Page:The story of the Indian mutiny; (IA storyofindianmut00monciala).pdf/18

 efforts for existence, has proved an influence of degeneracy, and most clearly so in the matter of belief. Good seed, which here sprang up so quickly, was always apt to wither under a too scorching sun, or to run to rank foliage rather than to fruit. Early Brahminism, itself a marked growth in thought, after a time began to be choked by the heathenism it had overshadowed. It sent out a new shoot in Buddhism, a faith of noble ideals, which to this day surpasses all others in the number of its adherents. This, in turn, became a jungle of sapless formulas, and after a thousand years died out on the land of its birth. Then grew up modern Hindooism, a union of Brahminical dreams of divinity and Buddhist love for humanity, interwoven with the aboriginal superstitions, the whole forming a tangled maze, where the great Hindoo trinity of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Siva the Destroyer, take Protean shapes as a pantheon of innumerable gods, amid which higher minds may turn upwards seeking one Almighty Spirit, but the vulgar crowd fix their attention rather on grotesque idols, base fetishes, symbols of fear and sensuality, fitly adored with degrading rites and barbarous observances. All efforts have hitherto little availed to clear this deeply-rooted wilderness of misbelief. Enlightened Hindoos,