Mohammedanism has nothing of the kind; it denies even the possibility of divine "descent," and its animus throughout the centuries has been one of antagonism to the incarnation doctrine of other faiths.

The Quran is largely wanting in the tropical warmth and legendary lore which is such a resource and comfort to the Indian mind, and which therefore abounds in the sacred writings of the Brahmans.

Doubtless, the simplicity and intelligibility of its creed—one God, one prophet, one book—commends Mohammedanism to the minds of many. But simplicity is not a foible of the religious mind of India. It has always craved the complex, the mystical, and the unfathomable. It delights in inconsistencies, and indulges freely in the irreconcilable mysteries of faith. Hinduism, being the child of the Hindu mind, abounds in tropical exuberance of spiritual exercise and "amusements," which seem childish and inane to all other people.

The teaching of Mohammed has, therefore, very little that can appeal with power, carry conviction, and bring contentment to the people of India.

In nothing, perhaps, is this more manifestly marked than in the conception of the deity above referred to. Islam is a most uncompromising form of Unitarianism. It is bitterly opposed to any doctrine which brings God down to men and renders Him intelligible to the common mind. It denies the possibility of the divine putting on human, or any other, nature.

Hinduism, on the other hand, is the very antithesis of all this. At first, this was not so. But its rigid pantheism gradually necessitated manifestations of the divine, in order that faith and devotion might be made possible. And, in later centuries, the doctrine of incarnation was accepted as a haven of rest to the Hindu mind and soon became a wild passion of its soul. There is no other people on earth who have carried the doctrine of incarnation (Avatar) to such excess of imaginings as to create such abundantly grotesque and fanciful appearances of their many divinities. Normally, then, the Mohammedan faith, at its very core, must be unsatisfying and even repulsive to the tropical Hindu mind. It was brought here at the point of the sword; and, for centuries, it was the faith of a ruling power whose custom was to tax heavily all people who did not conform, outwardly at least, to the State religion.

After Islam had become established and secure in its success in India, when it could relax its grip upon the sword and relinquish something of the spirit of intolerance which characterized it, it had to meet and cope with a greater foe than that of the battle-field. Hinduism has always exercised a great benumbing influence upon all faiths which have come into contact and conflict with it. It has insinuated itself into the mind of the conquerors and laid its palsied hand upon every department of religious thought and life. So that, after a few centuries of prosperity in India, Islam began to forget its narrow bigotry and uncompromising severity and fraternized more or less with the religion of the country. Little by little a latitudinarianism crept in, which found its culmination in that remarkable man, Akbar the Great, who entertained the teachers of all faiths and encouraged a fearless discussion of their respective merits. Dr. Wherry writes: "The tolerance of Akbar, who not only removed the poll-tax from all his non-Moslem subjects, but who established a sort of parliament of religions, inviting Brahmans, Persian Sufis, Parsee fire-worshippers, and Jesuit priests to freely discuss in his presence the special tenets of their faith and practice, was remarkable. He went farther, and promulgated an eclectic creed of his own and constituted himself a sort of priest-king in which his own dictum should override everything excepting the letter of the Quran. His own creed is set forth in the following words of India's greatest poet, Abul Fazl:—

"O God, in every temple I see those who see thee, and, in every tongue that is spoken, thou art praised. Polytheism and Islam grope after thee, Each religion says, 'Thou art one, without equal,' Be it mosque, men murmur holy prayer; or church, the bells ring, for love of thee; Awhile I frequent the Christian cloister, anon the mosque: But thee only I seek from fane to fane. Thine elect know naught of heresy or orthodoxy, whereof neither stands behind the screen of thy truth. Heresy to the heretic,—dogma to the orthodox,— But the dust of the rose-petal belongs to the heart of the perfume seller."[8]

[Footnote 8: "Islam and Christianity," p. 68.]

This religious cosmopolitanism developed into what has been called an "Eclectic Pantheism," which welcomed all men and satisfied no one.

Even though Aurangzeeb tried to stem this tide of liberalism and to rehabilitate the intolerance and cruelty of ancient Islam, his effort was not only unsuccessful, but was partly instrumental in bringing on the downfall of the Empire. And the faith of Mohammed in India has revealed, ever since, the sickly pallor and want of vigour which tropical life and contact with Hinduism necessarily entail.

When the government of this land ceased to be Mohammedan, and the sceptre passed into the hands of the British, whose glory it has been, for centuries, to protect its subjects from the bloody hand of intolerance and to vouchsafe unto all not only the blessed boon of Pax Britannica, but also the inexpressible right and privilege of religious liberty,—then passed away, never to return, we hope, from this motherland of tolerance, the ghastly sceptre of bigotry and fanaticism. And thus Islam ceased to be enforced and propagated by the strong arm of law and by the pointed argument of sword and spear of the legions. It has, since then, enjoyed in this land a free and an open field for the exercise of its powers of persuasion. But its increase has not been marked. And what there has been of progress has been owing to its other characteristics, which we will mention later.

Thus the faith of the Arabian prophet has lost, in India, not only its vigour, but also its prestige and purity, by contact with the lower faiths of the land, especially with the ancestral faith of India. From that religion it has taken unto itself many of the base superstitions, and not a few of the idolatrous practices, which have characterized it.

Indeed, the great mass of the converts from Hinduism, and their descendants, have had but a distorted conception of the lofty faith of Mohammed, which they have unequally yoked with their ancient superstitions and errors.

The Indian census of 1901 tells us how the pure monotheism of Mohammed has been debased by contact with worship at human shrines: "We have seen in the case of Hinduism that the belief in one supreme God, in whom are vested all ultimate powers, is not incompatible with the belief in Supernatural Beings who exercise considerable influence over worldly affairs, and whose influence may be obtained or averted by certain ceremonies. Similarly, in the case of Islam, while the masses have, on the whole, a clearer idea of the unity and omnipotence of God than the ordinary Hindu has, they also have a firm belief in the value of offerings at certain holy places for obtaining temporal blessings. Thus the shrine of Saiyad Salar, at Bahraich, is resorted to, both by Hindus and Mussulmans, if a wife is childless, or if family quarrels cannot be composed. Diseases may be cured by a visit to the shrine of Shaik Saddo, at Amroha in Moradabad; while for help in legal difficulties Shah Mina's dargah at Lucknow is renowned. Each of these has its appropriate offering,—a long embroidered flag for the first, a cock for the second, and a piece of cloth for the third. Other celebrated shrines are those of Bahauddin Madar Shah at Nakkanpur in the Cawnpore district, and of Ala-uddin Sabir at Piran Kaliar in Saharanpur." The same writer, in his report concerning Bengal, says: "The unreformed Mohammedans of the lower and uneducated classes are deeply infected with Hindu superstitions, and their knowledge of the faith they profess seldom extends beyond the three cardinal doctrines of the Unity of God, the mission of Mohammed, and the truth of the Quran; and they have a very faint idea of the differences between their religion and that of the Hindus. Sometimes they believe that they are descended from Abel (Habil), while the Hindus owe their origin to Cain (Kabil). Kabil, they say, killed Habil and dug a grave for him with a crow's beak."

Before the recent crusade against idolatry it was the regular practice of low-class Mohammedans to join in the Durga Puja and other Hindu religious festivals, and although they have been purged of many superstitions, many still remain. In particular, they are very careful about omens and auspicious days. Dates for weddings are often fixed after consulting a Hindu astrologer; bamboos are not cut, nor the building of new houses commenced, on certain days of the week; and journeys are often undertaken only after referring to the Hindu almanac to see if the proposed day is auspicious. When disease is prevalent, Sitala and Rakshya Kali are worshipped. Dharmaraj, Manasa, Bishahari, are also venerated by many ignorant Mohammedans. Sasthi is worshipped when a child is born. Even now, in some parts of Bengal, they observe the Durga Puja and buy new clothes for the festival, like the Hindus. "Apart from Hindu superstitions, there are certain forms of worship common amongst Mohammedans which are not based on the Quran. The most common of these is the adoration of departed Pirs."

