end comes, and he leaves this world "as the bird leaves the branch of a tree at its pleasure." In all kingdoms the post of prime minister was held by a Brahmin. The Brahmins taught the princes and sat in judgment. They were the judges, and they alone could expound the scriptures. Other classes might read them, but it was given to the Brahmin to tell their meaning. It was the duty of the king and of all subjects to be liberal to Brahmins. If persons did not give handsomely, they risked prosperity, future happiness, and the enjoyment of all organs of sense. If any one stole a Brahmin's money the offense was capital. These were the rules of the priestly class thirty centuries ago. Many changes have been made, but few compared with changes in other features of civilization. They have held themselves an exclusive and supreme class in spite of every influence. They have preserved their lineage with a fidelity and purity which no aristocracy in the world can equal. Many practices have been abandoned, but the rule against marrying with an inferior class has never been altered. They have gradually entered into all branches of commerce and trade. While doing this they have not surrendered their religious power; and the Brahmin's thread, which marks his |