"Never more were they to look on each other's faces"

This idea of the racial other parentally setting an example for the infantilized American and English publics also pertains to the youthful struggle with selfishness.  Not only is the example of selflessness set, but it is set in a way that the American and English public might best understand it.  

The Brahmins sacrificed years of their lives and alienation from their homeland, to reclaim the Moonstone that had been reduced to a mere trinket on “the bosom of a woman’s dress” (Collins 466) where but a few could know its splendour. And all-importantly, the Brahmin’s do not do this for themselves, but for the “innumerable throng” (Collins 465) of Indians, pilgrimaging to the sacred stone for religious purification, but also for those that oppress them, the American and English publics.  

This image included in the Harper's Weekly version of The Moonstone, depicts the three Brahmins in various poses as they separate from each other after returning the Moonstone. The poses are deeply reminiscent of Christian trinitarian symbology. The priest in the middle is perhaps the most identifiable with his arms outstretched like Jesus crucified. The priest on the left has his hands clasped together as if praying - an invocation of the Holy Spirit. The priest on the right has turned away from the others, like God the father in the common saying "turns his face away" from his Son on the cross. The Christian gospel, arguably the most famous story of selflessness, is thus evoked by Hindoo Brahmins, not as satire or sacrilege, but as a westernized expression of the sacrifice the racial other makes.

The Moonstone alongside the images and texts it was published with is a call for those of all races to abandon selfishness and ignorance, abandon colonial and racial binaries, and instead to set an example for each other in knowledge and selflessness as a global community.  

Works Cited:

Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. Edited by John Sutherland, Oxford University Press, 1999.

"Never more were they to look upon each other's faces." Harper’s Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, 8 Aug. 1868. pp. 487.