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ESSAYS 
 
 lUliginiis Cniirfptinns. 
 
 EGBERT NEEDHAM CUST, LL.D. 
 
 iti'Y 
 
 H ^e ^o(pta TToOeu eiipeOij ', 
 rioto? ce ToVos earl T/y? 'F,7riaTrj/ii7]^ ; 
 
 E(Ve ^6 avOpwTrw' 
 
 'ISoii 1] 6eoae(6eia ecrrl ^o(^ia' 
 
 To 06 a7re\ecr6ai airo kukwv iffriv 'KTrnTTrjfU], 
 
 Septuagint : Jvb, xxviii, I2, 28. 
 
 LONDON 
 LUZAC & CO., 46, GREAT EUSSELL STREET. 
 
 1898. 
 
HERTFORD 
 PRINTED BY STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 These Essays have been written in a profound, and undoubting, 
 Belief in the Dispensation of Christianity, as given to us in the 
 pages of the New Testament. 
 
 The Belief is neither superficial, nor formal, nor conventional, 
 but based on a lifelong study, not only of the New Testament, 
 but of the Sacred Books of all other Religious Conceptions of 
 Ancient days, and the Modern Religious Conceptions, which have 
 sprung into existence in this century. In 1894, I published an 
 Essay on the " Ancient Religious Conceptions of the World before 
 the great Anno Domini," and in 1897 I published an Essay on the 
 " Modern Religious Conceptions of the World," not in the usual 
 style of prejudiced abuse, but a dispassionate and impartial 
 description, as of a matter of Abstract Science, where Truth 
 only is sought. 
 
 We are taught in Scripture that : 
 
 "God so loved the World" {the ivhole World), "that He gave 
 His only begotten Son, that whosoever bt-lieveth in Him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting Life." 
 
 And, again, in our prayers we repeat the words : 
 
 " Merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that 
 Thou hast made.'''' (Book of Common Prayer : Collect for 
 Good Friday.) 
 
 " We give Thee thanks for Thy goodness and lovingkindness to 
 us, and to all men.^' (Book of Common Prayer : General 
 Thanksgiving.) 
 
 How, then, can be justified the gross abuse in the Reports of 
 Missionaries in the Field, of the poor non-Christian races, and 
 their Beliefs, those poor races, who by the Divine Will never had, 
 until this century, the knowledge of Divine Truth brought home 
 to them by Apostle or Evangelist ? 
 
 I entirely admit, that there were in the earlier Religious Con- 
 ceptions faint anticipations, and foreshadowings, of some of the 
 Doctrines of Christianity : the Trinity, God in Human Form 
 suff"ering for his fellow-men, the presence of the Holy Spirit in 
 the voice of Conscience, the Fatherhood of God openly expressed, 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 the Iiuiiiortality of the Soul, .1 Future State of Rewards and 
 Puuishmeuts, and Faith in One Powerful to Save. In the fulness 
 of time all these floating Conceptions, dimly seen in the non- 
 Christiun Sacred Books, the gitt of God to the earlier races through 
 Heaven-sent Messengers, became refined, expanded, and explained 
 as part of the New and Final Conception, which came into 
 existence in Judaea in the great Anno Domini. 
 
 1 firmly believe in, and recognize, the presence of God in all the 
 ages. In sundry times and divers manners, the Great Creator 
 condescended to make Himself known to His poor children, lending 
 them sparks of Divine Knowledge, here a little, there a little, 
 till in the great Anno Domini was consolidated the one great 
 Plan of Salvation; than which I submit, Human Wit never has 
 devised anything more perfect and more sufficient for the wants 
 of the Human race. 
 
 Tlie pure Gospel of the IS^ew Testament, however, has been 
 painfully deformed by the mediaeval admixture of Pagan and 
 Hebrew survivals of the Elder Religious Conceptions, Anthropo- 
 morphism, Formality, Temple-Worship, and Ritual, and the 
 elevation of some of God's faithful servants to the position of 
 Demigods, having altars dedicated to them, and prayers uttered 
 to them ; and we are still blindly and vainly attempting to convey 
 to great Oriental races, such as the inhabitants of India and China, 
 the pure and simple Oriental Doctrines of Christ in a complicated 
 European Occidental capsule, which those great races will surely 
 decline to receive, until they are purged from mediaeval accretions 
 and restored to their simple purity. 
 
 Those great Oriental races will be of opinion, that it has been 
 a narrowing down of the Power, AVisdom, and Love of the Creator 
 to hold, that by His decree all the possibilities of Worship, Divine 
 Knowledge, and Spiritual Development, were for many centuries 
 tied up and given, as a monopoly, to one miserable tiny race, such 
 as the Hebrew, while Millions and Millions, black, white, red, 
 yellow, and brown, were living, flourishing, feeling after God, 
 if haply they could find Him, without any knowledge being 
 imparted to them of the Great Truths conveyed to the Hebrew, 
 though only to be treated by them with thankless scorn, and without 
 their making the slightest effort during the centuries betwixt Moses, 
 and the great Anno Domini, to convey them to adjacent tribes of 
 their own Semitic Family, though they were quite ready them- 
 selves to adopt the vilest form of Worship of their neighbours 
 (Ezekiel, viii, g). 
 
 My object has been humbly 
 
 "To Justify tue Ways of God xo Man." 
 London, Nov ember, 1897. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Dawn op a Religious Conception 7 
 
 II. 
 
 The Decay of a Eeligious Conception 23 
 
 III. 
 
 The useless Prolongation op the Life of a Religious 
 Conception beyond the Epoch, for which it was 
 intended 38 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Superior Excellence of a Religious Conception, 
 evidenced by the Results 
 
 ( 1 ) A calm, and fearless, and unsparing, comparison of its 
 
 tenets with those of every other Conception, Past, 
 Present, or dimly visioned in the Future, when 
 purified from the degrading survivals of previous 
 Religious Conceptions of the race. 
 
 (2) The unconquerable desire of those, who believe in it, 
 
 to extend it to other races, and the whole of man- 
 kind by peaceful argument, vuiselfish sacrifice, and 
 inducements wholly free from carnal advantages. 
 
 V. 
 
 The Philosophical Aspect of the Idea op Metempsychosis 10!> 
 
2r|)t0 Ualume is tielitratcti bg ^ ^Eptuagrnarian 
 
 to all tijose, 
 
 luljo care to fiamfiu scicnttficallg, antj stubg trutljfullg, 
 
 tf)e storg of tlje 
 
 Eelatfon of t!)£ f^uman &on\ to @oli 
 
 in all ^QZQ, Begions, anti ticgrcES of ffi^ulture ; anti tul)0 Ijumblg 
 
 rfjoi'cE fn bring 
 
 " f^ctrs of all tf)e Past ^ges," 
 
 anil bcfng in posscsst'on of fvcctiom of tfjoiitjljt, 
 
 unb accumulation of latnoiulctigc, 
 
 iDljtcl) ^2olg fHfn anti Sages of olti felt for, if fjaplg tfieg coulti fintj, 
 
 ant rjrcatlg ticsirctj, but in faain, 
 
 until in tf)E fulness of time all toas reticnleti. 
 
 London, 
 
 Christmas Dny^ ^Sgy. 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 ON 
 
 RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 The Dawn of a Religious Conception. 
 
 1 . Exordium. 
 
 2. Indian. 
 
 3. Mesopotamian. 
 
 4. Egyptian. 
 
 5. Conclusion. 
 
 I. Exordium. 
 
 In the last generation many things were fondly assumed upon 
 very insufficient data, and upon traditional authority, which refused 
 to be brought to the usual literary tests. A hazy, legendary, atmo- 
 sphere enveloped the origin of all mankind, whether cultured, or 
 barbarous. To the numerically small tribe of the Hebrews was 
 attributed a superiority in things material, as well as spiritual. 
 The people of Egypt, and Mesopotamia, were hardly thought of, 
 except with reference to the very prejudiced character given 
 of them in Hebrew story. We have got beyond that Epoch now : 
 without claiming even now any finality, we see enough to convince 
 us of certain facts : 
 
 (i) That the races of mankind, white, yellow, black, brown, 
 and red, did not come from one common ancestor. 
 
 (2) That the Languages of mankind did not spring from the 
 same, but very different, and totally distinct, seedplots. 
 
8 £SSJ VS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIOXS. 
 
 (3) That the Eartli was created and peopled by the Human 
 race at a period infinitely in excess of the Four 
 Thousand years conventionally received, as preceding 
 the great Anno Domini, which is the basis of all 
 preseut calculations. 
 
 Nothing is stated, or implied, in this Essay, which would throw 
 doubts on the received tenets of any Ileligion : they lie entirely 
 outside the present discussion : indeed, the Epoch, included in these 
 remarks, is thousands of years anterior to the Christian era. Two 
 volumes have during the last year been published, which throw 
 light upon the dawn of Religious Conceptions in three countries 
 far distant, and with no intercourse with each other at the remote 
 period, which is described : these books are feelers on scientific 
 principles into the mist, which has originally surrounded the cradle 
 of the Human race : there is no object on the part of the Authors 
 to make false statements, or conceal truths, as is sometimes tlie case 
 in discussions relating to Eeligious Conceptions, which still hold 
 sway. In all three cases centuries have elapsed since belief in the 
 Religious Conceptions alluded to, only as a matter of History, has 
 passed away. As a fact, it is only through Religious Legends, and 
 Inscriptions, that we are able to form any opinion of the Con- 
 ceptions, and ideas, of the Human race in that faraway Epoch. 
 AVe sec clearly, that, however much we may be justified in 
 declaring, tliat the Hamitic Egyptian, the Non-Arian and Semitic 
 Chaldaeans, and the Arian Indian, did not spring from the same 
 parent, and that their Languages are so totally distinct in principle, 
 as well as structure and vocabulary, as to render a common 
 Linguistic origin impossible ; yet we see unmistakably, that these 
 three illustrious races, who have left their indelible footprints on 
 the sands of time, were of the same category of created animals, 
 the genus Ilomo, with the same capacities, tendencies, greatnesses, 
 and weaknesses, the same desire to leave records of themselves to 
 be studied by future ages, the same desire to feel after their 
 Creator, for they had all been endowed with the two congenital 
 gifts of a " Religious Instinct," and "Language-making faculty," 
 differentiating them from the lower animals, because they had an 
 innate conviction of the existence of 
 
 " Self," "the World," and an " Unknown Superior Power outside 
 the World." 
 
 As a fact, no tribe, however barbarous, has been discovered 
 without the "Lauguage-making faculty," which enabled the "Self" 
 to communicate with his contemporaries, "the AVorld," which 
 the slightest acquaintance brought into evidence, as a feature of 
 daily life : and no tribe, however Savage, which is a degree lower 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. g 
 
 in the scale than barbarons, has not revealed to the inquirer the 
 fact of his having a Religious Instinct, however gross, and unde- 
 veloped. But these three great Nations, who form the subject of 
 this Essay, had in the course of centuries advanced far beyond 
 Barbarism, and had learned to erect architectural structures, which 
 will last as long as the great globe lasts, to communicate with all 
 succeeding generations by means of the art of expressing sounds by 
 symbols, which each of the three effected in a totally different way : 
 by means of Ideograms in the case of the Egyptians, of Cuneiform 
 Syllabaries in the case of the Chaldaeans, and of an Alphabet in 
 the case of the Indians. They had conceived out of their own con- 
 sciousness (waiving, for the sake of this argument, the possibility of 
 a superhuman Inspiration) the most exalted and holy scntimeuis, 
 the consciousness of a Creatoi", the idea of a Future State beyond 
 the grave, to which Knowledge the pre-Exilic Hebrew never 
 attained ; and they have left behind them, to the admiration, and 
 for the instruction, of future ages, a flow of ideas of imperishable 
 beauty, and a combination of words, which will never die, or cease 
 to charm. 
 
 The order, in which the three branches of the subject are treated, 
 has no relation to the questicm of the earlier, or later, date with 
 reference to each other, which has provisionally been assigned to 
 them : the reader is conducted from the East to the West : from 
 the Doab of the Rivers Ganges and Indus, to the Mesopotamia of 
 the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates in Asia, and the basin of the River 
 Nile in North Africa. 
 
 By the word "Ancient" in this Essay a period is assumed 
 anterior to : 
 
 (i) The appearance of Gautama Buddha in North India as 
 regards India, say 550 B.C. 
 
 (2) The call of Abraham as regards Chaldaea, say igoo b.c. 
 
 (3) The thirteenth Dynasty as regards Egypt, say 1900 B.C. 
 
 It has already been stated, that their Languages totally differed, in 
 structure as well as vocabulary, and it is a fact, that the principles, 
 upon which their form of script was based, were diametrically 
 opposed, and, as if to evidence the great versatility of Human powers 
 of invention, the materials, on which the ancient documents have 
 come down to later ages, were totally different. 
 
 (i) In India the Veda have come down to us in Manuscript, 
 written by a reed upon peiishable material, the leaves of plants, 
 and the date of the oldest survivor of copies of copies is not much 
 anterior to the Norman Conquest of England : there has been room 
 for forgery, intercalation, and emendation of the text. 
 
lO £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 (2) In ^Eesopotamia wc can handle the original documents in 
 baked clay-bricks in precisely the same state, in which they left 
 the hand of the scribe : there is no room here to doubt the genuine- 
 ness of the ancient document, however much the correctness of the 
 interpretation of the modern Scholar may be questioned. 
 
 (3) In Egypt we can handle the original papyri, and pass our 
 hands across the engraved stelae : if later generations of Monarchs 
 have attempted in some cases to manipulate such documents as the 
 latter, detection is easy : it is not a copy of an original document, 
 but the original document violated by later corrections. 
 
 Still more wonderful is the History of these three Nations since 
 the periods, which above have been fixed as the limit of the 
 inquiry : 
 
 (i) India remains to this day with the same dominant race, to 
 a certain extent intermixed with immigrants from other parts of 
 Asia, and survivals of races of an earlier settlement in India than 
 themselves. A population of 280 Millions occupies the Regions of 
 Nearer and Further India, and the Indian Archipelago, to which 
 the Culture of Vedic India extends : this makes up nearly one- 
 fifth of the population of the globe. The Religious conceptions of 
 two-thirds of this mass are based on the Veda, and from its bowels 
 have gone forth the first great propagandist Religious Conception 
 of the World, of which Buddha, a Native of India, was the sole 
 founder, and which embraces three hundred additional Millions in 
 the Extreme Orient : thus, fully one-third of the population of the 
 "World received its idea of Religion from India. 
 
 (2) Of the Culture, the Language, the Religion, of ^lesopotamia, 
 the very name had died, and was absolutely extinguished before the 
 time of Alexander the Great ; it left no successor to its great 
 inheritance, and no trace of its existence, until the present centuiy 
 had excavated the remnants of its greatness. The supercilious 
 Greek, and Roman, and Arab, knew nothing even by Legend of 
 their great predecessor in Arts, Science, and Arms. It cannot 
 even be said with certainty, that there are any racial descendants 
 of these Mighty Men, who ruled in Mesopotamia, and founded 
 Babylon before the birth of the progenitor of the Hebrew tribe, 
 which has occupied hitherto a place in History so unduly pro- 
 portioned to its really insignificant existence from a material point 
 of view. 
 
 (3) The Individuality, the Religion, the Language, of Egypt, 
 died out giadually a few centuries after the Christian Era ; but her 
 name, and her gigantic Monuments, secured to her through all ages 
 
ASSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. \\ 
 
 a mysterious place in History, and the unclefined influence of her 
 Culture was felt, if not acknowledged, by the races in Europe, 
 springing into existence. 
 
 One more distinctive feature in their fate may be laid stress on : 
 our knowledge of India cannot be carried back so far as those of 
 the other two countries, but that knowledge has always been above 
 ground, on the lips of men, and in unbroken continuance up to the 
 present hour. Our knowledge of Mesopotamia can noio be carried 
 back to an unfathomable anticjuity : but there has been an interval 
 of suspended life for centuries ; the voice, which now calls to us 
 across the void, sounds like that of a telephone from a distant 
 country. The Greek and Roman marched over the remains of great 
 cities without knowing even their names ; yet these cities have 
 now given out of their depths vast libraries. Our knowledge of 
 Egypt can be carried back to a date as remote, but, though little 
 was known of the treasures concealed in her tombs, yet its name 
 and reputation had survived the extinction of the kingdom, Lan- 
 guage, and possibly of the race. 
 
 We must never lose sight of the fact, that a vast amount of 
 ancient Literature has hopelessly perished. It might be a good 
 argument against the truth of an event, alleged to have taken 
 place in modern times, that there is no allusion to it in contemporary 
 History; but this does not apply to those ancient times, and we 
 must always bear in mind, that the priceless treasures, which 
 haughty Time has spared to us, may be only an inconsiderable 
 fragment of what once existed. We know that several books of 
 the Hebrews have been lost to us, and it is a constant check to our 
 over-confidence to recollect, that more may still be revealed by 
 later excavations. Still, new theories should be cautiously advanced ; 
 and those, who now lay stress on the great antiquity of Arabian 
 Inscriptions, and claim for it the honom' of being the Parent of 
 Alphabetic writing, as Egypt and Mesopotamia are unqiiestionably 
 the Parents of Hieroglyphic and Cuneiform respectively, had better 
 hold their breath for awhile, and marshal their evidence, for as 
 a fact, Arabia is not credited with playing any great part in 
 Ancient History. But all things are possible, if we have but the 
 grace to wait. 
 
 2. Indian. 
 
 An interesting volume has lately appeared with the title of 
 " Vedic India," one of the series of the " Stories of the Nations," 
 as embodied principally in the Rig Veda, by Madame Zenaide A. 
 Ragozin, M.R.A.S., author of the story of Chaldaea, Abyssinia, and 
 Persia in the same series, 1895. The Veda, in an archaic Dialect 
 of the Sanskrit Language, is the sole authority : there is no other 
 contemporary Literature. The Science of this subject has been 
 
12 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 created in the last half -century, and the authoress of " Vedic India'' 
 has hoiled down the accumulated knowledge of a series of illustrious 
 Scholars into a convenient size. 
 
 The old theory of an Arian race is well-nigh exploded : there is 
 unquestionahly an Arian, or Indo-European, Family of Languages, 
 but Language is only one, and not the most important, type of 
 a race, and it is quite possible for the same or similar Languages 
 to be used by totally distinct races, distinct in colour, hair, and 
 physical structure. The Arian-Language-speaking Indian race 
 may be considered as a separate race, with strong affinities, to its 
 Iranian neighbour. 
 
 The Veda have been always, and are still, emphatically held to 
 be a direct verbal Revelation, communicated to men by the 
 Creator and Ruler of the world. Of their genuineness, and con- 
 siderable antiquity, there can be no doubt, but there are no materials 
 for carrying back their date to anything like Egyptian or Chaldaean 
 Antiquity. There is no room for fraud or deception in the com- 
 pilation of the Yeda : students may take a different view of the 
 meaning of passages, and of the inductions to be thence made, but 
 this is a matter of scholarship, not of prejudice, partiality, or 
 interested traditional interpretation: there is no room for Higher 
 Criticism here : there is no class, whose stipends and social position 
 in life depend upon the scientific question as to particular docu- 
 ments being written at particular periods by particular men. 
 
 For many centui'ies these volumes, both poetry and prose, were 
 handed down to successive generations orally. At length the time 
 came, at an uncertain period, before the Christian era, but modern 
 when compared to Egyptian or Mesopotamian Records, say 40c b c., 
 when they were conveyed to Alphabetic writing on perishable 
 materials, subject to all the incidents of errors of copyists. These 
 Books speak for themselves, as they reveal the piety, the intelli- 
 gence, the poetical genius, and the logical powers, of that ancient 
 race, whicl) found its way across the Hindu Kush into the Paujab 
 in North-West India, at some remote period. 
 
 The number of persons who nominally accept the Erahmanical 
 Conception exceeds two hundred IVIillions, and with the exception 
 of a few, who are absent in East Africa, or Further India, they all 
 dwell in the vast Region of Nearer India: they speak u]i wards of 
 one hundred Languages, have created in times past a wondrous 
 Literature, ai'c in the fi'ont rank of Commerce, Agriculture, Manu- 
 facture, and Science. Strange to say, there is an annual addition 
 to their Religion by voluntary adliesion of Nature-worshipping 
 tribes, and un annual increase of tlieir numbers by the process of 
 generation. There is an infinite number of subdivisions of Castes, 
 and Sects, rendering all intercourse by way of commensality and 
 intermarriage impossi])le : they represent one-seventh of the popu- 
 lation of the round World, and it is impossible to treat them as 
 
ESSAVS O.V RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 13 
 
 a negligable quantity, on account of their compact Nationality, 
 their enormous numbers, their wealth, and intellectual capacity. 
 
 People in Europe may imagine, that the precise Ritual and 
 dogma of the Veda are believed by the common people now : those, 
 wlio think thus, forget that Religious Conceptions are Progressive, 
 and are modified and contracted, or develop and expand, according 
 to the influences of the Period, and Environment. We have 
 witnessed in England the birth and progress both of Ritualistic 
 and Evangelical tendencies : the people of India are as far from 
 the tenets of the Veda, as the woridly classes of the people of 
 England are from the Doctrines preached in Galilee. The Hindu 
 has been always tolerant and receptive; and modern Hinduism, like 
 Topsy in the famous Novel, " grew," absorbing much from Non- 
 Arian races, in whose midst it developed. A Book lately published 
 at Allahabad, " Introduction to the Religion and Folklore of 
 North India," by Mr. W. Crooke, connrms this view, which I had 
 long entertained. As regards the common folk, such as those whom 
 the Pharisees in the New Testament cursed as ignorant of the Law, 
 they are quite free from the charge of knowing any tiling whatsoever 
 of the Veda, Vedanta. Bhagavad Gita, Puraua, etc., etc. 
 
 In the Greek Cosmogony, Demeter represented the rich bounty 
 of Nature in bringing out of the Earth abundant Harvests, by 
 which Life was sustained : what greater Miracle than the Annual 
 Crop springing from the tiny seed ? So Dionusos represents the 
 annually returning clusters of grapes to make glad the heart of 
 man. But to all things belonging to Earth there are limitations : 
 the Sun, Moon, and the Elements are phenomena of the whole 
 World, but the fruits of the Earth are localized, and to Millions 
 the idea of the vine and crops of wheat are unknown. A Primitive 
 People thanked God for annual blessings, but they could only see 
 the Near Horizon. 
 