In Rajputana, the Mohammedans of local origin "still retain their ancient Hindu customs and ideas. The local saints and deities are regularly worshipped, the Brahman officiates at all family ceremonials side by side with the Mussulman priest, and, if in matters of creed they are Mohammedans, in matters of form they are Hindus."

In Baluchistan, we are told of the Mohammedan that "his practice is, to say the least of it, un-Islamic. Though he repeats every day that there is one God only who is worthy of worship, he almost invariably prefers to worship some saint or tomb. The Saints, or Pirs, in fact, are invested with all the attributes of God. It is the Saint who can avert calamity, cure disease, procure children for the childless, bless the efforts of the hunter, or even improve the circumstances of the dead. The underlying feeling seems to be that man is too sinful to approach God direct, and therefore the intervention of some one worthy must be sought."

In South India, also, Hindus and Mohammedans fraternize not a little, especially in the religious festivities. Mohammedans do not hesitate, under certain conditions, to bring offerings to particular Hindu shrines. And it is a very common thing to see Hindus pay their respects to Mohammedan fakirs. The Mohurram, in South India, is participated in, at least in its festive aspects, by multitudes of Hindus. Many Mohammedans are feeling keenly the degradation of this contact. A well-known Mussulman writer moans over the situation in the following words:—

"The baneful influence that Hindu customs have had on Mussulmans is painful to read of. Many a Hindu ceremonial has been incorporated by the followers of the Prophet. The marriage ceremonies, instead of keeping to the simple form prescribed by the Quran, have been greatly elaborated, and include processions. Even in religious matters, Hindu and Mussulman practices have become curiously blended. Hindus take a leading part in the celebration of Mohurram. Passages from the Quran are sometimes chanted in the Hindu fashion; Mohammedan women of the lower classes break cocoanuts at Hindu temples in fulfilment of vows. Strangest of all, there is said to be a Hindu temple at a village near Trichinopoly which is sacred to a goddess called the Mussulmans' lady, who is said to be the wife of the Hindu god Ranganatha at Srirangam. These are some of the sad features which the census report has brought to light. They tend to show that, except in a few dead formalities, the life of Mussulmans in South India is nothing different from that of the Hindus. In many cases the followers of the Arabian prophet would seem to have forgotten even the root principles of their religion—the unity of God, the formless, and the unincarnate. This fact alone is more than enough to fill the mind of the true Mussulman with anxious concern with regard to the future prospects of Islam in this country. His pious soul can find no rest with the view before him of hundreds and thousands of his coreligionists sunk deep in the degrading practices of the heathen around."

In this connection it should not be forgotten that the Sikh faith in North India is really a compromise between these two faiths. Its founder, Nanak Shah, possessed the very laudable ambition of producing a religion possessed of the best elements of both of these faiths. And though the more than two millions of his present followers have drifted very much toward Hinduism, which is the drift of all things in this land, and are hardly to be distinguished from their neighbours in creed and custom, yet the religion stands as a testimony to the mutual influence of these two faiths.

Nor should one forget what is now going on on this line among Hindus. Dr. Grierson tells us, in his recent interesting lecture, that "Allah the God of the Mussulman—the God of the Jews and ourselves—has Himself been admitted to the Hindu pantheon, together with His prophet, and a new section of the never completed Hindu bible, the 'Allah Upanishad,' has been provided in His honour."

Moreover, Hindus charge the Mohammedan faith with being the cause of the zenana system of this land. The seclusion of women began, they say, on account of the licentiousness of the Arabs. However this may be, it is true that the Mohammedan Purdah system, which separates so thoroughly women from the other sex, found adoption, or at least emphasis, among the Hindus. In ancient times, so far as we can learn, the women of Brahmanism found considerable freedom and independence of life. Probably the truth is that, as Hinduism developed certain types of doctrine which bore heavily upon the weaker sex, the range of privilege and opportunity which women enjoyed found gradual limitation and curtailment which found marked impetus upon the advent of the Arab hordes.

And it should be remembered that the persistent attitude of Mohammedans toward slavery and toward polygamy has had a deleterious effect upon the Hindu people.

Though Islam came to India uninvited, and though its pathway has been marked with blood, it has not been without great opportunity to impress the people of this land with its nobility. But, as we have seen, the opportunity does not seem to have been improved. After twelve centuries of active propagandism and some centuries of political rule and religious oppression, this religion is still an exotic, and finds, on the whole, small place in the affection of the people. This is owing in part to its want of adaptation and inherent lack of vital power. As Sir Monier William has said: "There is a finality and a want of elasticity about Mohammedanism which precludes its expanding beyond a certain fixed line of demarcation. Having once reached this line, it appears to lapse backwards—to tend toward mental and moral slavery, to contract with the narrower and narrower circles of bigotry and exclusiveness."

Add again to this the fact, already mentioned, that its new environment in India has been deleterious to the vitality of the Mohammedan faith. "Mohammedanism, as a quiescent non-proselytizing religion, could only become corrupt and rotten. The effect of all this policy on the mass of Mohammedans was to deprive their religious sentiment of that intolerance which constituted its strength. Its moral power was gone when it ceased to be intolerant.... These two religions have thus settled down beside each other on terms of mutual charity and toleration. This does not imply any great change or deterioration in Hinduism, for its principles admit every belief as truth, and every religion as a way of salvation. All that it requires is acknowledgment of the same principle from other religions, and this is the position which it has practically forced Mohammedanism to assume in India. But such a position is utterly opposed to the principles and claims of the latter religion; and in forcing Mohammedanism to accept it, Hinduism has undoubtedly gained the triumph."[9]

[Footnote 9: "Hinduism and Christianity," by Dr. Robson, pp. 168, 173.]

And yet let it not be supposed that Islam in India is either dead or moribund. It is evidently sensible of its defects and has made, from time to time, efforts to reform itself.

Under the stress of circumstances and the sense of waning power they have even translated the Quran into Urdu, with a view to reaching the common people. This is an unique effort on their part. Like Romanists, in the use of the Latin service, the Mohammedans cling, with deathly tenacity, to their Arabic bible and Arabic worship, foolishly believing that to vernacularize their faith is to degrade and corrupt it. In Madura, where there is a mosque of some pretension, there are only two or three who can pronounce their Arabic Quran. And while they have learned to pronounce, in the ancient tongue, their beloved book, they do not understand the meaning of what they say, and merely parrot the whole ritual. But a break has been made from this inane method of worship, and their holy book has now been translated into one vernacular of India.

Islam has also revealed definite redeeming qualities which seem distinctive and are worthy of enumeration.

Its prohibition of the use of intoxicating drinks is definite, and its attitude toward that accursed habit has been consistently and vehemently antagonistic. Hence, the Mohammedan of India is recognized as a sober man, faithful to his religion in this matter wherein the Christian reveals so much weakness. It is true that in some parts of the country Mussulmans are too often addicted to the use of opiates. But a drunken member of this faith is rarely to be found. In this, Islam has joined forces with Hinduism itself in proscribing a habit which is the curse and ruin of too many Christian lands. And it is a distinct blot upon the Christian Church in India that many of its followers, in this land of sobriety and abstinence, so easily fall into the temptation of the cup and become the victims of intemperance.

Islam also enforces the law of usury among its followers. With the Jew, the Mohammedan has been strictly forbidden to make money by the use of money. And though they find ways of evading this law, to some extent, the ideal which they have before them is a restraint and a blessing in a land where the usurer is a ubiquitous curse, because of his rapacity and the expertness with which he draws the common people into his net and leads millions to financial loss and ruin.

The supreme place given in this faith to the duty of almsgiving, and the effective way with which it is carried out among its members, is another praise-worthy feature. At the time of their political rule and extensive sway there was a well-known tax whose purpose was to carry relief to the poor and the suffering. And Mohammedans feel to-day that there is hardly a religious duty which is more sacred and carries with it more of reward than that of distributing alms to the poor. Far more than Christianity has it given importance and distinction to this as a special form of its religious activity.

Moreover, its command to observe the five seasons of daily prayer is important, with a view to maintaining and enforcing the ordinary forms and observances of a living faith. Many a time have I been impressed with the way Mohammedans, in this land, faithfully and boldly observe this rule and privilege of their faith by spreading their mats in most unexpected places, even in the presence of gaping crowds, and prostrating themselves in prayer with their faces Mecca-ward as a proof of their sincerity and as a testimony to the power of their religion.

