luence of surrounding Hinduism and has lost much of
its distinctive excellence. So that, according to the census report of
1891, "distinction between Sikhs and the rest of the Brahmanic community
is mainly ritualistic.... The only trustworthy method of distinguishing
this creed was to ask if the person in question repudiated the services of
the barber and the tobacconist; for the precepts most strictly enforced
nowadays (by the Sikhs) are that the hair of the head and face must never
be cut, and that smoking is a habit to be avoided."

However manifestly the Sikh religion is going the common way of all the
new faiths and religious revolts of India--the way of reabsorption into
Hinduism--it has done much to create and foster a strong national feeling.
Sikhs were cruelly persecuted by the then ruling Mohammedans. But the
overthrow of the Moghul Empire gave the Sikhs territorial power and they
possessed the only remaining political organization in the Punjab. So
that, at the advent of the British, the Sikhs were a mighty power to be
dealt with. They became the great power of North India; and during the
Indian mutiny their loyalty to the British Raj was its salvation. At
present the Sikh nation, warlike and valiant as ever, furnishes, perhaps,
the most stalwart and invincible contingent for the Indian Army.

(_g_) Hinduism.

This is the religion of three-fourths of all the inhabitants of India and
of nine-tenths of all those who are there reached by missionaries.

What is Hinduism? It is a mixture of Brahmanism, Buddhism and
Devil-worship. As we have seen, the supplanting faith of Buddha was
finally absorbed, so far as India was concerned, into the old faith. When,
later on, the Brahmans moved towards the southern part of the peninsula
they entered the region occupied by, and largely given over to,
demonolatry. According to its wont Brahmanism, as modified by Buddhism,
sought not to overthrow the primitive cult of the people, but to absorb
it. Thus, in South India today, more than three-fourths of the people are
devil worshippers. And yet, with their demons, they have been accepted
into the higher faith of the Aryan; and, according to their mood and
preference, give themselves to the worship of Hindu gods or village
demons. Worshipping in pure Hindu temples is to that people but a pastime,
a mere holiday diversion; while the appeasing of the demons at their
village shrines and under old trees in their hamlets is t