Chapter 10

HINDUISM AND CHRISTIANITY CONTRASTED.

In the previous chapter I have endeavoured to show and emphasize the teachings common to Christianity and Hinduism.

But it must not be forgotten that if their consonances are neither few nor unimportant their dissonances are far more numerous and fundamental. They meet us at almost every point of our investigation and impress us with a sense of a vast contrast.

We will now give ourselves to a brief study of these divergences.

The two faiths differ essentially.

1. In their Initial Conceptions.

Their starting points are almost antipodal. This will seem evident when we study their views:

(_a_) In reference to religion itself. Christianity is briefly and beautifully explained by its Founder (Luke 15) as a divine method of seeking and saving the lost. It is the expression of the Father’s love yearning for the return, and seeking the complete salvation, of the son. It is primarily and pervasively a “Thus saith the Lord”—a revelation from God manward. Hinduism on the other hand has been the embodiment of man’s aspirations after God. Wonderfully pathetic, beautiful and elevating these aspirations have been at times; and doubtless guided at points by Him whom they so ardently sought. They perhaps represent the highest reach of the soul in its self-propelled flight towards its Maker. It is true that orthodox Hindus variously describe the Vedas as eternal, as a direct emanation from Brahma and as a divine entity in themselves. They constitute the “Sruti”—“the directly heard” message of God to man. But the authors of the Upanishads, which are a part of _Sruti_, absolve man from the necessity of accepting the four Vedas and propound a way of salvation entirely separate from, and independent of, vedic prayers and ritual. The direct influence of the Vedas upon religious life and ritual in India today is practically _nil_; while that of the Upanishads, which are the _fons et origo_ of the all-potent philosophy, is felt in every Hindu life, however humble.

This aspect of the two faiths is not unexpected when we remember:

(_b_) Their very dissimilar conceptions of God. The monotheism of the one and the pantheism of the other are clear and uncompromising. They have stood for many centuries as representatives, to the world, of these very dissimilar beliefs. Christianity inherited from Judaism its passion for monotheism, and brings the “God of Israel” very near to our race as the infinitely loving Father. It has not only emphasized His personality but reveals, with incomparable power and tenderness, His supreme interest in our race and His loving purpose concerning it.

On the other hand Hinduism derived its highest wisdom and deepest convictions concerning the Divine Being from the ancient rishis through the Upanishads. There they accepted, once for all, the doctrine of the Brahm (neuter)—the one passionless, immovable, unsearchable, ineffable Being who, without a second, stands as the source and embodiment of all real being.

Barth truly remarks that “this is the most imposing and subtle of the systems of ontology yet known in the history of philosophy.” This inscrutable Being is the only _real_ existence, all else being illusion projected by ignorance. This doctrine of identity or nonduality (_advaitha_) lies at the foundation of all their religious thinking. This Being which is devoid of qualities (_nirguna_), because incomprehensible to man, can be of no comfort to him. In this respect the Hindu is an agnostic of a profound type.

For this mystical philosophy one word of praise is eminently due. It is not to be confounded with that species of Western pantheism which is rank materialism—making God and the material universe convertible terms. Sir William Jones emphasized this difference—the difference between a system which, in all that it sees, sees God alone, and that which acknowledges no God beyond what it sees. One is the bulwark of materialism; the other its most uncompromising enemy. Whatever the defects of this philosophy of the Upanishads it must be confessed to be deeply spiritual.

And yet in this very effort to conserve the spiritual and transcendental character of Brâhm the Aryan sage has covered Him with the dark robe of mysticism and pushed Him into a far off realm beyond human ken.

So that the only intimations which man has of Him are confessedly false projection of ignorance. For all practical purposes this hypothetical deity—for the very existence of Brâhm is only assumed as a working hypothesis by the theosophist—is a nonentity to the worshipper. How can a being lend itself to a devout soul in worship when it is rigidly devoid of every quality that can inspire or attract the soul? This very fact has led the ordinary Hindu to seek and develop something else as an object of his devotion. Hence the polytheism of Brahmanism. Let it not be supposed that there is any antagonism between their pantheism and their polytheism. One is the natural offspring of the other. The numberless gods which today are supposed to preside over the destiny of the people, are but emanations, the so-called “play” of Brâhm. Properly speaking they are neither supreme nor possessed of truly divine attributes. Even the Hindu Triad—Brahma (masculine gender), Vishnu and Siva—are but manifestations of the delight of the eternal Soul to invest itself with qualities (_guna_). These three gods are no more real existences than are the myriad other children of illusion (_maya_) and ignorance (_avidya_) which constitute the universe. And as they had their existence, so will they find their dissolution, in the fiat of the Supreme Soul. India finds polytheism no more satisfying than it does pantheism. There is no more assurance of comfort in worshipping 330,000,000 gods, whose multitude not only bewilders but also carries in itself refutation to the claim of any one to be supreme, than there is in the yearning after an absolute, ineffable Being which cruelly evades human thought and definition. It is no wonder therefore that the growth of the Hindu pantheon is constant, and both follows, and bears testimony to, the craving of the human soul for a God who can satisfy its wants and realize its deepest longings.

