iness, "virtue of a
sort is allowed; for do you not experience a certain exhilaration and a
buoyancy of spirit and a pleasure beyond anything obtainable elsewhere
[which is perfectly true]? This is due to the benevolence of our god,
whose merits extend even to you."

He was an educated man; he had studied in a mission school, and
afterwards in a Government college. He had read English books, and parts
of our Bible were familiar to him. He assured me he found no more
difficulty in accepting this legend than we did in accepting the story
of our Saviour's incarnation. And then, standing in the Temple porch
with its carved stone pillars, almost within touch of the great door
that opens behind into the shrine, he led the way into the Higher
Hinduism--that mysterious land which lies all around us in India, but is
so seldom shown to us. And I listened till in turn he was persuaded to
listen, and we read together from the Gospel which transcends in its
simplicity the profoundest reach of Hindu thought: "In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." We did not
pause till we came to the end of the paragraph. I could see how it
appealed, for deep calleth unto deep; but he rose again up and up, and
that unknown part of one's being which is more akin to the East than to
the West, followed him and understood--when the door behind us creaked,
and a sudden blast of turbulent music sprang out upon us, deafening us
for a moment, and he said, "It is the morning worship. The priests and
the Servants of the gods are worshipping within." It was like a fall
from far-away heights to the very floor of things.

Then he told me how in the town three miles distant, the Benares of the
South, the service of the gods was conducted with more elaborate
ceremonial. "I could arrange for you to see it if you wished." I
explained why I could not wish to see it, and asked him about the
Servants of the gods, and about the little children. "Certainly there
are little children. The Servants of the gods adopt them to continue the
succession. How else could it be continued?"

CHAPTER XXXIII

If this were All

AN hour earlier three of us had stood together by the pool at the foot
of the Falls, and watched the people bathe. At the edge of the rock an
old grandmother had dealt valiantly with an indignant baby of two, whom,
despite its struggles, she bathed after prolonged preparation of divers
anointings, by holding