 It is generally asserted, that the Deity created the Human race : 
 the Veda tell us another story, that the Human race evolved the 
 Conception or the existence of a Deity, from their own observation 
 of the features of Nature. The first Triad consisted of Varuna 
 (Oopai^o^), who represented the expanse of Heaven ; Agni (Ignis), 
 the Sun, Lightning, and Fire ; and Indra, the controller of the 
 Atmospheric Elements. Man in his simplicity beheld the Sun, 
 the Moon, and the Planets, who seemed in their course to influence, 
 or at least regulate, the Seasons : they represented a sublime 
 exhibition of Power and Motion. Their regularly recurring orbit 
 seemed to infer the existence of an overruling Power : if that 
 Power could be benevolent to Nature in its entirety, as it ch-arly 
 was, could it not be so to individuals, and it was therefore de- 
 serving of thanks for the Past, prayers for the Present, and hope 
 for the Future, as being powerful to save or destroy. In these 
 Vedic hymns there is a simplicity of thought, the first sobbing and 
 
14 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 plaintive cry of a Human family in their cliildhoocl to their great 
 Author and Controller. It has been well said, that the study of 
 the Sacred Books of each Nation is a Revelation of God to man, 
 and the cultivation of Prayer, real Prayer, constitutes the Reve- 
 lation of man to God. 
 
 Another general belief has grown upon us, that the Deity was 
 immortal, while all that belonged to man passed away : the Yeda 
 teach, that the Deity, or groups of Deities, have their day, and 
 pass away, while the Conceptions of the Human race, committed 
 to writing, are practically immortal. 
 
 As time went on, the great Hindu race multiplied, and grew 
 strong and wealthy, and their Conception of the Divinity varied 
 with their advancing experience : there has been no interruption 
 in the great stream up to the present year. Another Triad, 
 Rrahma, Vishnu, Siva, has long since occupied the highest place, 
 very much as Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, pushed aside the 
 elder ])eities, and so it must be, till the end comes to the Hindu 
 system, as it did fifteen hundred years ago to the Graeco-Latin 
 Conceptions. Education, Intellectual expansion, contact Avith 
 other Nations, and unlimited Tolerance, are the sure agents of 
 dissolution of old Conceptions, which are out of touch with the 
 spirit of the age. From their ashes some new Phoenix will arise, 
 for no Religion starts on a tabula rasa, but rests on some previous 
 Religious stratum, which can only be reached by Tradition, and is 
 a legacy to younger races from races, which have had their day. In 
 the Sixth century before the great Anno Domini, from the Schools of 
 Brahmanical Philosophy, there came forth from his mother's womb 
 a man, who gave birth to three new Religous elements. 
 
 ( 1 ) That Theology must be accompanied by the highest pos-ible 
 
 Morality, and self-denying Purity : the Hebrew up to 
 the time of the Captivity, had not reached that point : 
 immoral kings are but a type of immdral people. 
 
 (2) That the "Egoism," the selfish desire to find Salvation 
 
 for yourself, and let perish all the rest of mankind, 
 must give way to Altruism, and that the greatest virtue 
 and joy were to do good to others, and that the very 
 thought of self was evil. 
 
 (3) That Religious Conceptions were no longer restricted to 
 
 one race, or Nationality, but were Universal, good for 
 all the Human race, and that it was a Duty to publish 
 the Message. 
 
 This was a wonderful advance, to which tlie Egyptians and 
 Mesopotamians had never arrived : it is true, that their existence 
 was cut short about the period, when Buddha came into existence, 
 and that as a fact, the worship of Isis did, to a certain extent, 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 15 
 
 become a propagandist Religion duriug the years of the decay of the 
 Graeco-E-oman system. 
 
 We must not rest on the notion, that in the long Vedic Period 
 there was no advancement of Thought, no development of ideas : 
 quite the contrary: the World of Intellect expanded there as 
 elsewhere. There was a greater wealth of Religious sentiment in 
 the time of Antoninus Pius than in the time of Pericles. The 
 Bhagavad Gi'ta far surpasses the Veda in exalted thought, and even 
 in certain passages in the Bhagavad Purana we detect signs of 
 advancement with the advance of the age. 
 
 Nor can it be said Avith certainty, that nothing preceded the 
 Yeda. Among the Books of other Ancient Religions there are 
 portions always of an older date, nearer to the '•'• Javentus Mundi,^' 
 with a more archaic appearance, for there are unmistakable traces 
 of ai'tificial refinement, and of corruption, in some lines of the 
 Veda : it is an aftei'-delusion to place them in the Aurora of Human 
 Thought. Such is the opinion of a very competent authority 
 (Barth, "Revue de Religions," iii, 8, 9). 
 
 3, Mesopotamian. 
 
 I pass into a totally distinct and Semitic "World. Here we have 
 a wealth of information, garnered during the last quarter of a 
 century : not theoretic speculations, but positive facts : our treasure 
 is positively in the earthen vessels of burnt clay-bricks, intact, and 
 as they came from the hand of the man armed with the steel stylus : 
 during the last 2,500 years no one would have cared to erase, 
 or add, or alter : would that we had the monuments of Hebrew 
 Literature in the same authentic, and unadulterated form ! Oh ! 
 that Hosea and Amos, when first the art of Alphabetic writing 
 came into free use, had entrusted their utterances to indestructible 
 clay material, instead of to perishing parchment and papyrus. 
 Job cries out (xix, 23, 24), " Oh that my words were now 
 written ! oh that they were printed in a book ! That they were 
 graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever ! " But 
 he was not a Hebrew, and the date of the Book is scarcely 
 before the Exile. 
 
 Maspero, in the three Chapters (VII, VIII, IX) on Chaldaea in 
 his epoch-making "Dawn of Civilization," 1894, collects and 
 tabulates all, that was known of Chaldaea up to the Thirteenth 
 Egyptian Dynasty, at which date the first volume of his Monu- 
 mental work closes. He was not himself a Cuneiform Scholar, 
 but a labourer in a different field ; still, he was able to appreciate, 
 and criticize, and affirm, the statements of the able Scholars, who 
 have spoken ex cathedra on the subject. We find ourselves drawn 
 by a vortex into an Epoch far anterior to anything dreamed of 
 in the Annals of India, or the Extreme Orient. His chapter VII 
 
1 6 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 treats of the Croation, the Deluge, the History of the DiviBities, 
 the Country of Mesopotamia, the Cities, the inhabitants, and early 
 Dynasties. His chapter VIII sets out the facts of the constitution, 
 and revenues, of their tenijdes ; their popular Deities, and Theo- 
 logical Triads ; Death and Hades. His chapter IX expounds the 
 coDstitution of the family, and property, their commerce and industry. 
 
 He writes as an outsider, not as the man with a single idea: in 
 fact, his interest is with Egypt, tlie making of which was accom- 
 plished as a kingdom in the Thirteenth Dynasty, including the 
 whole Nile Valley, from the spot where the Kiver received its last 
 tributary, to the sea : Thebes was the Capital : a provisional date 
 may be accepted of 1 900 b.c. The period of Isolation was coming to 
 an end : the Nomad tribes were showing signs of restlessness on the 
 frontier: the Power, seated in Mesopotamia, was coming into 
 evidence in Central Syria, and Chaldaea, had imposed her Language 
 and form of script upon West Asia up to the confines of Egypt: 
 the time was approaching, when the Basin of the Nile was to 
 come into collision with the Basin of the Euphrates and the 
 Tigris. Not as yet had Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees to settle 
 in Syria, and found the Hebrew race : it is well to lay stress on 
 this, as owing to the ignorance of our ancestors, the tiny tribe of 
 the Hebrew has been elevated to an importance in History and 
 Geography to which it had no claim. 
 
 The Cuneiform Written Character differed materially from Hiero- 
 glvphics in principle, and in detail : the same may be said of the 
 Languages used in Chakiaea : the most ancient documents are in 
 the Sumerian or Akkadian of the Ural-Altaic Family, with the 
 agglutinative method ; and the later documents are in the Semitic, 
 with the inflective method. The absence of pictorial tablets, as in 
 Egypt, prevent our following the Chaldaeans in tlieir daily avocations 
 and recreations ; but the inscribed tablets, having been interpreted 
 by the aid of impartial, unprejiidiced Science, free from theo- 
 logical traditional bias, which obscures other fields of research, 
 has revealed the ideas of these ancient men as to the origin 
 of their Deities, and the Creation- story, how Bel Merodach de- 
 feated Tiamat, or Chaos, and refashioned the World, earth, sea, 
 and heavens, and created man and animals. Had the tribes of 
 Judah and Benjamin disappeared after the Babylonian Conquest 
 of Judriea, as their cousins of the Ten Tribes disappeared after the 
 Assyrian Conquest of Israel, or had Ezra on the return of the 
 Captives, whicli event was fraught with the Religious History of 
 the World, after their seventy years at Babylon, not carefully 
 arranged such fiagments of the Law and the Prophets, as had 
 survived the destruction of Jerusalem, when temple and tower 
 went to the ground, these Chaldacan documents would have had 
 the monopoly of knowledge of the Human Origins, now ascribed to 
 the Hebrew peojde. 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. \J 
 
 These Chaldaean records do not fail to give account of eveiy- 
 thing, that happened since the Creation, and calculate the number 
 of centuries betwixt their own time and that great event. Miracles 
 are not wanting. To a wonderful creature, Cannes, they are 
 indebted for the germ of their Civilization : great cities came into 
 existence : one king, Aloros of Babylon, reigned for a period only to 
 he computed by thousands of years, and the reign of his two successors 
 were even longer : 6q 1,200 years are thus accounted for : Berosus, 
 who lived in the Tliird century before Christ, some fragments of 
 Avhose History has survived in quotation by other authors, gives us 
 these details, and justifies the sharp criticism of the Koman on 
 Greek authors : 
 
 " Quicquid Grecia mendax 
 " Audet in historia." 
 
 As to the relation, which some of these legends bear to Old 
 Testament History, I pass them by, as not suitable to the present 
 discussion : but they are of extreme importance. 
 
 The Triads of Deities were : 
 
 First. I. Anu, the Heavens. 
 
 II. Bel Merodach, the Earth. 
 III. Ed, the Ocean. 
 
 Second. I. Sin, or the Moon. 
 
 II. Shamsh, or the Sun. 
 III. Bamman, or the Genius of the Tempest. 
 
 The five planets were Merodach or Jupiter ; Ishtar or Venus ; 
 Nimb or Saturn ; Neigal or Mars ; Nebo or Mercury. It is note- 
 worthy, that the names of the days of the week, as used to this 
 day, are derived from the Sun, Moon, and these five Planets. Of 
 the Planets two descended to Earth. 
 
 I. Nebo, who became a Soothsayer and Prophet : he invented 
 clay-tablets, and the art of writing upon them. 
 II. Ishtar, the Morning and Evening Star, the Goddess of 
 Love, who attracted the sexes to each other : she had 
 most incongruous characteristics. 
 
 The Chaldaeans had not the clear idea of a Future State, 
 possessed by the Egyptians : the tomb, and the mummy, were 
 the engrossing subjects in Egypt. The Chaldaean texts are silent 
 as to the condition of the Soul : the living had no further concern 
 with the dead but to get rid of them : the body must, however, not 
 be left without sepulture : but that was all. Still, there was 
 a "double" analogous to the Egyptian Ka, called Ekimmu, for 
 
1 8 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Avhom provisions and clothing, ornaments, and arms, had to be 
 supplied : he would tlien be a guardian to his children. It 
 abandoned, or forgotten, he returned to his home, and tormented 
 his relatives : if not buried, he became a danger to the entire city. 
 At the present day, after the lapse of 5,000 years, the Chinese have 
 not got beyond this stage of Eschatology. Heavy sentences, and 
 frightful punishments, await those, who sinned according to the 
 then prevalent ideas of Sin. Homer and Yirgil in their famous 
 Poems caught up the echo of these ideas, and the descent of 
 Orpheus to get back his wife from Tartarus has an analogy in the 
 descent of Ishtar to fetch back Tammuz, or Adonis, which recalls 
 portions of Hebrew and Greek Mythology. It is noteworthy, that 
 the Chaldaean scribe never used the Papyrus, which he could easily 
 have imported from Egypt, nor skins of beasts. Clay-tablets were 
 his only material, whether for home, or foreign, business, as is 
 evidenced by the records lately discovered at Tel al Amarna, or 
 Arsinoe, in Upper Egypt : he had clay-slabs always ready, and 
 a stylus with fine points : later on the end of the stylus was used 
 in the shape of a wedge ; hence cuneus and " cuneiform." 
 
 The two great Basins of the Euphrates and the jS'ile contained 
 the germ of the Civilization of AVestern Asia and Europe : they 
 each had their Heaven-appointed spheres, with unlimited power of 
 unopposed expansion, and no bone of vital contention. Neither of 
 them had up to a certain date ventured into the sphere of the other : 
 they had no lack of fiiendly intercourse, and any chance collision 
 led to no serious results : they were not near enough to hate each 
 other. Ignorance was the great charm against Ambition. In due 
 course of time they did come into a death-struggle, wliich eventuated 
 in the absolute extinction of the independence of both : Persia, 
 Greece, and Rome, swept their power otf the map. 
 
 Between these two great Powers, Egypt and Chaldaea, was 
 a miserable buffer-State, destined centuries later to be the most 
 remarkable in the World. Its political position was somewhat ana- 
 logous to that of Afghanistan at the close of the Nineteenth century, 
 a miserable buffer betwixt the Powers on the Basin of the Oxus, 
 and the Indus. Like Afghanistan, Syria was devoid of Culture, 
 but full of Egoism, and Fanaticism : strange to say, some visionaiy 
 Ethnologists have found a home for the lost ten tribes of Israel 
 amidst the Pastu-speaking Afghans. The late Bishop of Labor, 
 Dr. Erench, distinctly asserted it, but gave no good reasons. 
 
 The buffer-State of Syria before Abraham left Ilaran in Meso- 
 potamia, and crossing the Euphrates founded the Hebrew name, race, 
 and Religious Conception, was a poor country igoo « c, and when 
 I traversed it from North to South, nearly 1900 a.d., it was 
 still a poor country, and ever must be so in the eyes of those, who 
 have been trained to recognize the features of a fat country, teeming 
 with the prolific gifts of Nature, and watered by gigantic streams. 
 
ESSAYS OAT RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 19 
 
 It contributed nothing to material Knowledge, the Arts and Sciences 
 of the "World, but we now know how much we, the heirs of all the 
 ages, owe to Chaldaea and Egypt : they have, as it were, been roused 
 from their deep slumber : before Greece and Rome came into exist- 
 ence even they were on the warpath of every Human Science, were 
 digging into the virgin soil of Human Knowledge. But, thougli 
 they flourished for centuries, they were not destined to hand on the 
 lamp in uninterrupted succession to Nations, who came after, at 
 least not ostensibly so : the waters of Lethe closed over them : 
 each had their Chronicler during the Grecian Epoch, Berosus and 
 Manetho, but of their works only fragmentary quotations survive : 
 both countries came under the observation of the Father of History, 
 Herodotus. It was reserved to the Nineteenth century to make 
 known what manner of men they were. 
 
 4. Egyptian. 
 
 I pass from Asia into Africa. Wiedemann writes in his late work 
 on the "Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of Immortality," 1895, that 
 " as far back as Egyptian History has been traced, the people 
 " appear to have been not only in possession of written Characters 
 " (Hieroglyphics), but of National Art and Institutions, and a 
 " complete system of Religion: we cannot trace its beginnings. In 
 " the earliest glimpses aflorded of it by Egyptian Texts it appears 
 " as perfect in all its essential parts; nor were after-times able to 
 " effect much change in it by the addition of new features." In 
 the two previous countries it is admitted, that the early Arians 
 migrated into India from the Regions beyond the Hindu Kush, and 
 that the Chaldaeans received their Civilization from the direction 
 of the Persian Gulf. Of the parent country, whence Egypt derived 
 her knowledge and Culture, we are not informed. A kingdom 
 called Punt, probably Ethiopia, or Arabia, is darkly alluded to, 
 and at one time was the object of her ambition; the Nile flowed 
 to her from those mysterious Southern Regions never destined to 
 be reached until this century. 
 
 Maspero remarks, that the oldest Monuments scarcely transport 
 us further than six thousand years before the great Anno Domini, 
 but he postulates a date for the first appearance of the race in the 
 Basin of the Nile of at least eight or ten thousand years. When 
 Abraham, the founder of the Hebrew race, went down into Egypt 
 it had already a History of 4,000 or 6,000 years. There is an extra- 
 ordinary resemblance of the present inhabitants of Egypt, after the 
 lapse of so many centuries, with the pictures of their ancestors 
 painted on the Monuments. I myself remarked this on my first of 
 many visits to Egypt in 1843. 
 
 The Egyptians never arrived at the idea of one, impersonal, yet 
 omnipotent, Ruler of the whole World, and not only of the petty 
 
20 
 
 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS COXCEPTIONS. 
 
 Basin of the Nile, which made up the whole World to them. Such 
 indeed, owing to their i<ruorauce of History of the past, and of 
 comparative Geograpliy of the contemporary World, was the intel- 
 lectual position of all the elder Nations before 800 B.C., when the 
 Hebrews ceased to be Monolatrists, and became in very deed 
 Monotheists. Egypt did, indeed, arrive at a most complete Con- 
 ception of a Future State, and a certainty of Howards and P,unish- 
 mcnts after Death. Care was taken of the body of the deceased ; 
 his double, or Ka, had to be provided for ; his Soul, or Ba, had not 
 to be lost sight of. The dryness of the climate, and the nature of 
 the soil, have preserved all these funereal treasures to our day. It 
 is a solemn sight to look at the very features and the body of the 
 reputed Pharaoh of the Exodus in the Museum at Cairo, and still 
 more solemn is it to wander among the excavated remains of places 
 of sepulture of the honoured dead, who were prepared to appear 
 before the Judge, and had a confident hope of everlasting happiness. 
 From the teaching of their divine and benevolent Euler, Thoth, 
 the Egyptians learned Astronomy, Astrology, Music, and Drawing, 
 and the art of Writing, by help of which they immortalized theni- 
 selves, their manner ot' life, their Moral and Religious views, their 
 notions of History, Geography, and Politics. Tlieir Language is 
 distinct from any Asiatic Language-Family, and has left only 
 a feeble representative in modern times, dead for oral purposes, 
 but living liturgically in the Koptic. Their form of script is the 
 Hieroglyphic, passing in the couise of centuries into Hieratic, and 
 Demotic : it is one of their earliest inventions, one of the greatest 
 wonders of the World, and the great ancestor and exemplar of all 
 the Alphabetic systems, which have made Asia and Europe what 
 they are. 
 
 There were two cycles, or systems, of the Egyptian Divinities, 
 representing the opinions of tbe learned men of Memphis and 
 Thebes, the successive great Capitals of Egypt, and marking the 
 progress, as time went on, of the Human Intellect. The two systems 
 were but variations of the same central idea: there were male 
 deities, with most of Avhom were associated female deities, holding 
 inferior place, except in the case of Isis : one group may be called 
 that of Osiris, one of Ea : the latter group was wholly Solar ; the 
 Osiris group consisted of Osiris, his consort Isis, and his opponent 
 Seth. Horus was the child of Osiris and Isis. As in India and 
 Chaldaea, the Egyptian Deities were frequently associated in Triads. 
 Osiris was essentially the " good principle," and in perpetual war- 
 fare with the " evil principle." For a time he Avas vanquished and 
 killed, but came again to life: Horus, his son, avenges his father : 
 the power of the evil piinciple is destroyed, but not anniliilated. 
 Osiris thus became the type of Humanity, its struggles, its sutferings, 
 its temporary defeat, and its final victory : the dead were identified 
 with him, and under the name of Osiris, whether male or female, 
 
£SSAVS OAT RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 21 
 
 passed into Amenti, the Divine "World below. Here we touch on 
 one of the secrets of Human life and death, and after the lapse of 
 thousands of years have still to walk by faith, not by sight. 
 Moses, though learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, was 
 either ignorant of, or purposely reticent on, the subject of a Future 
 State, in those Laws, which are attributed to him, and which he 
 enacted 2,500 years later: much of the Decalogue appears in the 
 famous " Book of the Dead " of the Egyptians, which is of a much 
 earlier date than the Exodus. 
 
 No thoughtful person can think lightly of the Religious Con- 
 ceptions of these great races : they telt after God, if haply they 
 could tiud Him : if success crowned their efforts in AVar or Peace, 
 they thanked their Deities, Ashur, or Amen Ea, for his assistance. 
 They were indeed deficient in many essentials of Eeligion, which 
 after ages taught their successors; but the Eschatological Conceptions 
 of the Egyptians from the earliest time were indeed wonderful. 
 We have only to compare the questions, which the dead were pre- 
 pared to reply to, and the answers inscribed on papyrus Rolls 
 in Hieroglyphics, which were placed in the Mummy-cases with the 
 dead body, Avith the sentiments of contemporary and later races, to 
 feel how superior were Egyptian notions upon this material point. 
 Supposing that no portion of the evidence alluded to in this Essay 
 had escaped the rude hand of Time, and come under our eyes, how 
 imperfect would our opinion have been of the moral and intellectual 
 state of our predecessors in the work of Civilization of Mankind ! 
 
 5. Conclusion. 
 
 "We must think gently of the elder "\\^orld, of our predecessors in 
 the great progress of the Human race. God's poor children were 
 ever what their environment made them : if we doubt this, we 
 in our !Nineteenth-century arrogance, and the narrow orbit of our 
 Theolojiical Shibboleth, question the Wisdom and Love of the 
 great Creator, who hates nothing, that He has made. The early 
 occupants of the great Globe, scattered on vast plains, or herding 
 together in great forests, saw the Sun, and the Heavenly Host, 
 and bowed down to them : they were insensibly conscious of the 
 revolution of the Seasons : they saw the war of the elements, and 
 mighty trees torn up by the winds, and great streams blocked up 
 by ice and snow. Around them was an environment of majestic 
 wonders, and they surveyed it sometimes with feelings of thank- 
 fulness, sometimes in fear and agony, ior the unknown Power 
 seemed to their limited understandings as very capricious : they 
 knew nothing of the unchanging Love of the great Creator, and, 
 when they writhed under famine or pestilence, or the spoliation of 
 men and beasts, they thought, tbat the great Power was angry, and 
 tried in their weak way to conciliate Him. Xot as yet were men 
 
22 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 congregated in cities ; not as yet had they come under the great 
 curse of a Priesthood living by the Sacrificial altar, and in the 
 name of God preaching lies, and setting an example of Pride and 
 Self-will, justifying the scathing line of Lucretius, when he com- 
 mented on the fact that Agamemnon sacrificed the life of his own 
 daughter under the compulsion of Priests : 
 
 " Tantum Religio potuit suadere malortwi." 
 
 Intolerance, Persecution, Egotism, Fanaticism, and Superstition, 
 caused the Conception of the Relation of the Soul to God to be 
 converted into one of the great curses of the Human race. 
 
 Nature- Worship, or as it is now scientifically called the Animistic 
 Conception, or Spirit- Worship (miscalled Devil- Worship by the 
 ignorant Missionary), was the first round in the great ladder, by 
 which the Soul of man, in fear and trembling, in deep debasement 
 and hopeless ignorance, felt its way to the acknowledgment, and 
 "Worship, of the great unknown Power, to which it felt, that it owed 
 its existence, its preservation, and its Future. The heart of man, 
 even in his deep degradation, turns to its Maker as the sunflower 
 turns to the Sun. 
 
