Amritsar is their headquarters, their religious center and their sacred city.  Their temples are more like Protestant churches than those of other oriental faiths.  They have no idols or altars, but meet once a week for prayer and praise.  Their preacher reads passages from the “Granth” and prays to their God, who may be reached through the intercession of Nanak Shah, his prophet and their redeemer.  They sing hymns similar to those used in Protestant worship and celebrate communion by partaking of wafers of unleavened bread.  Their congregations do not object to the presence of strangers, but usually invite them to participate in the worship.

The great attraction of Amritsar is “The Golden Temple” of the Sikhs which stands in the middle of a lake known as “The Pool of Immortality.”  It is not a large building, being only fifty-three feet square, but is very beautiful and the entire exterior is covered with plates of gold.  In the treasury is the original copy of the “Granth” and a large number of valuable jewels which have been collected for several centuries.  Among them is one of the most valuable strings of pearls ever collected.

The Punjab is a province of northern India directly south of Cashmere, east of Afghanistan and west of Thibet.  It is one of the most enterprising, progressive and prosperous provinces, and, being situated in the temperate zone, the character of the inhabitants partakes of the climate.  There is a great difference, morally, physically and intellectually, between people who live in the tropics and those who live in the temperate zone.  This rule applies to all the world, and nowhere more than in India.  Punjab means “five rivers,” and is formed of the Hindu words “punj ab.”  The country is watered by the Sutlej, the Beas, the Rabi, the Chenab and the Jhelum rivers, five great streams, which flow into the Indus, and thence to the Arabian Sea.  Speaking generally, the Punjab is a vast plain of alluvial formation, and the eastern half of it is very fertile.  The western part requires irrigation, the rainfall being only a few inches a year, but there is always plenty of water for irrigation in the rivers.  They are fed by the melting snows in the Himalayas.

The City of Lahore, the capital of the Punjab, is a stirring, modern town, a railway center, with extensive workshops employing several thousand men, and early in the nineteenth century, under the administration of Ranjit Singh, one of the greatest of the maharajas, it acquired great commercial importance, but the buildings he erected are cheap and tawdry beside the exquisite architectural monuments of Akbar, Shah Jeban and other Moguls.  The population of Punjab province by the census of 1901 is 20,330,339, and the Mohammedans are in the majority, having 10,825,698 of the inhabitants.  The Sikhs are a very important class and number 1,517,019.  There are only 2,200,000 Sikhs in all India, and those who do not live in this province are serving as soldiers elsewhere.  The population of Lahore is 202,000, an increase of 26,000 during the last ten years.