in India, because it appeals to them.  There is a familiar picture on every page, and it is particularly valuable as illustrating the relations between the Brahmins and the people.  “These priests are invested,” said one of the ablest writers on Indian affairs, “with a reverence which no extreme of abject poverty, no infamy of private conduct can impair, and which is beyond anything that a mind not immediately conversant with the fact can conceive.  They are invariably addressed with titles of divinity, and are paid the highest earthly honors.  The oldest and highest members of other castes implore the blessing of the youngest and poorest of theirs; they are the chosen recipients of all charities, and are allowed a license in their private relations which would be resented as a deadly injury in any but themselves.”

This reverence is largely due to superstitions which the Brahmins do their best to cultivate and encourage.  There are 30,000,000 gods in the Hindu pantheon, and each attends to the affairs of his own particular jurisdiction.  Most of them are wicked, cruel and unkind, and delight in bringing misfortunes upon their devotees, which can only be averted by the intercession of a priest.  Gods and demons haunt every hill and grove and gorge and dark corner.  Their names are usually unknown, but they go on multiplying as events or incidents occur to which the priests can give a supernatural interpretation.  These gods are extremely sensitive to disrespect or neglect, and unless they are constantly propitiated they will bring all sorts of disasters.  The Brahmin is the only man who knows how to make them good-natured.  He can handle them exactly as he likes, and they will obey his will.  Hence the superstitious peasants yield everything, their money, their virtue, their lives, as compensation for the intercession of the priests in their behalf.

The census of 1901 returned 2,728,812 priests, which is an average of one for every seventy-two members of the Hindu faith, and it is believed that, altogether, there are more than 9,000,000 persons including monks, nuns, ascetics, fakirs, sorcerers, chelas, and mendicants or various kinds and attendants employed about the temples who are dependent upon the public for support.  A large part of the income of the pious Hindu is devoted to the support of priests and the feeding of pilgrims.  Wherever you see it, wherever you meet it, and especially when you come in contact with it as a sightseer, Brahminism excites nothing but pity, indignation and abhorrence.

Buddhism is very different, although Buddha lived and died a Hindu, and the members of that sect still claim that he was the greatest, the wisest and the best of all Brahmins.  No two religions are so contradictory and incompatible as that taught by Buddha and the modern teachings of the Brahmins.  The underlying principles of Buddha’s faith are love, charity, self-sacrifice, unselfishness, universal brotherhood and spiritual and physical purity.