 All Human ajBPairs exist only by the force of Evolution and 
 Development. In the absence of this onward influence they die. 
 So in its appointed time in a tribe of Nature-Worshippers there 
 appears a man, greater than his contemporaries, with the power of 
 looking forward into the Future. He collects and arranges all the 
 oral legends of his tribe : if a power of writing exists in his Epoch, 
 he commits them to writing: he dares to legislate for the Future. 
 Among such men were Moses, Zoroaster, Confucius, the Hindu 
 Sages, and Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato. 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 23 
 
 II. 
 The Decay or a Religious Conceptiojt. 
 
 1. Exordium. 
 
 2. Egyptian. 
 
 3. Mesopotamian. 
 
 4. Graeco- Latin. 
 
 5. Conclusion. 
 
 I . Exordium. 
 
 Everything relating to men is subject to the inexorable Law of 
 Decay and Death : their bodies, their material constructions, their 
 intellectual aspirations, their customs, their form of speech, their 
 mode of writing, and lastly their Conceptions as to " Self, the 
 World, God," which make up their environment, varying from 
 century to century, and Region to Region. Our thoughts on this 
 occasion are restricted to the last of the three features of " ^rt pauvre 
 HiiDianite " : it is the one, in which they appear to the highest 
 advantage, and also in the deepest degradation. 
 
 In my contribution to the International Oriental Congress at 
 Geneva, 1894, published in the English and French Languages, I 
 stated in detail the Religious Conceptions of the Ancient World before 
 the great Anno Domini, both those that have perished, and those that 
 still survive. It is a subject to be treated with solemn reverence, 
 for those ancient men were feeling after God, and the great Creator 
 had not forgotten His poor Children. In my Volume published in 
 1895 on the "Common Features of all Religious Conceptions," 
 I pointed out the identity of the superficial structure of all, for all 
 sprang from the same innate goodness, and congenital weakness, 
 of the Human race. God looked down from Heaven on all, and 
 was present in all the ages and in all places. Let me now approach 
 philosophically and impartially the causes, which lead to the 
 changes of a Religious Conception. It is too obvious a feature in 
 History to doubt, that changes do take place. The Religious Con- 
 ception of a people becomes degraded into a spider's web spun by 
 gross and ignorant men for the purpose of hiding God from the 
 community, by Human inventions, and Human word-spinning : by 
 His Grace they have passed away like the clouds in the Sky, and 
 will continue to pass away, while the Sun still remains in the 
 heavens. 
 
24 ESSAYS O.V RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Let me clear away prejudices. In the dawn of a Religious 
 Conception men were isolated ; in the decay they have come into 
 contact with their neighbours : I boldly state, that it is the same 
 God, by whatever name known, in whatever fashion worshipped, 
 who created the whole World, and all that dwell iu it. I thank 
 Paul for quoting, and making his own and ours for ever, the words 
 of two Heathen Poets, Clcanthes and Aratus : 
 
 Tof) 
 
 -jap ^leuof ea/uLcv. 
 
 He does not love one race more than another, and He hateth nothing 
 that He hath made, whatever Egotistic Hebrews, or ill-instructed 
 so-called Christians, may assert. 
 
 He never sanctioned Crime, such as Abraham proposed, and 
 Jephthah and Agamemnon believed, that they were ordered to 
 commit. He never sanctioned spoliation, and wholesale slaughter, 
 such as the Hebrews committed in the invasion of Palestine, or the 
 slaughter otthe Priestsof Jiaal by Elijah. He never leaves immorality 
 iinpuuished, such as that of Solomon or David : in fact, He was all- 
 AVise, Good, Powerful, Holy, Everlasting, Universal, Just, Merciful: 
 all Nations and Tribes have recognized the same invisible Power, 
 and rendered to Him Worship, however imperfect, insufficient, and 
 absolutely wrong, and mistaken, and under different jS'ames. 
 A change of Conception, and Cult, did not entail a change of 
 God. Men in their foolishness, yet piety, in their weakness, 
 yet strength, saw dimly, yet they desired to see and understand 
 the dealings of God, and men in the jS^ineteenth century see dimly 
 still. 
 
 For it is merely opinion supported by Faith, the n/o-T/s of the 
 New Testament, the "EXtti-s of tSocrates, the Emun of the Hebrew, 
 the Phakti or Biswas of the Hindu, the Iman of the Mahometan, 
 entirely unsupported by external or material Proof, sufficient to 
 satisfy the Intellect, though all-sufficient for the Soul : the receiver 
 of the new Conception can give no reason for it : it is there, and he 
 will die for it. We must clear away the barnacles, which cling to 
 the decaying vessel of the old Conception, however venerable : the 
 evil inheritance of ancestral Traditions, which have obscured and 
 shut out of sight the Divine Message, given in the appointed place, 
 at the appointed time, and for the appointed season ; the curse of 
 a Priesthood, whether hereditary, or co-opted, whose means of 
 existence depend on the maintenance of an effete and corrupted 
 Shibboleth ; the foolishness of National, Tribal, or even Family, 
 Monopoly-Conceptions ; the slavery to Words, meaningless Words, 
 which have caused, and may cause again, the wicked shedding of 
 blood of God's poor creatures : whatever may be the errors of the 
 early Conceptions, they were tolerant, if themselves left alone, or 
 expanded peacefully. To Christianity the World is indebted lor 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIOXS. 2$ 
 
 tlie iflea of Intolerance, Persecution, Propagation by force : Islam 
 succeeded to the baneful inheritance. 
 
 It is obvious, that there were survivals of the old Conception 
 in the layers of each new Conception, some of the sad, yet Human, 
 practices of the previous and defunct one. When the time of 
 decay comes, it is found, that there remain important survivals, 
 based on the carnal hopes and ideas of the whole Huniau 
 race : they passed from the old Epoch, and the nidus of the 
 old Nature-Keligion, though it had developed into a Book-Religion 
 of Ritual and Liturgy, and passed on into the later and pre- 
 sumably the Spiritual Conception of a more advanced Epoch ; 
 for there is no possibility of a retrograde step in the process of 
 Human development. Fetishism and Totemisni found their way 
 into the Egyptian Conception, and the Hindu system, an inheritance 
 from African and Pre-Arian races : thus, in the practice of European 
 Christian Churches there are gross survivals of Graeco-Roman 
 Paganism and Judaism. Human customs and dominant ideas 
 become blended with quasi-Religious, so-called Religious, sanctions. 
 The daily pressure upon mankind of Life and Death, Food and 
 Hunger, in the narrow environment of a tribe of low Culture ; the 
 low designs of crafty Priests, who live by their altar and its 
 offerings : all these things shut out the believers, the sincere be- 
 lievers, from a clear view of the great Problem working out before 
 their eyes in the gradnal intellectual advancement of the Human 
 race, and the full appreciation by the Soul of its relation to the 
 Creator and Preserver of its life. My subject is : 
 
 (i) The approaching decay of Religious Conceptions, good for 
 past days, when the round World was partitioned off 
 into Regions entirely separated from each other, with 
 a population in a low state of Culture. 
 
 (2) The development of new Religious Conceptions, suited to 
 the Epoch, universal, yet speaking to each individual 
 Soul, based on universal Laws of llorality. 
 
 Every period of History has its own perplexities, every genera- 
 tion has its own problem to solve, for the affairs of men disperse, 
 shift, and rearrange themselves, like the bits of ^lass in a revolving 
 kaleidoscope : things, although familiar enough in situ, present 
 themselves in a new aspect when in moiu. Take for instance into 
 consideration the view of sacred tilings held in the first year of the 
 Nineteenth century a.b. and contrast it with the view taken now : 
 who would venture in the pulpit of the current year to preach 
 a sermon of that period ? From generation to generation the point 
 of view varies even in the case of the most ordinary Religious 
 Conception ? Reform, and fresh adaptations, are called for, and 
 meet the necessity, but in the elder World the whole of the ancient 
 
26 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 machinery had to be swept away, generally by violence, and place 
 made for a new structure. 
 
 The lloman Empire openly and avowedly admitted the Religious 
 Conceptions of all subject Nations into their cities, on the con- 
 dition, that they respected each other, that, being allowed to 
 live, they let others live: but this is just, what the Christians of 
 that period never would do : they were ever committing some 
 sacrilegious act, or refusing to comply with some purely municipal 
 requirement, in order to obtain Martyrdom. No sooner had they 
 got the upper hand than they came out as intolerant persecutors : 
 the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, as an 
 accident of a siege for political purposes, but the Temple of Serapis 
 at Alexandria was deliberately destroyed by Christian Intolerance. 
 Nothing of this kind has taken place, or could take place, in British 
 India. This marks the total difference of the environment, and 
 places a new problem before our eyes. 
 
 It is so seldom, that a Religious Conception has been allowed to 
 die away by a natui\al death : its last moments have ordinarily 
 been troubled by the fanatical advocates of the new Conception, as 
 instanced in the last years of the Graeco-Roman System, and tlie 
 treatment of Animistic Conceptions everywhere. It will be a new 
 incident in the History of the World to watch the peaceful decay, 
 or gradual transformation, of the Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Con- 
 fucian, Conceptions, while the Powers of the World stand by, and 
 keep the lists open. 
 
 But even though the arrogant intolerance of the Persecutor is 
 restrained, there are more powerful antagonists in the fieW, who 
 were formerly quite unknown: (i) Education, (2) Civilization, 
 (3) Contact with other Nations, (4) Commerce and Travel. It 
 was the absence of every one of these four factors, that made the 
 Hebrews before the Captivity such a peculiarly odious and priggish 
 fourth-rate Nation, objects of scorn to the professors of the 
 Egyptian and Babylonian Conceptions, although both of them had 
 certain extinction coming upon them at the hands of the Persian 
 followers of Zoroaster, and the Greek Disciples of Aristotle and 
 Plato. 
 
 Then, again, if the agents of Conversion were content to offer tlie 
 pure simple tenets of the Founder of the new Conception, the 
 transformation would have been easier, but down to the present 
 Epoch the new doctrine is always presented in a deformed, and 
 hardened, exterior, rendered distasteful by the local accretions of 
 some particular Nationality. The words of the Teacher of Galilee 
 were good for, and acceptable to, all mankind, in all climes, all 
 degrees of Culture, every variety of environment; but the folly 
 of mankind elects to present it to the Hindu and Chinese in the 
 disguise of an English middle-class specific, or an American, or 
 German, newly invented Prescription. 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 27 
 
 "When a Religious Conception is in decadence, as the consequence 
 of its own emptiness, like an exhausted volcano, supposing that 
 there is an entire absence of the Arm of the Flesh, and Intolerance, 
 phenomena are generally found of the following kind : Those, who 
 are advanced in life, or conservative in temperament, or grossly 
 ignorant, or fanatically devoted to the expiring Conception, or 
 really and truly believing in it, or dependent on it for their daily 
 bieacl, such as Priests and Ministers, generally divide themselves 
 into three factions : 
 
 ( 1 ) Those, who attempt to elude notoriety, and conceal their 
 
 Religious convictions, playing the part of hypocrites. 
 
 (2) Those, who in theory respect their ancient Beliefs, but 
 
 being hopeless conform to some new one, and thus 
 preserve their social position. 
 
 (3) Those, who retire from the world into voluntary exile for 
 
 the sake of their Faith, and resign all outward practice 
 of the old Cult. 
 
 We can imagine something of this kind at the time of the 
 Reformation in England until all the old Romish Priests had died 
 out, or left the country. Even then many a decaying old man or 
 old woman must have clung to their last hour to their "Ave 
 Maria " and the husk of a Religious Conception, which was all 
 that the Romish Priest had taught them. And as time goes on, and 
 the contemporaries of the great Transformation die out, the thoughts 
 of the new generation widen with the lapse of years. We should 
 look at the matter with a practical and philosophic eye. Does the 
 stupid conservative not feel, that it is the same God, who rules all 
 the World at all times, and that the great intellectual, and spiritual, 
 movement of the Nineteenth century is as much His gift, or as 
 much permitted by him, as the imperfect Phjsical, Intellectual, 
 and Spiritual, half-knowledge of the Third century, or the over- 
 bearing dogmatism of the Dark Ages. The great Truth in Christ 
 does not require the support of Anathemas, or Pulpit-exaggerations, 
 or " j\Iy-Doxy" assumptions; nor does Faith in Christ necessitate 
 the hiding of the believer's head like an ostrich in the sand. 
 
 The marks of a decaying Religious Conception are : 
 
 I. Leaning on the Arm of the Flesh, and Intolerance. 
 II. Clinging to the original or Translation of some Book of 
 elder ages : Worship of the letter instead of the Spirit. 
 
 III. Maintaining an intolerant, unsympathetic, and ignorant 
 
 Priesthood, whose bread would be jeopardized by any 
 change. 
 
 IV. Abstaining from all attempts to convey the so-called 
 
 Truths, and Precious Promises, of their Conceptions 
 to the outer World. 
 
28 ESSAYS O.V RELIGTOUS CONCEPTIOXS. 
 
 V. Enforcing strict E.ules of Caste as regai'ds ^farriage and 
 Commensal ity. 
 YI. The Arts of Sculpture and Painting are dangerous allies to 
 a pure Spiritual Conception of the Infinite and In- 
 describable. They are the sure forerunners of a secret 
 Idolatry : the old man in the Clouds represents the 
 Creator ; tlie beautiful young woman in a purple dress 
 ■with an infant represents the Virgin Mother ; the Dove 
 represents the Holy Ghost. The poison of Anthropo- 
 morphism clings to a falling Conception. 
 
 2. JEgyptian. 
 
 It is placed beyond doubt, that at a period of its IS'atnral life so 
 remote that it is difficult to state it, as it is totally prehistoric, the 
 Egyptian settlers in the Basin of the Nile possessed a Eeligious 
 Conception of a most elaborate, exalted, and spiritual, nature. 
 The Soul of man was recognized as.tot;dly distinct from the body : 
 the latter might perish, but the former never : and there was a Day 
 of Judgment, and those, who had passed good lives, were not only 
 in the presence of Osiris, but were identified with Osiris. The 
 Sovereigns and their subjects had the strength of their convictions, 
 and raised up mighty structures, which exist to this day, and tell 
 their own story. The art of writing, as the name " Hieroglyphic" 
 indicates, was invented for sacred purposes, and made use of to an 
 extraordinary extent. Great and Holy Thoughts, and everlasting 
 Truths, were committed to these writings, and haughty Time has 
 been just, and spared them. The same leading phennmena developed 
 themselves, the Conception of a Trinity of the three great Deities, 
 of the death of a son, Osiris, for the benefit of mankind : there 
 came into existence Sacred Books, Priesthoods, Ritual, Belief in 
 a Judgment after Death, and Bewards or Punishments. In the 
 last generation the Egyptians had the reputation of having been 
 savage idolaters, who behaved shamefully to the worthy and 
 excellent descendants of the Hebrew shepherd Jacob, who con- 
 descended to dwell in their country. A difierent view is enter- 
 tained now. Still, the singular fact remains, that a period was 
 fixed by the Most High to the Beligious Conception of the Egyptians: 
 there were no seeds of permanence : they lasted three or four 
 thousand years, then fell into decadence under the rule of the 
 Persian Contjuerors, and disappeared under the rule of the Mace- 
 donians, leaving no successor to inherit their accumulated Wisdom, 
 and their developed Ritual, for by a freak of fortune the whole 
 lieligion, Language, and Form of Writing, were enveloped in a 
 sudden darkness, and buried out of sight in the bowels of the earth, 
 leaving no trace in the worship of those who succeeded them. 
 
ESSA YS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 29 
 
 It died, and left no influence on the Keligious Conception, which 
 succeeded it. 
 
 It is remarked by a thoughtful writer that "Egyptian Civiliza- 
 " tion (including the Religious Conception) was complete and fully 
 " developed, but, like that of China, was not on the main line of 
 " Human Progress, and consequently left little or no influence 
 " on future centuries." (P. Gardiner, " New Chapters in Greek 
 History," p. 193.) 
 
 Another writer remarks with regard to the Egyptian Religious 
 Conception in its latest form, when Serapis had become an object 
 of Worship to Greeks and Romans as well as to Egyptians : 
 
 " All my reading convinces me, that a satisfactory exegesis of 
 " Pagan Religious Conceptions is given only by those writers, who 
 " believe, that the earliest Religious ideas of the Human race were 
 " derived from man's daily observation of the awe-inspiring cosmical 
 " phenomena. The primary notion was, that the life-giving, light- 
 " bearing Sui>, was the greatest of Natural and Divine things, 
 " ' the One Great over All.' He was the Boat, that conveyed the 
 " Dead to the next World, the Ruler of the Day, the Ray-crowned 
 " King of the World." (Palestine Exploration Quarterly, Oct., 
 1896, p. 338.) 
 
 It is obvious that increased knowledge of the Universe, and con- 
 tact with other Nations, would dissipate this idea, and the Religious 
 Conception built upon so unsolid a base would disappear : this is too 
 simple an explanation. Mystery is required. Legends, Glamour 
 (shall we say Falsehood?) are required, to maintain a Religious 
 Conception, for the Human race is so foolish on such subjects, that 
 it lends faith to any solemn well-compacted Lie. 
 
 3. Mesopotainian. 
 
 They were but one branch of the great Semitic Family. The 
 course of the Egyptian Religious Conception had been, like their 
 own River Nile, a solitary one, receiving no affluents from other 
 Nations, pouring itself into no great sea. The same may be said 
 of the Mesopotamian Religious Conception. The great Persian and 
 Graeco-Latin Conceptions crushed out its life, and after the lapse of 
 twenty-four centuries we can only dimly trace out what was the 
 belief of those ancient men, and this has been described in the 
 preceding Essay. It had no influence on succeeding ages : it 
 left no great successor to occupy new ground, in the way in 
 which the Brahmanical Conception gave birth to the Buddhist 
 Conception, and the Hebrew Conception to the Christian and 
 Mahometan Conceptions. 
 
30 £SSAyS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 4. Graeco-Latin. 
 
 It may be asserted -with truth, that under the Roman Empire 
 a total eclipse took place of the Religions of Egypt and Mesopotamia. 
 The waters of Lethe passed over them, and not by violent oppres- 
 sion, or Missionary teaching, but by their own weight they sank, 
 unvalued, forgotten, despised, ^uch was not the case of tluit 
 beautiful Conception, which prevailed in Greece and Rome during 
 the Epoch of their greatest glory. Though in the Languages of 
 the two Nations every god and goddess had a different name, yet 
 they were clearly identical, and made up a great part of the Greek 
 and Roman life, appearing in their Literature, in their customs, in 
 their words, in their statuary. The veriest schoolboy knows all 
 about the great Trinity of the Graeco-Latin Religious Conception : 
 
 (i) Zeus or Jupiter : the Eather, the Creator, the Controller. 
 
 (2) Phoebus Apollo : the Son, the Lord of Light, and Healing. 
 
 (3) Athene or Minerva : the Holy Spirit, who sprang from the 
 
 brain of the Father, and who was ever at the side of 
 her worshippers. 
 
 The great oath of the Greeks was : 
 
 " Na? liici ZevTe Trarep, kuI 'AOijvai'ij, KCil 'AttoWoi'. 
 
 Homek's Iliad. 
 
 Demeter or Ceres, Dionusus or Bacchus, Arcs or Mars, Hermes or 
 Mercury, Aphrodite or Venus, all are familiar to every schoolboy, 
 and their names live after they have been deposed, for Poetry and 
 Sculpture have cast an everlasting halo round them. 
 
 "Why did they die? They were merely deified mortals, with 
 like ])ashions, lusts, hatred, envy, jealousy, as men, and they were 
 cruslied by the common-sense of the two most intellectual races of 
 mankind : it was not by the arm of the intolerant persecutor, but 
 by the weiglit of their own spiritual inadequncy, that they fell. 
 The great Dramatists of Athens, the Philosophers of the ditferent 
 Greek Schools, the wisest and greatest of Roman Philosophers and 
 Poets, all contributed to their downfall. It is not sufficiently 
 dwelt upon, how exceedingly opportune as regards place and time 
 was the appearance in the midst of the Human race of the Son of 
 God, for three short years, tkree shortyears only, and yet the environ- 
 ment of Culture, and Human politics, was ready, as it has never 
 been before or since, to receive Him. No reader of the poetiy of 
 Lucretius, of Horace, Virgil, and Juvenal, of the writings of Ciceio, 
 Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus, can fail to remark, that 
 there was a change coming over the minds of men of the Latin 
 race, tliat they had outlived the Religious Conceptions of their 
 ancestors. The stupid conservative of that period, just as the 
 
ESSAYS ox RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 31 
 
 same stamp of men at other periods, attributed the downfall of 
 Rome to the neglect of the worship of the gods, who had made 
 Rome great, but we know well, that the rise and fall of Nations 
 does not depend on their Religious Conceptions. 
 
 Still more marked were the circumstances of the Greek people. 
 The Oracle of Delphi was ceasing to be trusted. Education, and 
 the diffusion of Literature, were having the same powerful effects in 
 Greece, whicli they are now having in British India. The legendary- 
 tales, which had satisfied past generations, did so no longer. The 
 great dramatist, Euripides, lived at an Epoch, when the Olympian 
 gods were preparing to depart : after the death of Socrates they did 
 depart. The legends of Hellas were brought to the crucible of the 
 wit, the inucndo, the suggestion, of the free-thinking Dramatist. 
 Consider the plot of such a Drama as that of " Alcestes" : can any- 
 tliing be conceived more ridiculous than that of a woman after her 
 di-ath being dragged back from her gi'ave by a strong hero such as 
 Hercules, who seized Death, while he was eating the funeral 
 offeiings, and compelled him to surrender his prey ? If the legends 
 of King Arthur were treated in this Human fashion, or the legends 
 of the Old Testament, would they outlive the ridiculous impasse, at 
 which they had arrived ? There was no public Press in Greece, 
 as there is noAV in India ; but the Theatre and the Schools of 
 Philosophy did the work of public inquiries : they asked the reason 
 why, and compelled the reader and hearer to ask themselves, 
 whether what was stated could be true. A fabulous legend 
 translated into the facts of contemporary life, prosaic life, composed 
 of the incidents of life, sickness, and death, must shiivel into 
 nothing, like a bladder that is pricked. 
 
 The Drama was not only a part of the Annual Festival, but 
 it was an advertisement of it: the subject of the Drama became 
 the staple subject of the current Literature of a public beginning 
 to indulge in private reading : it was only at the close of the Fifth 
 Century before Christ, that the rapid growth of intellectual power, 
 taught the public the advantage of private reading, or reading 
 aloud, and this proved one of the dissolvents of the age. A similar 
 process is going on in British India now, Reading led to con- 
 versation, disciissions, and the desire to hear something new. Thus 
 the Greek World was unconsciously preparing itself for the 
 reception of a new Idea, a new intellectual and spiritual environ- 
 ment. Philosophy, and Ridicule, and Common-sense, had stam])ed 
 out the supernatural myths of an earlier age. Something newer, 
 fresher, more suited to the Epoch, was required : and in the 
 fulness of time it came. 
 