(_c_) Their theories of the universe are also divergent. According to the Bible the outer world is the creation, by God, out of nothing. To the Brahman of all times the idea of pure creation has seemed absurd. _Ex nihilo nihil fit_ is an axiom of all their philosophies. Whether it be the Vedantin who tells us that the material universe is the result of Brâhm invested with illusion, or the Sankya philosopher who attributes it to _prakriti_—the power of nature; or the Veisashika sage who traces it to eternal atoms; they all practically posit that it is eternal.

Of course the Christian doctrine of creation from nothing does not, as the Hindu too often assumes, maintain that the universe is a result without a cause; for it teaches that God Himself, by the exercise of His sovereign will and omnipotence, is an all-adequate cause to all created things.

If the Vedantin claims that creation is impossible, how can he at the same time believe that ideas have from time to time sprung up in the mind of Brâhm, which ideas themselves have put on illusion and appear to human ignorance as the universe? It is, to say the least, no easier for him, with his conception of Brâhm, to account for the origin of such ideas than it is for the Christian to trace the source of the material universe to an all-wise and omnipotent God. Nor does the Sankya philosopher, by practically denying God and positing the eternal existence of souls and _prakriti_, remove half the difficulties that he creates.

(_d_) Again, the teachings of the two faiths concerning man are no less divergent. In the Bible man is represented as a son of God. He is fallen indeed, but with a trace, even in his degradation, of his Father’s lineaments. We follow him in his willful rebellion against his Father; he plunges into the lowest depths of sin. But we still recognise in him the promise of infinite and eternal possibilities of spiritual expansion and happiness. Indeed we find at work a divinely benevolent scheme through which he is to be ultimately exalted to heavenly places in Christ Jesus and made the heir of infinite bliss.

On the other hand, Hindu Shastras represent man as mere illusion—the poor plaything of the absolute One. For man to assume and to declare his own real existence is, they say, but the raving of his ignorance (_avidya_). To the practical Western mind it seems almost impossible that a philosopher should be so lost in his philosophy as to aver that he, the thinker and father of his philosophy, has no _real_ existence—is only illusion, concerning which real existence can only be assumed for practical purposes. What must be said of the philosophy begotten by such an illusive being? Shall it not also be doomed to vanish with him into the nothingness whence he came and which he now really is, if he only knew it? Sir Monier Williams aptly remarks,—“Common sense tells an Englishman that he really exists himself and that everything he sees around him really exists also. He cannot abandon these two primary convictions. Not so the Hindu Vedantist. Dualism is his bugbear, and common sense, when it maintains any kind of real duality, either the separate independent existence of a man’s own spirit and of God’s spirit, or of spirit and matter, is guilty of gross deception.”

Another conception regards the human soul (_jivatma_) as a part of the Supreme Soul. This theory adds small comfort or dignity to it when we remember that this whole of which it is declared a part is an intangible, unattractive Being—devoid of all qualities (_nirguna_). If the soul existed from eternity as a part of the divine Soul and will ultimately resume that interrupted existence, what value, ethical or otherwise, can be attached to that bondage of manhood which was thrust upon the soul (or was it voluntarily assumed?)? This part of deity called individual soul certainly cannot be improved by its human conditions; and the question is not—“How soon can I pass through this slough of despond,” but, “why was I thrust into it at all? Was it a mere sacred whim (_tiruvileiadal_) of Brâhm?”

Moreover this view of human “self,” or soul, carries one out too far into the sea of transcendental metaphysics to be of any practical use, religiously. We know something of man—this strange compound of soul and body—and we are deeply interested in his history and destiny; the more deeply because we are included in this category.

But who knows of the eternal soul—that part of the absolute—separate from human conditions and apart from all experiences of men? Is it not simply the dream of the philosopher, a convenient assumption to satisfy the needs of an impractical ontology? To magnify the soul apart from human life, and to interpret human life as the self’s lowest degradation and something which is to be shaken off as quickly as possible, can hardly be sound philosophy, and is certainly bad theology. It simply reduces this life into an irremedial evil, with no moral significance or spiritual value.

This leads us to the second point of contrast:—

2. Their Ultimate Aim or Goal.

What do these two religions promise to do for those who embrace them? The work which Christianity proposes to itself is difficult and glorious. It takes fallen, sin-sodden, man and leads him out into a new life of holiness; it opens out to him a long and broad vista of life with an ever-enlarging, blissful, activity. Christ said that He came into the world that men might have life and have it abundantly. He came not only to save the lost but also to develop all the grand possibilities of the soul to their utmost, and to launch the human bark upon a voyage of everlasting life, which means unceasing growth in all its noblest qualities, activities and enjoyments.

Hindu philosophy and faith, on the other hand, unite in commanding that human endowments be starved, qualities suppressed, activity of all kinds stayed, ambition and every other desire, even the noblest and purest, quenched. All the essential elements of life itself are to be mortified that the soul may, unhampered by its own entanglement, reach that consummation which is supposed to be final. And what is it? Who can tell? The Aryan philosopher himself stands mute in its presence. All that we can predicate of it is not life and happiness, according to any standard of human experience known or imagined. The idea that the individual soul will finally sink into and blend with the Absolute Being as a drop of water returns to and mingles with its mother ocean may seem plausible to the philosopher; but of such an hypothetical existence we know absolutely nothing and can expect nothing that would inspire hope and kindle ambition.

