ught with it settlers and resident rulers, ready to make converts by
force. But the British have shown perfect toleration and are merely
sojourners in the land who spend their youth and age elsewhere. European
exclusiveness and Indian ideas about caste alike made it natural to
regard them as an isolated class charged with the business of Government
but divorced from the intellectual and religious life of other classes.
Previous experience of Moslims and other invaders disposed the Brahmans
to accept foreigners as rulers without admitting that their creeds and
customs were in the least worthy of imitation. European methods of
organization and advertisement have not however been disdained.

The last half century has witnessed a remarkable revival of Hinduism. In
the previous decades the most conspicuous force in India, although
numerically weak, was the already mentioned Brahmo Samaj, founded by Ram
Mohun Roy in 1828. But it was colourless and wanting in constructive
power. Educated opinion, at least in Bengal, seemed to be tending
towards agnosticism and social revolution. This tendency was checked by
a conservative and nationalist movement, which in all its varied phases
gave support to Indian religion and was intolerant of European ideas. It
had a political side but there was nothing disloyal in its main idea,
namely, that in the intellectual and religious sphere, where Indian life
is most intense, Indian ideas must not decay. No one who has known India
during the last thirty years can have failed to notice how many new
temples have been built and how many old ones repaired. Almost all the
principal sects have founded associations to protect and extend their
interests by such means as financial and administrative organization,
the publication of periodicals and other literature, annual conferences,
lectures and the foundation of religious houses or quasi-monastic
orders. Several societies have been founded not restricted to any
particular sect but with the avowed object of defending and promoting
strict Hinduism. Among such the most important are, first the Bharat
Dharma Mahamandala, under the distinguished presidency of the Maharaja
of Darbhanga: secondly the movement started by Ramakrishna and Swami
Vivekananda and adorned by the beautiful life and writings of Sister
Nivedita (Miss Noble) and thirdly the Theosophical Society under the
leadership of Mrs Besant. It is remarkable that Europeans, both men and
women, have