Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/211

Rh had triumphed over it. He had marked out a path of duty and had steadfastly pursued it, in spite of its utter impracticability. The man of the world smiles at his shortsighted policy, his ascetic ideal, his zeal for the truth as he saw it. Aurangzíb would have found his way smooth and strewn with roses had he been able to become a man of the world. His glory is that he could not force his soul, that he dared not desert the colours of his faith. He lived and died in leading a forlorn hope, and if ever the cross of heroic devotion to a lost cause belonged to mortal man, it was his. The great Puritan of India was of such stuff as wins the martyr's crown.

His glory is for himself alone. The triumph of character ennobled only himself. To his great empire his devoted zeal was an unmitigated curse. In his last letters he besought his sons not to strive against each other. Yet 'I foresee,' he wrote, 'that there will be much bloodshed. May God, the Ruler of hearts, implant in yours the will to succour your subjects, and give you wisdom in the governance of the people.' His foresight presaged something of the evil that was to come, the fratricidal struggle, the sufferings of the people. But the reality was worse than his worst fears. It was happy for him that a veil concealed from his dying eyes the shame and ignominy of the long line of impotent successors that desecrated his throne, the swelling tide of barbarous invaders from the south, the ravages of Persian and Afghán armies from the north, and the final triumph of the infidel