 There was a stupid party there as elsewhere, and they would 
 have liked to go on believing in the legend of Alcestes, as in the 
 miracle of some mediaeval Saint ; but the impetus of the spirit of 
 the new age was too great, and the whole visionary fabric disappeared 
 
32 ESSAYS O.V RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 like a dream. Sucli will ever be tlio fate of any Religious Conception, 
 which is allowed to fall behind the Epoch, and the intellectual 
 standpoint, of the worshipper. Such was it when, centuries later 
 the degraded Christian Churches in Western Asia and North 
 Africa fell before the lofty Monotheism of Islam. 
 
 An an illustration of the above I quote passages from Bishop 
 Boyd Carpenter's '' Narcissus " : 
 
 " The conversation would turn upon the faith, which Drusilla 
 *' held, and upon the gods, to which the mother of Felix still clung 
 " Avith a reverent fondness. Her temperament was that of one, 
 " who fears to let slip her faith ; her whole heart was bound iip in 
 " her home ; she dreaded the wrath of the gods, because she feared 
 " lest any change should rob her of what she prized so highly, 
 " her little Felix and her husband. Her pleasant home and its 
 " warm love were to Valeria her all in all; and she would have 
 " embraced any faith, which would secure the favour of any deity, 
 " and so preserve her household happiness." (pp. 6, 7.) 
 
 " There [at Athens, Felix] had learned to look with broader 
 " thought upon these beliefs ; for he had met with various faiths, 
 " and all, in a measure, had something to commend them, and the 
 " gods of Olympus were at least deificatioris of truths, powers, and 
 " qualities, and, if he could not worship them, he could admire the 
 " qualities and powers ; and, perhaps, it was as well to let the 
 " weaker and more ignorant go on in their worship of the gods 
 " themselves. Indeed, for anything he knew, there might be 
 " something of truth in their worship. At least, he would 
 " hardly like to let go the poetry of paganism." (p. 6i.) 
 
 Here opens out the great problem of Religious Conceptions : it 
 seemed to be a question of the Epoch of the individual. 
 
 5. Conclusion. 
 
 A tipie surely comes, when men learn the art of Intercomparison ; 
 and the worshippers of what appeared to one particular tribe 
 unique, learn to their surprise, that the Religious Conception, 
 which they thought was made for them and them alone, really was 
 the property of the Human race, that all mankind was equally 
 endued with a desire to find, and a power to search for, the great 
 Author of their existence. The Hebrew race talked, and still talk, 
 of their Jehovah : they were at first monolatrists, not monotheists, 
 but they gradually rose to the conviction, that Jehovah was Lord 
 of the whole of creation, including the few thousands of Israel 
 
 It is all very well to build for eternity, and to keep repeating 
 the words " for ever," but it is a truth, that old forms wear out, 
 old ideas become obsolete, old words lose their meaning. We may 
 thank God, that the progress of the Human race is ever onward, 
 and upward, and that there is progress all down the line. In the 
 
ESS A VS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 33 
 
 decay of a Religious Conception, the Priests are generally in fault : 
 tliey live by their altar ; they cannot see that the environment, 
 and the point of view, are changing and expanding. As a rule 
 the conservative party is stupid, selfish, incapable of self-sacrifice, 
 and impotent to mark the progress of the Human Intellect. The 
 Priests encourage esoteric Worship : they place stress on Ritual, 
 observance of times, places, seasons, and old-fashioned ideas of the 
 great Kosmos : they, in fact, become themselves carnal, ignorant, 
 intolerant, and ready to appeal to the Arm of the Flesh. It is 
 clear, that in a certain stage of every Religious Conviction degeneracy 
 sets 'in: the height of lofty Conception has been theoretically 
 attained, but there is a limit. Then carnality sets in : Myths obscure 
 the Truth ; words are used for the purpose of hiding rather than 
 expressing meaning ; cruel and even immoral rites take the place 
 of old simple forms. As in the trees of the forest, so in the 
 individuals of a great race, we can watch the progress of the birth, 
 youth, maturity, senility, decay, and death : so is it with Religious 
 Conceptions ; they have their day and disappear : the reason is, 
 that the wave of progress is always in motion : Ave see the face of 
 Nature always changing ; we see generations of men pass from 
 the cradle to the grave, we cannot expect to find permanence in 
 what by nature is so fickle and mobile as the ideas of man with 
 regard to things totally invisible, intangible, and inconceivable. 
 In a book published at Calcutta, " An Introduction to the Study of 
 Hinduism," by Guru Prosad Sen, I read the opinion of the author, 
 " that Hinduism is not, and never has been, a Religmia organization: 
 " it is a purely social system, exacting from the Hindu the observance 
 " of certain social forms, and not the profession of a particular 
 " Religious Belief: the Hindu may choose to have a faith and 
 " creed, if he wants one, or do without one : so long as a man holds 
 " to his Caste he may even accept the doctrine of Christianity.'' 
 Has not conventional Christianity fallen to this level also ? 
 Christianity has become a social association, entirely free from any 
 speculative thought, or rational belief: is it not in both a sign of 
 decay ? 
 
 Only let the transition be gentle, and not marked by cruelty : let 
 us consider the lesson read to us by the treatment of the temple 
 and image of Serapis at Alexandria, and the conduct of Christian 
 Emperors, Bishops, and the savage, ignorant monks of Alexandria. 
 Let the idol fall by its own weight from its pedestal, and the temple 
 disappear in ruins by natural decay, or stand like the Parthenon, and 
 the temple of Balbek, as an architectural voice from the Past. 
 Let us only imagine the Missionary Societies, and the crafty 
 religious fanatics of the middle-classes in great Britain, getting the 
 upper hand in Banaras or Amritsar, and the streets flowing with 
 blood, and the Brahmins slaughtered by a new crop of Elijahs, in 
 the name of the Message of Peace, Forgiveness of Sins, Pity, Pardon, 
 
34 
 
 £SSA VS O.V RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 and Love. What a nnicli higher triumph it would he to see the 
 miracle-workiug statue, the Holy Coat, and the bones of departed 
 Saints, transferred voluntarily to the Museum of Anticpiities, and 
 to leave the bats in the possession of the descried temple! 
 
 The decay of a Keligious Conception is indeed not Death, hut 
 Transition to some higher Form of Eelief in the great Controller of 
 the Universe, some sweepiug away of empty Forms, and attempt 
 of the poor worshipper to approach nearer to the object of his 
 Worship. When a llrligiou of the elder type, attached to some 
 particular Region, built up on Legends, supported by assertions of 
 Visions and Miracles, symbolized by Sacrifice of l^easts and Birds, 
 has run its course, or fallen into deep degradation, ever and anon 
 there comes a man like Hosea (800 b c.) crying out : " Come, and let 
 us return unto the Lord, for I desired mercy and not sacrifice, and the 
 knowledge of God more than burnt-olferings '' (vi, i, 6). We see 
 through all the ages since that initial date a succession of such men, 
 dauntless, eloquent, reasoning with their countrymen : Buddha, 
 Socrates, Paul, Mahomet, Luther, Calvin, Kabi'r, iS'anak, Wesley, 
 God has not left Himself without a witness. He has been immanent 
 in all the ages, rising up early, and calling, here a little, there a little. 
 Sometimes there came a partial refreshing, and a hand pointing 
 backwards or forwards, according to the period in the History of 
 Man : once in all the ages in the fulness of time the Son of God 
 Himself appeared for three short years out of all the centuries 
 of years before and since, and drew a dividing-line between the 
 Past and the Future. All the old-fashioned paraphernalia of 
 Worship disappeared, such as Oracles, Prophecy, Miracles, Signs 
 from Heaven, Theophanies, and man was taught to worship God 
 in spirit, and be content with the Invisible Presence of the Holy 
 Spirit in each one of us, who does not drive Him from our hearts. 
 
 It must be an awful struggle for a conscientious person to change 
 his views on a subject so solemn, to annihilate all the feelings, 
 hopes, fears, loves, hates, of his childhood, and adopt new ones; 
 to feel the pain of faraily-feuds, and lost friendships: but the great 
 mass of mankind did not believe much formerly, nor do they believe 
 much now : they merely change an outward garment, seen by the 
 ejes of men, and hiding the nakedness below. In the first period 
 the Religious Conception has come unconsciously : it has grown 
 with the growth of the tribe. In the second period, when one 
 Conception is taking the place of another, there is a struggle, a 
 fierce conflict, a disruption of families, a civil war, and martyrdom, 
 lluch is said about Martyrs, as it is about Faith : we must learn 
 always to ask the speaker to tell us for what cause the Martyrdoiu 
 is undergone? In what invisible Sivioiir is the Faith? 
 
 And to.) much should not be made of Martyrdom : much depends 
 upon the character of the Martyr. From a book called ''Home 
 and the Early Christians," I select the following extract: "In 
 
ESSAYS O.V RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 35 
 
 " comparison with Labour and Duty it is easy to suffer : compared 
 " to lifelong labour and duty it is a light service : perhaps in many 
 " a conflict with temptation and sin, a harder conflict has been 
 " fought, a harder victory won, than when the flames consumed 
 " him and the beasts tore him limb by limb. Suffering and dying 
 " for a Faith is no evidence of the Truth of that Faith. Many have 
 " died for what others deem faUe lieligion : it is a proof, not of 
 " the Truth of the cause, for which the man or woman died, but of 
 " their sincerity and dogged determination. Some of the meanest 
 " characters have made the best martyrs ; some most noble have 
 " shrunk from infirmity of temperament from the trial." 
 
 Again, when a Nation has risen to greatness under what they 
 d(;em the protection of their National Deities, their poor weak hearts 
 cleave to them : the Worship may be wrong or even injurious, still 
 it is the Religion of themselves, their ancestors, and the Religio 
 loci. The feeling is not an unworthy one : the thoughts are 
 raised from low material wants to the Invisible Power, and the 
 inscrutable Future. 
 
 Those, who are in middle life, may well ask: "is the new 
 Conception a better one ? " Those, who are low in Culture aro 
 scarcely fit judges of what is right : they cannot open out the great 
 question, " "Why was I born ? whence do I come ? whither do I go ? 
 for what purpose did 1 come into life ? " They received the precious 
 gifts of life, and reason, and Language, and a desire to seek after 
 a Power greater than themselves. One thing only is certain, that, 
 as men advance in Culture, they advance in power to appreciate 
 what is holy and right in itself, and to feel sure, that the Divinity 
 must be holy and pure. They unconsciously approach nearer to God. 
 
 Even a confessedly imperfect Religious Conception is better 
 than a plunge into Atheism, Agnosticism, Materialism, casting 
 off all idea of a Divine Power. It is well, that men should not 
 change their views on Divine Things without thought, searching 
 of heart, and inquiry. We know too well how an African tribe, 
 like the Ba-Ganda, or the Maori of New Zealand, may be tempted 
 by a sudden impulse, and the prospect of material advantage, to 
 accept a new Idea, and then, when another wave comes over the 
 land, it is found, that their convictions have no firm rest in the 
 heart: they changed once, they are ready to change again: hundreds 
 of so-called Ct:ristian converts disappear, or join some other herd, 
 some new wind of doctrine, the enticements of some new Preacher. 
 Where there is a great light, there must be of necessity a great 
 shadow *' Qiiieta non movere,^' may be a good maxim in Human 
 affairs, but in Divine matters there must be always a sound of 
 motion, for stagnation is fatal to spirituality. 
 
 It has fallen to the lot of some to witness, or share, the grief of 
 Parent-J, whose child has joined the Church of Rome, or become 
 a Mahometan, whose dauj^htcr has fallen so far as to be the 
 
36 £SSA VS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 additional -svife of a Mormon ; or to openly deny the Atonement, 
 as being unaware of having sins to be atoned for, refusing to be 
 married by any Religious ceremony, or to bring their children to 
 the Baptismal font. It is singular, but Ihe fact is, that even 
 nominal Christians shrink from such conduct, as there is a certain 
 social fashion in favour of certain ceremonies connected with birth, 
 marriage, and death. 
 
 All men to a certain extent are on the same platform as regards 
 things spiritual, lleligion in modern days is no longer a matter to 
 be controlled by physical force, like a conquered kingdom, or as 
 a scientific problem, such as the discoveiy of a new planet, or 
 as a matter of evidence such as a case in a Court of Law ; for 
 in very deed it is a matter of Faith, the evidence of things not 
 seen, and cwpov Qeov, the gift of God. Paul was the first and 
 greatest of Missionaries. He announced himself to be by divine 
 appointment Apostle to the Gentiles. He had not been set apart 
 by the Lord as an Apostle, or co-opted by them as the twelfth 
 apostle. He declared his own Commission, and gave no proofs but 
 his own word. "Without the formality of Council or consultation 
 he set at naught the so-called Law of Moses : he admitted the 
 existence of a Eeligious feeling, the groping after God, in all 
 mankind. Being fluent in the Greek Language, and a member of 
 the ])iaspora in a no mean Greek city in Asia Minor, we might 
 have expected that in arguing about fundamentals, the existence 
 of one sole God, Lord of the whole World, the plan of Salvation 
 through a Mediator, the last Day of Judgment, the Beauty of 
 Morality, he would have fortified his argument by quoting largely 
 from the Dramatists and Philosophers of Athens, showing that 
 Him, whom they ignorantly worshijiped. He preached : but he 
 contents himself with one quotation each from Cleanthes and Aratus : 
 he could never forget that he was a Hebrew, though a Hebrew, 
 who deliberately set aside the Law of Moses, quoting from the 
 Scriptures, of which his Gentile hearers had no knowledge what- 
 ever. The Modern Missionary in India and elsewhere does just 
 the same : he quotes the Christian Scriptures ; he ignores the 
 Sacred Books, and the centuries of Civilization of the people of 
 India, treating them intellectually as South Sea Barbarians. 
 
 There was the same reason in both cases : Paul and the Modern 
 Missionary were, with exceptions of very few, totally ignorant of 
 the intellectual, spiritual, and moral, environment of the lleligion, 
 into which they were penetrating. God is no respecter of persons: 
 he had not left the Greek race at the time of Paul without a clear 
 conception of Right and Wrong, of sorrow following sin, knowledge 
 of a Future State, and the great mystery of Holiness, No one can 
 read the Immortal Survivals of Greek Learning without feeling that 
 the Hellenic So'0m was Tratcaywr-^o'i to Chi'ist. And Augustine of 
 Hippo, and his contemporaries, recognized Plato as a great ally. 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 37 
 
 Paul in his nescience ignored the Greek Schools of Philosophy : 
 the jSTew Testament did not exist in his time : so he depended 
 entirely on such portions of the Old, as it seemed good to him to 
 make use of. 
 
 If rightly handled hy the Missionary the great principles of 
 Morality, Holiness, and Faith in a superhuman Power, submission 
 to a Divine leading, might be enforced by quotations from the 
 Hindu Sages, Zoroaster, Confucius, and Buddha. The Missionary 
 is tempted to consider the learning of past ages, anything beyond 
 the Shibboleth of his Training College, and the orbit of his reading, 
 to be the work of the Devil, and to condemn the great races of 
 Ancient Days to unconditional Hell Fire. 
 
 Some young Hindu youths in the year 1893-4 acted the Play of 
 " Sakontala" in the English Translation from the original Sanskrit, 
 and one of the actors remarked in a letter to the Translator dated 
 May, 1893, as follows : 
 
 " Our object in acting Hindu Plays is to bring home to the 
 " Hindu the good lessons, that our ancient authors are able to teach 
 " us. If there is one lesson in these days more than another, which 
 " forces itself on our minds, it is that our age is turning its back 
 " on Creeds and Dogmas. We are hurrying forward to a Chaos, in 
 " which all existing Relij^ious Conceptions, and even the great 
 " principles of Morality, may in the (^nd be submerged, and as the 
 *' general tenour of Indian thought is to reject what is old, and 
 " absorb all that is new, it becomes an urgent question, whether 
 " a great Intellectual and Moral Revolution, which has no founda- 
 " tion in the Past, can produce lasting benefits to the people." 
 (Williams' " Sakontala," 7th edition.) 
 
 The Brahmanical Religious Conception has lasted about three 
 thousand years, among a population of two hundred millions : it 
 may be about to expire, leaving no capacity in the intellects of the 
 highly educated Hindu to admit the supernatural element as a 
 factor in his spiritual inquiries. The last state will be worse than 
 the first, and the Epoch of Theosophy, Mormonism, Comteism, 
 Agnosticism, Unitarianism, and Theism, will have arrived. 
 
 Such may be the lot of the erlucated : as regards those who are 
 totally devoid of Culture, I quote the following story : 
 
 I heard an open-air preacher describe the case of an old China 
 woman, good, moral, devout, who daily on her rosary pronounced 
 the name of Buddha : this was her way of Salvation. A young 
 female Missionary tried to explain to her, that she should substitute 
 the name of Jesus Christ for that of Buddha : she replied that she 
 had found Buddha sufficient for 73 years, and could not change : 
 she could no more have comprehended the reason suggested by the 
 Missionary for taking Jesus Christ, than she could have explained 
 to her the reason why she took Buddha. Such must be the 
 intellectual position of Millions, passing through Life into Eternity. 
 
38 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CO.\CEPTJO.\S. 
 
 III. 
 
 The useless Pkolongation: of the Life of a Religious Conceptiox 
 beyond the epoch, for which it was intended. 
 
 A. Zoroastrian. 
 
 B. Hebrew. 
 
 In looking back in the History of Mankind we mark a Progress, or 
 at least a cliauge, in everything Human, the result of wider know- 
 ledge, greater experience, intellectual growth, and enlarged vision. 
 The sports of children satisfy the child : a tribe of men is but the 
 expression of the concentrated personality of each individual : he is 
 nut exactly like his grandfather, nor will his grandson be exactly 
 like him. Any one of us, who has lived to know five generations 
 of men, two older, one contemporary, and two yuunger, know this, 
 and an old-fashioned person, who has lost step with his own 
 generation, is usually deemed the survival of the least fit. So is it 
 with every Human Branch of Knowledge. Ptolemy the Geographer 
 would scarcely hold his own in the Royal Geographical Society, 
 or the great Greek Astronomers at the Greenwich Observatory. 
 So is it with the Conception of God, and the duty of Man : 
 there are unhappy survivals, who have outlived their Epoch, and 
 the great difficulty is to bring home to them in their semi-blind 
 state a sense of their intellectual and spiritual position : any person, 
 who still believed in the rotation of the Sun, would be a scientific 
 phenomenon. In life we meet with old men and women, who try 
 to hold their heads above their fellows, because they have known 
 better days. So is it with the moribund lleligious Conceptions of 
 the Parsi or Zoroastrian, and the Hebrew, whose position as regards 
 Past, Present, and Future I now pass under review with riL;id 
 impartiality. In the History of Man they are interesting Pheno- 
 mena. How I should have enjoyed a conversation with a devout 
 believer in Jupiter, Apollo, and Minerva, or a votary of Horus and 
 Isis, and Amen Ka, or one who placed his implicit trust in Ashrr, 
 the great God. I have had the opportunity of sweet converse with 
 a Parsi Dastur who believes in Ahriman, and exposes the lifeless 
 corpse of his Parents and child to be torn and consumed by 
 Vultures, and with a Hebrew, who still circumcises his males, and 
 believes, that he is on a higher spiritual platform in his relation to 
 God than the rest of maidvind. It is an interosling, and not 
 uninstructive, study, and an additional proof of the hopeless folly of 
 mankind, when the mind is darkened by isolation and prejudice. 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 39 
 
 A. Zoroastrian. 
 
 About one hundred thousand most respectable subjects of tbe 
 Empress of India, known as Parsi, resident in the Bombay Presi- 
 dency, are all that survive of the Religion, which Zoroaster has 
 the credit of having founded. They are wealtliy, educated, and 
 monogamists. Their Sacred Books in Zend, and Pahlavi, have been 
 translated into English. Their Conception is purely Monotheistic, 
 and there have never been temples, imnges, or altars. They 
 reverence Fire, as the refulgent symbol of God, but it is not correct 
 to call them worshippers of Fire. The assertion, that they admit 
 a Dualism of two independent and hostile Spiritual Powers, is a 
 mistake. Their idea of the Evil Spirit is identical with the Hebrew 
 idea of Satan. They believe in the Immortality of the Soul, a Life 
 to come, and Ilewards and Punishment hereafter. Their Moral 
 System is: "Good words, good thoughts, good deeds: think 
 nothing but the Truth, speak nothing but the Truth, and do nothing 
 but what is proper." 
 
 Tliey unquestionably came into contact with the Hebrews at the 
 time of the Hebrew Captivity in Babybm. Cyrus the King must 
 have recognized a resemblance of the Religious Conception of the 
 Hebrews, to the Persian, and to this may be attributed his 
 wonderful kindness. As far as can be judged from pre-Exilic 
 writings, the Hebrews had no knowledge of a life beyond the Grave 
 until after their return from the Captivity ; and even in the time of 
 our Lord it was an open question, for on this subject the Pharisees 
 and Sadducees differed. The name of Satan appears only three 
 times in pre-Exilic Books : hence it is inferred, that the Hebrews 
 borrowed these two ideas from the Zoroastrians. It is noteworthy, 
 that the Hebrews returned from Babylon uncompromising Mono- 
 tlieists : possibly contact with the Zorastrians led to this change 
 also, for when the Hebrews went into Captivity they had fallen 
 very low in their Idolatrous tendencies (Ezekiel, viii). 
 
 However 2,400 years have passed since then, and this great 
 Religious Conception has shrunk into this insignificant survival. As 
 a rule there were no Proselytes sought for or received : it is stated, 
 that this policy has been lately suggested. 'Bo halo surrounds this 
 remnant : they are hopeless exiles from their ancient country, have 
 abandoned the Languages of their forefathers and adopted an Indian 
 Vernacular ; they still preserve a peculiar headdress. They have 
 given birth to no new Religious Conception. For what possible 
 advantage to the Human race do they survive ? 
 
 B. Hebrew. 
 
 The Hebrew is scattered in every Christian and Mahometan 
 country, but rarely beyond. They have abandoned their ancestral 
 
40 
 
 ESSA VS OJV RELIGIOUS COXCEPTIONS. 
 
 dress, and not only lost their own ancient Language, but speak 
 twenty or thirty mutually unintelligible forms of speech ; still, they 
 possess their Sacred Books in the original Hebrew and Aramaic. 
 Among their number in this century are some of the most illus- 
 trious Scholars, and wealthiest Merchants. It is necessary to 
 describe them in fuller detail : 
 
 (i) Exordium. 
 
