and are allowed a license in their private
relations which would be resented as a deadly injury in any but
themselves."

This reverence is largely due to superstitions which the Brahmins
do their best to cultivate and encourage. There are 30,000,000
gods in the Hindu pantheon, and each attends to the affairs of his
own particular jurisdiction. Most of them are wicked, cruel and
unkind, and delight in bringing misfortunes upon their devotees,
which can only be averted by the intercession of a priest. Gods and
demons haunt every hill and grove and gorge and dark corner. Their
names are usually unknown, but they go on multiplying as events
or incidents occur to which the priests can give a supernatural
interpretation. These gods are extremely sensitive to disrespect
or neglect, and unless they are constantly propitiated they will
bring all sorts of disasters. The Brahmin is the only man who
knows how to make them good-natured. He can handle them exactly
as he likes, and they will obey his will. Hence the superstitious
peasants yield everything, their money, their virtue, their lives,
as compensation for the intercession of the priests in their
behalf.

The census of 1901 returned 2,728,812 priests, which is an average
of one for every seventy-two members of the Hindu faith, and
it is believed that, altogether, there are more than 9,000,000
persons including monks, nuns, ascetics, fakirs, sorcerers, chelas,
and mendicants or various kinds and attendants employed about
the temples who are dependent upon the public for support. A
large part of the income of the pious Hindu is devoted to the
support of priests and the feeding of pilgrims. Wherever you
see it, wherever you meet it, and especially when you come in
contact with it as a sightseer, Brahminism excites nothing but
pity, indignation and abhorrence.

Buddhism is very different, although Buddha lived and died a
Hindu, and the members of that sect still claim that he was the
greatest, the wisest and the best of all Brahmins. No two religions
are so contradictory and incompatible as that taught by Buddha and
the modern teachings of the Brahmins. The underlying principles of
Buddha's faith are love, charity, self-sacrifice, unselfishness,
universal brotherhood and spiritual and physical purity. He believed
in none of the present practices of the Hindu priests. There is
a striking resemblance between the teachings of Buddha and the
teachings of Christ. Passages in th