From the foregoing history of the Sikh Gurus it will be seen how greatly the development of their religion was influenced by the turn of events. At first, as we have noticed, Nānak's religious teaching was more favourable to the Muhammadans than to the Hindus, for with the latter he was constantly in difficulties over questions of caste. The nervous superstition and the tyranny of the Moghul rulers, however, soon changed the state of affairs. Easily crediting any story against the Gurus, these emperors brought about the death of two of the most prominent of them. From the time of Gobind Singh onward the bitterest enmity existed between Sikhs and Muhammadans. In their refuge among the hills in Northern India the Khālsa, continued to develop their splendid physique—to keep alive the flame of religious zeal, and to maintain themselves as a separate nation. They marched against the British in the Sikh wars of 1845 and 1847; but, once defeated, they remembered the prophecies of the ninth Guru and became passionately loyal to their English masters. The finest and most staunch native soldiery, they saved the

[paragraph continues] Empire in 1857; and they have stood by the British nation on countless occasions since.

The position of present day Sikhs 1 is a curious one. Where the baptism of Gobind Singh is persisted in they are likely to remain a separate nation; but when this falls into disuse they show a tendency to reabsorb into Hinduism. They employ Brahman priests at marriages, deaths, and at all important domestic events. In reality the pure teaching of Nānak discredits the formalities of Hindu religion, and, therefore, in so far as Sikhs submit to these they are failing back from the highest teaching of the Granth. Pure Sikhism is far above dependence on Hindu ritual, and is capable of a distinct position as a world-religion, so long as Sikhs maintain their distinctiveness.

The religion is also one which should appeal to the Occidental mind. It is essentially a practical religion. If judged from the pragmatical standpoint—which is a favourite point of view in some quarters—it would rank almost first in the world. Of no other religion can it be said that it has made a nation in so short a time. That it should have transformed the out-caste Indian—a notoriously indolent and unstable