But there is nothing in which Islam exerts a more salutary influence in this caste-ridden land than in its attitude toward this monster evil of Hinduism. Islam is neither founded upon race, colour, nor nationality. It has been well said that in Islam "all believers belong to the highest caste." It recognizes to the full the brotherhood of all the members of its faith. Even its slaves have been exalted to its throne and have achieved highest distinction. The last census correctly says: "On its social side, the religion of Mohammed is equally opposed to the Hindu scheme of a hierarchy of castes, an elaborate stratification of society based upon subtle distinctions of food, dress, drink, marriage, and ceremonial usage. In the sight of God and of His Prophet all followers of Islam are equal. In India, however, caste is in the air; its contagion has spread even to the Mohammedans; and we find its evolution proceeding on characteristically Hindu lines. In both communities, foreign descent forms the highest claim to social distinction; in both, promotion cometh from the West. As the twice-born Aryan is to the mass of Hindus, so is the Mohammedan of alleged Arab, Persian, Afghan, or Mogul origin to the rank and file of his coreligionists."

I admit that there are social distinctions and class cleavages among the members of this faith, as among all peoples. These are in no sense religious, however, as they are in Hinduism. Among the members of that faith there is equality of right; and every Islamite, by his own industry and character, can enjoy that right in this land. It is true that Islam has yet to learn the brotherhood of man as such, and to recognize that the non-Mussulman and the Mussulman alike are possessed of equal rights and favours in the sight of God. But within the faith itself, caste, as such, is unknown. This is much more than can be said of the Indian Christian Church at the present day, notwithstanding the spirit of our religion and its definite injunctions. The Hindu caste system has been transferred too much into the Christian fold. Most of the accessions from Hinduism to Mohammedanism at the present time are from the lowest classes of Hinduism, with a view to securing a definitely higher social status which Mohammedanism distinctly promises and invariably confers upon these newcomers. It were well if modern converts to Christianity from the outcasts could hope for and receive from the Hindus the same recognized advance in social position and esteem by becoming members of our religion, as they do by entering the faith of Islam. This is not the fault of Christianity, but the folly of its converts, who do not leave their heathenish conceptions and estimates outside the precincts of Christianity. This difference, which I have emphasized, is, as might be expected, more marked and manifest in South India than elsewhere. A Christian worker in this land cannot help envying Islam the noble stand which it has taken concerning caste.

At the present time the Muslims of India are divided into two sects, something like the Catholics and Protestants of Christianity. The Sunnis are the traditionists, and constitute the large majority of that faith. The Shiahs are the dissenters. For twelve hundred years has this division existed, and the two parties are as irreconcilable to-day as ever. There is also a sect of mystics known as Sufis.

In the seventeenth century a new sect of Purists was formed in Arabia. They reject the glosses of Immams, will not accept the authority of the Sultan, and make light of the great Prophet himself. They are a fanatical sect and delight in proclaiming jihad, or holy war, against the infidels. These are the Wahabbis. This sect was introduced to India by Sayad Ahmed Shah, and it has gained many converts. It is largely a movement toward reforming the faith from within. In spirit, it is not very unlike the movement of the fanatics known as Ghazis, whose zeal burns against all infidels, especially those of the European Christian type.

III

What is the Character of the Mohammedan Population in India?

It will be interesting to appraise them largely by comparing them with the Hindu population which surrounds them. Generally speaking, they are morally on a level with their neighbours. In South India, especially, it is difficult to discriminate between the ethical standards which obtain among Mohammedans and Hindus. In both cases they are low and unworthy. This is unexpected, as Islam has always stood for a worthy ethical standing, while Hinduism has, from time immemorial, divorced morality from piety. Nevertheless, it is a fact that those who have passed on from Hinduism to Mohammedanism have rarely ascended in the ethical standard of life.

The personal habits of the Indian Mussulman are not clean, to say the least of them. In this they are a contrast to the Brahmans, and to some other high-class Hindus, whose ceremonial ablutions are many. In South India, the Mohammedan is described by a vernacular expression which is as uncomplimentary as it is filthy, and which is intended to classify them among the lowest in their habits. When cholera and similar epidemics prevail in the regions with which I am familiar, the Mohammedan, with the Pariah, on account of unclean habits, becomes the first victim of its ravages.

Add to this their strong belief in fate, which leads them, during these epidemics, to neglect or to decline the use of medical remedies. Many a Muslim perishes during such times because of his fatalistic convictions.

They are also among the most ignorant of all classes in India. While, in the total population of the land, hardly more than 5 per cent are, in any sense, literate, the Mohammedans, as a class, have only 3 per cent. And of the Mohammedan population nearly all the women are analphabet. In the educational system of India the government places Mohammedans among the "backward classes," and every effort has been made by the State, even to the doubling of educational grants, to stimulate the members of this faith on educational lines.

It is one of the most discouraging facts connected with the Muslim population that while they are brave in bearing arms and loyal to the government, they have an apparent aversion to the schoolhouse, and can with difficulty be induced to secure even an elementary education. This bears very heavily against their prosperity and influence. Public offices in India are wisely placed in charge of those who are competent, by a thorough training and a broad education, to well fill them. The consequence is that the Mohammedan has been gradually driven out from nearly all public positions of trust by the intellectually more alert Brahman, and even by lower-class Hindus, who are availing themselves of the opportunities for higher education.

It is not strange that the political influence of this community has correspondingly waned, so that only a very small number relatively of Muslims is found to-day in the councils of the Empire.

A new ambition, however, seems to be taking possession of the community. They have recently organized many schools under the direction of "The Society for the Aid of Islam." These schools, without neglecting the study of the Quran and their sacred language and the tenets of their faith, give instruction on western lines, and in the English language.

They have established, also, under the inspiration of the late Sir Sayid Ahmed Khan, a college at Aligarh. Though the rationalistic teaching of the founder causes the institution to be discredited by orthodox leaders, the college has developed wonderfully, and is beginning to assume the proportions of a Muslim University. Of this institution a learned Mussulman remarked in an address:—

"We want Aligarh to be such a home of learning as to command the same respect of scholars as Berlin or Oxford, Leipsic or Paris. And we want those branches of learning relative to Islam which are fast falling into decay to be added by Moslem scholars to the stock of the world's knowledge. And, above all, we want to create for our people an intellectual and moral capital—a city which shall be the home of elevated ideas and pure ideals; a centre from which light and guidance shall be diffused among the Moslems of India."

Much may be expected from the institution. But what is one such school among the many millions of this community in India? Government is anxious to aid and inspire the community on these lines; and the present success of the institution is, in good part, owing to the smile of the State upon it.

The recent organization of the Pan-Islamic Movement is full of hope. The leading representatives of the community in India seem anxious and determined to rouse their coreligionists from their lethargy and to create within them a new ambition for a higher and a more honourable place in intelligence and official usefulness. This is much needed, because the community has reached its lowest ebb of influence among the people.

In the present unrest Mohammedans mainly stand with the government against the Hindu Extremists. They wisely realize that the British Raj presents to them, as a community, far better opportunity and larger favours than would accrue to them under any other possible government, even though their warlike traits might lead them once more to subdue and rule the land themselves.

IV

Christian Effort in India in Behalf of the Mussulman

Missionaries have everywhere presented to Mohammedan and Hindu alike the Gospel Message. The follower of Mohammed has never been ignored in the proclaiming of Christ and in the work of the Mission school.

Generally speaking, they are a very hard class to reach; they very rarely seem impressed, or are willing to consider the message as a personal call to themselves. The high character of their faith above that of the surrounding people partly accounts for this. Moreover, the religion itself inculcates intolerance, and naturally narrows the vision of appreciation and sympathy amongst its followers.

It is also, in some measure, due to their supreme ignorance of the teaching of their own faith. They have many fantastic notions about Islam, such as intelligent members of their faith repudiate, and such as make them inaccessible to the Christian worker.