 (2) Population, Country, Language, party divisions, absence 
 
 of race, or Nationality ; the only link a Eeligious Con- 
 ception. 
 
 (3) Legal customs : circumcision, food. Ritual : absence of all 
 
 Spirituality. 
 
 (4) Sacred Books, modern Creed ; desire to return to Palestine, 
 
 and recommence Sacrifice of Animals. 
 
 (5) Assertion that all Virtue and Morals come from them, 
 
 and that God only cares for them, while no exertions 
 have ever been made by them to propagate their 
 Keligious views to their fellow-creatures. 
 
 (b) Idolatry having ceased, their raison d'etre has dis- 
 appeared ; cruel treatment in the Middle Ages, entire 
 Liberty now. 
 
 (7) Conclusion. 
 
 The Hebrew Diaspora is but a drop in the Ocean, when the 
 population of the World is considered, nor is it by many centuries 
 the most ancient. As regards Human Science and Art, the Hebrews 
 contributed nothing to the common stock of Human Knowledge : 
 as regards Divine things, they contributed a Library of Books in 
 two Languages, the Hebrew and the Aramaic, the earliest of which 
 could not have been committed to writing in an obsolete form of 
 the Phenician Script before 800 B.C., and the latest, the Wisdom 
 of Sirach, about the Christian era. The Christian Religious Con- 
 ception came into existence at the time of the destruction of the 
 Hebrew Nationality, confessedly from Hebrew sources. 
 
 The Hebrew race has maintained its own Religious Conception 
 to this day, but in a mutilated form, having lost its essential 
 features and its local base. 
 
 Volumes have been written on this subject, but rarely, if ever, 
 has it been treated impartially : partizans on both sides have 
 embittered ; enthusiasts have obscured. I desire to accept facts, 
 as admitted by both parties, and discuss philosophically the problem 
 of the cause of the prolongation of a Conception and Ritual suitable 
 to the Nineteenth century b.c. into so different and unsympathetic 
 an Epoch as the Nineteenth century a.d., and the attempt to 
 maintain Institutions, originally adapted to a semi-barbarous tribe 
 of released slaves in a very low round of the ladder of Culture, by 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 41 
 
 a community transplanted far from their original homes and scattered 
 in small companies in many and distant lands. Let us reflect on 
 the gross ignorance of Solomon, or his exaggeration, when addressing 
 God (II Chronicles, i, q) : "Now, Lord God . . . Thou 
 hast made me king over a people like the dust of the Earth in 
 multitude." At the outside there could have been but four Millions, 
 if so many : the area would not have supported more, and there was 
 no Diaspora then. 
 
 Some write, as if the existing Hebrew popiilation amounted to 
 twelve Millions, but a more carelul study reduces it to ten Millions, 
 scattered in every country ruled by Christian or Mahometan 
 Governments, China being the only exception. From the point of 
 view of the Ethnologist the Hebrew has ceased to be a Nation, as 
 the scattered fragments have become portions of at least twenty 
 Nations; and it is doubtful, whether they are a "race " in the Endo- 
 gamist sense, of which the Hindu is a specimen, where there is no 
 admixture of foreign blood by marriage out of the particular Caste. 
 From the time of the twelve sons of Jacob marrying alien wives 
 down to the present date there has been a constant accretion of 
 Gentile wives, Geutile slaves purchased, and incorporated, Prose- 
 lytes of the Gate, and the absorption of smaller tribes like the 
 Gibeonites and the Kenites, and the Idumeans, who were forcibly 
 circumcised. 80 we are dealing, in fact, with the holders of a 
 peculiar Religious Conception, and the believers in certain Sacred 
 iBooks, and nothing more. "Abraham's seed" is thus by a figure 
 of speech converted into a great multitude. "We can scarcely for 
 one moment suppose that the Jews of Abyssinia, India, and China, 
 are descended after the flesh from Abraham. 
 
 And this great Diaspora is rent into divers sections, differing 
 Tery considerably from each other, the rift being much greater 
 than the one, which separates the Roman Catholic from the 
 Protestant or Greek Churches. In no one case are they in enjoy- 
 ment of political independence : they are as strangers in different 
 countries, and speak totally different Languages. If the word 
 race or tribe be applied to them, it is only as a phrase : their only 
 real link is their historical Religious Belief. 
 
 The modern Hebrews are divided among themselves into 
 categories : 
 
 I. The Talmudist or Conservative, who differ little in kind, 
 though in degree, from the Pharisee of the time of our 
 Lord : they give tithe of anise and cumin, and have not 
 the least perception of the nature of true Worship or 
 true Religion, not for the Jews only, but for all Man- 
 kind. Among them are many holy individuals blameless 
 according to the Law, and waiting, like old Simeon, for 
 the consolation of Israel : clearly such persons, whether 
 
42 £SSA YS OX RELIGIOUS COA'CEPTIOXS. 
 
 German, Englisli, or Russian, tire anachronisms in tlie 
 Nineteenth century. 
 II. Next to them come the Chasidim, founded by a Rabbi in 
 the Eighteenth century : they turn from the Talmud to 
 the Kabala mysticism : they go in for asceticism, purity, 
 holiness, rather than Knowledge : they feel tliat the 
 Holy Spirit operates through certain chosen men of 
 their number, Zadikin, and who are in a humMe 
 sense mediators between God and His believing 
 people. They make pilgrimages to visit such holy men, 
 and seek their blessing : they interpret Scriptures, not 
 according to the letter, but the Spirit : a vast mass of 
 Literature has sprung up around them : as Sweden- 
 borgianism is to Christianity, so are their tenets to 
 the ordinary Belief and Practice. 
 
 III. Reformed, Advanced, Liberal. Moses Mendelssohn (b. 1729) 
 
 was the founder. This division ranges from those, who 
 only reject the Traditions of the Rabbi, to those who 
 threw overboard the Old Testament, and are rationalists. 
 
 IV. Those who are neither renegades nor agnostics, but are 
 
 intellectually estranged from orthodoxy, and yet 
 unassociated with any Reform movement within the 
 fold : they are critics towards every School of thought 
 presented to them, and yet stand outside those Schools. 
 V. The nominal Hebrews, occupied with things of this world, 
 with no sense of Religion in them. 
 VI. The Karaite of the Krimea, few in number. They have 
 never accepted the Talmud, and hold to Moses and 
 the Prophets alone: their name means "written," 
 because they keep to the written Law, and reject the 
 oral Law of Tradition ; in fact, as regards Talmudic 
 Judaism, they are Protestants. 
 
 There are signs of a movement ; the slumber of centuries has 
 been disturbed. The young and educated Hebrews have become 
 convinced, that they have outgrown the Rabbinical Laws of the last 
 generation : they have a lofty ideal in striving to promote a Spiritual 
 Life in a moribund Community : they wish to simplify their Ritual, 
 and remove formal Prayers, no longer in consonance with modern 
 ideas. It is in struggles of this kind, that passionate asjjiratious 
 are generated, and new Epochs created. It is by such means, that 
 Nature gives birth to new forms, and the Human Intellect develops 
 new possibilities. 
 
 The modern Jew fondly believes, that the Law, as the mediating 
 link between God and Man, fulfils something of the same office as 
 the person of Christ in the various phases of Christianity : but is 
 it so ? Is it possible, that ceremonial observances, particular meats, 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 43 
 
 washing of cups aud platters, can hold the same influence over 
 the mind of the Nineteenth century as they did in elder days ? for 
 the Person of Christ remains an everkisting ideal from generation 
 to generation ; yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 
 
 Deep-seated particularism, puerility of large portions of their 
 Law, egotistic self-righteousness, unrighteous contempt, and heed- 
 lessness for the Souls of contemporary Millions, are the features of 
 their Religious life. The very ahsence of all social persecution, 
 their admission to all the privileges of Gentiles, must undo them. 
 They feel, that their armour of defence or offence is not suited for 
 the present lorm of battle ; that it is a husk, of which the kernel is 
 gone, the stock of a tree of which the branches have been cut off. 
 Development is the very lifeblood of Religion : it is p:irt of the 
 great burgeoning, the great harvest, of the Soul and intellect of 
 each generation. The Jewish Synagogue represents a glass recep- 
 tacle for Gas, but the supply of Gas has been cut off, and there is 
 no Light. 
 
 If a Religion feels, that its very existence depends upon its 
 Morality, how can it tolerate the existence side by side of two 
 such precepts, as 
 
 " Thou shalt not wear a garment of mixed stuff of divers sort," 
 
 and 
 " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." 
 
 It is only now that the amazing idealization of the Law is 
 breaking down, when it is forcing itself upon the minds capable of 
 valuing historic Proof, that the Pentateuch must be weighed in 
 the balance of actual historic worth, and, subjected to the scalpel 
 of Criticism, robbed of its supernatural glamour, that the modern 
 Hebrew feels the want of a dominant and consistent Doctrine, 
 adequate and comprehensive, Soul-satisfying and rational, which 
 can set forth in its entire compass the relation of the Individual to 
 Society and to God. 
 
 It seems, as if it were impossible for the Hebrew to burst the 
 bonds of Legalism and Particularism, and remain a Hebrew still. 
 The great World has been revealed, and the great jN^ations have 
 passed, and are passing over, the sta^e of Hnmanity ; and it seems 
 ridiculous for a petty tribe of a few Millions, a tribe broken up 
 into fragments, on different levels of Civilization and speaking 
 different Languages, to claim to be the special people of the 
 Almighty. Such a claim may have been intelligible centuries 
 before Christ, but is no longer so at this Epoch : the very fact, that 
 it lays stress on the mutdation of the body of males, indicates how 
 far behind it has been left in the Religious development of wor- 
 shipping a God, who is a Spirit. How can a Religion, which does 
 not put itself forward as Universal, aud which does not make efforts 
 
44 
 
 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 to propagate itself, hope to maintain its existence in an Epoch of 
 progress, and World-embracing enlightenment? 
 
 Three attempts were made to reduce the oral Law to system 
 and order in writing : the last succeeded. Eabbi Jehudah, 200 a.d., 
 completed the work after immense exertion, but as soon as it 
 was completed it was obsolete in many parta by the lapse of time, 
 and change of environment. The Temple was gone ; Rome had 
 cut short the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrin ; Palestine and its 
 Agrarian Laws had disappeared : however, the Code was kept, 
 to be in use in the dim and remote period of the Eestoration of 
 Israel. 
 
 But, as stated above, the written Mishnah became the subject of 
 development and discussion : new Traditions sprang up, new 
 methods were invented, and the Gemara ensued in a twofold form, 
 for the Jews were hopelessly scattered : 
 
 (i) Eedacted at Tiberias about 390 a.d., expressing the view 
 
 of the Palestine Schools, and written in the Eastern 
 
 Aramaic Language. 
 (2) At Syra in Babylonia, 365-427 a.d., which was finally 
 
 closed at the end of the Fifth century. This is written 
 
 in the Language of Western Aramaic. 
 
 They have not come down to us perfect : the Babylonian Talmud 
 (for so the two parts were called) is four times as large as the so- 
 called Jerusalem Talmud. During the persecution of the Jews by 
 the Persians, the Schools were closed for eighty years : all further 
 development was stopped, and the Talmud, thus built up, obtained 
 supreme authority. 
 
 The Mishnah is in as pure Hebrew as can be expected in those 
 days : the people spoke a corrupt Aramaic, mixed with Greek and 
 Latin loan-words : the Mishnah itself could not exclude such terms. 
 The Gemara was in Aramaic, the Language of the common people. 
 
 The Talmud may be said to embody the Civil and Canonical Law ; 
 it comprises, in addition. Philosophy, Medicine, History, Juris- 
 prudence, and practical duty ; it is a supplement to the Pentateuch, 
 and it took 1,000 years of Natural life to produce it, from the 
 return from exile to the end of the Fifth century a.d. (Deutch.) 
 
 Let us think out the rite of Circumcision. Nothing can more 
 fully illustrate the unfitness of the Hebrew Eitual and Religion 
 for the present Epoch : it is indecent, unseemly, carnal, by the 
 necessity of Nature restricted to one sex, a survival of the practices 
 of savage races, such as caste-marks, mutilation of the body, 
 extraction of teeth ; it is even akin to castration. In the ne\s-s- 
 papers of the Jews we read of Circumcision by chloroform, and 
 appointments to be made : let us think of the relations gathered 
 together in some place of Worship, to attend the initiation of a child, 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 45 
 
 as in the time of Moses andZipporah (Exodus, iv, 25) ; it is a bloody- 
 operation : iu the case of an adult proselyte it can scarcely be con- 
 ceived, that an inquirer would submit to it. The Hebrew Prophets 
 in their time suggested a circumcision of the foreskin of the heart. 
 We read of the ceremony taking place surrounded with ceremonial 
 in Mahometan Courts ; of the Sultan paying the expense of the 
 circumcision of the son of one of his Ministers by way of com- 
 pliment. In the Memoirs of Gordon of Khartum, we read how he 
 circumcised two boys : we can only trust that they were Heathen, 
 and not Christian, boys. The rite of circumcision is practised by 
 the lowest and most barbarous African tribes, and the naked statues 
 of the early Egyptian Dynasties reveal unmistakably, that the 
 men of those remote days were circumcised, but not as a Religious 
 rite. Only imagine a new Religion being started, of which the 
 symbol should be the cutting off of the thumb-nail, which at least 
 would be decent, manifest to the outer world, and apply to both 
 sexes, and the followers of this new craze being so infatuated as 
 to use as a term of reproach the words, " uncut thumb-nail " ! 
 and yet we read that the Hebrews twitted the tribes in their 
 neighbourhood as " uncircuracised," because they had not adopted 
 this indecent and barbarous practice, and in many cases they 
 forcibly imposed the rite upon tribes defeated in battle. (Josephus, 
 Book xiii, cap. q.) 
 
 The idea of atonement for sins by the slaughter of cattle, or 
 birds, is a frightful anachronism, and practically among the Hebrews 
 has ceased to exist Centuries ago, their Prophets told them, that 
 the sacrifice of God was a contrite heart, yet the Hebrew in his 
 Synagogue still prays for the restoration of bloody Sacrifice : it was 
 the common feature of all the elder Religions, but the wheels of the 
 chariot of Civilization passed over it. 
 
 The idea of particular food comes ne.\t : why should particular 
 classes of the Animal-Creation be called unclean, and unfit for 
 Human consumption ? in what way are swine, bred in European 
 farms, more unclean than the sheep, or the ox ? Is not this prejudice 
 of the Hebrew against swine something analogous to the prejudice 
 of tlie Gentile against the Hebrew ? What right have we to call 
 anything common or unclean ? 
 
 I quote an extract from a Hebrew Periodical : " Do our Institu- 
 " tions show such an attachment? For weeks already, the 
 " unleavened cakes required for consumption on the approaching 
 " Easter, have already been in preparation, to supply the 70,000 
 " Jews residing in London, and also those in the Provinces and in 
 " the Colonies. But it is from Holland or Germany, that those 
 " must get the Matzoth or Paschal cakes, who are anxious to have 
 " them done according to strict legal requirement. And yet the 
 " Matzoth-bakeiies are under the supervision of the Chief Rabbi 
 " and his assessor. The shortcomings in the preparation of the 
 
46 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 " Matzoth are an open secret. The Chief Rahhi knows them, the 
 " assessor knows them, and every (oral) law-abiding Hebrew knows 
 " them. Do we not give the lie to the Memorial, where it says 
 " that we cling with all devotion to our ancient faith? or does it 
 " refer to our brethren in Russia, and not to us? The Gentile 
 " reader will have nnich difficulty in comprehending the point of 
 " the impeachment." 
 
 The penalty for eating leavened bread is exclusion from the 
 community of Israel: "That Law has been universally accepted 
 " as diviue, and necessarily so; for, if the Law of Moses is still 
 " binding, it cannot possibly provide for all the contingencies, that 
 " must arise in the course of centuries, and under conditions radi- 
 " cally different from those under which it was given. Any neglect, 
 " therefore, of its provisions, is an act of rebellion against the God 
 " of Israel; and if persevered in, must lead to the total refutation 
 " of Judaism, and that is what it is actually and rapidly coming to." 
 When I visit, as a Magistrate, the prisons in the neighbourhood of 
 London at Easter-time, I find long sticks of unleavened bread, sent 
 in by some pious Hebrew for the food of his brethren, who are paying 
 the penalty of their crimes, very often crafty, unrepenting, villains. 
 Then comes the Law with regard to slaughtering animals. No 
 uneducated Hindu can be more ridiculous than a Hebrew, residing 
 in London, and boasting of the spirituality of his Religious Belief. 
 " ' Shechita' is the method of slaughtering animals. The Law 
 " prohibits the eating of blood. Every precaution, therefore, has 
 " to be taken in the killing of Jewish meat to draw off the maximum 
 " of blood from the body. First, the animal's hind-feet are bound 
 "together; then, by means of a pulley-arranjiement the animal 
 " is 'cast' upon its back. The left fore-foot is now secured to 
 " prevent its rising from the ground, and in this recumbent position 
 " its throat is cut by a broad long knife, which has been previously 
 " shar])ened to perfection. The trachea, jugular veins, and carotid 
 " artei'ies, are completely severed, so that the system is effectually 
 " drained of blood. A special training is required for those, who 
 " practise as slaughterers, a feature of which is to learn to sharpen 
 " the knife Bkilfully and detect the slightest notch on the blade. 
 " * Shechita ' has the further advantage of being most humane. It 
 " is practically painless. The severance of the windpipe by a 
 " faultlessly sharp instrument has the effect of depriving the animal 
 " of sensibility in somewhat less than a minute. The movements 
 " it continues to make for some time afterwards are purely reflex. 
 " Poleaxing, on the other hand, or strangulation, is a longer and 
 " less refined process, besides that its stunning effect is less certain 
 " in the case of a tough and vigorous animal." 
 
 No Buddhist or Jain community can exceed the Hebrew in the 
 precautions taken lest, that which entereth the man should defile 
 the man : this indicates how low in the scale of Religious Beliefs 
 the Hebrew has fallen. 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 47 
 
 " Kosher-Meat. — The Hebrews of Birmingham, not satisfied 
 "with the present 'Kosher' meat-supply, want to establish a 
 " co-operative association of their own. Every week between 
 " 5,coo and 6,000 lbs. of ' Kosher '-meatare consumed in Birmingham, 
 "and about 300 head of ' Kosher '-poultry. In order that the 
 " requirements of the Jewish faith in respect to the method of 
 " killing and the freedom from blemish of the animal may be faith- 
 " fully observed, an officer, called Shoehet, is appointed, whose 
 " duty it is to see to these matters. Before he is qualified for the 
 " oflice he has to undergo a severe examination, and the appoint- 
 " ment carries with it a good salary. When he has placed his 
 " seal upon a joint, there can be no question that it is sound 
 " and wholesome meat. This circumstance explains why many 
 " Christians buy ' Kosher '-meat. In a neighbouring town, about 
 " one-eighth the size of Birmingham, there are about a dozen 
 " Hebrews, but they are obliged to have their Shoehet, who 
 " receives a salary of 255. per week, and their regular 'Kosher' 
 " butcher. Sometime ago the congregation made a change in their 
 " butcher, and with the transfer of tlie Jewish custom went a not 
 " inconsiderable portion of the Gentile trade, showing the Christian 
 " appreciation of ' Kosher '-meat. The 15th of this month is the 
 " New Year's Day of the Hebrew calendar, and just prior to that 
 " occasion, as is the case at our festive season, there is a very brisk 
 " trade in the ' Kosher '-poultry and meat-shops." 
 
 Men of the ancient days were more than reiidy to refer extra- 
 ordinary appearances, marvellous discoveries, sublime teaching, and 
 writings on metal, clay, skins, or papyrus, to the direct intervention 
 of the Deity. Gross ignorance prevailed, and everything was 
 swallowed ; but, when variations in the Text of the writings came 
 into existence, each party tried to support their own Text by 
 anathemas, and violence, and this delusion prevails to the present 
 day. The orthodox Hebrew will pin his faith to one particular 
 Text, and rejects all argument. In 1851, at Nablus, a Samaritan 
 Rabbi produced a copy of the Torah on parchment for inspection, 
 and assured Mr. Finn, the Consul at Jerusalem, and myself, that it 
 was written by the pen of a son of Aaron : he had no difficulty in 
 believing such a monstrous assertion. 
 
 I quote the following remarks, made by a speaker at an Islington 
 Conference, 1892 : — 
 
 " Scepticism, which is such a marked feature of our time, is 
 " making inroads upon the ancient faith : old Kabbinic customs 
 "are being discarded; the yearly festivals, the Tfillin and the 
 " Tsith, are no longer observed with the same scrupulous care. 
 " It has been proposed more than once to transfer the Sabbath- 
 " Worship to Sunday, that thus an additional day might be secured 
 
48 ^■SSA VS ox RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIOXS. 
 
 " for the pressing requirements of secular life. Recent criticism 
 " upon the Old Testament has made a deep impression. There is 
 " a prevalent drifting from the old landmarks. Many feel, that the 
 " Mosaic ritual is an impossibility, and that the hopes concerning 
 " the Messiah have proved a failure; and some are wildly asking, 
 '* ' Have we any Future ?' Or does it not seem, as if it had served 
 " its purpose, and was no longer applicable to the requirements of 
 " modern life ? Rationalism is eating its way into the very heart. 
 " But this disintegration must sooner or later be followed by recon- 
 " struction ; for the Hebrew, with his history and traditional 
 " associations, cannot live without God, and so many are being led 
 " in their weary search for the God, whom their forefathers knew, 
 " to embrace Christianity, or some form of TJnitarianism. 
 
 " But it may be said, that these sceptical influences are only felt 
 " by a certain section. This is in part true, but it is also true, that 
 " even amongst the so-called orthodox there is a spirit of restless 
 " dissatisfaction. Many feel, that the hopes of the Old Testament 
 " have resulted in failure, and the drift towards Christianity is very 
 " marked. They imitate Christian methods, come to services and 
 " sermons in our churches, read the Ilew Testament, and recognize 
 " the noble qualities in the life of Jesus of Nazareth; and when 
 " the revised translation of the New Testament appeared, they 
 " spoke of it in the highest terms as a book, of which the race 
 " might be justly proud. M. Debre, Rabbi of Neuilly, near Paris, 
 " writes in the Jewish Quarterly, that now newborn children are 
 " brought to the synagogue to receive the blessing of the Rabbi, 
 " just as Christian children are brought to Baptism. There is also 
 ' ' a cei emony of initiation for boys and girls of twelve and thirteen 
 " years, at which the boys appear in black and tiie girls in white, 
 " very much like Confirmation, and for which they are carefully 
 " prepared by the Rabbi. The Rabbi is now summoned to the 
 " bedside of the sick and dying; the cofiin is strewn with flowers 
 " as amongst Christians; the Hebrew prayers are replaced by others 
 ** in the vernacular; the organ and choir have found a place in the 
 " synagogue : sermons are frequent ; and an afternoon service is 
 "provided for the ladies; the Rabbi dresses very much as the 
 " ordinary clergyman." 
 