In Hinduism there are heavens many and not a few hells. But unlike the places of reward and punishment connected with Christianity, they represent nothing final. They are more like the purgatory of the Catholics, and represent only steps in the progress of the soul towards emancipation.

Concerning the general view of human life, its import and outcome, the two faiths are antipodal. Christianity is brightly optimistic. The future of every Christian is to be as the sun shining more and more until the perfect day. Unceasing progress and eternal expansion are held out before him. His is an heritage that will abide and will resound in an ever increasing anthem of praise throughout time and eternity. Nothing can occur hereafter to rob him of that crown of glory which is the gift of God and which is to result in likeness to Him.

Hinduism, on the other hand, is essentially pessimistic. It teaches that human life is totally and irremediably evil. Every power of the soul must be exercised in the endeavour to shake off this terrible burden of separate human existence and escape all the conditions of this life. That is the only relief possible. To the Hindu the question so often discussed in Christian lands—“Is life worth living?”—has no interest, since it has but one answer possible. And even if the Indian sage forgets his present conditions and pessimism long enough to gaze down the long and dismal vista of numberless births to the final consummation (_Sayujya_)—the final union with God—he finds in that nothing which the Christian does not discover in tenfold richness and beauty in the Bible. To be partaker of the Divine Nature is a blessed reality to the Christian without his forfeiting, in the least, the dignity of self-identity and the glory of separate personal consciousness. To have the “life hid with Christ in God”; to be able triumphantly to exclaim—“I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”; to experience the blessedness and power of abiding in Christ and to realize the answer to Christ’s own prayer to the Father—“that they also may be in us”—all this is the joy and hope of the Christian in a manner and to a degree utterly impossible to the Hindu whose union with the supreme spirit is the loss and end of self, including all those faculties which are capable of enjoyment.

Looking from another standpoint, we perceive that the aim of the religion of Christ is the banishing of sin from the life and the establishing of character. Sin is the dark background of Christianity. It explains its origin and reveals its universality. Its whole concern is with the emancipation of man from the presence and power of sin. To the Vedantin, on the other hand, sin, in the Christian sense of it, is an impossibility. Where God is all and all is God there can be no separate will to antagonize the divine will. Monism necessarily, in the last analysis, carries every act and motive back to the supreme Will and establishes an all-inclusive necessitarianism which is fatal to human freedom; and it therefore excludes sin as an act of rebellion against God. Much is made of sin, so called, in the Hindu system, as we shall presently see; but nowhere is more care needed than here that we may distinguish between ideas conveyed by this word in these two faiths. In Christianity the ethical character of sin is emphasized. It is described as a thing of moral obliquity and spiritual darkness. According to the Upanishads the only defect of man is an intellectual one. He is in bondage to ignorance. Plato made ignorance the chief source of moral evil and proposed philosophy as a remedy for the malady. The Vedantin differs from the Greek philosopher only in his more absolute condemnation of (_avidya_) ignorance as the mother of all human ills. Remove this—let a man attain unto a true knowledge of self, of the fact that he has no _real_ separate existence and is one with the Supreme Soul—and he becomes thereby qualified for his emancipation and ends his long cycle of births. Moreover, in the polytheism of the Puranas and in the laws and customs of Manu sin generally means only ceremonial defilement and the violation of customs and usages.

Hinduism, therefore, has never addressed itself to the task of helping man as a _sinner_—of regenerating his heart, of establishing within him that beautiful thing known in Christian lands and philosophies as a well rounded, symmetrical and perfect character. For many reasons and in many ways it has aimed at a very different consummation in man from that consistently sought by Christ and His religion.

3. The Agency and Means Recognized and Appealed to by those Faiths Respectively.

By what power and instrumentality are the above ends to be sought and attained? They will be, doubtless, quite as divergent as the aims themselves were found to be.

In Christianity God Himself is the agent who works out its scheme of salvation. He entered, through infinite condescension, into human life and relations in the Incarnation. He wrought, in the days of His flesh, the redemption of our race—a work which finds its climax in His atoning death. In the person of the Holy Spirit He is working and bringing to full fruition, in the hearts and lives of men, the redemption which He wrought.

Into this, man enters not as an efficient cause of his own redemption. He cannot atone for his past, nor has he the assurance within himself for the future. Hence the atoning sacrifice of Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit of God which becomes in him a source of peace, of power and of hope. Yet, in this divine work, man is neither passive nor apathetic. In the exercise of saving faith he not only appropriates the works and gifts of God but also enters into full and active harmony and coöperation with God in his own regeneration and salvation. So that the Apostle Paul aptly urges the Philippian Christians (Phil. 2:12) to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

How different is the picture presented to us by the Hindu Shastras of the means of human redemption—a picture, however, consonant with the aims which they have set before themselves to accomplish for man. The first and all-present fact of this faith is the terrible loneliness and isolation of man in the great struggle of life. His destiny is in his own hands, and he must fight single-handed against a thousand odds in the awful battle for emancipation.

_Karma_ is the word used to express this thought which has possessed the Hindu mind from the earliest days to the present. This word may be translated “works,” and means the acts by which the soul determines its own destiny. In Vedic times the all-powerful works were sacrifice and ritual. In the Upanishads they are meditation and self-mortification. Today they are ceremonial, with works of charity, self-renunciation or religious mendicancy generally added.