And yet they are not reached and impressed with more difficulty than are the Brahmans and some other high-class Hindus. Though conversions from among them have been relatively few, accessions from Islam to the Christian faith have been continuous during the last century. There have not been many mass movements among them. It has been largely the struggle of individual souls from the trammels of one faith into the liberty of the other. Dr. Wherry informs us that: "In the North, especially the Punjab, and the Northwest Frontier Province, every congregation has a representation from the Moslem ranks. Some of the churches have a majority of their membership gathered from amongst the Mussulmans. In a few cases there has been something like a movement among Moslems toward Christianity, and a considerable number have come out at one time. But perhaps the fact that tells most clearly the story of the advance of Christianity among Moslems in India, is this, that among the native pastors and Christian preachers and teachers in North India there are at least two hundred who were once followers of Islam. Among the names of those who have gone to their reward (many of them, after long lives of faithful service), some of my readers will recall the names of the Rev. Maulvie Imaduddin, D.D., Maulvie Safdar Ali, E.A.C., Munshi Mohammed Hanif, Sayyad Abdullah Athim, E.A.C., the Rev. Rajab Ali, Sain Gumu Shah, the Rev. Abdul Masih, the Rev. Asraf Ali, the Rev. Jani Ali, and Dilawur Khan. These faithful servants of God have left behind them memories which still live. Many of them have bequeathed volumes of literature, which have added much to the literary wealth of all the churches. They give an index wherewith to guide us as to what the strength and character of the Church of the future will be when the strong champions of the Crescent shall have become the Champions of the Cross."

We are also told by the Rev. Maulvie Imaduddin, D.D., of North India, that "117 men of position and influence have become Christians, of whom 62 became clergy and leading men in many of the Indian Missions, and 51 are gentlemen occupying positions professional and official. Out of 956 baptisms of the Church Missionary Society in the Amritsar District, 152 were Mohammedan converts. In the Punjab there are at least two congregations made up entirely of Mohammedans, while in Bengal there is a body of more than 6000 Christians composed almost entirely of Mohammedan converts and their descendants, a large number having come over en masse some years ago. These last were converts in the first instance from Hinduism to Mohammedanism, and hence were not bound so strongly to Islam."

In South India, less attention has been paid to Mohammedans as a class, and the results therefore have been very meagre. A few individuals, here and there, have accepted our faith, and that is practically all. This is not strange when we remember that out of the eleven hundred Protestant missionaries, male and female, in Southern India, perhaps not a dozen have any special training and aptitude for work among Mohammedans, and hardly more than that number are giving themselves entirely to the work.

The difficulty of this work should appeal more than it does to the heroic element in missionaries and missionary societies alike. The above facts indicate that there is encouragement for one who gives himself heartily to this people. In no other land has missionary effort for the members of this religion achieved greater results than in India. If their numbers are few, they are more resolute and pronounced in their Christian character than many others. In the roll of honour among the converts from Islam have been found the names of a number of distinguished pastors and able writers.

In the recent Conference of Missionaries, held in Cairo, a new purpose was manifested to take up with more discriminating and pronounced zeal and better methods the work of reaching and converting the Mohammedans of the world.

In India, a better organized and a wider campaign for the conversion of Islam is needed. Men and women who are to take up work in their behalf must not only be well trained for this specific work by a thorough knowledge of both faiths; they must also be imbued with abundant sympathy for the people, and with a sympathetic appreciation of the vital truths which have thus far animated the Mohammedan faith. The constructive, rather than the destructive, method of activity must increasingly animate all. The Mohammedans are peculiarly sensitive; and there is so much of contact between their faith and ours that through the pathway of the harmonies of the faiths men must be led to know and feel the supreme excellence and power of the faith of the Christ.



CHAPTER XII

THE CHRIST AND THE BUDDHA

The study of the life and the character of noted and noble men is the most helpful and inspiring of all studies. It not only illustrates life at its best, it also fills men with an ambition to pursue the same noble purposes and to achieve the same lofty results in life. In presenting a brief glimpse of the two most powerful personalities that ever impressed themselves upon the world, I desire to place them side by side that we may appreciate the assonances and the dissonances of their wonderful lives and rise through the study into a true conception and love of the most perfect Life ever breathed upon earth.

I have no apology to offer, as a Christian, for comparing the life of our Lord with that of any human being; for, though Divine, He was also supremely human; and human glory and achievement appear in their fulness only when we gaze upon Him as one of the mighty human forces of history.



Christ and Buddha lived their brief lives upon earth many centuries ago; and yet never did they grip so many by the magic of their attraction as they do at present. Nearly two-thirds of the whole population of the world to-day acknowledges the lordship of the one or the other of these and loves to be called by their names. The influence of the one dominates all the life of the West, while that of the other is supreme in the East. And it is a curious and interesting fact that Buddha has not only been exalted as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu in the faith which he aimed to overthrow, he has also been adopted into the Roman Catholic Calendar and is worshipped on the 27th of November as a Christian saint under the title "Saint Josaphat."

I am also convinced that the influence of the lives and teachings of Buddha and Christ will react upon each other with ever increasing power during the coming years. Indeed, we are now witnessing this very influence developing before our eyes.

I

Let us first observe the conditions under which these two lived their earthly lives.

One was born into royal prerogatives and splendour and was surrounded in youth with all the luxuries and blandishments of an Oriental court. The other, though of royal lineage, was born in poverty, cradled in a manger, earned a meagre subsistence as a carpenter, and was able to say at the end of His brief career that the foxes had holes and the birds of the air had nests, but that He had not where to lay His head.

Sidhartthan early married and became a father, but later renounced all the pleasures and responsibilities of a grihastan life. His great renunciation is one of the most striking and impressive acts in the history of mankind, and his subsequent asceticism was of the most thorough and rigid type.

Jesus of Nazareth avoided the entanglements of married life and had a supreme contempt for the wealth and the pomp of the world. Yet He was not an ascetic. So freely did He associate with men, participating even in their festivities, that His enemies falsely charged Him with being a "glutton and a winebibber." He never countenanced the idea that highest sainthood must come through asceticism.

He found His intimates not among the ascetic Essenes, but among householders and men of affairs.

Both these great souls were similarly oppressed by the prevalence and the tyranny of an exclusive ceremonialism. In the one case, it was the innumerable bloody sacrifices and the all-embracing and crushing ritual of the Brahmans which roused the anger and opposition of Gautama; while, on the other hand, the myriad rites, the childish ceremonies, and the hollow religious hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees filled Jesus with hatred and led Him to a denunciation of that whole class. "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees," was the oft-repeated expression of wrath which He heaped upon them.

Thus the religions which both established were, in part, reactions from the religious excesses and errors of the days in which they lived.

It is strange that neither Christ nor Buddha left any writings behind them, even though writing was a known art in their times. Their mighty influence was through oral teaching and example. This was different from the method of other such world-leaders as Moses, Mohammed, and Confucius. It proves that whenever any one has truths of saving power to commit to the world, there are many who, as his messengers, are ready to convey them. Better indeed than to convey one's thoughts by printed page is it to impart them through the living voice to disciples who will thrill the world by the message coloured by their own mind and transfigured by their own enthusiasm. This was the method of Christ and Buddha.

Both were surrounded by an Oriental environment. Their antecedents and their prepossessions were of the East, eastern; and at their births they were introduced to scenes and began to breathe the atmosphere of the Orient. All the great founders of the World Religions were men of the East. This was doubtless because the East kept more closely than the West in touch with deepest religious thought and was animated with highest religious emotions and heavenly aspirations. Certainly the world owes more to ancient Asia for its religious life and spiritual attainments than to all the other continents put together. And Asia is to be thanked, above all, because she gave to mankind the Christ and the Buddha. For the eastern flavour of their messages and the Oriental tints of their life we are deeply grateful. To those of the West, these have always brought quiet restraint and a hallowed, peaceful repose to counteract the hurry and worry of life to which they are so much exposed and which are a part of their very being.

