o Hardwar, and then proceeded to
a place called Rishikes, celebrated for its Sadhus and Sanyasis. My
intention was to stay there and practise yoga [a kind of meditative
asceticism], to attain to final beatitude; but a strange event took
place, which entirely changed my purpose. The rainy season had already
set in; the jungle path was muddy, and at places full of water, so when
I reached Rishikes I was almost covered with mud. Leaving my things in
a dharmsala, I was going to bring water from the Ganges when I smelt
a very bad odour. As I turned round I saw a dead body in the street,
rotting in the mud. Around the corpse were the huts of the Sanyasis,
who were performing tap-jap almost the whole day; but none of them had
even enough of compassion to dispose of the body of the poor man who
had died helpless on the street. I thought that if this was religion,
then what was irreligion? My spirit revolted against these Sadhus.

"I perceived in my heart of hearts that yog-sadhan cannot create that
love in man which makes a man feel for a fellow-man. Where there is
no such love there can be no religion from God."

And then he goes on to relate how, leaving Rishikes, he fell in with a
Christian preacher, and eventually found in Christ that peace which all
his voluntary hardship had failed to afford, and how he had been led on
and on in his pilgrim walk, till he had now the blessed and responsible
work of teaching others of his fellow-countrymen how best to bring
the good news of the eternal love to all the hungry and thirsty souls
around. (He was then Principal of a theological seminary.)

There have already been many such cases of Sadhus and faqirs converted
to Christianity, and these men and women have, as might be expected,
exerted an immense influence on their fellow-countrymen. They have
presented them with a Christianity in an Eastern dress which they
can recognize as congenial to the sentiments of their country, and
exemplified in their own self-denying lives, full of the spirit of
that austerity which the Indian has long believed to be inseparable
from religious zeal.

Devotion, austerity, and asceticism in the cause of religion have
been characteristic of India as far back as history records. Life
has always been precarious for the majority of the population in
the East, and plagues, famines and wars have familiarized them with
the tragic spectacles of multitudes of young and old being suddenly
carried off in the mi