he is human, and therefore in his reflective intervals he will always be speculating in “futures.”  He will make the Great Pilgrimage around the city and so make his salvation absolutely sure; he will also have record made of it, so that it may remain absolutely sure and not be forgotten or repudiated in the confusion of the Final Settlement.  Logically, also, he will wish to have satisfying and tranquilizing personal knowledge that that salvation is secure; therefore he goes to the Well of the Knowledge of Salvation, adds that completing detail, and then goes about his affairs serene and content; serene and content, for he is now royally endowed with an advantage which no religion in this world could give him but his own; for henceforth he may commit as many million sins as he wants to and nothing can come of it.

Thus the system, properly and logically ordered, is neat, compact, clearly defined, and covers the whole ground.  I desire to recommend it to such as find the other systems too difficult, exacting, and irksome for the uses of this fretful brief life of ours.

However, let me not deceive any one.  My Itinerary lacks a detail.  I must put it in.  The truth is, that after the pilgrim has faithfully followed the requirements of the Itinerary through to the end and has secured his salvation and also the personal knowledge of that fact, there is still an accident possible to him which can annul the whole thing.  If he should ever cross to the other side of the Ganges and get caught out and die there he would at once come to life again in the form of an ass.  Think of that, after all this trouble and expense.  You see how capricious and uncertain salvation is there.  The Hindoo has a childish and unreasoning aversion to being turned into an ass.  It is hard to tell why.  One could properly expect an ass to have an aversion to being turned into a Hindoo.  One could understand that he could lose dignity by it; also self-respect, and nine-tenths of his intelligence.  But the Hindoo changed into an ass wouldn’t lose anything, unless you count his religion.  And he would gain much—­release from his slavery to two million gods and twenty million priests, fakeers, holy mendicants, and other sacred bacilli; he would escape the Hindoo hell; he would also escape the Hindoo heaven.  These are advantages which the Hindoo ought to consider; then he would go over and die on the other side.

Benares is a religious Vesuvius.  In its bowels the theological forces have been heaving and tossing, rumbling, thundering and quaking, boiling, and weltering and flaming and smoking for ages.  But a little group of missionaries have taken post at its base, and they have hopes.  There are the Baptist Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, the London Missionary Society, the Wesleyan Missionary Society, and the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission.  They have schools, and the principal work seems to be among the children.  And no doubt that part of the work prospers best, for grown people everywhere are always likely to cling to the religion they were brought up in.