years under her husband.

I congratulate the Section. It can have no better General Secretary than this quiet, strong man.

The Asst. General Secretary sends me the following from the Asst. Surgeon, Civil Hospital, Basra, relating to my para of November last, p. 122, wherein I spoke of the Basra Lodge as founded by soldiers. I print the correction, of course, though I spoke to one of the founders of the original Lodge, when he returned to India, and he was certainly a soldier. Perhaps the original Lodge died when the regiment left, and rose again as civilian. Dr. Jacob E. Soloman, President of the Basra Lodge, must certainly know its present composition :

Will you kindly correct our President's mistake regarding the Basra Lodge which was noticed in the last month's THEOSOPHIST. Our Lodge does not consist of members from the ranks of soldiers and officers. It consists of civilians attached to the expeditionary Force, a few merchants from India, and local men. When the Centre was started here, we had four civilians and two local members, one of the latter working as an interpreter during the study classes. Shortly after that our members increased, and on 22nd November, 1915, our Charter was granted by the President. Now the total strength consists of 22 members, of whom 13 are local members and the majority of the rest are Government servants attached to the force. A few of the Indians joined the Society here and are now in India, their names being transferred to India, or are still here attached or unattached to our Lodge. Brother Mathalone, the Secretary, is also the interpreter of the Lodge. In our Lodge there is a majority of Jews, but there are also Christians, a Muhammadan and a Hindu.

We wish the lonely Lodge all usefulness and prosperity. But why should I say "lonely"? No. T.S. Lodge can be really lonely, when it is part of the great company of the Divine Wisdom.

THE

HE absence of a connected and rational exposition of Ontology, as conceived by the ancient Hindus and handed down with scrupulous care to posterity, has given rise to various misconceptions and perversions. The innate indifference of the Hindu mind to creating a favourable impression in the mind of a foreigner about his own views of life and religion has easily paved the way for the grandest conception of God which the human mind is capable of, to be roughly handled, if not positively misrepresented, even by an earnest seeker of truth from foreign lands. From the earliest times it has been an established canon of the

Hindu faith not to seek converts and evince a spirit of anxiety to impress one's own views upon the mind of a foreigner. On the other hand, a seeker after truth within the fold was subject to a series of disciplinary measures and even humiliation, so that many a disciple had to give up the attempt with a sigh of pain, if not of relief. It is beside the province of this paper to account for this state of affairs, but when the political and social condition of the race in the past and the practically insular nature of the country are taken into consideration, it is no wonder that the rich heritage of wisdom acquired by the simple law of inheritance has been so zealously guarded and shut out from the prying eyes of a foreign enquirer. The unshaken belief in the Law of Karma and in the evolution of each race on its own lines of perfection or imperfection, has heightened this spirit of isolation. Successive waves of foreign incursions and domination have not been able even to shake off the external web of Hindů society woven by the hands of time and accident. But a faith which can produce a sage who complacently smiled and cried: "Yet even thou art He," when an infuriated British soldier thrust his bayonet into his bosom on the banks of the Gangā, and a set of devotees who would not allow their evening meditations to be distracted by cannon shots on the banks of the Cauvery in the famous siege of Trichinopoly, must have a mysterious power within it.

The nobility of a religion must be determined by the nature and qualities of its followers shown in actual life, and not by the volumes of books which pretend to expound the views and life of its founder or founders. It is a true saying that nothing bad is found in print, at

least in the domain of religion and philosophy, and it is equally true that since creation more crimes have been committed in the name of religion and God than good. The burning of the library at Alexandria, the inhuman massacre of millions in the conquest of Mexico, the awful burning of Protestant heretics in Catholic Europe, the throwing of the primitive Christian into the mouth of a starved lion to glut the eye of a Roman populace, the fierce persecution of the Jain and the Buddhist by the Shaivites of Southern India during the Dark Ages-a singular instance of intolerance even in this land of peace and religious freedom-have all been done in the sacred name of God, as seen by jaundiced eyes through the thick glass of bigotry and presumption.

Be the cause what it may, even the worst enemies of the Hindu faith readily concede that as a race the Hindus are docile, patient, law-abiding and unworldly, and that nothing can provoke them to acts of violence and resentment unless their religious suceptibilities are wounded. Even at this day, when gross materialism has entered into this land in the shape of Western culture, it is but a plain statement of fact that many a Hindů is prepared to sacrifice anything for the religion of his forefathers. There are instances on record which show that kings sacrificed their thrones, ministers their power, warriors their lives, devotees their limbs and eyes, and even women their lives and children-all for the sake of a faith with all its anomalies and diversities. To a sincere Hindu the world is only a place of toil and torment; the family, a useless encumbrance brought on by his own desires and actions; power, an easy road to perdition; and life, but a preparation for the other world. Is it possible

for a false faith to create such a spirit? The boldest reasonings of the most intellectual western philosopher fall flat upon a Hindu's ear, the proudest discoveries of science create in his mind no sense of incompatibility, the grandest inventions excite no admiration in him, and the most enlightened form of Government is only a convenient garb in which he can safely work out his own salvation. The religion of such a race of people deserves careful study and the idea of God as conceived by such a race, if properly expounded, can gratify the curiosity of even a casual thinker.

The first idea that strikes the mind of a student of the Hindu religion, especially if he happens to be outside its pale, is that it does not seem to be one religion, with a system of dogmas and ritual of its own, but a congeries of various forms of faith with different conceptions of God, the soul and immortality, and with beliefs and observances essentially differing from one another. It is not associated with the name of any particular individual claiming to be its founder, like the other great religions of the world. There is no cut-and-dried system of doctrines and principles of its own, a belief in which is essential for any man to claim to be within its fold. The grossest forms of nature worship and demon worship are found side by side with the highest form of philosophical development and the purest form of devotional worship, and all claim a common origin and base their existence on the authority of a central textbook which itself seems to be but a collection of various hymns and songs sung in the course of several ages and at several stages of intellectual progress. A student of the early Vaiḍic texts, like Max Müller, calls Hinduism a form of nature worship. One who