 It is necessary to state what the Hebrew does believe. 
 Maimonides laid down the following thirteen articles as con- 
 stituting the Creed : 
 
 1 . The belief in the existence of a Creator. 
 
 2. ,, ,, His Unity. 
 
 3. ,, ,, His Incorporeality. 
 
 4. ,, ,, His eternity. 
 
 5. All Worship due to Him alone. 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 49 
 
 6. The belief in Prophecy. 
 
 7. „ ,, that Moses was the greatest of all Prophets, both 
 
 before and after Him. 
 
 8. ,, ,, that Torah was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai, 
 q. ,, ,, in the Immutability of the revealed Torah. 
 
 10. ,, ,, that God knows the actions of men. 
 
 11. ,, ,, in Reward and Punishment. 
 
 12. „ ,, in the coming of the Messiah. 
 
 13. ,, ,, in the Resurrection of the Dead. 
 
 (Schechter, " Studies in Judaism," p. 199.) 
 
 The Messenger describes thus what it is to be a Hebrew : 
 
 It is to be in sympathy with whatever is pure and ennobling. 
 
 It is to translate into life the golden texts of our sages. 
 
 It is to be faithful to the Hebrew ideals, which indicate the 
 loftiest Humanity. 
 
 It is to hold fast to the essentials and to breathe into form and 
 ceremony all the spirituality and beauty we can. 
 
 It is to lead a modest life, to avoid extravagance and exaggeration, 
 to be prudtnt, economical, and thrifty. 
 
 It is to cultivate the home-virtues, to sanctify the dwelling by 
 home- Worship, to promote kindness and charity. 
 
 It is to join in any movement for Human betterment, to avoid 
 dissension and bitterness, to cherish the brightest ambitions, and 
 do our utmost to swell the choir of Human adoration of the One 
 Only God. 
 
 The Doctrines of the Resurrection of the Dead, a Judgment-Day, 
 Rewards and Punishments, Life Everlasting, require separate 
 notice. Had the Hebrew before the Captivity in Babylon any 
 knowledge of these Doctrines ? The argument of the Book of Job 
 seems to indicate, that the idea was unknown to the writer of 
 that Book. However, Moses, who is credited with a knowledge of 
 all the wisdom of the Egyptians, must have known of that im- 
 portant feature of the Egyptian Religious Conception, and yet he is 
 silent on the subject, and makes no use of this potent lever to 
 secure the obedience of his hearers. Even to this day, the prospect, 
 or threat, of Hell Fire hereafter, is the only argument, which tells 
 on the drunken and profligate Christian. The Sheol of the Hebrew 
 does not represent the idea. In I Samuel, xxviii, 19, we read that 
 good and bad all go to the same place. Contact with the Zoroastriaus 
 at Babylon must have given the Hebrew the first idea : the Hebrew 
 Diaspora at Alexandiia must have heard of the Immortality of the 
 Soul, as distinct from a Body reduced to ashes, in the writing of 
 Plato, and it is obvious, that in the centuries preceding the great 
 Anno Domini, the idea was current, though an open question : it 
 
50 £SSAVS OiV RELIGIOUS COA'CEPTIOXS. 
 
 represents a great development of Hebrew thought since the time 
 of Moses. 
 
 CUuide Montefiore, in the Jewish Quarterly Review, 1892, writes 
 on the effect of Biblical Criticism upon the Hebrew Religion : 
 
 *' Far more emphasis is laid on Hebrew rites than on Hebrew 
 " dogma: the practical execution of the written and oral Law is 
 "the essential characteristic: some are ready to give up all the 
 " dogma, if they may retain the rites and ceremonies, retain 
 " them, emptied of all Religious value, bereft of all Religious 
 " life. Theoretical heterodoxy is thus united Avith practical 
 " orthodoxy," 
 
 Then, again, I quote the following : 
 
 " There is one narrow dogma, which, because it is not touched 
 " by criticism or philosophy, it is open for the " Unitarian " to add 
 " to his total store. That dogma is the Mission of Israel, and that 
 " dogma we still retain. We do believe, that the Divine Ruler and 
 " Educator of mankind chose out the Nation of Israel for a peculiar 
 " religious task, and we do believe, that even now, when the J^ation 
 " has been changed into a Community, that task is not concluded. 
 " Between Agnosticism upon the one hand, and Trinitarianisni 
 " upon the other, the Hebrew steers a middle course. His Theism is 
 " opposed alike to a wonder-woiking superstition, and to a soulless 
 " Deism. Who can say that a historical faith of such a nature may 
 " not even exercise a certain influence for good by the very fact of 
 " its existence? And as it becomes more and more sensible of the 
 " unique position, which it might claim among the Religions of the 
 '' civilized World, who can say that that silent influence may nut 
 " gradually be exchanged for direct teaching and admonition ? So 
 " believing, may we not still regard ourselves as Hebrew, though 
 " we disbelieve in miracles, deny the unity and Mosaic authorship of 
 " the Pentateuch, and consequently do certainly not observe 'the 
 " inlierited law in all its details' '? " 
 
 The idea of Restoration to Palestine, and of Sacrifice in a new 
 Temple on Mount Moriah, is visionary, carnal, and unpractical. 
 The Hebrew community of the Nineteenth century includes the 
 enlightened statesman, the profound philosopher, the gifted Scholar, 
 the eloquent Chiistianized ordaim d convert, as well as the degraded 
 keeper of low inns and brothels, and the scavenger class in South 
 Russia : they speak different Languages, are on different rounds 
 of Human Culture, with no sentiments in common, but the repute 
 of being descendants of Abraham nearly 4,000 years ago, which 
 again is very doubtful, as an ethnological fact, and quite incapable 
 of proof. Their numbers, even in the lowest quotation of seven 
 
ESS A YS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 51 
 
 Millions, far exceed the limited resources of the petty Proviuce of 
 Palestine. 
 
 In the office of the Royal Geographical Society, I have had the 
 area of the Promised Land, exclusive of the Dead Sea, and Sea of 
 Galilee, scientitically measured, and the area amounts to twelve 
 thousand square miles, slightly in excess of the area of Belgium : 
 but there is this difference : the area of Belgium is nearly entirely 
 culturable, that of the Promised Land is chiefly mountainous and 
 unculturable, as I know by experience in two tours at long 
 intervals, with all the experience of an Anglo - Indian Land- 
 Revenue official. The population of Belgium is six Millions, and 
 it has the largest population to the square mile in Europe. The 
 Promised Land will hardly support a population of Four Millions. 
 
 Must a fresh slaughter of women and children and peaceful in- 
 habitants accompany the second Hebrew Invasion ? We have only 
 to imagine the Maori trying to play this game on a small scale in 
 New Zealand, or the Hindu on a large scale in India. They might 
 proclaim, and with truth, that their ancestors possessed the land, 
 and assert that the Creator gave it to them for " an everlasting 
 possession,^'' and, as it is a matter of pure sentiment, if they were 
 strong enough, it would be difficult to disprove. 
 
 It is time to take the Hebrew down from the pedestal, on which 
 mediaeval ignorance has placed him, and to assure him, that ho 
 belongs to one of the ordinary races of mankind, by no means the 
 first in the classification of Human greatness, and that he must 
 behave as such. 
 
 In the Jewish Quarterly Review for January, 1893, appears an 
 article by a Mr. Oswald John Simon on " Authority and Dogma." 
 The Synagogues are constituted under a certain Act of Parliament, 
 1870, and the Chief Rabbi of the United Congregations of the 
 British Empire lately inhibited a minister for the following 
 reasons : 
 
 (1) His objection "to offer prayer for the restoration of the 
 
 sacrificial rite." 
 
 (2) His published utterance contains matter, which is surmised 
 
 to be at variance with tradition. 
 
 Mr. Simon's strictures apply to the first reason : he remarks, that 
 belief in the restoration of sacrifices has never been held in the 
 present generation to be an essential article of his creed. It has 
 no place in the Thirteen Articles, which are found in the orthodox 
 Prayer-book. The rite of sacrifice is one, which is characteristic 
 of an age not only bygone, but necessarily incapable of living over 
 again by reason of the ordinary law of cause and effect. The 
 ancient rite of shedding the blood of cattle (shared with all tlie 
 heathen world) was nothing but a means to an end, and essentially 
 
52 ESSAYS OiV RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIOXS. 
 
 of a temporary character. The Human mind is incapable of reverting): 
 in the long order of progress : if it were true, that a peculiar " ism " 
 or system is stationary, Human character is not, nor is it possible 
 to stop the growth aud the change of ideal in the long march of 
 countless generations : a social or religious practice, after having 
 been obsolete for nearly two thousand years, cannot re-establish 
 itself. Prayer has been substituted for slaying of cattle. Even if 
 it were possible, tliat they were restored to Canaan, it is not con- 
 ceivable, that their return would take place without the advantages 
 of Science ; there might be again a gorgeous temple, but it would 
 be fitted with electric light. Ancient Judea would not be restored 
 without railways and a printing-press ; the culture of the age, and 
 the environment, would accompany the returning Hebrew ; there 
 would necessarily be a library of literature of the World in Jeru- 
 salem, but there would be no butcher's abattoir for killing calves and 
 lambs. This line of argument applies equally to the Sacerdotalism 
 of modern Christianity. Religion can never mean stagnation, but 
 development. The attempt to limit the progress of lleligious 
 thought is futile ; to choke Religion by the practice of the Middle 
 Ages or the early centuries of Christianity, seems analogous to 
 praying for the restoration of Temple Sacrifice. 
 
 Dr. Herzl, in his Pamphlet on a Hebrew State, argues as follows : 
 that the Hebrew cannot assimilate with other nations : so much 
 the worse for the Hebrew, as well as the Gypsy ; in that case he 
 must retire into a corner. 
 
 " We are one People. We have honestly striven everywhere to 
 " merge ourselves in the social life of surrounding communities, 
 " and to preserve only the faith of our fiitthers. It has not been 
 " permitted to us. In vain are we loyal patriots, in some places 
 " our loyalty running to extremes ; in vain do we make the same 
 " sacrifices of life and property as our fellow-citizens; in vain do 
 " we strive to increase the fame of our native land in Science and 
 •' Art, or her wealth by trade and commerce. In countries, where 
 " we have lived for centuries, we are still cried down as strangers ; 
 " and often by those, whose ancestors were not yet domiciled in the 
 " land, where Jews had already made experience of sutt'ering. Yet, 
 " in spite of all, we are loyal subjects, loyal as the Huguenots, 
 " who were forced to emigrate. Oh that we could only be left 
 " in peace ! " 
 
 He then asks for a portion of the Globe large enough for the 
 requirements of his so-called Nation, which has ceased to be so for 
 1,800 years. 
 
 It goes without saying, that Hebrew emigrants have as much 
 right to as large an area of other people's land as they can lay their 
 hands on. Nothing prevents a Hebrew Company, under men such 
 
£SSAYS Oy RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 53 
 
 as Barnato, annexing another Ma-Shonaland, slaughtering the 
 indigenous inhabitants, and founding a new Palestine by the same 
 unscrupulous methods, which Joshua used at the time of the 
 Exodus. What is insisted upon is, that this has nothing to do with 
 Religion, or the benefit of the Human race, Present or Future. 
 The Hebrew cannot at this Epoch be deemed to have a Mission to 
 civilize alien races, and bring the souls of the Heathen to God, 
 which is the only Mission worthy of notice. They might have done 
 so in the centuries preceding the great Anno Domini : Jonah set 
 them an example ; their Prophets pointed out this Duty ; they 
 were ahead of the races of mankind at that period in their Concep- 
 tion of the Divine : it was possible to do so in Asia, as in 550 B.C. 
 Buddha had preached a Universal Gospel, of Altruism as opposed 
 to Hebrew Egoism; and in the great Anno Domini a Light to 
 lighten the Gentiles, and a Power to turn the World upside down, 
 came unmistakably from one born of a Hebrew Mother in a city of 
 the tribe of Benjamin. But they lost their opportunity : they 
 forfeited the great title of the " Chosen People," and assumed the 
 situation of the "Rejected People," as they had forfeited all claim 
 to God's Promises, and come, in spite of knowledge, under all the 
 penalties detailed in Deuteronomy upon disobedient children. 
 
 Even supposing, thatbya marvellous stroke of Fortune, the French 
 Nation were willing to surrender their claim to Syria, inclusive of 
 the Holy Land, in the event of the much desired disappearance 
 of the " Unspeakable Turk" : is there in the Hebrew race a power 
 to constitute an administration of the country ? Imagine a Senate 
 consisting of a Rothschild, Baron Herz, and some of the leading 
 Hebrew politicians of each of the European Nations : add to these 
 representatives of the great Hebrew Scliolars, and men of Science, 
 totally unversed in political affairs : add to these Hebrews from 
 Hounsditch and from the back streets of Paris and Vienna, 
 Karaites from the Krimea, keepers of brothels and gambling-houses, 
 from South Russia, and the veriest scum of Poland. It is possible, 
 that in the lowest ranks of this heterogeneous mass some one might 
 assert, that he was of the lineage of David, and claim to be the 
 King of this Restored Nation. A new Temple would have to be 
 erected, and the Mosque of Omar destroyed, which would rouse 
 the Mahometan World to fury. The Butcher's Shop of Sacrifice 
 of Animals would have to be reopened, and pigeons and turtle- 
 doves have their throats cut; while the male infants were having 
 their bodies operated on under chloroform to prevent cries of anguish. 
 It is of no use talking in a pious, romantic, sensational, goody- 
 goody way of the restoration of the Hebi'ews to the Holy Land 
 without remembering the possibility of all the incidents of exter- 
 mination of the present Gentile inhabitants, with which it must 
 be accompanied. 
 
 More than one author has attemjited to elaborate a Philosophy 
 
54 £SSA VS ON' RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 of Hebrew History, and no doubt there is ample room for reflection 
 whether : 
 
 (i) The Hebrew race were ever on a different platform from 
 the rest of the races of mankind, as they even to this 
 day pretend to be. 
 
 (2) Whether they were intellectually, spiritually, worthy of 
 
 the position, to which European Theoloo;ians have raised 
 them. Asiatic Nations such as the Persian, Indian, 
 Chinese, Japanese, would of course totally refuse to 
 place them except in the lowest class of tribes. 
 
 (3) Whether their entire failure in the time of the Judges, the 
 
 Kings, and their Sacerdotal Rule, to fulfil the most 
 elementary principles of the Law, which they vaunted 
 themselves about, does not lead to the impression, that 
 the so-called Hebrew Dispensation was an entire failure, 
 and not from God, /or God''s plans can never fail. It 
 was not only, that they went after false gods in spite 
 of their Law, their Priests and Prophets, but they failed 
 grossly in Moral Character from the time of Hosea to 
 the Captivity, as evidenced in Jeremiah, v, 7, 8. 
 
 Is not Islam the true representative in modern days of the old 
 Hebrew of the Palestinian period ? the same proud self-righteous- 
 ness, the formal repetition of prayers in an unknown Language, 
 the genuflexions as of a drilled regiment, the denial of any need of 
 a Mediator, as the poor sinful man so many times a day bandies 
 words with his Creator with no consciousness of sin. The murderer, 
 the robber, the adulterer, repeat the formal Prayer with the same 
 complacency as the Godfearing, holy worshipper, whose daily 
 thoughts, words, and acts, are offerings on the altar. Then comes 
 the degraded rite of circumcision, and the tolerated Polygamy and 
 Divorce. The Mahometan Faith stands so far a step higher than 
 the Hebrew as it is universal, not confined to the so-called sons of 
 Abraham, though the physical diff'erences of the Sephardim and 
 Ezkanazim show that a common ancestry is problematical. Eoth 
 call their Sacred Books " Kalam Illah," the Word of God; both, 
 when they have a chance, are frightfully intolerant, one in perse- 
 cuting professors of other Faiths, the other in resisting any seces- 
 sion from its own ; both are unworthy of the Nineteenth century 
 in the essential feature of a Religious Conception, Spirituality. 
 
 It can be remarked in ordinary life that, if anyone clings to an 
 idea Avhether of his own importance, or his talents, or his lineage, 
 it at last assumes to him the aspect of Truth : so is it with the 
 Hebrew race : it really was a most unimportant one, during the 
 time that it existed as a Nation, and filled a ridiculously small part 
 in Ancient History : yet they have managed to get up a kind of 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 55 
 
 glamour, composed partly of their discreditable Past, and partly 
 of the prospect of a dim and remote Future, never likely to come, 
 the nature of which is not spiritual, but grossly carnal and material, 
 a return to the chief city of a petty little Province, which tliey 
 entered 3,000 years ago by violence, and from which they were 
 expelled by violence, as if the Worship of the Great Creator, or 
 His precious Promises, or his Ubiquitous Presence in every part of 
 His Great Creation, were localized in one petty Island, or one 
 insignificant Region. 
 
 Israel, during the last two centuries, used to be in History 
 a single mountain peak ; all around was darkuess ; the mist has 
 now cleared away, and we see a great range of Nations, and Israel 
 assumes its proper insignificant proportion : it was a mere pawn 
 in the great political game of Egypt and Assyria. It pleased the 
 early Christian centuries to surround the Hebrew History with 
 a halo : the contempoi'ary x^ations recognized no special merit ; 
 they knew the country and the people as a very common clay to 
 tread upon. 
 
 We know, that it was very like every other Nation of its Epoch, 
 and environment, like them in its lawful Worship and its Worship 
 of strange deities, in its successes, in its unjustifiable attacks upon 
 its neighbours, and in its defects : it had ordinary contact with 
 other JVations, and ordinary commercial relations, and employed 
 Tyi'ian idolaters of the grossest type to build the Temple : it joined 
 in leagues and conspiracies against other tribes, and whatever it 
 thought of itself, it was not thought of by its neighbours as a holy 
 tribe. I quote the following from a Hebrew periodical in the 
 United States: The Peculiar People, vol. vi, '&o. 3, p. 67 : 
 
 " Devout Jews protest against the audacity of Gentiles in their 
 " attempt to convert them, as in the field of Religion they were the 
 " Masters, the witnesses of God, and the World sat at their feet. 
 " Let benevolent people turn to the Heathen, if they want to have 
 " converts. Por the Jew to renounce Monotheism, a belief in one 
 " sole God, and accept a Triune God, is a step backwards; it is the 
 " last surviving remnant of Paganism." 
 
 Let us consider the Heavens and the Earth as a wonderful exhi- 
 bition of Divine Wisdom, unchanged and unchangeable from the 
 day of Creation ; the return of Day and Night, the Revolution of 
 the Seasons, the alternation of Life and Death, and the lessons, 
 which they teach, and the gradual attainment of Knowledge by the 
 children of Men. Can we suppose that the great Controller of the 
 World would have condescended to teach one petty Semitic family, 
 one unworthy tribe, amidst the Millions of His children, the details 
 of ceremonial washing, and the mode of slaughtering beasts, while 
 He failed to teach them, that the Sun did not revolve round the 
 
56 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Earth, and that their life in this World was as nothing compared 
 to the Everlasting Life hereafter ? If such petty Laws as the con- 
 sulting of Ephod<, the mutilation of the body, and empty cere- 
 monial, were from the Lord, would they not have been universal to 
 the Human race, and immutable, like the Laws, which regulate 
 the rotation of the Globe '? Does not the surface of that great Globe 
 belong to Him? Can it be credited that he has a prejudice in 
 favour of Bauaras, or Mekka, or Jerusalem ? Is not the History of 
 Mankind one of stately Progress from Savagery to Barbarism, from 
 Barbarism to Civilization, as Men advance from Childhood to the 
 Adult Stage, and thence on to Eulness of Knowledge, and the 
 reception of the greater Gifts of the most High ? 
 
 The Hebrew of Palestine, as recorded in his own Sacred Books 
 (for no other History alludes to him), was a hopeless creature, 
 devoid of all idea of Philosophy, History, or Reason. According to 
 him, like the Plymouth Brothers of modern days, he alone was 
 to be saved : his Egotism appears at every page of his Annals : 
 the Almighty cared ior him alone: he was to judge and rule the 
 World : he alone realized what God was, and what Morality was : 
 all the rest of the world was unclean, ignorant, enemies of God, and 
 hnted by Gud. Some of the Protestants of the Middle Class at 
 this day consign in the same way all, who do not look eye to eye, 
 and thought to thought, with them on matters spiritual, to the 
 uncovenanted mercies of Satan and Hell. But the Colony of 
 Hebrews settled at Alexandria started a temple of their own at 
 Leontopolis, and adopted the Greek Language and Customs. To 
 their astonishment they found that Plato and Aristotle, by unassisted 
 Reason, and that Holy Spirit, which comes from God to all pure and 
 devout natures, had arrived at very much the same platform of 
 thought as the Hebrew, but with an infinitely wider horizon, and 
 supported their views by A0709, " Reason," mistranslated " Word," 
 for Word is only the vehicle of Reason. Philo caught up the echo 
 of Plato's sayings, and tiience it found its way to the Gospel of John. 
 
 Nothing more marks the progress of the Human Intellect, and the 
 expansion of Divine Government, than the Hebrew and Christian 
 Dispensation, regarded solely from the Human standpoint. Nine- 
 teen centuries before Anno Domini Abraham left TJr in the Chaldoes, 
 and founded the Nation. Nineteen centuries alter Anno Domini 
 is the standpoint, from which we of this generation regard it. 
 
 The Christian Dispensation is Universal as regards mankind, and 
 yet Individual as regards each Soul : it has no limitation of race. 
 Language, Country, Time, Stage of Culture ; it has no Temple, 
 no divinely appointed Ritual, no National Feast-Days, East- Days, 
 no fetters of the free Soul except those inspired by the acknow- 
 ledgment of a common Father, a Universal Saviour, and an abiding 
 Holy Spirit. The desire of the Christian is to convey what he 
 deems the greatest of earthly treasures to others : nothing is to 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 57 
 
 him common and nnclean : the slaughter of Beasts and Birds has 
 no rehition to his views of Religion ; the cleaning of pots and pans, 
 the incidents of dress and personal cleanliness, are nothing. More- 
 over, his views of things spiritual develop as Time goes on, and 
 embrace Humanity in its fulness, Past, Present, and Future. It 
 allows of difference in interpretation, and in practice : it looks 
 forward to no future Dispensation, but to a Resurrection, a Day of 
 Judgment, and Everlasting Life beyond the Grave. 
 
 The Hebrew system is narrow, and never extended beyond a few 
 Millions : the whole World with its Millions might perish for all 
 that the Hebrew cared : they Avere common and unclean. The 
 uneducated Hebrew was, in the eyes of the Priest, accursed. Their 
 hopes were limited to a miserable little Province, about the size of 
 two Districts of British India, "a tiny town, and a Temple infini- 
 tesimally small in ai'ea compared with the Temples of Egypt, 
 Mesopotamia, and India. They cling hopelessly through long dreary 
 centuries to a dead Language, an obsolete Ritual, a ruined Temple : 
 their prayer is to be restored to a small country only able to 
 support four Millions, while they count to nine Millions, the restor- 
 ation of the anachronism of the sacrifice of Beasts, and a temporal 
 Kingdom. 
 
