Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/130

 have done with the picturesque. I don't want to be a Wandering Jew of a Christian any more. It's all on account of the Holy Man of Benares. I saw him this morning in his garden. He sits there year in and year out, teaching gently and wisely. Millions visit him, and go away better. They come in sackcloth and ashes and shaven heads, with the faith of little children, and are blessed; they come in the clothes of the West, armed with the cynicism of modernity, men whom the setting sun and great companies have robbed of belief, and they go away speaking reverently of Christ and Buddha. I want to write about the Holy Man of Benares with a big H. He is white with abstemation, and does not look like a Hindu, but more like one of the great senators from Virginia in the early days—shaven every morning to the last hair, frail and bloodless, with black, piercing, kindly eyes, and comforting words for the weak and weary. I could not stand more reverently in the presence of Christ. There he sits the long years