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Some Mistakes Corrected
includes time and the duty of education on the part of the young persons thus betrothed If between the time of the betrothal and the marriage ceremony, the betrothed shall die, the betrothed wife may be married to another. The protection to which I have referred, which this early betrothal gives to the girl of India can be as well understood by you as if I were to go into a detailed statement for among the perquisites and spoils of the invader of all times must be reckoned, not alone lootings of perishable possessions of the conquered, but the possession and ravishment of unprotected women. Indeed, this measure of protection has not always proved adequate any more than your laws of prohibition of the liquor traffic have always or may ever really, prohibit. A third reason may be given that womanhood is reached in our country at an earlier age than in your own.
Another mistake that I must briefly notice is the prevalent misconception of the moral status of the Hindu people at large. I cannot go into this subject further than to affirm that the basis of morality, its laws and rules, differ in no essential respect from those that obtain throughout the universal world. The rites of our religion, the relationships obtaining throughout the whole social structure, both as to private and public conduct, answer for the highest moral character. Justice, truth, purity, are words meaningful to every Hindu, sacred to his thought, not only parts of his speech, but essential elements in his daily devotions.
“Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shale not lie,” are commandments with us as with you, and thou shalt practice virtue, good will, right conduct, not toward men only, but toward all living beings, are also parts of our moral code, which no Hindu can forget or deny without bringing down upon him corresponding evils and retribution. These are the straight lines in which we are instructed and required to walk. If I grow lame and weak and sometimes fall by the way in India,
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