II

The Common Principles which controlled their Lives

Both were men of deepest sincerity. All sham and hypocrisy were foreign to their nature; they held insincerity in any one to be the meanest and most deadly sin. To this intense loyalty to the truth, Jesus bore emphatic testimony by an early martyrdom; while Gautama gave the same unwavering witness by a long and holy life. They both stood in the midst of communities which were rotten with hypocrisy and which were using religion as a sacred garb of duplicity and were raising temples of dishonesty to enraged deity. They stood like prophets in the wilderness and pronounced woe upon all hypocrites.

Moreover, both Christ and Buddha were profoundly ethical in their teaching. They found that humanity was not only rotten with insincerity, it was also deceiving itself with the vain delusion that moral integrity and ethical nobility can be bartered for a multitudinous ceremonial. Men have always been prone to exalt ritual in proportion as they have neglected the eternal demands of conscience and the ethical foundation of character. The myriad-tongued ceremonial of the Brahmans of twenty-five centuries ago was the old evasion of righteousness in human life. Gautama saw this, and his noble soul rebelled against a faith which proclaimed that salvation was a thing of outward religious forms and not of the heart within.

"To cease from all sin, To get virtue, To cleanse our own heart, This is the religion of the Buddhas."

These were the words with which he enunciated his new principles and carried forward his campaign of reaction against the faith of his fathers. Nothing less than, or apart from, purity of the soul within satisfied his requirement.

Indeed, he exalted so much the more highly this banner of heart purity and holiness, the less he had to say of the spiritual claims upon the soul. He had tried elaborate ceremonial and had found it wanting; he had practised the most severe religious austerities, but they had availed him little. In the quiet light which had dawned upon him under the sacred Boh tree he found that nothing wrought so mightily and beneficently as Dharma, or righteousness.

"The real treasure is that laid by man or woman, Through charity or piety, temperance and self-control.

* * * * *

The treasure thus hid is secure, and passes not away; ... this a man takes with him."

"Let no man think lightly of sin, saying in his heart, 'It cannot overtake me.'"

These are only a few of the many noble ethical deliverances of this great man's creed.

And during all his life, subsequent to the great renunciation, he embodied in himself the ethical beauty of all that he had taught.

And what shall I say of Jesus, the Christ? In the noble integrity of His heart, in the sublime ethical ideals which He ever exalted, in the moral rectitude which He practised and enjoined upon all His followers, who was like unto Him? In His day, also, men had forgotten the true foundation of character; and the religious leaders of the people were placing supreme emphasis upon human traditions and upon man-made rites as the way of salvation.

They "tithed the mint and the cummin" and forgot the weightier matters of the law. To eat with unwashed hands, to consort with a Samaritan, to carry a load or raise a sheep from the ditch on the Sabbath,—this was a sin which, to the Pharisees, would weigh a man down to hell itself; while to lie or to use other foul language, or to trample under foot the whole decalogue was, by comparison, a venial offence. The whole moral code was rendered impotent by them, while ceremonial cleansing was the be-all and end-all of their system. Christ was daily thrown into conflict with these "blind leaders of the blind"; His soul abhorred their whole religious system. He characterized them as "whited sepulchres." He showed that it is the heart which defiles a man, "for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." "Blessed," says He, "are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." "It was said to them of old thou shalt not kill;" but Christ equally prohibited anger, the cause of murder. He not only denounced adultery, but the lustful look which is the source of adultery.

To His followers He said "unless your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." He prayed the Father that He would sanctify His own, and added that for their sakes He sanctified Himself. Holiness was a passion with Him, and at the basis of His teaching He enjoined moral cleanness and ethical integrity. And His life in this, as in other things, was a perfect exhibition of the virtues which He taught. And from that day to this His precept and example have mutually supported each other. In Him were wedded faith and conscience, piety and character. So that, where Christ is best known and most loyally followed to-day, there do we find a perfect sense of human relations and a supreme desire after ethical perfection.

Furthermore, these two great souls were consumed with a broad and universal charity. Their environment was perhaps the most averse to general benevolence that the world could then show. In India, there had already grown to great power the caste system with its multiplying ramifications. Then, as now, it narrowed the sympathies of men, it arrayed one class against another, it cultivated pride and fostered mutual distrust and dissension.

When Sakya Muni came upon the scene, he saw the terribly divisive system sending down its root like the banyan tree on all sides and absorbing the life and thought of the people. It repelled him, and, with all his mighty intellectual and moral energy, he attacked it. He proclaimed all men brothers and worthy of human sympathy, love, and respect. He opened the door of his faith to all classes on equal terms. He vehemently opposed every effort to divide men except upon the ground of character. He enjoined upon his disciples not only love and kindness to all men, he also insisted upon a similar attitude toward all forms of lower life.

The fact that Buddhism is to-day one of the three great Missionary Faiths of the world, seeking all men that are in darkness, is the best proof that the founder of that faith had a heart which embraced the whole realm of life in its love. He felt that no man, however humble or however far removed in ties of race and kinship, should be deprived of the blessings of his love and sympathy. It is an interesting fact that nearly all past religious reformers in India—both those inside and outside the pale of Brahmanism—were anti-caste in their sympathies and teaching. But it is only Buddha who consistently maintained the broad foundation of a universal brotherhood and incorporated it into his faith as a cardinal principle.

In like manner, Jesus of Nazareth lived His earthly life at a time of narrow sympathies, and with people who were among the most exclusive that ever lived on earth. The Jews believed themselves to be the specially favoured sons of Heaven. And, what was more, they thought that they were exalted because they were worthy, because they excelled all other people. Hence, they stood aloof from other nationalities and despised them as their inferiors, a social and physical contact with whom would be pollution. There is in many respects a strange correspondence between the Jewish social code of twenty centuries ago and that of Hinduism to-day—the same haughty mien and abjectness of spirit—the aloofness of pride and the cringing meanness of social bondage—representing the two extremes of society. Christ also turned His face like a flint against this mean artificial classification of men. He had a burning contempt for the proud Pharisee who lived upon the husks of his own contempt of others, and who trampled under foot men that were infinitely superior to himself, so far as character was concerned. But He consorted often with the outcast Publican who revealed an aspiration after better things. And He even chose men who were thus socially ostracized to enter His own inner circle of disciples and to be the standard-bearers of His cause upon earth. He taught that the most abject and socially submerged man upon earth is a son of God, and that at his moral and spiritual renovation there would be joy among the denizens of heaven. And it was while thinking of this same class that He said unto His own, in describing the judgment scene at the last great day, "Come, ye blessed of my father, inasmuch as ye have treated kindly and lovingly one of the least of my brethren ye have done it unto me, enter ye into the joy of your Lord." Though He was born a Jew, He opened wide the portals of His religion and invited all men of all conditions. "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He sent forth His followers into all lands to disciple and bring to the truth all nations. And in all lands His method of procedure has been to reach first the lowest among the people and then gradually to rise to the highest, until He has taken possession of the whole land. His universal heart of love took in all men of all social strata. All that He asked was that men should come to Him with purpose sincere and with a longing for light and truth.

III

The Principles and Teachings which differentiate and separate Christ and Buddha

Thus far we have seen these two great leaders of men standing side by side and revealing the same traits and principles.

But they also revealed fundamental differences which it were well for us to consider.

Though much united them, and that when more than five centuries and thousands of miles held them apart, we also discover that a gulf wider than that of time or space opened between them.

Their lives and their doctrines and the faiths which they promulgated reveal strangely diverse contentions and tendencies.

(1) First of all, and at the root of all, lies their attitude toward the Divine Being. Jesus was preeminently a God-intoxicated Being, while the most manifest mental attitude of Gautama was his agnosticism. Christ never ceased speaking of and communing with His Father in heaven. He was wont to retire regularly from human society in order that He might enjoy the Heavenly Presence whose very radiance shone in and upon Him daily. He declared that He did nothing without consulting with and receiving direction from God. And this was natural enough when we remember His declaration that He came into the world to reveal the Father unto men. Listen to His words, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work." "The Father that dwelleth in me doeth the work." "The Father is glorified in the Son." "I love the Father and go unto Him." "Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me?" "Oh, righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee, but I have known Thee." In all His expressions of oneness with God, of His living unto God, and of His drawing His daily strength from God, His experience was eminently unique. He lived more in heaven than on earth in those days of His incarnation. Apart from any consideration of His Divinity, He can truly be said to be a man of God whose soul was in harmony with the Father.

