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ON THE SIKHS.
tras is privately practised. The great distinction between the Sikhs and the other Hindus is the abolition of the distinction of caste, and consequent extinction of many of the restraints which, in the more orthodox system, supply, however imperfectly, the want of a purer code of faith and practice. The experiment has not been very successful; and the worship of the Book and of the Sword, and the moral declamations of the contributors to the sacred Granth, have led to as great, if not a greater, laxity of conduct, and as utter a disregard of both religious and moral obligations, as the superstitious belief and multiplied ceremonial of the Brahmans'.
1 The above summary has been drawn up in compliance with a wish expressed by some of the Members of the Society to be possessed of a brief notice of the institutions of the Sikhs which distinguish them from the Hindus in general. It is of course little more than a compilation from the accounts of the Sikhs already in print, especially those of Sir John Malcolm und Captain Murray, as prepared by Mr. H. T. Prinsep; recourse has been also had to the observations of recent travellers in the Panjab-particularly Messrs. Moorcroft, Burnes, Jacquemont, and Baron von Hügel, and to the amusing and characteristic work of Major Lawrence-Adventures of an Officer in the Panjab.
