Thus we see the modern Brahmins proclaiming the morality of unselfishness in no other language than that in which Christian divines proclaim it, and making it peculiarly their own. They have the same teaching as these about truth and justice and integrity, and appeal in the same way to conscience as a guide. They choose what is best, and make it harmonize with their own best traditions, and the result is a general elevation of tone in the upper ranks of life which presages a corresponding reform in the lower.
This sometimes shows itself, as must also naturally be, in extravagance. There is a tendency always in such movements to imitate servilely; and so we see in the rising generation of the Hindus a certain advanced party which aims at making itself wholly European. A very few of these have adopted Christianity, but far more have contented themselves with an abandonment of their beliefs in favour of philosophies more or less agnostic. Others, again, without ceasing to be professed Hindus, have contented themselves with throwing off caste restrictions; and a considerable body in Bengal and Northern India have formed themselves into a special sect, known as the Brahmo-Somaj, which would seem to hold doctrines little different from the vaguer forms of Theism. In the South of India, however, which is the stronghold of Brahminism, these extreme innovations have taken little root, and instead there is found only a more reasoned form of the traditional beliefs. Whether the worships of Vishnu and Siva and the rest of the national Indian gods, have a sufficient backbone of practical ethics to undergo a great moral reform without losing in the end something of their vitality as popular beliefs, I am not prepared to say; but I feel certain that distinct moral improvement connected with these worships is in progress, and that the result up to the present has been an increased interest with the leaders of Hindu society in the welfare and social improvement of their religious communities. This shows itself in exertions made to spread education, in anxiety for the better management of religious trusts, in the restoration of temples, sometimes at very large individual cost, and in the rising agitation against child-marriage and in favour of the re-marriage of widows.