BABER. 
233 
of the succeeding reign. Baber left three daughters, 
all by the same mother. 
Of Baber much may be- said to his advantage, 
both as a sovereign and as a man : in each character 
he took a distinguished rank during those dark and tur- 
bulent times, in which it was his lot to direct the 
resources of a vast and powerful empire, and control 
the destinies of a numerous and enlightened people. 
He was liberal to excess, and no less humane than 
liberal. So strictly did he act upon the principle of re- 
turning good for evil, that he was beloved even by his 
avowed enemies. His sincerity and the utter absence 
from his heart of everything that bore the faintest hue 
of hypocrisy may be seen in his Memoirs, in which he 
freely and without reserve states his weaknesses, and 
leaves the reader to gather his virtues from the general 
tenour of his actions, the merit of which he inva- 
riably ascribes to the Disposer of all good. His re- 
ligion was upon the whole a rational and fervid belief; 
for though learned in the doctrines of the Huneef sect 
and rigidly attached to some of their ceremonials, ob- 
serving with scrupulous exactness the prescribed periods 
of prayers, he was neither intolerant nor bigoted. We 
find no religious persecutions during his reign ; and 
though he implicitly believed what the Mohammedan 
doctors taught, that there was no salvation to the Pa- 
gan, he did not esteem it an act of sacred obligation, as 
did his great predecessor Timur Beg, to do God service 
by butchering infidels, or persecuting them for righte- 
ousness’ sake. He permitted to the conquered Hindoos 
the free exercise of their religion, and became far more 
popular among them than any Mohammedan sovereign 
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