In pre-Buddhistic days sacrifice abounded in Brahmanism; and it grew to such proportions that the revolt headed by Gautama and incarnated in Buddhism became universal. But vicariousness was largely wanting as an element in, and as a cause of, their sacrifices. They were rather offered with a view to nourish the gods and as a means of acquiring power. He who sacrificed a hundred horses was said to gain thereby even larger power than Indra himself possessed—a power which enabled him to dethrone this god of the heavens. Such was the power said to inhere in sacrifice that the gods themselves combined to prevent men from the practice lest they should rise to larger power than themselves! With the triumph and subsequent absorption of Buddhism into Brahmanism the latter abandoned its sacrifices and accepted the Buddhistic emphasis upon _Karma_, and doomed every soul to the tread-mill of its own destiny. To every human word, deed or thought, however insignificant, there is fruit which must be eaten by the soul.

It is claimed for this doctrine that it well emphasizes the conservation of moral force. Christianity also conserves, to the last, moral force; not however by insisting upon man bearing himself the whole burden, but by enabling him to cast the burden upon the Lord who graciously offers to bear the load of human guilt belonging to every soul.

Another word in India which is synonymous with large power and merit is _Yoga_. It is inculcated in the _Yoga_ philosophy and is supposed to stand for a high mental discipline which speedily qualifies one for absorption into the Deity. It is manifested in the form of abstract meditation and austerity—an austerity embodied in asceticism and self-mortification. From early times this method has been held high in honour, and today is universally esteemed as the most powerful and speedy boat wherewith to cross the sullen stream of human existence. The grand object of _Yoga_ is to teach how to concentrate the mind—an object based upon the idea that the great and sole need of man is not moral and spiritual regeneration, but more light, _i.e._, a clear, intellectual apprehension of things. Not only is this basis of philosophy false in supposing that such intellectual gymnastics can finally exalt and save a soul, it is also radically defective in its general rules and practical results. No one who has studied the childish rules which are prescribed to the Yogis, or has observed in India many of even the better type of Yogis can fail to be impressed with the degradation to mind and morals which is indissolubly connected with it. Barth’s observation on the processes of _Yoga_ is eminently true. “Conscientiously observed,” he says, “they can only issue in folly and idiocy; and it is, in fact, under the image of a fool or an idiot that the wise man is often delineated for us in the _Puranas_ for instance.”(9)

Meditation upon the Divine Being and upon self is a supreme duty inculcated by Christianity. Here God is a Personality upon whom the mind can be centred and find rest and exaltation. The self also is conceived as a being with a separate and infinitely high destiny marked out before it. Concentrated thought, deep emotion and lofty purpose, in view of these objects, is supremely profitable. But what is there left worthy of thought for the Vedantist _Yogi_ when the Divine Being is the unknowable and the Yogi himself the deluded child of (_Maya_) illusion and (_avidya_) ignorance—those twin enemies to all true and worthy knowledge? It cannot be elevating to detach the mind from things worldly and attach it to nothing!

Incarnation, as we have seen above, has in later times become a popular doctrine in India. The _avatars_ (“descents”) of members of the Hindu pantheon, especially of Vishnu, the second member of the Triad, wield a large influence in the religious life of the masses. Yet the doctrines should, by no means, be regarded as identical or even similar in Hinduism and Christianity. It should be remembered that in Hinduism it is believed and magnified by those who also hold the law of _Karma_ as supreme. There is hardly a Vaishnavite and Krishnaolater who does not believe firmly that his destiny is writ large upon his forehead—that nothing that this or any god may do can affect his _adrishta_ which is that felt but unseen power working out the _Karma vivaka_, or fruition of works, done by him in former births. This belief directly antagonizes incarnation from the Christian standpoint, where it appears as God’s mighty instrument of grace to man. Not so from the Hindu standpoint. The incarnations of Vishnu are referred to in their _Shastras_ “as consequences of deeds which the god himself had performed. One was the fruit of sins he had committed; another of a curse which had been pronounced upon him.” And yet they are doubtless frequently referred to as undertaken with a view to benefit and help our race. If such was their intention it is difficult to see how that benefit could be any other than racial and temporary; for there is no intimation in any of them of its being a means for the spiritual uplifting, or moral regeneration, of one human soul.

There is no finality of blessing supposed to be in any Hindu incarnation; and it would be sacrilege to compare the character of any one of them with the wonderful incarnation of Jesus. It is not so much that many of them appear as fish, fowl and beast, and as such are devoid of moral aim and efficiency; not a few are immoral, some of them, like Krishna, representing the worst type of sensuality and moral obliquity. Such examples, in the popular mythology of the land, have done, and are doing, inexpressible harm to the people and the country. “Like God like people”; and when the god is highly popular and conspicuously immoral the result will be correspondingly great.

In connection with the doctrine of _avatar_ has arisen the well-known _bhakti marga_—“the way of faith.” Many believe that the latter was the source of the former and that both were affected by Christian teaching. In any case they are closely connected. Among many this way of love and devotion to individual gods has gained preëminence over the other two ways of salvation—knowledge (_gnana marga_) and works (_Karma-marga_)—though it should not be forgotten that _bhakti_ itself is regarded as a work of merit and is by no means synonymous with Christian faith. Yet it must be confessed, as we have seen above, that Hinduism comes nearer, at this point than at any other, to touching the religion of Jesus.

