pyre dressed and armed, and expired in the performance of his devotions, his last words being, "O Holy God, Thy mercy is such that though I have not perceived Thee by touch of hand, yet have I fully recognised Thee." He died in 1708 at Nader, on the banks of the Godavari river, in the forty-eighth year of his age, having reigned as Guru for nearly thirty-three years.
The rule of the Gurus had now lasted for two hundred years, and the reformed religion established by them had taken firm root among the Jats. The dry bones of an oppressed peasantry were stirred into life, and the institution of the Sikh baptismal rite at the hands of a few disciples anywhere—in a place of worship, in the house, or by the roadside—brought about the more full and widespread development of the new faith. In Govind were united the qualities of religious leader, king, warrior, and lawgiver. He was the right man for the needs of the Sikhs of his day. He devoted them to steel, and hence the wor-
