It was noon, and the sun blazed upon the roof. Green parrots flew screaming among the trees of a garden far below us. The hum of the city arose, pierced with loud cries, and over the far-off iron bridge across the Ganges a train was slowly passing with prolonged and shrieking whistle. But still the crowding pilgrims moved down the steps to the water’s edge, and bathed and offered flowers, and stretched up their hands in silent adoration, or recited ancient and sacred words aloud. [Illustration: THE BURNING PLACE. THE RIVER WALLS. [_Face p. 266._ ] “It is possible for you,” I said, after a long time, “to desire escape from the danger of rebirth, and to speak of being merged in the universal consciousness as salvation. But how about these people who come in millions to the river? All their lives they struggle only to live. From day to day their thought is only to keep alight their little glimmer of life, and hand it on to others who are their children. How is it to be supposed that they come to the river so wearied of existence as to pray only to be saved from being born again? I myself, who am one of them, would walk in the opposite direction if I thought the river was going to extinguish my life, and for choice I should rather be born a mouse than nothing.” “You remind me,” he answered, “of those worshippers of Vishnu, who pray in great humility, ‘Let me be born a cat or dog, if only I may love thee, O God.’ It is a great prayer, and you may join in it, for, being a wanderer through the world, you can always hope to become a religious man, avoiding the many-sided degradation of which people tell me who have visited the West. I, too, was once engaged in common business, managing large estates in this very city, and I know the rich men in the streets, though they cannot now tell who passes them so close. But each day I gave much time to contemplation, and I took the vow of kindliness to every living thing, just as you see those Jain monks there who are feeding ants with sugar, and would not wittingly kill a cholera germ; or like those wandering Sisters of the faith who wear a strip of white felt across their mouths lest they should breathe a midge to death, and carry soft brooms in their hands to sweep the place where they are about to sit, lest the weight of their frail bodies should crush an irrecoverable life. By such means, even in your present body, you may begin to penetrate the illusions of existence, and at rare moments may perceive some gleam from what one of your poets has called the white radiance of eternity.