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highest humanity, considering all the struggles you have had, you are made 

 higher than the angels. Therefore, in my humble opinion, here you have one 

 side of the question, which, perhaps, explains how it is that Brahma is not 

 worshipped, and cannot be worshipped, inasmuch as he is only an abstraction 

 of the yearning of the highest intelligence of the Hindoo race, as represented 

 primarily by the Brahmins. We are now removed from the time when 

 another view used to be taken of Brahma. I remember that when I was 

 a boy I read a comparative mythology in which it was pointed out 

 that Brahma was Abraham, and that this view was corroborated by the 

 fact of Saraswati being his wife, this being held as pointing clearly to 

 Abraham's wife Sarah, though I do not think that such a view would be 

 accepted now. I do not wish to detain you much longer, but I will just give 

 you an instance of how things become corrupted. There is a society in India 

 which seeks to reconcile the Vedas with Science, so when the Vedas tell 

 us : " Here the priest pours ghee into the fire," the passage is explained 

 as denoting the constituents of air as scientifically laid down. So 

 that, whether you call it a development of something higher or a 

 retrogression, anyhow we find old sayings made use of to express modern 

 ideas. I fear I have detained you a great deal too long, otherwise I would 

 have called attention to another point. We are told in the paper that 

 " if we see a building in an incomplete state, walls without a roof, 

 portions of walls only indicative of what the walls ought to be — here a 

 perfect window, there only a window-sill ; here a door, there only a door- 

 step ; here a pillar, there only the base of a pillar, — we must come to one 

 of two inevitable conclusions, either that the building is a ruin of a once 

 perfect building, or that it is only in the state of construction." I remember, 

 when I saw certain walls standing at a place where I had been making an 

 unsuccessful exploration, I asked myself how it was that nothing had been 

 found there, either by myself or by previous explorers, and yet there Avere 

 walls still remaining and showing that we were confronted by the ruins of 

 an ancient city. It was a mere accident which made me acquainted with 

 the fact that we had been all the time on the roofs of the buildings, and 

 that, just as people very rarely put their images on the roofs of their houses, 

 and just as they are noL to be found in the streets, but in the buildings 

 themselves, there might be this explanation of the mystery, namely, that 

 the earth had come in and filled up the intervals by landslips, as it evidently 

 did, and had left the roofs standing. Might not this be also an illustration, 

 though not, perhaps, a very happy one, of what has occurred in the case we 

 are considering ? May it not be that here we have the fabric of a worship 

 which may be traced back, as Mr. Collins has very rightly said, to some 

 higher inspiration, and that something analogous to the landslips I have 

 spoken of have occurred in this unfortunate India and the surrounding 

 countries, driving out what was there before and filling up the vacant space, 

 the result being that it only requires the labours of men like Mr. Collins 

 and others now in this room, to clear out the earth that has fallen, and restore 



