the truth in the revelation it regards as divine, and no tribe is so
low as to be left without some truth; that every people has had its
great teacher; Buddha for one; Confucius for another; Zoroaster for a
third; Christ for a fourth. The teachings of all these I found
ethically akin so that I could say with Matthew Arnold, one I was so
proud to call friend:

"Children of men! the unseen Power, whose eye
For ever doth accompany mankind
Hath looked on no religion scornfully
That men did ever find.

Which has not taught weak wills how much they can?
Which has not fall'n in the dry heart like rain?
Which has not cried to sunk, self-weary man,
_Thou must be born again_."

"The Light of Asia," by Edwin Arnold, came out at this time and gave
me greater delight than any similar poetical work I had recently read.
I had just been in India and the book took me there again. My
appreciation of it reached the author's ears and later having made his
acquaintance in London, he presented me with the original manuscript
of the book. It is one of my most precious treasures. Every person who
can, even at a sacrifice, make the voyage around the world should do
so. All other travel compared to it seems incomplete, gives us merely
vague impressions of parts of the whole. When the circle has been
completed, you feel on your return that you have seen (of course only
in the mass) all there is to be seen. The parts fit into one
symmetrical whole and you see humanity wherever it is placed working
out a destiny tending to one definite end.

The world traveler who gives careful study to the bibles of the
various religions of the East will be well repaid. The conclusion
reached will be that the inhabitants of each country consider their
own religion the best of all. They rejoice that their lot has been
cast where it is, and are disposed to pity the less fortunate
condemned to live beyond their sacred limits. The masses of all
nations are usually happy, each mass certain that:

"East or West
Home is best."

Two illustrations of this from our "Round the World" trip may be
noted:

Visiting the tapioca workers in the woods near Singapore, we
found them busily engaged, the children running about stark
naked, the parents clothed in the usual loose rags. Our
party attracted great attention. We asked our guide to tell
the people that we came from a country where the water