(1) _The immobility of the Eastern mind._ In manner of life, in salutations, in offerings of inferiors to superiors, in many customs, the far East, like the nearer East, continually reminds us of the East as presented in the records of antiquity--above all as presented to us in the Bible. He must be a very careless observer who has not been struck with the resemblance. The restless changing West furnishes in this respect a striking contrast to the staid, unchanging East. There has been no such immobility as to religious opinion and practice. There, as elsewhere, it holds true that man's mind never remains in one stay. The Hindus of the present day speak of their Vedic ancestors with profound reverence, but if they were to rise from their graves and act as they did when denizens of earth--kill cows, disregard caste, drink largely of the intoxicating juice of the som plant, and worship in an entirely different manner--their reverence would turn into horror and detestation. We cannot say that the modern Puranas do not rest in any degree on the Vedas; some Vedic principles are manifest in them: but in the gods they set forth for worship and in the practices they enjoin, there is between them and the Vedas a marked diversity. The numerous sects which have arisen from time to time among the Hindus show that they too have had that measure of mental activity which has led to new forms of thought and practice. [Sidenote: RETROGRESSION.] (2) _The genesis and evolution of religion._ In the dim remote past to which the Vedas introduce us, we find the Hindus a religious, a very religious, people. There is no indication of any period when they could be called secularists. Their religious views and practices have changed, there has been an evolving process; the connection may be traced, and we see the result in the Puranic system of our day. Has this movement been forward, or backward? Has the fittest survived and the weak and useless perished? The Vedic system little deserves the praise often lavished on it, but surely it is preferable to that which has taken its place. There has been deterioration, not improvement. Has not this ever been the case in reference to religion, so far as the working of the human mind is concerned? Is not modern Buddhism a falling off from ancient Buddhism? Does not Rabbinical Judaism belittle and dwarf Old Testament Judaism? Does not Roman Catholic Christianity materialize New Testament Christianity? The facts of man's religious history prove incontestably that his constant tendency is towards retrogression, not towards advancement. [Sidenote: THE BIBLE AND THE HINDU SCRIPTURES.]