How different the words and experiences of Gautama Rishi! Many have spoken of him as an atheist. I do not believe that he denied the existence of God. Yet it is evidently true that he has no use in his philosophy, any more than in his religion, for a Divine Being. There was doubtless reason for this in the conditions of his time; for it may be regarded as the reaction of a strong mind against the extreme spiritualism and polytheism of the day. For, in those days, the deep spirituality of the Brahman had overflowed its banks and had created a multitudinous pantheon which repelled this man of stern mind. It was to him only a short step from a disbelief in the many gods to a doubt as to the existence of any god. And in this agnosticism he was doubtless aided by his fondness for the Sankya school of thought, which is Indian Agnosticism. In any case, his deliverances and his established religion, if such it really can be called, are such a reaction from the Theosophy of India as to lead one to wonder how, even with all its other excellences, it could have become in India a State Religion for any length of time. A religion without a God, a sacrifice, a priest, or a prayer, is certainly a dreary wilderness to a God-seeking soul. And yet, this is what the Buddha conceived and promulgated among his disciples. Under the stress of a growing consciousness of the ills of this life his mind did not, like that of others, rise to heaven for relief; but his salvation was to be a self-wrought one. With his own right arm of virtue he wished to carve his way into eternal life—or, shall I say, eternal death? Is it strange that under such a godless religious system its votaries should react from this fundamental error and deify and worship that very Buddha who had not a place for God in his whole scheme of life?

At any rate, Christ and Buddha stand before us in striking contrast in this matter; the glory of the teaching of the one was that He caused His adoring disciple to fall upon his knees with uplifted eye and to say in filial reverence and trust, "Our Father who art in heaven." While the other taught his followers to lean only upon self, and to seek speedy relief from life itself, declaring that heaven returned only an empty, mocking echo to the helpless wail of the human soul.

(2) Corresponding to this difference was another difference in their conception of human life. Jesus maintained that the human soul came from God, was made for God, and that God Himself was forever seeking to bring it unto Himself. According to His theory of life, man is not left alone at any stage in his career. He may decline to entertain God in his life. He may lead a life of rebellion against his Maker and Saviour; he may even deny the very existence of the Father of his being. But God, in the riches of His infinite patience, does not desert him to his own base thought and life. He follows him like a shepherd searching for his lost sheep. He longs for his return like a tender, forgiving father for the return of his prodigal son. Human life, according to this view, may be mean and sordid and may be spent in the grossest sin; but there is hope. All is not lost while there is a spark of life left. God is still seeking and trying to bring the soul to new life. The million agents of His loving will conspire to help man; and so the possibilities of his life are still great. Thus, to our Lord Christ, the vision of human life was a bright and optimistic one. God will not leave man to himself. He will bring all the resources of heaven and of earth to the work of saving him. "God is in His heaven, All's right with the world." Yes, all is hopeful for man because the Father is still seeking him.

How different from this was Gautama Rishi's view of human life. According to him, man is a lone, helpless creature tossed on the sea of destiny. He is the only captain and steersman of his barque, and his own reason is his only compass; he must battle alone with the waves of circumstances and find for himself the unknown harbour of peace. There is no heaven above to hear his cry, no help or redemption outside of self. Is it a wonder that life is a weariness, and existence itself an unspeakable burden to such a man?

Thus the Buddha sought in vain for light and cheer in life, and pessimism became to him, as it continues to be to his followers, the very atmosphere of life. Even as in Dante's vision of the Inferno, so in the Temple of Buddha's scheme of life there is inscribed above its portals the words: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."

I care not who the man may be, I humbly maintain that his scheme of life is seriously wrong if it be a cheerless, uninspiring one; and it is perfectly natural that men should prefer to follow a confident, buoyant leader rather than a heartless, despondent one. If God rules over the destinies of man, we have a right to expect that success and blessing will crown the efforts of the sincere seeker after a better life. Man has received life not that he may destroy it, but that he may cultivate it and find in it life abundant.

A young mother whose child had died carried the dead body to Buddha, and, doing homage to him, said, "Lord and Master, do you know any medicine that will be good for my child?" "Yes," said the teacher, "I know of some. Get me a handful of mustard seed." But when the poor girl was hurrying away to procure it, he added, "I require mustard seed from a house where no son, husband, parent, or slave has died." "Very good," said the girl, and went to ask for it, carrying still the dead child astride on her hip. The people said, "Here is mustard seed;" but when she asked, "Has there died a son, a husband, a parent, or a slave in this house?" they replied: "Lady, what is this that you ask? The living are few, but the dead are many!" Then she went to other homes, but one said, "I have lost my son;" another, "I have lost my parents;" another, "I have lost my slave." At last, not being able to find a single house where no one had died, she began to think, "This is a heavy task that I am on." And as her mind cleared she summoned up her resolution, left the dead child in a house, and returned to Buddha. "Have you procured the mustard seed?" he asked. "I have not," she replied. "The people of the village told me, 'The living are few, but the dead are many.'" Then Buddha said, "You thought you alone had lost a son; the law of death is that among all living creatures there is no permanence." Little comfort in these words!

Of course, we can see how these two conflicting views of life found acceptance and expression in these two great leaders of mankind. For, to Jesus, the keyword of life was divine grace or atonement, while to Gautama it was Karma—that word which has for so many centuries been to all India the truest expression of its philosophy and of its life.

Christ taught that the grace of God was at the service of every man for his success in this life and for his redemption in the world to come. He ever emphasized the inspiring message that God's work and man's effort constitute the warp and woof of the life of every man. In His whole scheme of salvation there is no place for discouragement; for, walking through the path of life hand in hand with God, man can overthrow every enemy to his progress and achieve the best and highest in God's purposes for him.

But when the Buddha adopted the doctrine of Karma as the foundation of life, he and his system were doomed to despondency, gloom, and discouragement. It is indeed a noble truth that every man must drink, to its last dregs, the fruit of his own action—that the law of Karma works with relentless force in every life in the world. Only let us understand that God may enter into each life to enable man to face successfully that law, and it is all right. But condemn man to everlasting isolation; cut away from him every ray of Divine help, and the working out of his Karma becomes a terrible and an almost unending tragedy—a Sisyphean task with no hope of release save in the wiping out of life itself. And this is what the great Soul of the East believed and taught. He faced boldly the problem. He had, at the beginning, ignored the very existence of God, and thus denied himself the least hope of external aid in his own emancipation; and thus he held that stern, cruel, relentless Karma became the all-controlling and universal law of life.

To a Christian, among the most pathetic words ever spoken are those spoken by Buddha to his beloved cousin and disciple as death drew near—"O! Anantha,... My journey is drawing to its close. I have reached eighty years, and just as a worn-out cart can only with much care be made to move along, so my body can only be kept going with difficulty.... In future be ye to yourselves your own light, your own refuge; seek no other refuge.... Look not to any one but yourselves as a refuge."

And that which farther, and very naturally, widens the gulf which separates them is their view of the adequacy or inadequacy of the present human life to satisfy the laws of their being.

The law which Jesus believed to prevail, and which He constantly promulgated and emphasized, was that of the finality of the human life—that man has once only to pass through this earthly life and that then comes death, which introduces him to an eternal future corresponding with the character of his choices and life on earth. According to Him, this brief earthly existence, which will not be repeated, is a training school for the glorious life beyond. Blessed is he who faithfully submits himself to this training and passes through the gate of death prepared for an immortality of joy in God's presence beyond.

Indeed, Jesus never gives the first intimation of any future birth or life, save that which would be permanent and eternal in heaven or hell.

He felt the adequacy of this life as a determiner of the eternal destiny of all men. And He felt that the salvation which He wrought and offered to all was able to carry man through the single portal of death into unending bliss. Why another entrance into this world, if by passing through the world God could bring into the life the seed and power of His own grace and life which would blossom and bear fruit in the soul throughout eternity? "Marvel not," He sayeth, "the hour cometh in which all that are dead shall hear his voice and shall come forth; they that have done good into the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil into the resurrection of judgment." And as He described the final judgment upon all men after one earthly life He says that "these shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Moreover, in describing the condition of the dead He makes the faithful Abraham say to the soul of a dead sinner, "Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed that they who would pass hence to you may not be able to pass and that you may not cross from thence to us." That is, He claimed that the life which we live here so fixes the destiny of men that eternity will carry its impress. Hence the urgency and the supreme importance of this one life to all men. The universal succession, according to His teaching, is life, death, resurrection, judgment, and eternal reward.