The blindness of this faith is also a serious objection to it. To the _bhaktan_ “faith is the great thing.” It matters not how hideous, morally and spiritually, the object of faith may be, _bhakti_ will triumphantly vindicate itself in the ultimate salvation of the soul. “Repose faith in the idols, in ceremonial observances, in ascetic performances, in all that you religiously do, and blessing will rest upon you.” This is the _bhaktan’s_ creed; it is essentially the teaching of the “Divine Song”—Bhagavad-Gita. And it is this which has so powerfully helped the moral and spiritual degeneracy of India during the past few centuries. Men have attached themselves absolutely to gods whose mythology, detailed in the _Puranas_ and _Tantras_, is a narrative of lust and of moral crookedness, devotion to which can mean only moral contamination and spiritual death. Such a faith, in its nature and results, can only be contrasted with a loving devotion to the incomparably holy and lovely Jesus.

4. The Processes of These Two Religions.

In other words we inquire, in what manner do they propose to attain unto their respective ends?

Christianity brings man into the new, divine life through the narrow gate of a new birth. He stands justified before God and, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, he begins that course of spiritual development which steadily progresses towards perfection in truth and holiness. He, “beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord is changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord.” And in the fullness of his acquired, or divinely bestowed, powers he passes through the gate of death, once for all, to enter upon the full glories of eternal life beyond.

In Hinduism _metempsychosis_ is the great process. “As the embodied soul,” says the Bhagavad-Gita, “moves swiftly on through boyhood, youth and age, so will it pass through other forms hereafter.” This doctrine is universally regarded as the all-potent solvent of human ills and the process which alone can lead to ultimate rest. In transmigration the soul is supposed to pass on from body to body in its wearisome, dismal progress, towards emancipation. The bodies in which it is incarcerated will be of all grades, according to the character of the life in the previous births, from the august and divine body of a Brahman down to a tenement of inorganic, lifeless rock. From ancient times this weary process of working out the law of _Karma_ has seized upon the imagination and wrought itself into the very being of the people of India; so that today it is the universal way of salvation believed and taught by the Vedantin, accepted with assurance by the idolater, and the one great bugbear in the mind of even the common coolie.

This doctrine has its roots in Vedantism and is an essential part of it. The Brahman theosophist taught that all souls emanated from Brâhm and must return to their source along the way of metempsychosis. All acts, words and thoughts find their exact reward in future births. If a man steals a cow he shall be reborn as a crocodile or lizard; if grain, as a rat; if fruit, as an ape. The murderer of a Brahman endures long-suffering in the several hells and is then born again in the meanest bodies to atone for his crime. According to Manu the soul might pass “through ten thousand millions” of births. The passageway to absorption is through Brahmanhood only. Transmigration is the doom of all others.

The prevalence of this doctrine in India is one of the saddest facts connected with its life. It is sombre and depressing in the extreme and robs the mind of a good portion of the small comfort which the idea of absorption might otherwise bring to it. Though the doctrine has found a footing among other nations at different periods in their history, nowhere else has it prevailed so long and exercised such a mighty influence over high and low as it has in that land.

The doctrine is based upon a hypothetical identity of soul in different successive bodies—a hypothesis which can never be proved, and which contradicts the universal consciousness. Until that erratic Englishwoman, Mrs. Besant, appeared, no one claimed to possess the first intimation, through consciousness or memory, of a previous existence in another body. Ancient rishis and a few others were said by _others_ to have possessed it. Strange, if such a re-incarnation were a fact, that none has ever been assured of it by any other agent than the philosopher in his search after truth. Stranger still that men in such countless millions should hang their whole destiny upon so rotten a cord—so unethical a theory—as is here involved. Why should any moral being be put through a course of discipline, or be punished, for a past of which he has no knowledge? To inflict a punishment for any conduct or thought to which the memory does not bear evidence, nor conscience furnish assent, nor the whole realm of conscious experience reveal a trace, is both unethical and in violation of the deepest laws of being.

Nor does it appear how this process, as a method of discipline, can achieve what is expected of it. It is maintained that, ultimately, all the myriads of separate souls will cross over this terrible stream of human existence and reach the further shore of emancipation. But what aptitude, or efficiency, there can be in metempsychosis itself to reach this end is not apparent. That the soul should ultimately reach beatitude rather than absolute, irremedial, degradation through this process is merely _assumed_, and that without adequate foundation in reason.

In view of the well-known power of sin and its tendency to settle down, through habit, into a permanent type of character; in view of the well-attested scientific doctrine of heredity—a doctrine which easily accounts for and explains every semblance of truth in transmigration—it seems incredible that any soul in India could, through transmigration, finally emerge out of the quicksand of sin and corruption which surround and overwhelm it, especially when it is assumed that it has already passed through many births.

It should also be remembered that, at its basis, this doctrine has its face turned, with equal repugnance, against all sorts of work. Desire of every kind, good as well as evil, is to be suppressed inasmuch as it is the source of action, and action must bear its fruit, the eating of which prolongs existence which, itself, is the burden to be removed. The question is not how to become good and to overcome evil in life, but how to shake off all personality. And this is accomplished, they say, by abandoning all action and suppressing all desire whatever. How this can result in holiness and lofty character is not evident. It is true that a certain sort of “good works” have large value in this process of emancipation. But quiescence rather than character is the thing emphasized. Noble thoughts and aspirations are as fatal as are the basest to immediate deliverance—they all disturb that equilibrium of the soul which ushers it into its final rest. “The confinement of fetters is the same whether the chain is of gold or of iron.”

