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71
would have
done well to sit and learn. But when these barbarians overran Aryavarta and made it into Hindoostan; when Mahomed of Ghuzni the great iconoclast made it his business to trample every
thing that was dear and sacred to the Aryan mind; when Zenghiskhan and his successors with the exception of one or two spread their tyrany over the country and lastly when the European Commerce and Western Civilization began to suck the very blood of India, would you wonder that India is not in the same condition as it was in days gone by.
The wonder is that not with standing these foreign attecks, India and her people have survived; that not with standing the demoralizing influences of foreigners, India still leads in spirituality and morality. Sir T. Munro says: "If a good system of agriculture, unrivalled, manufacturing skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to either convenience or luxury, schools established in every village for teaching reading writing, and arithmetic, the general practice of hospitality and charity amongst each other, and above all, a treatment of the female sex full of confidence, respect, and delicacy, are among the signs which denote a civilized people-then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe, and if civilisation is to become an article of trade between England and India, I am convinced that England will gain by the import cargo." Professor Wilson, professor of Sanskrit at
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