SIR ANDREW WINGATE, K.C.I.E., ON INDIA. 



51 



richest. Evidently his information was good. A few years 

 later, in 479 B.C., an Indian contingent of archers under Xerxes 

 shared the defeat of the Persians at Platsea in Greece. We are 

 familiar with Darius Hystaspes in the fifth and sixth chapters of 

 Ezra, when he confirmed the decree of Cyrus authorizing the 

 rebuilding of the Temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem. 



About the time of Darius Hystaspes, two notable religious 

 movements were in progress in Magadha, a kingdom situated 

 in South Behar, due to the preaching of Gautama Buddha, who 

 died about 544 B.C. (some say 488), and of Mahavira, who died 

 in 527 (or may be 477), the one the founder of Buddhism, the 

 other of Jainism. 



Dr. Vincent Smith draws attention to the importance of this 

 period. " The sixth century B.C. was a time when men's 

 minds in several widely separated parts of the world were deeply 

 stirred by the problems of religion and salvation." The 

 century not only saw Mahavira and Buddha, but also Zoroaster 

 and Confucius, the reformers of Persia and China. The period 

 may be said to have begun from the taking of Jerusalem by 

 Nebuchadnezzar in 606 B.C. and the dispersion of the Jews. 

 How widely they were distributed over Persia we learn from the 

 Book of Esther, which also mentions India. The Assyrian and 

 Egyptian Empires were subdued, and then, by a dramatic stroke, 

 as the seventy years of the Hebrew prophets were expiring, 

 this glorious Babylon, the conqueror of many gods, the defier 

 of Jehovah, fell with a crash that resounded throughout the 

 earth (538 B.C.). It was a time to compel thought. Who was 

 God ? Was there any God ? Were the idols of the nations vain ? 



Isaiah closed his utterances about 700 B.C. He spoke to all 

 races of men. It is difficult to decide that such messages of 

 judgment on nations and visions of glory for mankind never 

 winged their way to other lands. We know that merchandise 

 was carried to and fro, that military expeditions penetrated far, 

 that travellers performed astonishing journeys. Were the 

 thoughts of men immobilized by the restraints of language ? 

 The nations were never left in total darkness by the Good 

 Shepherd. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were sent to the 

 Canaanites, Moses was sent to Egypt, Jonah to Nineveh, Daniel 

 to Babylon and Persia, Paul to Greece and Rome — God's most 

 powerful messengers met the rulers of idolatry before they 

 perished. The Far East can hardly have been shut out from the 

 Light which shone from Jerusalem. 