It is doubtless true that this doctrine has some elements of truth, otherwise it could not have survived and thriven as it has. It bears consistent testimony to the immortality of the soul. It also teaches the important truth that the soul must receive the full reward of all its deeds in a body. It is also, in a certain way, a response to that deep instinct of justice which is a part of human nature. But these cannot atone for its fundamental defects and errors. Some claim that its highest merit is that it is a powerful deterrent from sin and incentive to virtue. Beyond the remarks made above the all-sufficient refutation to such a statement is the present condition of the Hindu race itself. If any people on earth, more than others, sin with “fatal facility” and seem perfectly oblivious to the character and consequences of their deeds they are the descendants of the rishis of old and the heirs, in rich abundance, of this and its cognate doctrines. To judge this doctrine by its results in India is to pronounce it an error and a curse.

5. The Ideals of the Two Faiths.

No religion can regenerate or exalt men simply through a code of moral laws, or even through impassioned appeals to a higher life and threats of eternal punishment. There must be, above and beyond all this, a life which stands boldly forth as an example and inspiration to good men. The noble example of the royal Gautama did more perhaps than any other thing to disseminate Buddhism throughout India. His supreme renunciation and his loyalty to truth exalted him before his disciples and transformed him into an ideal for Buddhists of future ages. This also is a preëminent characteristic of Christianity. It is the religion of the Christ. _He_ stands supreme in it—not merely as its Founder, Expounder and Life. He is also the embodiment of His own teaching, the ideal of life and conduct which He has brought to men. His command to all is not—“Do this or that”; but “Follow Me”—not, “Believe in this truth or another,” but “Believe in Me,” who am “the way, the truth and the life.” For these twenty centuries He has stood before the world as the incomparable, unapproachable, perfect ideal which has wrought more for the regeneration of the world than all other forces put together.

Do we find any counterpart to this in Hinduism? Do we find any life or example which stands related to it as Buddha’s to Buddhism or as Mohammed’s to Mohammedanism, or, even in a slight degree, as Christ’s to Christianity? None whatever. Starting with the absolute Brâhm, we have seen this Supreme Soul shrouded in unfathomable, unapproachable darkness. We descend to the divine emanations of this eternal Soul and search in vain among the millions of beings which constitute the Hindu pantheon to find one who could become an ideal of life and an inspiration to the soul struggling against sin. “Godlike life could scarcely start from its examples of incarnations; for none of their lives is superhuman in holiness. Even Rama, the most blameless character in Hindu mythological literature, is by no means perfect; while the most popularly worshipped incarnation committed deeds so vile that even the narrator warns his hearers not to take him for their example. ‘Listen to the story of Hari, but do not think of doing his deeds,’ he says.”

We look again at the sages and heroes of India with the hope that we may possibly find one who stood conspicuous among others as the perfect type of character and the helper of those struggling after a better and holier life. Here again we are wofully disappointed, though it must be confessed that there are loftier types of goodness and of self-discipline among them than we found among the gods. Thus, with no worthy ideal of life before them and no one to inspire them to better things, the wonder is that men in India have not descended to a lower level than they have. It is perhaps this very reason that has discouraged them and has led them to strive to attain unto beatitude, not by perfecting, but by destroying humanity. The renunciation and loss, rather than the realization, of self has thus become their aim and ambition. Perhaps it is for this same reason also that the votaries of this faith have constructed one of the most elaborate systems of ceremonial and ritual that the world has ever witnessed; whereby, in the absence of a high ideal and of a divine inspiration, the whole life from birth even until after death, may be directed and protected from evil.

6. The Credentials of the Two Faiths.

Each has its Scriptures in which are found its original teachings including a declaration of its source and message to man. Beyond this general statement very little can be predicated of these two in common. The theories of their inspiration are dissimilar. In the Bible there is no theory of inspiration taught. Its testimony to its own divine origin is indirect rather than direct. And yet the evidence, both internal and external, that the Bible was written by men under Divine guidance and inspiration is unmistakable and convincing. Whether we have regard to its prophetic utterances, its record of miracles, its plan of salvation, its delineation of the incomparable life and character of Jesus Christ; or whether we behold its marvellous power among men of all classes and of all countries and tongues—all that pertain to it point unmistakably to its divine origin.

Nor can any one fail to appreciate the beauty and sublimity of some of the Vedic hymns of the Hindus or the profound depth of the philosophic reach of the Upanishads, those sublime “guesses at truth,” or the great excellence of the Bhagavad-Gita which is the gem of all Hindu literature. And yet the puerilities of many and the obscenity of others of the Vedic songs and prayers are well-known. So are the strange vagaries and the rambling character of many parts of the Upanishads. And as for the Bhagavad-Gita it is simply a dialogue whose gist is the argument of Krishna—“the Supreme God”—to urge the tender-hearted and the conscience-smitten Arjuna to slay his relatives in war. Its argument is that no evil which one man may do to another is of any moment, since he cannot touch his soul which is eternal and beyond the reach of any human power! In the destiny of a soul what can the destruction of one of its bodies signify? This is an argument which is subversive of morality and of social order.