 A remarkable paper by Claude Montefiore on the Misconceptions 
 of Judaism and Christianity by each other appeared in the Jewish 
 Quarterly Review, of January, 1896. Serious philosophical thinkers 
 are, of course, free from the prejudices of either party in favour of 
 their own intrinsic excellence, and against the obvious short- 
 comings of the other party, but the writer does not dwell sufficiently 
 on two points. 
 
 I. The Hebrew Dispensation was for one petty tribe only, 
 amidst the Millions of God's poor creatures : that tribe was in a very 
 low state of Culture, in an early period of the Education of the 
 World : the tribe had been for more than one century in the house 
 of bondage : it knew nothing of the great Universe, or of the outer 
 World of the Human race. The leader of the movement promul- 
 gated, as from God, a code of Laws, conspicuous among which were : 
 
 " Thou shaft not commit murder," 
 " Thou shalt not steal," 
 
 and yet held out to his followers as their great and everlasting 
 reward possession of a land, which was to be purchased by 
 wholesale slaughter of the unoffending occupants, very much 
 as Ma-Tabele-land is occupied in this century by the Land Pirates 
 of British Commercial Companies. Their Worship was Ritual in 
 its grossest form, and was restricted to themselves. 
 
 II. The Christian Disjjensation arrived at a period of great 
 enlightenment of the Regions of West Asia, and the Basin of the 
 Mediterranean : Greek Philosophy and Roman Rule had made their 
 
58 ESSAYS O.V RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 mark: the new Conception was literally to be worldwide: the 
 reward was to be in the next World. 
 
 The writer of the above-mentioned paper remarks that : (A) to 
 the Hebrew belonged the following Conceptions : (i) God, His Love 
 and Justice; (2) Morality not Kitual, but Conduct; (3) a 
 desire to repress social wrongs, and develop social rights ; (4) the 
 ideal of Social Life; (5) simplicity of Doctrine; (6) Religion in 
 every-day life. (B) To the Christian belonged : (i) the idea of the 
 blessing of adversity; (2) the idea of Self-Sacrifice ; (3) the 
 duty to love and do good to one's enemies ; (4) the idea of the 
 Fatherhood of God; (5) freedom from ties of race; (6) subor- 
 dination of Ritual to Conduct. 
 
 It is not correct to suppose, that with the History of the Hebrews 
 commences the History of Mankind, for it is only part of the 
 Histoiy of the elder world, and nn unimportant part, when the great 
 chart of History is unfolded. Tlie Hebrews allowed themselves to 
 use gross exaggeration, arising no doubt from ignorance : they talk 
 of their Prophets as being " since the World began." But the 
 actors on the Hebrew stage comported themselves very much as 
 men of like passions as ourselves in a different stage of Culture : 
 they were not prophets pulled by a string ; if that had been the 
 case, they would not have been examples for our learning. 
 
 Schopenhauer, Part I, p. 137, remarks, tliat the Religion of the 
 Hebrews was the rudest of all Religions, as it had no trace of the 
 Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul. Bishop Warburton argues, 
 that Moses designedly kept all reference to Life after Death in the 
 background, that he might wean the minds of the Jews from the 
 worship of the dead, of which they had seen so much in Egypt. 
 Such a motive would have been a low one, and a suppression of 
 Truth, if he believed it to he true. Can we suppose that if sent 
 from God he was ignorant of this fundamental Truth, at which 
 Zoroaster, and the Hindu Sages, had long before arrived ? We know 
 that up to the Christian era it was an open question, and the 
 Sadducees did not believe in it. 
 
 The tendency of the Hebrew character was not so much to 
 Idolatry, as to the entertainment of low ideas about the true God. 
 It may have suited the Hebrews to t;ilk about the God of Israel, as 
 a private property, or the God of gods, as if the very existence of 
 others than the great one God was conceivable, but we must 
 realize, that there was a divine purpose in the existence of the 
 Gentiles in contiguity to the Hebrews. Clement of Alexandria 
 admits that there was a dispensation of Paganism. Bishop West- 
 cott draws attention to Deuteronomy, iv, 19: "And lest thou lift 
 " up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the 
 " moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be 
 " driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God 
 " hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven." Centuries 
 
ESS A YS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 59 
 
 later, Paul, though a Hebrew, remarks that God did not leave 
 Himself without a witness. It is inconceivable arrogance for the 
 Hebrew, then, to suppose that the World was created for him, 
 and rank folly now to imagine, that he is the heir of any peculiar 
 privileges. 
 
 What right had Dr. Graetz to assert, that to the Hebrew race the 
 great round World, with its fourteen hundred Millions of inhabitants, 
 was indebted for the very conceptions of Virtue and Honour? Had 
 he ever read Plato, or the Greek Tragedians, or Juvenal, or Seneca, 
 or Marcus Aurelius, or Epictetus, or Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, 
 and the Hindu Sages ? What can exceed the line of Juvenal : 
 
 " Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa "? 
 
 for, after all, Conscience is the ground-root of Virtue ; or the lines 
 of the Hindu Sages : 
 
 " Ahinsam paramam dharmam" 
 (" The greatest Religion is not to injure anyone ") ? 
 
 Had he ever read the "Noble Way" of Buddha, which consists of 
 Altruism, or the law of Purity in those famous Sanskrit lines : 
 
 " In youth regard every woman as your mother, in middle life as 
 your sister, in old age as your daughter " ? 
 
 Did David or Solomon do so ? Did the Hebrew race in their 
 very best period conform to these elementary Laws ? Their entrance 
 into Palestine was by Murder and Robbery : their practice was 
 Intolerance and Lust (Jeremiah, v, 8). The crucifixion of Jesus 
 Christ, and the stoning of Stephen, were merely a continuance of 
 their treatment of their own Prophets. Is the old Hebrew Religion 
 in its present attenuated and maimed form still a Missionary Re- 
 ligion in itself, independent of its political surroundings in a free 
 country like Great Britain ? Does it embody such Spiritual Truths, 
 absolute Truths, and such ethical Conceptions, as are adapted to 
 the needs of the whole Human race ? 
 
 Mr. Simon, in the Jewish Quarterly Review, July, 1893, P- ^^4> 
 writes : 
 
 " He would put aside all the distinctive rites of the Hebrew, 
 " such as circumcision, Sabbath-day, unleavened bread, etc. : they 
 " may be important to the family of the Hebrews, but there are but 
 " two things of universal application, (i) Almsgiving, (2) Worship 
 " of God. Those, who lay stress upon ordinances as divinely 
 " ordered, do not believe them to have been enjoined to any bixt 
 " the people of Israel. The Synagogue is restricted practically to 
 " the Hebrew. A new place of universal Worship should be opened 
 " out, and in it should be set forth in what has consisted the con- 
 " ception of God, of Worship, of Moral Responsibility, which has 
 
6o ESSAYS Oy RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 sustained the Hebrew for two thousand years during deep afflic- 
 tion. Experience is something : no people can speak of God, of 
 Faith, of Prayer, with greater authority and deeper knowledge 
 than the people of Israel. The time is ripe for a definite Theistic 
 movement. The Hebrew represents the Necessity, and Efficacy, 
 of a Life "with God. There is no barrier in prayer betwixt an 
 individual Human conscience and our Father. There is an un- 
 speakable love on the part of the infinite Creator to His poor 
 creatures. The new movement should be neither connected with 
 Hebrew Ritual, nor be identical with TJnitarianism. Those, who 
 believe strongly, natixrally wish to extend their conviction to 
 others. Belief and Conversion logically involve the thought of 
 a Mission." 
 
 The great reformer Mendelssohn lays great stress on the fact, that 
 Judaism is for the Jews, and for no other Nation. " The Religion 
 of my fathers does not wish to be extended. We are not to send 
 Missions." " Our rabbis .... enjoin us to persuade, by forcible 
 remonstrances, everyone "who comes forward to be converted." 
 " "Whoever is not born conformable to our Laws, has no occasion 
 to live according to them," he writes; and in his "Jerusalem " he 
 presses over and over again the same idea. In point of fact, his 
 theory seems to be, to use his own "words, "that manifoldness (in 
 Religion as in everything else) is the design and end of Provi- 
 dence " ; and he even goes so far as to say (in reply to Lavater) 
 " that the remote people of the Indies and Greenland are in our 
 Religious estimation an enviable race." 
 
 If the Religion of the Hebrew "were not meant to be extended, in 
 what "way could Israel be a benefit to the World ? 
 
 One of the evidences of the vitality of a Religious Conception, 
 is the desire to propagate it by lawful means. If the Hebrew 
 believes, that his Religious Conception is in the right, if he admits 
 the great principle, first introduced by Buddha into Human Morality 
 (550 B.C.), of " Altruism," why does he not out of his great wealth 
 organize Missions to preach to the poor Gentiles these good tidings ? 
 Has he ever done so ? is not the gross right of circumcision 
 quite sufficient to stop any attempt at spiritual conversion ? Here 
 and there I read of a poor woman being converted : can an edu- 
 cated man, whether Christian or Pagan, be produced, who after 
 studying the Scriptures has accepted the Hebrew Conception, and 
 submitted to a mutilation of his body? No doubt in the Middle 
 Ages there was one great tribe, the Khazar, who accepted it, 
 740 A.D. ; and a Law was passed in Russia making conversion to 
 Judaism a penal offence, which implies that converts were made, 
 and forbidcling them to circumcise forcibly their Christian Slaves 
 under pain of death. This Law "was passed a. d. 815. When we 
 speak harshly of forcible conversions to Islam, we must recollect 
 these facts : and from the position, which the Hebrew pretends to 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 6 1 
 
 occupy, lie would do the same aa:ain, if he found himself strong 
 enough to do so with impunity. (" Israel," Encyc. Brit., 9th edition, 
 vol. xiii, p. 430.) 
 
 Philo of Alexandria is credited to have held a great desire to win 
 converts to his Religion : perhaps he was unconsciously more 
 Hellenized than he would have liked to admit. 
 
 Now, if the Hebrew believes the Old Testament, he ought to do 
 something to propagate the precious Truths of those Scriptures : 
 if they are indeed the depository of God's promises, and to the 
 (Jentiles as well as the Hebrews, how can he justify his silence ? 
 Either the Hebrew race, in his opinion, was chosen as the repre- 
 sentative of a true Religious Conception, or it was not. 
 
 In a late number of the Jewish Quarterly Review, Mr. Simon, 
 a most distinguished member of the Liberal Hebrews, boldly proposes 
 to inaugurate a Mission-policy on the part of the Hebrews to the 
 Gentiles of London. The subject is too long to treat of here, but it 
 seems, as if the Hebrews ought to have thought of this duty earlier 
 in their career, and the opportunity seems to be past now : how- 
 ever, the experiment would be welcomed. 
 
 Intermarriage between Christian and Jew is not uncommon : 
 some very notable cases have occurred. Hebrew writers assert 
 that a change of Religion on the part of a Gentile universally 
 follows marriage with a Hebrew : we can understand, that 
 a person totally indifferent to things spuitual, merely a nominal 
 believer, might change his or her nominal Religion without 
 difficulty ; but it is difficult to follow out the process, by which 
 a thoughtful man or woman of ordinary Religious training, 
 having married a Hebrew, can be persuaded to change his 
 Religion, and adopt Liberal Judaism. The New Testament 
 must be given up : Theism and ITnitarianism must be avoided, 
 though really they resemble Liberal Judaism very closely, the 
 historical antiquity of the latter being the only difference : Jesus, 
 no longer Christ, must take His plane as the noblest teacher, that 
 the world ever knew, but nothing more : feasts and fasts will have 
 to be kept, and prayers studied in the dead Language of Hebrew. 
 When the question of Belief is considered, it is difficult to define 
 accurately, what the Liberal Hebrew does believe, for he must feel, 
 that the so-called Mosaic Dispensation, so far as he is concerned, 
 has been played out, and has failed absolutely : the pi'omises of the 
 I'rophets have not been realized, and in his Scriptures the Hebrew 
 finds no sure and certain prospect of a future Life : it is difficult to 
 say on what he rests for support in discharge of his duties in this 
 AVorld, and what hope of reward in the next. The Jewish Quarterly 
 Review informs the public, that young women accept Judaism on the 
 occasion of marriage : no one can take a serious view of a spiritual 
 conversion as the accompaniment of matrimony. I make the fol- 
 lowing extract from a Periodical : 
 
62 USSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 " Converts to Judaism. — An annoimcoment has just been pnl)- 
 " lislied to the effect, that the Jewish ecck'siastical authorities, the 
 " Beth Din, will in future permit the induction of Christians, and 
 " others, in the Jewish faith. It is among the things not generally 
 " known, that from the admission of the Jews into England during the 
 " Commonwealth to the present time not one Gentile of either sex 
 " has been received into the Anglo-Jewish community by English 
 " rabbis or Jewish ministers resident in this country. Englishmen 
 " have, of course, embraced Hebrew doctrines from time to time ; 
 " but conversion does not necessarily mean submission to rites. 
 " Every year, however, a considerable number of Christian women 
 " have gone over to Holland, Belgium, and France, and have there 
 " renounced Christianity in favour of the more ancient faith, the 
 " rabbis in these countries being under no obligation to refuse 
 " to induct proselytes. These con vei'ts are generally young women, 
 " and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they change for matri- 
 " monial reasons. Not many care to marry out of their pale at all, 
 " and when they do they naturally wish their wives to be formally 
 " received. The reason why the spiritual chiefs of the community 
 " have declined up till now to receive proselytes can be traced to 
 " the time of the Commonwealth, when it was imagined by the 
 " ignorant and the bigoted, that the Hebrew sought admission to 
 " this country in order to gain adherents to their Religion. To 
 " banish this delusion the rabbis of the time engaged themselves. 
 " under heavy penalties, to refuse admission to the synagogue of 
 " any Christian. And this rule, enacted by Israelites for Israelites, 
 " has remained in force from the time of Menasseh Ben Israel to 
 " that of the Rev. Ur. Adler. That the Hebrew in our own day do 
 " not wish to begin the business of conversion, we may be well 
 " assured. The truth is, that some of the most influential members 
 " of the Hebrew community have during the last three or four 
 " years taken unto themselves Christian wives ; some noble Jewesses 
 "have made themselves happy with Gentile husbands; and it 
 " happens, that Hebrews rarely maintain the rites and obligations 
 " of their faith after they have married out of it. The readiness 
 " of Ur. Adler and his coadjutors, therefore, to save intending 
 " proselytes the expense and trouble of a journey to Holland or 
 " Belgium, may be traced to mixed marriages." 
 
 And wlien attempts are made to bring to their notice the tenets 
 of anotlier Religion, not by Ibrce, not by temptation of worldly 
 profit, but simply from motives of unselfish ])encvolence, and in 
 the way of friendly argument, the Hebnnv draws up, and is offended, 
 and assumes tlie airs of a rich man, to whom a penny by way of 
 Charity is offered. 
 
 In a lecture in the Temple Israel, apropos of the movement to 
 coiivert Hebrews, Dr. Harris remarked : 
 
ESSA YS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 63 
 
 " To send Missionaries to convert us, is an insult to our faith and 
 to us. We are not barbarians ; we are not besotted revellers ; 
 we know what Duty is, none better. Come to us to learn 
 Religion, if you will, but not to teach it. In the field of 
 Eeligion we are the masters, 'the witnesses of God,' and the 
 World has sat at our feet. 
 
 " I say, that Christians insult lis more, when they patronize us, 
 than when they persecute us. Let them kill us, if they will, 
 as they are doing in Russia, but let them not send their 
 Missionaries to save us. I say that we are being perpetually 
 hiimiliated, and more by our would-be friends than by our 
 open foes. 
 
 " I hold that to disturb a man's faith is about the most awful 
 tiling that man can do. To tell him that his soul is lost, cursed 
 of God, because he believes in the faith of his fathers, I would 
 shrink from it. 
 
 " Wbat have they to offer for this ? What do they know that 
 we do not ? Our people are temperate. Drunkards are not as 
 numerous as among Christians. The sanctity of the home is 
 maintained. The Jews love home ; they are a thriving people ; 
 they have the energy to make valuable citizens. Will the 
 Missionaries be able to make them any better ? Compare two 
 congregations, one of Jews and one of Christians, in sobriety, 
 industry, and morality. 
 
 " We must insist, that our Christian neighbours treat us with 
 equality. We must insist, that they cease to treat us, as if we 
 were African barbarians. We must insist, that they treat us 
 as their fellow-citizens. We ask simply, that they treat us with 
 such dignity, as we are entitled to. 
 
 "It is hard enough to be blackballed at the clubs, but tben 
 to be defended in the Christian pulpit on the following Sunday, 
 and to be informed, that we are quite respectable people, that is 
 intolerable. Some of us, unfortunately, have not sufficient self- 
 respect, and feel flattered, when we ought to feel indignant. 
 " Therefore to our friends, as to our enemies, I say, ' Let us 
 alone.' Let us train our children to understand that, wherever 
 they may go, their presence confers honour quite as decidedly as 
 it receives it. 'Jo those amiable but narrow partisans, who, 
 anxious about our souls, contribute liberally toward Jewish 
 Missionaries, let me say : ' Devote your zeal and your purses 
 to more worthy and less thankless causes.' For the Jew to 
 renounce Monotheism, a belief in one sole God, and to accept 
 a belief in a Triune (iod, is a step backward. Even progressive 
 Christianity, in its latest and highest development, Unitarianism, 
 has gradually dropped this last remnant of Paganism." 
 
 The African Barbarian has a common ground with the Hebrew, 
 
64 £SSAVS ON KEUGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 whicli Dr. Harris omits to notice. Both mutilate their bodies 
 under the idea, that it is an index of the relation of their Soul to 
 their great Creator. But is the discoverer of a mine of gold to he 
 blamed, if he publishes the good news, and invites the whole 
 World to share the benefit of his discovery ? The Hebrew is not 
 compelled by the Arm of the Flesh to change his time-honoured 
 Conceptions : all that is done is, to lay before his educated Intellect, 
 and his awakened Spirituality, a new way of seeking for God, if 
 haply He can be found ; and, if the Hebrew undertakes in the same 
 spirit to publish the tenets of his ancient Faith, and to expound 
 the merits of his practices, e.g., Sacrifice of Animals, Kestriction 
 of the Mercies of the common God to one petty race. Prayers in an 
 unknown Language, Mutilation of the male body, Slaughter of 
 cattle in a manner, which causes unnecessary pain to the poor 
 animals for a reason, which it is ridiculous to state, eating un- 
 leavened bread, etc., his arguments will receive respectful attention, 
 and perhaps, as often happens to the Christian Missionary, while 
 expounding his doctrines to others, he will more fully realize the 
 nature of the doctrines and practices of the Elder World, which he 
 is expounding, and ask himself: "Are these things true? Is it 
 possible, that our eyes are blinded, and that we do not see the 
 presence of God everywhere during all the ages, and the progress of 
 the capacity of the Soul of Man to iinderstand Him." 
 
 It would appear, that the very rahon d''etre, and prime motive, of 
 the Hebrew dispensation has passed away : no one can doubt, that 
 its first and great object was to enforce the principle of Monotheism, 
 and denounce the Worship under any pretence of graven Images, 
 with which the Hebrews became so familiar in Egypt. No one 
 can say, that at the present Epoch Polytheism, and Idolatry, 
 are the prevailing spiritual evils. The great majority of man- 
 kind, thanks to Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, 
 and Confucianism, have outgrown this weakness, which survives 
 in the Brahmanical Conception, and was notorious in the old Semitic 
 lleligious Conceptions, the Graeco- Roman, Egyptian, and Meso- 
 potamian. Conceptions and Cults. The Human race is now not in 
 danger of serving many gods, but in denying the existence of 
 any God. 
 
 But such is the weakness of the Human race, that germs of this 
 old primeval error crop up, notably in the Greek and Boman forms 
 of Christianity, in Buddhism and Confucianism, and, .'^trange to say, 
 in the Hebrew Dispensation. The cultus of the Temple in the 
 Post-Exilic Period became to the Hebrew a kind of Worship, an 
 end in itself: the idea obtained, that a peri:)etual maintenance of 
 Temple- Worsliip would secure the favour of a satisfied Deity: it 
 was performed as much for God's glory, as for the spiritual benefit 
 of the sinful worshipper. The Temple became a perpetual Divine 
 Manifestation, a place, where the Deity actually resided, and in 
 
ESSAYS Oy RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 65 
 
 its utter destruction we read the lesson, that God dwelleth not in 
 temples made with hands. The destruction of the Hebrews as 
 a Nation showed, that their Mission had been performed. 
 
 Other Eeligious Conceptions have no Geographical limits assigned 
 to them, notably the Buddhist, Christian, and Mahometan : they 
 are universal in place and race. The great Brahmanical Conception 
 is absolutely localized in India, and limited to the inhabitants of 
 that vast Region. A thoughtful Hindu remarked to me with an 
 expression of satisfaction, worthy of a Hebrew, that he could 
 become a Christian, whenever he liked, but that no earthly power 
 could enable me to become a Hindu. I had to be thankful for 
 small mercies, and was grateful for this disability. At any rate, 
 the Hindu-Sthan, and Arya-Des, or " place of the Hindu," is 
 still occupied by them in 200 Millions, but the very raison d''el.re 
 of the Hebrew has disappeared for eighteen centuries : one of their 
 promises was not Everlasting Life, but ' ' that their days might be 
 long in the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee." Their great 
 Lawgiver never saw the Promised Land except by a far-off view 
 from Mount Pisgah. Over and over again they were warned, that 
 their tenure of the Land was dependent on their maintenance of 
 Monotheism, and the sole Worship of Jehovah ; and yet they went 
 whoring after other gods, the miserable abomination of neighbouring- 
 tribes. It is clear, therefore, that, when their day of reckoning- 
 came, they lost their Land, and their Dispensation, as far as Human 
 eyes can see, has come to an end. 
 
 How different would have been their effect and influence on the 
 Graeco-Roman World in the dawn of its greatness, if within the 
 Holy Land there had been a Holy People, strictly adhering to their 
 Holy Law, not the letter only, the anise and cumin, but to the 
 Spirit, Purity of Soul, Obedience to the Law, and a Desire by 
 Human Love to extend this Blessing to their fellow-men. The 
 Hebrew had a distinct Mission then, both in Palestine and Egypt, 
 and Babylon, and in every place, where Moses was read on the 
 Sabbath. A blindness came upon Israel. Had the new Dispensa- 
 tion been made by a Greek, or a Roman, or an Egyptian, they 
 might have resisted it fix)m mere Chauvinism, but it came from a 
 Hebrew of the line of David, with the Hebrew Scriptures on His 
 lijis : and they refused to hear Him. 
 
