ART. II. THE CLIMAX OF HUMAN HISTORY.

ACCENT the human. We seek to know what greatest things men have achieved unaided by a divine revelation and providential help. This will inevitably be associated with the meanest things. If the Creator and Upholder of the universe directly aids nations in matters of sanitary science, civil institutions, revelation of ideas undiscernible by themselves unaided, by expansion of mind, and by the more abundant spiritual life, there is no limit yet reached of things possible to men so aided. But up to the present there have been great national developments over continents and through centuries without what is understood as divine revelation and providential help. Where have they been the greatest? We would naturally say that greatness is indicated by possession of fertile soil, by the utilization of the forces of nature, by armies raised and wielded, by the arts of life, architecture, painting; also by the outgoing of mind in poetry and metaphysics, and the natural feeling after God in their human religions.

In asking where is the climax of human history we propose to pass by Babylon, Nineveh, Egypt, Greece, and even Rome, and present the claims of India for that distinction. In regard to a fitting field for vast empire it certainly has no rival. It is a triangle about fifteen hundred miles on a side, all inhabitable. The great Gangetic valley certainly has no equal in the world. One can go one thousand miles and never come to a hill. The vast range of the Himalayas at the north pours down a perpetual flood of fertile silt that is not approximated by the Mississippi or the Nile. Except for occasional drouths and consequent famines, about ten in a century in some parts of it, there is no place where the fecund earth offers to provide for such an abundant population. This desirable India has been coveted by all the great conquerors of the world. Nearly every student of Greek remembers how he entrancedly read of the wars of Darius five hundred years before Christ. Two centuries later came Alexander the Great, defeating King Porus and his vast hordes of men, horses, and elephants. How well we remember that the captured Porus

answered Alexander's question of how he wished to be treated, “As a king." Here Alexander heard of the kingdom of Magahda on the Ganges, whose sovereign, Sandrocottus, could bring into the field an army of six hundred thousand men, three hundred thousand horses, and nine thousand elephants. Mohammedan prowess sought to possess itself of India through Persia, which had been previously conquered. The sacking of cities and the slaughters of men and women were incredibly savage through the centuries, till Mahmoud of Shizni came in 1024. It was at Somnath, in the Guzerat, that he refused to be bribed to spare the great idol fifteen feet high (probably a pious laudatory fiction of Firishta) but smote it with his iron mace and found its huge body filled with pearls, rubies, gold, and diamonds. Incredible amounts of booty flowed for centuries back to the Tartar tribes. Then came the great Tamerlane in 1398 for more incredible slaughters. He is said to have massacred on one occasion one hundred thousand prisoners. It is during the rule of his descendants that we look for the climax of human history. Omitting even the names of emperors many and great, we come to Baber, A. D. 1526, descended on his father's side from the great Tamerlane and on his mother's from Genghis Khan, two of the greatest Tartar conquerors that ever lived. The spirit of the man is seen in this: On one occasion in extreme peril of utter defeat he writes in his memoirs that he repented of his sins and implored pardon of God; solemnly resolved to drink no more wine, which he acknowledges that he had sometimes used to excess, he caused his drinking vessels of gold and silver to be melted up and distributed to the poor; he vowed to remit the stamp tax on all Mohammedans if it should please God to give him the victory over his enemies. He then assembled his officers, made a frank and fiery address, which closed as follows: "The voice of glory is loud in my ear and forbids me to disgrace my name by giving up what my arms have with so great difficulty acquired. But as death is at last unavoidable, let us rather meet him with honor, face to face, than shrink back to gain a few years of a miserable and ignominious existence. For what can we inherit but fame beyond the limits of the grave?" The whole assembly, inspired as by one soul, cried out, “War!

War!" (Firishta, vol. ii, page 119.) That he was not conquering a weak, effeminate people is evident from a single incident that might be duplicated many times. When the garrison of the be sieged Chanderi saw that they could defend themselves no longer, "they, according to their dreadful customs, murdered their wives and children in the following manner: They placed a sword in the hands of one of their chiefs, and he slew the unhappy victims, who bent of their own accord before him, even contending among themselves for the honor of being first slain. The soldiers then issued forth with swords and shields and sought death, which they all obtained. Not one was found alive in the fort when it was taken." Firishta says that Baber was "a master in the arts of poetry, writing, and music." He was constantly employed in making plans for aqueducts, reservoirs, canals, caravansaries; for introducing foreign fruits and other edibles, for the improvement of the country. His Memoirs, written by himself, are exceeded by few works ancient or modern. In his old age his son Húmáyun, his designed successor, was very sick. According to the custom of his country, he believed that he could offer himself as a substitute and save his son. After long devotion he believed his substitution was accepted, and exclaimed, "I have borne it away, I have borne it away." The son recovered, the father soon after died. He was succeeded by Húmáyun, 1531; by Akbar the Great, 1556, who was doubtless the most powerful monarch on earth at the time; by Jéhángir, 1605; by Shah Jéhán, 1627; and by Aurung-Zeb, 1657. This is the period that we call the climax of human history. What were its achievements?

