th the great moral trophies which distinguish that epoch.
Roads have been constructed; rivers have been spanned; telegraph and
railway lines have been laid down; time and space have been annihilated;
Nature and the appliances of Nature have been made to minister to the
wants of man. But these are nothing when compared to the bold, decisive,
statesmanlike measures which have been taken in hand for the intellectual,
the moral and the political regeneration of my countrymen. Under English
influences the torpor of ages has been dissipated; the pulsations of a new
life have been communicated to the people; an inspiriting sense of public
duty has been evolved, the spirit of curiosity has been stirred and a
moral revolution, the most momentous in our annals, culminating in the
transformation of national ideals and aspirations, has been brought
about."

Great Britain has not been, and is not now, without failings in her work
in India; and her line of progress is studded with many errors. But she
has been faithful to her trust and has carried it out in no selfish way.
The warm and deep loyalty of India bears testimony to this; for native
sentiment everywhere reveals marked appreciation.

Chapter II.

THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA.

India is the mother of religions. No other land has been so prolific in
religious thought or has founded faiths which have commanded the
allegiance of so large a portion of the human race. While the Aryans of
the West have been content to borrow their faith from the Hebrews;
Indo-Aryans have produced the most wonderful and mighty ethnic religion
(Brahmanism) and also one of the three great missionary religions of the
world (Buddhism). A third of the human race today cling with devotion to
these two products of the fertility of the mind, and the spirituality of
the heart, of India.

India's toleration for other religions has been marked. For twelve
centuries she has been the asylum of Zoroastrianism. Nearly nine-tenths of
the followers of that ancient cult of Persia found and still enjoy a
hospitable home in India. There are more of the narrow, bigoted followers
of Mohammed among these tolerant people than are found in any other
land--even in the wide domains of the Sultan. Christians also have lived,
practically unmolested, in this great land almost from Apostolic days.

Thus not a few of the great Faiths of the world are at present
represented, and are strugg