When one leaves these earlier scriptures of Brahmanism and takes up the later productions—the _Puranas_ and Tantras—he comes into a very different atmosphere, most of which is morally pestilential and spiritually degrading. The ascription of divine inspiration and special heavenly guidance in the production of such literature is nought else but blasphemy. To pass over from the study of the Bible, with its transcendent beauty, its perfect ethics, its heavenly spirit, its Divine Saviour and way of salvation, to the Scriptures of India, especially the more recent parts, is to exchange the pure air of heaven for the charnel house.

The “divine brevity” of the Bible is one of its most striking features. Few things could impress one with the heavenly source of this Book more markedly than its wonderful omissions.

How very different when we examine the countless tomes of the sacred literature of India! If the salvation of a soul depended upon the reading of even a hundredth part of these, who then could be saved? Their very multiplicity and their voluminous character debar any man, however learned, from an acquaintance with more than a small fraction of them. Moreover, among learned pandits of today the _Smriti_ (traditions) are more frequently quoted as authority, and they wield a larger power over the life of the people, than the _Sruti_ (revelation) itself.

In the Christian Bible we are permitted to see a _progressive_ revelation. From age to age, and from page to page, we see new glimpses of truth and are attracted by the divine light whose illumination grows ever brighter from Genesis to Revelation. This is what we should have expected from a God-inspired book. We should have looked forward to a gradual transition from the starry midnight of the far-off past to the rising, in Christ, of the sun of righteousness with healing in His wings.

In Hindu literature this process is reversed. The surest, I may almost say, the only, evidence we have of divine guidance in the production of this literature is to be found among the earliest productions. There we see earnestness of purpose combined with heavenly aspiration and deep searching after truth. Subsequent to this we see the light vanishing and earnestness giving place to triviality of thought, to the ravings of superstition, to the inanities of ceremonialism and to the laws of social and religious bondage. All this progress downward is in direct ratio to our distance from Vedic times.

What could be more conclusive proof of the human source and direction of these prolific writings? Educated Hindus are sensible of this fact. They constantly hark back to the Vedas, to the Upanishads and to the Bhagavad-Gita, conscious of the fact that these represent the high water-mark of their faith and literature.

7. Other Distinguishing Traits.

These are not a few, and they aid in presenting the two faiths in bold relief.

(_a_) Their attitude towards the individual and Society. Nowhere are they more antipodal to each other than here. Christianity is preëminently a faith which exalts the individual. It presents, with marked clearness, his rights and responsibilities. His liberty of thought, of belief and of action, is fundamentally sacred and to be conserved at all hazards.

Hinduism is the staunchest foe of individual freedom. It concedes no right to the individual which others are bound to respect. It has erected above the individual, and in such a way as to overshadow him entirely, the stupendous caste system. And it has subordinated his every right and privilege to the whim of this demon caste. Man is its abject slave—cannot swerve one inch from its dictates; and these reach down to the smallest detail of his life. If the vast majority of the members of a caste were high in their morals and strict in their integrity and pure in their beliefs, the aid to a higher life which this system might render to the individual would, in small part, compensate for its destruction of his manly independence. But caste discipline directs itself to petty forms and observances and to the perpetuation of mean jealousies rather than to the development of character.

In India alone is caste a religious institution. The Brahman merged the individual in the corporate body, thus perfecting his bondage; and he set class against class to prevent the lower from rising and to make national union impossible. Men were said to have been created differently even as different kinds of animals; to bring them together is as unnatural as it is sinful.

Thus, every man within the pale of this religion has his social, as his religious, status fixed unchangeably for him before his birth; and woe be to him who tries to shake off this bondage, or even in a small degree to kick against the pricks. No better system than this has been devised under heaven to rob man of his birthright of independence and self-respect. And the population of India bears, in its character and conduct, ample testimony to the truth of this statement.

(_b_) Connected closely with this is another aspect.

The religion of Jesus fosters progress. Not only do we behold Christian nations the most progressive, we also find that as this faith obtains in its purity, so do its votaries enjoy the large spirit and results of progress, both in religion, science, the arts and in civilization. In India, on the other hand, conservatism is a fetish and custom a divine law of conduct. In the West the question asked, as men approach a certain line of action, is whether it be reasonable? Among Hindus the invariable inquiry is,—is it customary?—did our forefathers practice it? This again is the legitimate product of the caste system. It conserves and deifies the past. It never tolerates a question as to the wisdom of the ancients. The code of Manu, which is the source and supreme authority for this system, has done more to stereotype and degrade social and religious life in India than has any other code in all the history of other lands.

(_c_) Another marked feature of the religion of Jesus is its exclusiveness. It claims to be the only way of salvation. Not that it is unwilling to acknowledge the truths which are found in other faiths. While it recognizes such, it maintains that they are but broken lights of the Truth which it presents in all its full-orbed glory. It reveals Christ as the fulfillment of the good and pious of all nations, and His revelation as the realization of all truth wherever found. But as a means of salvation it stands alone, and will brook no rivalry nor accept divided homage.

