Udaipur), the Rajput
princes and people of the most influential part of India came into
his scheme. The most powerful amongst them, Jaipur and Jodhpur,
helped him with the counsels of the men who, Hindus, were his most
trusted captains, and with their splendid soldiers. The principal
opposition he encountered was from the bigots of his own court, and
from the descendants of the Afghan invaders settled in Bengal, in
Orissa, and in Western India. For the sake of his beneficent scheme
it was necessary to bring these into the fold. He tried at first to
induce them to accept their authority from him. They accepted it
only, on the first occasion, to seize an opportunity to rebel. There
was then no choice but conquest. So he conquered. Toleration, good
and equal laws, justice for all, invariably followed.

Thus it was that he, first of the Muhammadan invaders of India,
welded together the conquered provinces, and made them, to the extent
to which he conquered, for a portion of Southern India remained
unsubdued, one united Empire. These are his titles {199} to the
admiration of posterity. We, who have watched his work, and have
penetrated his motives, recognise the purity of his intentions. He
did not wish, as the bigots of his Court declared that he wished, to
have himself obeyed and worshipped as a God. No: he declared himself
to be the interpreter of the religion of which the Prophet had been
the messenger in the sense of teaching its higher truths, the truths
of beneficence, of toleration, of equal justice irrespective of the
belief of the conscience. His code was the grandest of codes for a
ruler, for the founder of an empire.

'There is good in every creed; let us adopt what is good, and discard
the remainder.' Such was his motto. He recognised this feature in the
mild and benevolent working of Hinduism, in the care for the family
inculcated by it, in the absence of the spirit of proselytism. He
recognised it in the simple creed of the followers of Zoroaster. He
recognised it in Christianity. There was good in all. He believed,
likewise, that there was good in all men. Hence his great
forbearance, his unwillingness to punish so long as there was hope of
reform, his love of pardoning. 'Go and sin no more' was a precept
that constituted the very essence of his conduct.

Such was Akbar, the founder of the Mughal dynasty. Such were the
principles which enabled him to found it. They were principles which,
if adhered to, wo