Tempo:
CHAP.- IX
WAR WITH THE ENGLISH
291
to colonize, and swarms of the victorious races long isis-s. continued to pour themselves over its rich plains, modifying the language and ideas of the vanquished, and becoming themselves altered by the contact, until, in the time of Akbar, the 'Islam' of India was a national system, and until, in the present day, the Hindu and Muhammadan do not practically differ more from one another than did the Brahmans and Kshattriyas and Veisyas of the time of Manu and Alexander. They are different -races with different religious systems, but harmonizing together in social life, and mutually understanding and respecting and taking a part in each other's modes and ways and doings. They are thus silently but surely removing one another's differences and peculiarities, so that a new element results from the common destruction, to become developed
into a faith or a fact in future ages. The rise to power of contemned Sudra tribes, in the persons of Marathas, Gurkhas, and Sikhs, has brought about a further mixture of the rural population and of the lower orders in towns and cities, and has thus given another blow to the reverence for antiquity. The religious creed of the people seems to be even more indeterminate than their spoken dialects, and neither the religion of the Arabian prophet, nor the theology of the Vedas and
Purans, is to be found pure except among professed Mullas and educated Brahmans, or among the rich and great of either persuasion. Over this seething and fusing mass, the power of England has been extended and her spirit sits brooding. Her pre-eminence in the modern world may well excite the envy of the nations; but it behoves her to ponder well upon the mighty task which her adventurous children have set her in the East, and to be certain that her sympathizing labours in the cause of humanity are guided by intelligence towards a true and attainable end. She rules supreme as the welcome composer of political troubles; but the thin superficies of her dominion rests tremblingly upon the convulsed ocean of social change and mental revolution. Her own high civilization and the circumstances of her intervention isolate her in all her greatness; she can appeal to the reason only of her subjects, and can never lean upon the enthusiasm of their gratitude or predilections.^ To preserve her poli1 Mr. Macaulay's comparison (History of England, i. 364, Charles &c ) between the manners of the earlier Georges and peculiarly applicable to the II as bearing on the kingly office, is
stranger soveBritish rule in India. The English, like their own to law. reigns of tfie last century, govern in the East accordmg
WAR WITH THE ENGLISH
291
to colonize, and swarms of the victorious races long isis-s. continued to pour themselves over its rich plains, modifying the language and ideas of the vanquished, and becoming themselves altered by the contact, until, in the time of Akbar, the 'Islam' of India was a national system, and until, in the present day, the Hindu and Muhammadan do not practically differ more from one another than did the Brahmans and Kshattriyas and Veisyas of the time of Manu and Alexander. They are different -races with different religious systems, but harmonizing together in social life, and mutually understanding and respecting and taking a part in each other's modes and ways and doings. They are thus silently but surely removing one another's differences and peculiarities, so that a new element results from the common destruction, to become developed
into a faith or a fact in future ages. The rise to power of contemned Sudra tribes, in the persons of Marathas, Gurkhas, and Sikhs, has brought about a further mixture of the rural population and of the lower orders in towns and cities, and has thus given another blow to the reverence for antiquity. The religious creed of the people seems to be even more indeterminate than their spoken dialects, and neither the religion of the Arabian prophet, nor the theology of the Vedas and
Purans, is to be found pure except among professed Mullas and educated Brahmans, or among the rich and great of either persuasion. Over this seething and fusing mass, the power of England has been extended and her spirit sits brooding. Her pre-eminence in the modern world may well excite the envy of the nations; but it behoves her to ponder well upon the mighty task which her adventurous children have set her in the East, and to be certain that her sympathizing labours in the cause of humanity are guided by intelligence towards a true and attainable end. She rules supreme as the welcome composer of political troubles; but the thin superficies of her dominion rests tremblingly upon the convulsed ocean of social change and mental revolution. Her own high civilization and the circumstances of her intervention isolate her in all her greatness; she can appeal to the reason only of her subjects, and can never lean upon the enthusiasm of their gratitude or predilections.^ To preserve her poli1 Mr. Macaulay's comparison (History of England, i. 364, Charles &c ) between the manners of the earlier Georges and peculiarly applicable to the II as bearing on the kingly office, is
stranger soveBritish rule in India. The English, like their own to law. reigns of tfie last century, govern in the East accordmg
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