To the Buddha, who, as we have seen, held that man is the only architect of his own destiny and that he must therefore abide the working of his Karma, a single brief apprenticeship in the school of life seemed altogether inadequate as a test of character and as a reliable foundation for the edifice of one's eternal destiny, or as a basis for the one irrevocable judgment. It is but natural, therefore, that this great Indian Rishi should have adopted as his own the doctrine of metempsychosis, or transmigration, and that he should add great emphasis to it. To him, life was a penitentiary rather than a school, a place, or an occasion, for eating the fruits of past action rather than a training for the future eternity which awaits every one.

It is true that Gautama must have had some idea of the corrective influence and disciplinary character of this earthly existence; for there is a quiet assumption that in some unexplained and unintelligible way the soul is improved by this multitudinous process of reincarnation. And yet I fail to see any reason for expecting such a development. Philosophically and morally, the raison d'etre of the doctrine of reincarnation is to explain the inequalities of life; and it does it not, as Jesus would do it, by means of the doctrine of heredity, but by the retributive power of Karma, or actions pursuing the soul through successive births and compelling it to reveal by its conditions and reflect by its experiences in each birth the experiences of the previous birth. The moral influence of such a doctrine is rendered all but impossible by the fact that there is no consciousness (the true basis of moral continuity) to connect one birth with another. I know of no one but Mrs. Besant who claims to know what his previous, assumed birth was, and I have not yet met any one who believes her claim in this matter. There is no moral discipline for one in his being punished for a thing of which he has absolutely no conscious knowledge.

We must further consider the character of Gautama's philosophy. It was, as is well known, thoroughly materialistic—the antipodes of the orthodox Hindu philosophy, which is highly spiritual. To Buddha, there was no such thing as a soul apart from the body. What was there, then, to connect one birth with another, according to his teaching? In Brahmanism the doctrine of transmigration is at this point very clear, for there is the eternal Atma, or self, to connect and unify all its incarnations. But Gautama, who denied the separate existence of the soul, maintained that it was not the self, but the Karma, which passed from one birth to another; and thus there became the oneness of Karma without an identity of soul passing through and uniting the myriad incarnations of the person involved. How can one substitute here a sameness of Karma for identity of soul? Behold, then, the insuperable difficulties which such a materialism interposes to a belief either in the possibility or in the wisdom of the doctrine of reincarnation.

And yet let it be remembered here that so long as one accepts the doctrine of Karma he cannot evade the sister doctrine of reincarnation. They belong to the same system, and must be accepted or rejected together.

If, however, we emphasize divine grace as an element in the solution of human problems and in the salvation of man, then it is natural to conclude that one earthly life will suffice for God and man together to prepare the soul for the consummation and beatification which awaits it beyond death. But if the whole problem is to be solved and the whole work of redemption achieved by man himself, apart from God, then Buddha must have been justified in believing that an inconceivable number of births and human lives are necessary in order to accomplish this.

It was just at this point that Christ and Buddha faced the opposite poles. And it is just here, for this very reason, that the faiths which they promulgated represent, the one the perpetual buoyancy and cheer of youth, and the other the weariness of discouraged age.

Christianity claims to do its work for the soul, so far as settling its destiny is concerned, in the brief life of a few years; and under the inspiring influence of this conviction the pulse quickens, youthful hope and energy multiply, and the whole soul is kindled by a close vision of its speedy triumph and release. The Buddhist, on the other hand, knows that it is a long, lonely conflict—the interminably long processions of births weary him and the dim vision of a release which is far away brings no inspiration. Life palls upon him, courage fails him, his steps grow shorter and his pace slackens.

(3) This brings us to the ideals which these two world-leaders entertained. Often men's ideals are a better revelation of their life and character than are their achievements. These ideals which I wish to point out are two—that of inner attainment and that of final consummation.

And what was the chief ambition for personal achievement sought by Jesus and Gautama? I believe that the very names which they acquired and which are at the head of this chapter answer this question for us. "Christ" and "Buddha" are not the personal names given in infancy, nor are they tribal designations. They primarily represent their official titles. "Christ" means "the Anointed One," and "Buddha" signifies "the Enlightened One"—the one is a term expressive of spiritual powers for service, while the other means intellectual enlightenment for communion. One sought and found the baptism of the spirit of God which touched and transfigured His character; the other was seeking more light on the problems of life; and for that light he sought with a wonderful longing and perseverance until the dawn broke on that remarkable day under the sacred Boh tree and he found the light and was hence called "the Enlightened One."

Thus, in the Christ-life, the emphasis was upon ethical and spiritual attainment, while, in Buddha, the thing sought was the clear vision and transcendent illumination.

Let me not be misunderstood. There is a sense in which the consecration and the vision are in the same line. It was Christ Himself that said, "This is eternal life, to know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Spiritual knowledge is the pathway to the highest life—it is life itself. It must be, in large part, acquired through spiritual experience.

At the same time, it is an interesting fact that Buddha laid, as India has always laid, emphasis—undue emphasis—upon knowledge as the consummation to be sought. Brahma Gnana is the summun bonum of life. To rightly know myself in my relationship, this, they say, is the only qualification for beatification. On the other hand, Jesus insisted always upon a right moral and spiritual attitude and relationship to God as the highest point of human attainment in life. Listen to the beatitudes which he uttered: "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

These are the beatitudes of His Kingdom, and all refer to the spiritual graces which He Himself exemplified and inculcated, and none refer to enlightenment.

Thus in both we have, if not a contrast, a different outlook, which has not only impressed the student with a sense of divergence; but that which is more important—it has given to the devotees of these two faiths widely different aspirations, and has given to the two types of lives produced very dissimilar traits.

But, that which is of more consequence, in these ideals, is their conception of what life tends to and must ultimately attain unto. The final consummation of life meant nought else to Jesus than God-likeness, which He called "Eternal Life." To have grown to the perfection of those moral and spiritual characteristics which adorn God Himself; to have the human will so subdued and directed until it runs parallel with the Divine will; to have the soul consumed with a love of all that He loves and with an abhorrence of all that He hates,—this is life indeed and the highest realization of the human soul. Yea, more, to pass out of this life into the conscious bliss and eternal felicity of the life to come, to dwell with God—one with Him in purpose and character, and yet living a separate conscious existence, basking in the eternal sunshine of His Presence and favour,—this is the fulness of blessing which Christ presented before His own as the end to be sought and the consummation which God placed within their reach.

On the other hand, Nirvana is the word which holds condensed the whole realm of Buddha's ideals. It is not my purpose to discuss the original meaning of this word. I gladly concede that it meant a state of moral achievement when the powers of the soul were at equilibrium and when resultant peace pervaded the life. But we also know that it meant, preeminently, that state in which the soul had passed beyond contact with body, in which contact alone it found consciousness and sensation and human activity; when the soul, freed from births, had returned to its elemental condition of semi-nothingness, with neither thought, emotion, nor volition. This was a condition in which was found only the negative blessing of release from the turbulence and surging distresses of life. Without calling it non-existence, we claim that it is wanting in every element that we connect, or can conceive connected, with human existence.

There is nothing in it to inspire hope nor to invite cheer. All we can do in its presence is to ask—is this all that man, the flower of God's universe, is to arrive at? Is there nothing better for him than to end his long, dreary existence in such an abject failure? Must he descend from the plain of even a wretched human life to this the lowest reach of existence, if such we must call it?

In the eyes of Christ, there issues out of the mighty conflict of life a purified, glorified human being fit to dwell forever in the presence of His Father and adopted to enjoy that presence for evermore. To Buddha, this same human life ends in failure and must rest forever under the dark pall of oblivion, and robbed by Nirvana of all the possibilities of good and of joy that were implanted in it.