One of the objects of human endeavor has been the accumulation of wealth. The wealth of Ormus and of Ind is famed throughout the world. Where the gorgeous East pours on her kings barbaric pearls and gold is equally the theme of poetry. Cafoor plundered a capital in the Deccan in 1306, and brought away a recorded weight of gold worth five hundred million dollars. Even the common soldiers had so much gold they had to leave the mere silver behind them. The amount of booty brought to Delhi under Allah ud Dín gave the city the appearance of great wealth and prosperity. "Palaces, mosques, universities, baths, forts, and all

manner of public and private buildings seemed to rise by power of enchantment, neither did there in any age appear a greater concourse of learned men from all parts of the world; forty-five men skilled in the sciences were professors in the university. There were distinguished professors and teachers of poetry, philosophy, medicine, divinity, astrology, music, morality, languages, and in all the fine arts then known in the world." (Firishta.) Everyone has heard of the begemmed peacock throne at Delhi, the plunderer of which, Nadir, carried away jewels, gold, the peacock throne, and the famous diamond Koh-i-nur, variously valued. Perhaps a fair average would be about two hundred and fifty million dollars. The greatest displays of Akbar's grandeur were at the festival of the vernal equinox and on his birthday. At least two acres were spread with silk and gold carpets and hangings as rich as velvet embroidered with gold, pearls, and precious stones could make them. The emperor was weighed in golden scales against gold, silver, perfumes, and other rich substances in succession, which were then distributed among the spectators. Shah Jéhán thus celebrated one festival, the expense of which was, according to Khafi Khan, seven million five hundred thousand dollars. I have seen two silver cannon and two gold cannon weighing two hundred and eighty pounds each; and a small rug eight feet by six made of pearls, diamonds, and other precious stones, of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in value. All did not, however, choose to live in such wasteful extravagance. Nasr-ed-Dín defrayed his personal expenses by making copies of the Koran and selling them. He had but one wife, and she cooked all his food. When she asked for an assistant he refused, saying he was "only a trustee for the state," and that he was determined not to burden it with needless expenses. But what did these people build? Every period of India's history has been distinguished by the building of magnificent temples, palaces, forts, columns of victory, and mausoleums. Sir Thomas Roe, an English ambassador, came to India in September, 1615. He passed Chittoor on his way to Ajmir, and said: "Above one hundred temples, many lofty towers, and houses innumerable were seen crowning the lofty rock on which it stands, but it was at this time entirely deserted."

The principal glory of some dynasties was the number of temples they destroyed. Mohammedanism was essentially iconoclastic. They ruined temples for the glory of God. No general description of buildings can be attempted. Two instances of building shall suffice. The Diwan-i-khás, or Hall of Private Audience, at Delhi has not, and never had, a rival for magnificent splendor and minute adornment. The Taj Mahal at Agra is the world's wonder. Bishop Heber says, "The Moguls designed like Titans and finished like jewelers." It took twenty thousand men seventeen years to build this poem in marble, and the cost, if all the materials and labor were paid for, is estimated at from fifteen to thirty millions of dollars. It was so built that now, after two hundred and seventy years, one finds nowhere a corner chipped, a crack in the elaborate lacework of pierced marble screens, nor a bit of uneven floor. It is fit to be immortal. It is not only architecture but poetry, and the result of most delicate and tender emotion, being built to the memory of an immortal love. Mumtaza Mahal, "the Pride of the Palace," to whose precious memory it was built, had borne Shah Jéhán seven sons and died in childbed with the eighth while with him on a campaign in the Deccan. All the city constantly flows out to the park in which it stands to gaze for the hundredth time on its entrancing beauty. The birds hover over it for hours, certainly not looking for food but attracted by its splendor. One wants to believe in the transmigration of souls, and that the one who built this marvel and the one to whom it was built can come back and poise on airy wing over the one building in the world most fit to be immortal. I watched two birds a long time in pleasant fancy that this dream might be true.

The position of woman is a measure of a civilization. While the position of woman in India has never been what it should have been, any more than it was in Egypt, Greece, or Rome, yet as there have been Cleopatras, Aspasias, and Cornelias in them all, so there have been numerous Rezias and Jéhángirs in India. Sultana Rezia was among the most famous of India rulers. "The princess was adorned with every qualification required in the ablest kings, and the strictest scrutineers could find in her no fault but that she was a woman.” (Firishta.) Jéhángir married Núr Mahál.