impression on caste; neither had been able to mitigate the wrongs which Brahmanism had heaped upon woman—­Mohammedanism had rather increased them.  The horrors of the satti and the murder of female infants—­those bitterest fruits of priestly tyranny—­were left unchecked until the British Government, inspired by missionary influence and a general Christian sentiment, branded them as infamous and made them crimes.  But now even the native sentiment of the better classes in India is greatly changed by these higher influences, and the conventional morality is rising above the teachings of the national religion.  Widow-burning and infanticide belong almost wholly to the past.  Child-marriage is coming into disrepute, and caste, though not destroyed, is crippled, and its preposterous assumptions are falling before the march of social progress.

Perhaps the very highest tribute which Hinduism has paid to Christianity is seen in the fact that the modern Arya Somaj has borrowed its ethics and some of its religious doctrines, and is promulgating them under Vedic labels and upon Vedic authority.[72] It has renounced those corruptions of Hinduism which can no longer bear the light—­such as enforced widowhood and the general oppression of woman.  It denounces the incarnations of Vishnu as mere inventions, and therefore cuts up by the roots the whole Krishna cult and dissipates the glory of the Bhagavad Gita.  It abhors polytheism, and not only proclaims the supremacy of one only true God, self-existent, the creator and upholder of all things, but it maintains that such was the teaching of the Vedas.  But although this modern eclectic system adopts the whole ethical outcome of Christian civilization in India for its own purposes, it shows a most uncompromising hostility to Christianity.  Though it claims to be positively theistic, it seems ready to enter into alliance with any form of atheism or agnosticism, Eastern or Western, against the spread of Christian influence in India.

In speaking of the movement of revived Aryanism I assume that with the more intelligent and progressive classes of India the old Hinduism is dead.  Of course, millions of men still adhere to the old corruptions.  Millions in the remoter districts would retain the festival of Juggernaut, the hook-swinging, even infanticide and widow-burning, if they dared.  The revolting orgies of Kali and Doorga, and the vilest forms of Siva worship, even the murderous rites of the Thugs, might be revived by the fanatical, if foreign influence were withdrawn; but, taking India as a whole, these things are coming to be discarded.  The people are ashamed of them; they dare not undertake to defend them in the open day of the present civilization.  All intelligent Hindus are persuaded to accept the situation, and look to the future instead of the past.  The country is full of new influences which must be counted as factors.  British rule is there, and is there to stay.  Education has come—­good,