y stands almost uninjured.

This in short is a picture of the life and activities of the greatest
ruler which the Orient has ever produced. In order to rightly
appreciate Akbar's greatness we must bear in mind that in his empire
he placed all men on an equality without regard to race or religion,
and granted universal freedom of worship at a time when the Jews were
still outlaws in the Occident and many bloody persecutions occurred
from time to time; when in the Occident men were imprisoned, executed
or burnt at the stake for the sake of their faith or their doubts; at
a time when Europe was polluted by the horrors of witch-persecution
and the massacre of St. Bartholemew.[46] Under Akbar's rule India
stood upon a much higher plane of civilization in the sixteenth
century than Europe at the same time.

[Footnote 46: Noer, I, 490 n.]

Germany should be proud that the personality of Akbar who according to
his own words "desired to live at peace with all humanity, with every
creature of God," has so inspired a noble German of princely blood in
the last century that he consecrated the work of his life to the
biography of Akbar. This man is the Prince Friedrich August of
Schleswig-Holstein, Count of Noer, who wandered through the whole of
Northern India on the track of Akbar's activities, and on the basis
of the most careful investigation of sources has given us in his large
two-volumed work the best and most extensive information which has
been written in Europe about the Emperor Akbar. How much his work has
been a labor of love can be recognized at every step in his book but
especially may be seen in a touching letter from Agra written on the
24th of April, 1868, in which he relates that he utilized the early
hours of this day for an excursion to lay a bunch of fresh roses on
Akbar's grave and that no visit to any other grave had ever moved him
so much as this.[47]

[Footnote 47: Noer, II, 564, 572.]

[Illustration]

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