stery. "The Sovereigns of this present Darkness"
were there.

How futile all of earth seemed then, against those tremendous forces and
powers. What toy-swords seemed all weapons of the flesh. Praise God for
the Holy Ghost!

While we were sitting there a Brahman came to see what we were doing,
and we told him some of our thoughts. He asked us then if we would care
to hear his. We told him, gladly. He pointed up to the temple tower.
"That is my first step to God." We listened, and he unfolded, thought by
thought, that strange old Vedic philosophy, which holds that God, being
omnipresent, reveals Himself in various ways, in visible forms in
incarnations, or in spirit. The visible-form method of revelation is
the lowest; it is only, as it were, the first of a series of steps which
lead up to the highest, intelligent adoration of and absorption into the
One Supreme Spirit. "We are only little children yet. We take this small
first step, it crumbles beneath us as we rise to the next, and so step
by step we rise from the visible to the invisible, from matter to
spirit--to God. But," he added courteously, "as my faith is good for me,
so, doubtless, you find yours for you."

Next morning we went down to the river and had talks with the people who
passed on their way to the town. It was all so pretty in the early
morning light. Men were washing their bullocks, and children were
scampering in and out of the water. Farther downstream the women were
bathing their babies and polishing their brass water-vessels. Trees met
overhead, but the light broke through in places and made yellow patches
on the water. Out in one of those reaches of yellow a girl stood bending
to fill her vessel; she wore the common crimson of the South, but the
light struck it, and struck the shining brass as she swung it up under
her arm, and made her into a picture as she stood in her clinging wet
red things against the brown and green of water and wood. Everywhere we
looked there was something beautiful to look at, and all about us was
the sound of voices and laughter, and the musical splashing of water;
then, as we enjoyed it all, we saw this:

Under an ancient tree fifteen men were walking slowly round and round,
following the course of the sun. Under the tree there were numbers of
idols, and piles of oleander and jessamin wreaths, brought fresh that
morning. The men were elderly, fine-looking men; they were wholly
engrossed in what they were doing. It w