Then came Buddha, the great reformer, preaching the religion of self denial and human love. The old petrified social fabric and religion were shaken to their foundation, and the system of caste was on the verge of dissolution. Under the first wave of enthusiasm caused by the teachings of Buddha, hospitals for the sick and asylums for the poor were established. Every fifth year the Buddhistic kings gave away their riches, not only to the monks but also to the poor, to the orphans and outcasts, and even asylums for sick animals were established. But Brahminism soon avenged itself by bloody wars, Buddhism was to a large extent driven out of India, and gradually its noble principles were forgotten. Nearly the same condition as that which prevailed before the Buddhistic reformation again prevailed, until the Christian civilization quite recently began to make itself felt through the practical measures introduced by the English government. Woman without liberty, without human worth, and almost without virtue; the countless many oppressed and despised by the privileged few, and not even allowed to read a religious book at the risk of eternal damnation; one of the greatest and mightiest nations on earth, discordant within itself, divided into different hostile classes; the one suspicious, envious, and full of hate toward the other, all of them humiliated, conquered, and ruled by a few strangers,--the English,--whose forefathers were savages a thousand years after the period when the Hindoos possessed the highest civilization of antiquity. The cause of this deplorable condition is clear enough to those who have grown up under the influence of Christian civilization. With all its studies, all its wisdom, all its genius, and all its religious contemplation, this people have neglected or spurned the simple truths on which the Christian civilization is founded,--love and charity: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."--"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me,"--these beautiful principles are not found in the Hindoo Bibles, and, consequently, not in their acts and lives. But a happier day has dawned on India. The star of Bethlehem is seen at the horizon. A new light is kindled which shall soon lead the people out of the ancient darkness to a true and happy condition. And, strange enough, the youngest of the nations,--America,--is foremost in missionary work among the oldest, and next to the Americans are the Scotch, the English, the French, the Germans, the Belgians; and even good old Sweden has one or two mission fields there where the results are as yet rather meager; but in the course of time this work, too, will undoubtedly bear golden fruits, for just as surely as people and races are to continue, just as surely shall the simple doctrine which the great Master taught be spread and accepted among them all, because it is the only one by which the nations can reach their true destiny.