A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej.

CHAP. IX WAR WITH THE ENGLISH 329
everywhere infused new ideas, and modified the aspirations 1845-6.
of the people. The confusion has thus been increased for
a time; but the pregnant fermentation of mind must
eventually body itself forth in new shapes; and a prophet
of name unknown may arise to diffuse a system which shall
consign the Vedas and Koran to the oblivion of the Zendavest and the Sibylline Leaves, and which may not perhaps
absorb one ray of light from the wisdom and morality of
that faith which adorns the civilization of the Christian
rulers of the country. But England must hope that she is
not to exercise an unfruitful sway; and she will add fresh
lustre to her renown, and derive an additional claim to the
gratitude of posterity, if she can seize upon the essential
principles of that element which disturbs her multitudes of
Indian subjects, and imbue the mental agitation with new
qualities of beneficent fertility, so as to give to it an impulse
and a direction, which shall surely lead to the prevalence of
a religion of truth and to the adoption of a government of
freedom and progress.