Therefore it may be that in this East, this country whence all religions have come, where the whole air breathes of faiths and all life is full of them, the man who has lost his early beliefs may learn new ones. There is so much to choose from, so many varieties of thought and emotion. In this Empire of ours are all the great religions. It is the home of Brahminism, of the mystical forms of Hinduism, beyond which it has never spread. There are more Mahommedans here than under the Sultan of Roum. There are the Parsees here, fugitives long ago from Persia on account of their faith, the only sun worshippers who are left. There are Jews who came here no one can tell how long ago, there are Christians who date back may be eighteen centuries, there are Armenians and Arabs. Within this Empire live the only race professing a Buddhism that is pure and without superstition; and beside these there are a hundred other cults, superstitions, or religions, call them what you will. From the spirit worship of the Shan plateau to the dignified philosophic theories of the Brahmo Somaj is a space as wide as the world can show, yet may it be bridged with religions that differ but by small degrees till the whole be passed. If anyone want a faith here are enough and to spare. "Therefore," thought the boy, who had now become a man, "I will seek here for what I want. I know what I want. I have it clearly before me. I have even written it down. It is not as if I was undertaking a blind search for something of which I was not sure. These are my three essentials: a reasonable theory of the universe, a workable and working code of conduct, a promise in the after life that gives me something to really desire, to really hope for, to be a haven towards which I may steer. I will take each subject, each section of a subject, separately and read it up. I will read up these faiths from books, I will study them as I can from the people, and I will see what they are. Surely somewhere can be found what I desire, what I desire so greatly to find." CHAPTER VII. THE WISDOM OF BOOKS. Therefore the man got books and read them. He read books on Hinduism, many of them; he read the Vedas and the sacred hymns. He learnt of Vishnu and Siva, of Krishna and the milkmaids. He found books on caste and read them, of how these were originally four castes which subdivided. He read of suttee and the car of Juggernauth. He then turned to Mahommedanism and the life of Mahommed. He read the Koran. He learned the early history of the faith, of its rise, of the glory of its result, of the fall of its great Empire. He saw it had much to do with Judaism, there were great similarities, there were also differences. He read of Parseeism, that taught by Zoroaster which they call fire worship; he read of Jainism, of the cult of the Sikhs, of many another strange faith; he learned of the spirit worship of the aboriginal tribes among the mountains, of Phallic worship and its monstrosities.