In Hinduism, on the other hand, we see tolerance incarnate. It is true that the caste system lends itself readily to intolerance, that some of the most refined and cruel forms of persecution are conducted by it against Christians today. Yet in itself this faith has a genius for toleration. It does not go out of its way to attack other faiths. On the contrary it generally reaches forward the flag of truce and peace to them. It willingly appropriates much of their teaching and ritual. It placed in its pantheon its arch-enemy, Buddha, and has dignified many of the demons of the primitive cult of South India in the same way. And herein lie the subtle power and supreme danger which inhere in it to other faiths.

(_d_) It must also be remembered that the faith of India is an ethnic faith, with no ambition to reach to other peoples beyond that peninsula. This faith has a hundred ways of expelling and excommunicating its members and only one doubtful door by which it may receive outsiders, namely, by the formation of a new caste.

Christianity, on the other hand, is preëminently a missionary religion. It claims to be the universal faith. The last commandment of the Lord upon earth and the first work of the Holy Spirit upon His descent was to propagate the faith and to carry it to many lands and peoples. Hinduism is conserved by its social organism of caste; Christianity, by its leavening influence upon all that comes in contact with it, and the outreaching power of its life within.

(_e_) Another difference is observable in the fact that while Christianity is always held as a system of saving truth to be believed, Hinduism, in its acceptance, does not involve the necessary belief of any doctrine or system of doctrine. It is well understood that a man of any belief, or of no belief, may be a genuine and orthodox Hindu provided he observes caste rules and ceremonies. It has been more than once insisted upon that a man may accept Christ as his Saviour and His religion as his firm belief and still remain a Hindu if he only submit to the demands of caste. Not a few Hindus are trying to live up to this strange dual system today! And I fear some native Christians have not got rid of the same delusion.

(_f_) There is also a marked difference in the moral standards of the two faiths. In a certain sense the moral code of Brahmanism, at its best, is lofty if not perfect. It enjoins a man not to lie, not to steal, not injure another, to be just, brave, hospitable and self-controlled. Some savage races inculcate, with more or less severity, the same moral lessons. But to Hindus as to savages these injunctions have represented the moral code; and whoever, among them, attains unto these, mostly negative, virtues, is deemed worthy of praise. In a sense the ten commandments communicated through Moses, obtain among Christians and are enjoined upon them today. But they, rather than represent the Christian’s ideal, indicate only the low water mark of his moral requirements. To say of a Christian gentleman today that he does not steal, or does not lie, is rather an insult than a compliment, since it assumes that he possesses only what is now considered a very elementary form of morality, such as the lower classes and children are supposed to practice. It is only as we follow Jesus Christ and sublimate this code in love (Matt. 22:37-40) that we rise to the full significance and divine content of morality. The Christian code rests not in negation, but commands a life of outgoing, active love. A lofty altruism must permeate his every act and give colouring to his whole life. Christ not only introduced and emphasized this golden rule; He taught that it was absolutely necessary (John 12:25; Matt. 5:44).

To the Hindu, on the other hand, the _lex talionis_ is a law of life still enforced. See, _e.g._, Vishnu Purana 5:19. He never thinks nor is he commanded by his religion to think, of aught but outward conformity to a moral code which is altogether inadequate to keep, direct and inspire him in life. This difficulty is, of course, enhanced when we remember that in the whole realm of Hindu life—whether it be of gods or of men—there is no one who looms up as a perfect example. It is therefore little wonder that in India today morality is at so low an ebb and that even the code which prevails there is so sadly and universally violated.

Hopkins aptly remarks in this connection: “This Christian ideal of today, which makes fair-mindedness, liberality of thought, and altruism the respective representatives of the savage virtues of manual honesty, truth-speaking and hospitality, is just what is lacking in the more primitive ideal formulated in the code of savages and of Brahman alike.... In India all the factors of the modern code are entirely lacking at the time when the old code was first completely formulated. Liberality of thought comes in with the era of the Upanishads; but it is a restricted freedom. Altruism is unknown to pure Brahmanism.”

Conclusion.

Considering therefore these two faiths in all their characteristics and tendencies we are warranted in concluding that Hinduism must wane and vanish. It is an ancient faith and has survived not a few storms. It has a strong place in the hearts of a great people. But the leaven of dissolution and death is mightily at work within it today. The times are changed, new circumstances are bringing in a revolution of thought. Foreign ideas, language and customs are the rage; a new civilization, the deadly foe to the strongholds of the faith, is supplanting the old. This faith has nothing to offer with a view to meeting this new and complicated situation. It opposes all progress; through its pundits and orthodox defenders it antagonizes modern civilization and scientific advancement at every point. It is given up to degrading idolatry and a debasing, all-absorbing ceremonialism. It is the foster-mother of ignorance.

The mighty influence of Christianity, on the other hand, is being felt by all in the land; and the thousand-headed, thousand-handed civilization of the West is grasping and slowly transforming all their ideas of life. Verily India is in the throes of a new birth. Hinduism has done some good, doubtless. It has had a mission in the world and that has unquestionably been, partly, in the conservation of the great doctrine of God’s immanence at a time when the western world had largely forgotten it. But this work is no longer needed. Today this truth is emphasized also by the Christian Church, and in the safe and practical way, in combination and harmony with the personality and fatherhood of God.

We can therefore look forward with confidence to the ultimate issue of this great conflict and see, through faith, the day when Christ shall reign supreme in that land.