In the absence of higher satisfaction, all that Buddha could do was to glory in his achievements, because of their pervasive influence upon the lives of others during all future time. We might imagine him joining with George Eliot in her noble aspiration:—

"O! may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the nightlike stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues ... This is life to come."

But Christ gave us a larger hope and a loftier purpose than this, even the conscious possession of abundant life ourselves and the growing knowledge of the boundless good which our earthly life has done for others. To live in men is joy indeed; but that involves an ability to feel that joy; and this, again, is a part only of the Eternal Life which He gives to all who believe in Him.

It is His disciple only who can say:—

"Beloved, now are we the Sons of God. But we know not what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."



CHAPTER XIII

MODERN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT

In matters of faith, India has always been ultra-conservative. This is largely owing, not to any fettering of thought, but rather to the Hindu Caste System, which has been the most rigid guardian of the Brahmanic faith and the doughty opponent of any new and independent movements.

India has offered to her rishis and reformers unbounded latitude of thought. And, as a consequence, her faith possesses within itself every shade of religious speculation and philosophic conclusions. The many antipodal and conflicting doctrines, theories, tendencies, and institutions which obtain under the all-embracing name of Hinduism, seem astonishing to every western investigator of this faith.

Even in matters of ritual, Brahmanism has always had its protestants, sectarians, and "come-outers." During this stern dominance of the Caste System, which is the most rigorous, if not the most cruel, inquisition that the world has known, there have always been men free to think and determined enough to push forward their ideas and their new religious methods. And these have added picturesque variety to the history of faith in India.

It is, however, a remarkable tribute to the power of caste and to the unheroic character of Hindu reformers, that, of the myriad reforms and protests against Brahmanism which have bristled throughout the centuries, only one—Buddhism—has stood apart in persistent isolation, and has maintained a separate identity and usefulness through more than two millenniums. Of all these protesting creeds, it alone has had sufficient masculine power and moral earnestness permanently to impress itself upon the world as a great religion. It has achieved this, however, not in the land of its birth, but in other lands and among other peoples. Like all other attempts to reform, or overthrow, the mother faith (and even after it had largely accomplished this for ten centuries), Buddhism finally yielded to the mighty absorptive power of Brahmanism, was overthrown as the dominant religion of India, and lost all power and acceptance among the people. This was because most of its vital teachings were appropriated by the rival faith, and Buddha himself was adopted into the Hindu pantheon as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu. Henceforward, it had no distinctive mission or message to the people of this land, and died a natural death.

The well-known passion of Hinduism for absorbing the faiths that come into contact with it, and the maudlin tendency of the people of India to yield to pressure and to sacrifice all in behalf of peace, has been the grave of many a noble endeavour and many an impassioned attempt for new religious life and power.

Nevertheless, there is no reform movement which has entered the arena of religious conflict in India, whether it still remains entirely within the Hindu faith or has possessed vigour and repulsive energy enough to step outside the ancestral faith, which has not left more or less of an impress upon Hinduism, and which does not to-day exercise some power or other over certain classes of the people.

I

All of the many modern sects of Hinduism were originally protests against the dominant Brahmanism of the day. The most popular Vaishnava sect, in South India,—the Visishdadvaitha sect of Ramanuja,—was first a vigorous protest against the austere pantheism of Sankaran. It was the demand of a thoughtful and an earnest religious man for a personal God which could bring peace and rest to the soul, in contradistinction to the unknowable, unethical, and unapproachable Brahm, which the dominant Vedantism had thrust upon the people.

The Madhwachariars went one step farther and inculcated a dualism, which many to-day accept as the basis of their faith.

In the region of Bengal, that other sect of Vaishnavism, which was inculcated by Chaitanya four centuries ago, is to-day the popular cult. It is a revivalism full of wild enthusiasm and ecstatic devotion; yet it attracts, in a remarkable way, many of the men of culture and learning throughout that Presidency.

The Saivite sectarians, who call themselves Sangamars, were, a few centuries ago, a mere uprising against the supremacy of the Brahmans and the dominance of caste.

Indeed, nearly all religious reformers in India propelled their reforms as anti-caste movements. But, later on, they have, with very few exceptions, been drawn again into the maelstrom of caste.

The Sikh religion, itself, was originally a religious reform, which found its germs in the mind of the great Kabir, and afterward attained birth in the brave reformer, Nanak Shah, during the fifteenth century. It is a shrewd, an amiable, and also a brave attempt to harmonize Mohammedanism and Hinduism. At the present time, this also is gradually yielding to caste dominance and to the fascination of Hindu ritual.

Thus every century has produced its reformers, and the banks of this great river of Brahmanism is strewn with the wrecks of protesting sects, while many other such barques are to-day adopted as the faithful messengers of orthodox Hinduism and are carrying its message to the people.

II

Modern movements of religious reform in India have not been wanting in number or vigour. And they have been largely movements away from Polytheism, on the one hand, and from Pantheism on the other, toward a modern Theism. Many intelligent men, and many uneducated, but earnest souls, have grown weary of their multitudinous pantheon, and of its hydra-headed idolatry, which charms and debases the masses. In like manner, many of them have ceased to be satisfied with the unknown Brahm of Vedantism, and are seeking after a personal Deity, who can meet the demands of their craving hearts.

There is much of this thought and sentiment still inarticulate among the upper classes; but it is manifestly growing with the increase of the years.

This theistic movement, as a growing search after a personal God, is to be traced definitely to the growth of western thought, and especially to the direct influence of Christianity. This is no less true of those theistic movements which are by no means amiably disposed toward our religion.

The modern theistic movement first found definite expression and impetus in the life and teaching of that noble son of India, Ram Mohan Roy, who hailed from the Brahmanic aristocracy of Bengal. He was born in 1774—just before the birth of American Independence. He studied well the ancient writings of Hinduism and translated some of the most important into English. He also searched eagerly and enthusiastically the Christian Scriptures; for which purpose he made himself familiar with the Greek and Hebrew languages. So mightily did the New Testament and its precepts grip him that he wrote and published, in 1819, an excellent tract, "The Precepts of Jesus the Guide to Peace and Happiness." This is a remarkable testimony to the ethical preeminence of the Bible. He later declared that he "believed in the truths of the Christian religion."

Being unwilling to abide alone in this discovery and in these convictions, he established, in 1815, the "Atma Sabha," or "Soul Society," in his own home. This soon developed into a small church, for which a suitable edifice was erected, that they might worship the one God free from the contaminating influence of popular idolatry and Hindu ceremonial.

This truly great man, without the aid of any European missionary, in the quiet solitude of his own heart, and under the influence of the Spirit of God, rose to some of the highest truths of Theism, and, under the mighty influence of Christian literature, became a reformer of the first order among his people.

But, during a visit to England he sickened, and died in 1833; and the theistic movement weakened and waned for a few years, deprived of his leadership and inspiring presence.

It was in 1843 that the Brahmo Somaj of Ram Mohan Roy was united with another Sabha organized by another great soul, Debendra Nath Tagore. Under the guidance of this sturdy reformer, the Brahmo Somaj movement put on new life and energy. Debendra Nath was very devout and courageous. He was opposed to the religion of his fathers, as practised by the people. Nevertheless, he was somewhat anchored to the past. He still clung to the Hindu scriptures and regarded the Vedas as infallible. Later, however, as these Hindu writings were studied with more care, his faith in them was considerably shattered, and he began to deny their supreme authority.

He and the other members of the society here entered upon a great struggle which ushered them into an "Age of Reason." The Vedas were abandoned as an ultimate authority, and the Brahmo Somaj, for a time, became "a Church without a Bible," and without any anchorage but the higher reason of its members.

In 1852, the society was reorganized. Reason was soon found to be inadequate as the foundation of faith; and they passed on to an intuitional basis. That again seemed to be even more unsatisfactory than reason itself. After a few years, the movement gradually developed a doctrine of inspiration, when the utterances of the leaders themselves were regarded as inspired and became the voice of God to the members. Thus, within a few years, Brahmo Somaj moved almost in a circle, in its search for a stable anchorage to its faith; and it returned to a point dangerously near to the Hindu position which it had left a few years before.