Page:The Sikh Religion, its gurus, sacred writings and authors Vol 1.djvu/61

Rh hereafter, it would be difficult to point to a religion of greater originality or to a more comprehensive ethical system.

III India contains a population who profess many religions. It would be a great mistake to put them all on the same footing. Some make for loyalty and others for what we may call independence. Some religions appear to require State support, while others have sufficient vitality to dispense with it. The Jewish religion has survived for many centuries without a temporal head and in the face of endless persecutions. Islam has spread in many lands, and does not solicit or require much support from temporal power. Muhammadans only claim the free exercise of their religion, and this is allowed them in India. Many members of other religions, believing that they are direct emanations from heaven, may not suppose that they require State countenance or support, but the student of comparative theology must be allowed to entertain a different opinion.

To enumerate a few instances. When Constantine, the Roman Emperor of the West, after his conversion to Christianity, withdrew his support from the ancient religion of his country, it rapidly declined. Then vanished, in the words of Coleridge,

BudhismBuddhism [sic] flourished in India, its parent home, many centuries ago, but the successors of the renowned Asoka, who were not so spiritual or enlightened as he, allowed their religion to be completely banished from Indian soil, like an exile, to find in foreign lands the repose and