 The Hebrew race has been hardly dealt with by everyone, with 
 whom they came into contact since the time that Jacob went down 
 into Egypt. They were led to believe, that they were somehow 
 or other the chosen people of the Creator of the tlniverse, thovigh 
 they knew Him only as the God of their own ITation, and quite 
 admitted the (to our notions) inconceivable idea of there being- 
 gods of other Nations : Psalm xcv, 3, places this beyond doubt : 
 " Eor the Lord is a great God, and a great king above all gods." In 
 an}- other Nation of antiquity, and in Chiistian paidance, He would 
 
66 ^SSA VS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIOSS. 
 
 have been called, and is called, the God : but to call him " the king 
 above other gods," who never existed, means nothing : Zens might 
 have been called so, hut Yahveh never. 
 
 I have dwelt upon the insigniiicance of the kingdom of David. 
 All the stories of Solomon's wisdom and wealth arc mere exaggera- 
 tions : his wealth is far exceeded by that of Rothschild ; as to his 
 wisdom, it is exceeded by Spinoza, and a row of learned Israelites of 
 modern days. The Hebrew Nation achieved greatness in nothing. 
 India, China, Japan, Persia, Assyria, Eabylouia, and Egypt, looked 
 on them with scorn ; some of them had never heard of their name. 
 In those days they could not cope with the Greeks in Philosophy, 
 or with the Komans in organization, or even Morals. Mordecai 
 sold his niece to be a member of a king's Harem : Virginius pre- 
 ferred to slay his daughter to save her from a life of shame. 
 
 With all this they were habitually false to their God Yahveh. 
 Jeremiah v places this beyond doubt : they were fearfully immoral, 
 exceptionally cruel, terribly unfaithful, going after the so-called 
 gods of neighbouring tribes: one king went one way, his son another: 
 they were intolerant to a degree, and yet always expected toleration 
 for themselves. They were swept into exile ; a few, a very few, 
 counting by hundreds, came back, having lost their Language, and 
 their independence, whatever they understood by Prophets, had 
 ceased : a volume of written Law had been got together, to which 
 they gave a servile obedience, to the letter, not the spirit. They 
 were transferred from the rule of the Persian Monoi heists to the 
 Greek Polytheists, and from them to the Koman Polytheists. They 
 insisted on the interpretation of Ancient Prophecies, that a temporal 
 Eedeemer would come, but twenty-five centuries have passed away, 
 and a temporal Redeemer has not come : they fondly anticipated 
 a restoration of the petty kingdom of their Shepherd-King David 
 in his little town of Jerusalem, as if it had been an ancient Monarchy 
 and a vast city, which had ruled other Nations for centuries, like 
 the great Dynasties in Egypt or Mesopotamia. 
 
 The migration of the Hebrews from Egypt has its parallel in the 
 great migration of the Mongols from the country round the mouth 
 of the Volga into Central Asia, or the migration of the Mormonites 
 into the Salt Lake Region. Centuries later the return of the 
 Hebrews from Babylon was an epoch-making event in the History 
 of the World, and its outcome was advantageous to the whole 
 Human race. It was not only a solemn event in the History of the 
 H ebrews, but the solution of a question of Life and Death to future 
 generations. Had a portion of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin 
 not returned from captivity, their fate would have in the course 
 of time been that of their brethren of the Ten Tribes : tliey would 
 have disappeared in the quagmire of conquered Nations; their indi- 
 viduality would have faded away : (Christianity would never have 
 come into existence, as the Hebrew Books would have disappeared; 
 
£SSAVS OM RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 6/ 
 
 and later centuries would have known nothing of those strange 
 Hebrew legends, which have charmed and consoled so many 
 generations of men. The little caravan, which crossed the Desert 
 535 B.C. from Babylon to Jerusalem, carried with it the Future of 
 the Religious of the World, and laid the foundation of the greatest 
 Sinritual Conception of the Human race. 
 
 It must be an additional aggravation to the Hebrew to hear, how 
 the Precious Promises made to his race to Israel by name, are 
 appropriated through a poetic license and a daring figuration, by 
 Christian Gentiles. It has been well said, that the Prophecies, 
 Promises, and Prayers, of the Old Testament teach us, that the funda- 
 mental purpose of the Election and I'reservation of Israel was, that 
 it should become a channel and instrument of blessing to the entire 
 AVorld; but the Preacher should discontinue the practice of spiritual- 
 izing all Promises to Israel, and appropriating them to Christians, 
 while literalizing all threatenings, and applying them to Israel 
 alone. If Israel be indeed a type of God's dealings with the 
 whole World, it is so both for Punishment as well as Blessing. 
 Israel's place to the reflecting and thinking World is not what 
 the Hebrew himself presumed to think in the time of the King- 
 dom, nor what our forefathers in their ignorance were taught 
 to believe. The present generation knows, that all mankind since 
 the day of the Creation of Man are God's children, made in His 
 Image, and God has loved them all, and hated nothing that He has 
 made. If He chose the Hebrew out of the rest of His poor children 
 (passing by the learned Egyptians, Babylonians, Indians, and 
 Chinese, who even then were great, and powerful, and learned) 
 to be the custodians of His Oracles, and the channel of His Grace 
 to the World, as through one of their race the great Incarnation 
 was to take place, their faithless, rebellious, and idolatrous, conduct 
 before the Exile, and their unspiritual ritualistic Worship after 
 the Exile, show how little worthy they were of the high honour 
 conferi'ed upon them. When they are weighed in the balance 
 with the great Nations, who were their contemporaries, they are 
 found to have left no contribution to the sum-total of Human 
 Knowledge, and only a darkened view of Divine Knowledge. 
 
 At the time of our Lord the number of Hebrews and Proselytes, 
 dwelling outside the limits of Judii-a, far exceeded the number of 
 those, who had access to the Temple Sacrifice, or went up to the 
 Annual Feasts. If any of the Diaspora went up to Jerusalem, 
 it was as great an effort in their time as a Pilgrimage to Mekka is 
 to a Mahometan dwelling in India. It follows, that to the majority 
 of the Diaspora the rite of Sacritice had practically ceased : 
 many passed through life, even in the days of Paul, without ever 
 making a Sacrifice : the Synagogue-Ritual and Prayers had, by the 
 slow process of events, replaced the Temple-slaying of Beasts, and, 
 when the Temple was destroyed, it made no difi'erence to the 
 Worship of the Diaspora, 
 
68 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Spiuoza remarks, that the Jews maintained their independent 
 social position not only in spite of, but in consequence of, the 
 persecution, which ihey most unjustly met at the hands of Christian 
 Gentiles: what possible conntctiou could the millions of the Dias- 
 pora in every city of the lloiuiin Empire have wiih the Crucifixion 
 at Jerusalem ? Yet it was the hatied, which arose falsely from this 
 event, which preserved their individuality : they never disapjieared 
 and melted away like the Ten Tribes in Mesopotamia. It is possihk-, 
 that their present so-called emancipation, and the levelling hand 
 of Civilization and National Culture, may lead to their absorption, 
 when the process extends beyond the Political to the Social sphere. 
 "We have an indication of this in what we see around us in the 
 higher classes of Hebrews in Europe. In 1500 a.d., when lieuchlin, 
 the first European Hebrew Scholar, wished to lecture on that 
 Language at Heidelberg, the Priests of Rome objected on the 
 ground, that the Hebrews were an accursed people, who had 
 crucified the Lord, and anyone, who made use of their Language, 
 was a heretic: when they were reminded that the Old Testament 
 was in Hebrew, they retorted that the Latin Vulgate was the only 
 15iblc of the Chuich. Things are changed now. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 Our plain duty is to do our best to bring the simple doctrine of 
 Christ Crucified, and Christ Ilisen. to the hearts of the survivors of 
 His race : this is not the place to describe this policy, but merely to 
 state it : it is no new idea, but as old as the time of Paul of Tarsus. 
 But there our Duty ends. We are not in the least called upon to 
 admit any superiority in Grace and Election of the Jew to the 
 Gentile : the two terms in this special significance have ceased to 
 exist. And really, the obsolete customs, and insignificant History, 
 of this petty tribe should no longer be introduced into the serious 
 discussion of the most important problems of Humim life. The 
 Sacred Books of the Hebrew weie written by individuals, and for 
 a people, in a state of Barbarism, without Science, or Arts, Com- 
 merce with Foreign Nations, or any knowledge of the History, 
 Geography, or even existence, of the outer World : there were 
 none of the checks on the writer of a public Press, or an 
 educated critical class : there was most conventional phraseology, 
 grossness of expression, and wild utterance. We accept those Books 
 gratefully; they have a charm of their own. We love the 
 utterances of the Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit, writers for the same 
 reason : we seem to hold converse W'ith the great and wise men of 
 old, and bow our heads to them across the abyss of centuries. 
 But all that the Hebrews wrote is totally out of the environ- 
 ment of modern argument, and has no practical relation to the 
 stream of modern life : it is mere pulpit-euphemism, or rhetorical 
 
£SSA VS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 69 
 
 flouris^h, and should be abandoned, when the discussion is serious, 
 on the rehition of God to the Souls of His poor creatures, the whole 
 Human race, as 1 wish this discussion to be. 
 
 It has never been given to any other x^ation but the Hebrew to 
 express opeidy and unreservedly, during a long series of years, 
 their conviction in the coming in some dim and remote period of 
 a great Personage of iheir own race and Nation, who would restore 
 their fallen fortunes ; and in the fulness of time that Personage 
 arrived. Ko other Litcratuic presents so striking a phenomenon. 
 No prophecy foretold the coining of Euddha, or Socrates, the only 
 names, which can be mentioned in the same breath with Jesus of 
 Nazareth. The most superficial reader of the Old Testament cannot 
 fail to mark the golden thread, which entwines itself thioughout 
 the texture of ancient Hebrew Literature. The Hebrew thinks, 
 that the promised Messiah has not yet come : Nineteen centuries 
 is a long time to wait, especially as the Country, the Nationality, 
 the Language, the local customs, have all passed away. Can we 
 doubt, that through all the pages of these Ancient Books from the 
 time of Abraham, there is a finger pointing to the time of appearance 
 of some one? The indication is indeed not clear, and the truth is 
 concealed by fanciful interpretations. Since a certain date, a date, 
 from which all Modern History counts, there has been a deep 
 silence, and certain Prophecies have been unmistakably fulfilled. 
 How does the Hebrew explain this fact away? 
 
 Let anyone, who really has accepted the Christian Dispensation, 
 and has a per&onal Knmoledge of Christ, and his precious Promises, 
 close his eyes, and reflect upon what I have written ex animo in 
 these three Essays, and then open his eyes again, and imagine the 
 mere possibility of that one great central Eigure, the object of the 
 Faith, Hope, and Love, of countless millions, having disappeared 
 from the Picture of Human affairs in the same way as Asher, 
 Amen lla, and Zeus, by the lapse of time, and the widening of 
 Human Knowledge, have disappeared. Can the Conception of the 
 Son of God, who assumed Human Form, and died for the sins of 
 all His Human Brethren, and reconciled them to His Father, and 
 their Father, be surpassed in Fulness, and Sufiiciency, in 
 Universality, and Opportuneness, in Suitability to the weaknesses 
 and wants of the Human race, by any. Past or Present, lieligious 
 Conception? The Future is with God. 
 
 The end of the matter, is this : any rights, that a citizen of the 
 great Nations of Europe and America possesses, should be, or have 
 been, conceded to a Hebrew without any possible exception, and 
 the most entire Tolerance to their peculiar Eeligious views or 
 customs, so long as they are not in antagonism to the Moral 
 standards of the Nineteenth century. When we recall the cruel 
 wrongs done to their forefathers in past centuries, we should be 
 disposed to render more kindness, restitution, if possible, of buildings 
 
70 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIOXS. 
 
 torn from them, compensation for confiscations, eveiy possible 
 Educational, Constitutional, and Social, Privilege, and something 
 beyond in token of Kegret for the Past, and in atonement for the 
 sins of our Ancestors. 
 
 As regards attempts to bring to their notice the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, it is the duty of Christians in every lawful way to do so, 
 and the Hebrew is quite at liberty to press upon his fellow-citizens 
 his own Religious views in any way, which may appear desirable to 
 him. By maintaining such a base custom, as mutilation of the 
 male body, as a token of spiritual Conversion, killing animals 
 for food in a way calculated to increase suH'ering, and observing 
 a different day of weekly rest from his fellow- citizens, he must feel, 
 that he is in a miserable minority, and must put up with the con- 
 sequence of being out of harmony and touch with the lawful and 
 unobjectionable practices of his Epoch, and place of habitation. 
 
 If he has hopes for the Future, after nearly two thousand years 
 of expatriation and denationalization, he is perfectly at liberty to 
 entertain them, but they are outside of practical consideration ; 
 and by putting them forward he only makes himself an object of 
 pity, and to the thoughtless of ridicule. The men, who uttered 
 and committed to paper those Promises, on which he founds his 
 hopes, were men utterly ignorant of Geography, History, the 
 physical Laws of the Universe, which were the same then as now ; ■ 
 they were devoid of all Culture, all sense of responsibility ; they 
 spoke to contemporaries more ignorant than themselves ; they 
 partook more of the character of Preachers than Predictors. ]!^o 
 such utterances in modern times would be listened to by the most 
 ignorant. All the great Truths, which they promulgated, of 
 Monotheism, the duty of man to his Creator, and Morality, are 
 admitted on all sides. The existence of the petty tribes of the 
 Hebrews may have had some motive, some part to play, in the 
 progress of the World then : it has none now. The great Religious 
 Conceptions, in the midst of which they came into existence, with 
 all the old-world paraphernalia of Sacrifice, Prophecy, IMiracles, 
 Auguries, Dreams, Signs from Heaven, Visions, have passed away: 
 I do not stop to discuss, whether there was Truth, or a raison d^etre 
 in them then : they have passed away noiv, and yet the same God 
 rules the World now as then, and is worshipped in Spirit and 
 Truth, and the presence of His Holy Spirit cannot be denied as 
 immanent in all His poor creatures. 
 
 The fivOoi, or myths, of the early periods of a Nation are not 
 necessarily false : they appear to have been the modes, in which in 
 the early stage of Human Culture great Truths were enunciated, 
 and recorded, and we can safely admit, that they were to that extent 
 from God (Gore's " Lux Mundi," 5th edition, pp. 356, 357, and 
 Preface, pp. xxviii, xxix), but there is a limit of time to their value, 
 for the centre of action of Hunuin environment has been changed : 
 
£SSAYS ON- RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 71 
 
 the Earth is no longer the most important feature of the Universe, 
 Kor is the Hebrew race in any possible sense the i:)ivot, on which 
 the development of mankind ever turned, or does now turn : these 
 fond and foolish notions must be abandoned. 
 
 To assert, that the Hebrew has a Mission still unfulfilled, except 
 as to his own Conversion to a more intelligent Faith, cannot be 
 admitted; to assert, that his Morality was at any period of his 
 existence higher than that, which was promulgated by the great 
 Seekers after God, and Teachers of Mankind of Ancient and Modern 
 Time, cannot be admitted by those, who have studied the Sacred 
 Euoks of ail Religious Conceptions, and the History of the Human 
 race. In all the writers on the Hebrew Nation, a marked ignorance 
 is evidenced of the History of the Ancient Nations of Asia, 
 North Africa, and Europe, and an absence of the study of their 
 Sacred and Pliilosophical Books, though they are accessible in the 
 three great Languages of Europe, English, French, and German, 
 
 Of what possible use is the prolonged existence in isolation of 
 the Hebrew people, who realize, as stated in Section I, the con- 
 ditions neithei- of Nation nor race ? Are they the leaven of a new 
 and higher Religious Conception in any of the countries, in which 
 they have obtained the position of citizens, honoured, wealthy, 
 learned in every branch of Science, and every Art ? Jn the Senate, 
 in the Courts of Law, in the Universities, in Commerce, in the 
 Halls of the Scientist, they represent a great Power as regards 
 things of this World ; there are among them some of the greatest, 
 the best, and the sweetest, of men, whose genius and acquirements 
 claim the highest admiration, and obtain it ; but, still, their Re- 
 ligious Conception is a survival of a Dead Past, with no promise of 
 a Living Future. 
 
 Did, then, no profit to the Human race arise from the Hebrew 
 Conception ? Much every way, chiefly because to men of their 
 race were revealed in a most urimistakable manner the Counsels of 
 God : and their voices are still heard. Still, to the Hebrew alone 
 was committed those writings, called by one of the greatest and 
 wisest of men, Paul the Hebrew, " the Oracles of God." 
 
 And so long as Human hearts beat, love must be extended to that 
 one family among the families of Nations, of which came Jesus of 
 Nazareth in the fulness of time. Just at the period, when the 
 parting of the ways was about to take place, the existence of the 
 Hebrew was of unique and overpowering advantage. 
 
 I quote words from one of my former volumes, " Common 
 Features which appear in all forms of Belief," 1895, P- 65 : 
 
 "The Palestinian Hebrew in the century preceding Anno 
 " Domini had fallen to the lowest level of empty Ritual. The 
 " destruction of the Temple, and the cessation of the Mosaic form 
 " of Worship, were at hand. In the meantime, the Hebrew of the 
 " Diaspora was supplying the leaven of Progress to all the races, 
 
72 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 " and Nations, with -vrhom lie came into contact. He had no 
 " Temple, no Priesthood, no Ritual; but he had a high Ideal, and 
 " he was unconsciously preparing a platform in every city of 
 " West Asia, North Africa, and Europe, on which the new 
 " Religious Conception could rest: the kingdom of Israel, and the 
 " old Jerusalem, were ready to disappear. Tlie shadow of the ' King- 
 " dom of God' [and of ' Heaven' (for it is called by both names)], 
 " and the New Jerusalem, fell on the slide of the great Lantern of 
 " the Universe. Moses was read in every Synagogue eveiy Sabbath. 
 *' A few years later Christ was to be read also, for it may roughly 
 " be said, that where there was a Synagogue, there would soon be 
 " a Church. Primitive Christianity sprang up in a soil prepared 
 " by two or three centuries of Hebrew Culture. The Jew of the 
 " Diaspora, de[)rived of means of access to the outward centre of 
 " his hereditary Worship, arrived at the conviction, that his call 
 " was to serve God in a pure manner, and observe the principles 
 " of his Religion, since he was hopelessly debarred from the 
 " Ritual." 
 
 Nothing apparently was more destructive of the spirituality of 
 the Hebrew Religion than the Deuteronomic precept of there being 
 only one place of Worship for the sons of Abraham in the petty 
 town conquered by David from the Jebusites, and in which his son 
 had by the help of Heathen workmen from Tyre erected his little 
 Temple, for we have only to compare the extent of its area, whicli 
 can be traced with certainty, with that of the temples in Egypt, 
 and Baelbek in Syria, to be convinced how small and unimportant 
 as a building it was. Yet the centralization of Ritual led to the 
 extinction of local and family Worship : there were no Synagogues 
 ti)en ; there could be no family, or parochial, altar : once a year 
 those, who were strong, and had the means, could make a painful 
 pilgrimage to the solitary place of Worship of a country as large 9s 
 Belgium, and amidst the excitement, suffering, and exhaustion of 
 the journey sacrifice their beast, and troop back. AVe can see how 
 it was in the time of our Lonl's childhood, when He was lost in 
 the crowd. We in India all know what a Pilgrimage is, and how 
 many never live to get home, and how the modern Railway 
 nowadays helps a pious heathen to get with his family to his Idol- 
 Temple. Religion would have died out in Palestine, had it not 
 been supplemented by the Synagogue, and in the Diaspora the 
 Synagogue was the centre of the Religion, free from Sacrifice, or 
 debased Ritual. Other Nations are glad to forget the events connected 
 with their barbarous and often crutd infancy. As a fact the exist- 
 ence of a Nation is built on the blood and bones of the one, which 
 preceded it, just as in the Syrian Tell at Lachish the layer of each 
 superimposed town unmistakaWly, though silently, tells of the 
 slaughter of the inhabitants by force or treachery of the layer next 
 below. All the cruel details elsewhere are forgotten ; but tlie 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS COiYCEPTIONS. 73 
 
 Hebrews delight to record all such atrocities committed by their 
 furefathers, and thousands of years afterwards to read them aloud, 
 as a form of Woiship in their Synagogue. Moreover, the shocking 
 cruelty of killing all men, women, and children, of an inoffensive 
 tribe, and reserving all the adult virgins for the convenience of the 
 conquerors, is attributed to the commands of the Great Creator of 
 all mankind, who loved the whole World. It is often forgotten, that 
 the tribes, whom they thus slaughtered, were their near kinsmen 
 on the side of their maternal ancestors, as eleven of the sons of 
 Jacob had married women of Canaan, and the Language, which 
 they spoke, was called the Language of Canaan (Isaiah, xix, 18). 
 
 I quote from Eber's "Only a Word," p. 85, the expressions of 
 a learned, gentle, and persecuted Jew, as putting the matter of 
 giving up their ancestral Religion in another light, one in which 
 we can all sympathize : 
 
 " Christ's love embraced all Nations : He loved all mankind : my 
 " Soul thirsts to help my fellow-men, but they have never ceased 
 " to crush me and my people in our efforts to be good in the fullest 
 " sense of their own Master's teaching: the Christian refuses this 
 " to the Jew : if I dare to treat a Christian as a fellow-creature 
 " what would my fate be ? The Jew is not to be good : the men, 
 " who lay that burden on their brethren's shoulders, incur such 
 " guilt as I know no pardon for: if Jesus Christ were to return to 
 " the World, and see the pack, that hunts us down. He would open 
 " His arms wide to embrace us." 
 
 The atrocious conduct of Christian Governments, peoples, and 
 individuals has done a wrong to the Hebrew, which can never be 
 expiated. How has it happened, that it seems part of our nature 
 to he averse to the very race, of which the Lord of Life came ? We 
 feel it, though we would not injure them, and pity those of our 
 fellows, who have Hebrew blood in their veins. No wonder the 
 Hebrew feels it more deeply, and, when he accepts Christ, he still 
 is unwilling to enter into any Gentile Association. We hardly lay 
 sufficient stress on the influence of this feeling, that, though they 
 become Christians in Eeligion, they have not ceased to be Hebrews 
 in race, as if it were a great inheritance : they are proud of an 
 origin, which unconsciously seems to the Gentile anything but 
 a cause of pride. 
 
 How much greater would have been the image of the Hebrew in 
 the page of History of after ages, if it had died away after giving 
 birth to the great Universal Religious Conception, which now fills 
 so large a part in the spiritual life of the sons of men ! It might, 
 indeed, have lived in its unbroken and annually increasing Millions 
 in its own country, the place of its birth, like the Brahmanical 
 Religion of India, which, after giving birth to the great Universal 
 Religion of Buddha, still retains one-seventh of the population 
 of the Globe in its fold: but the Hebrew has been ignominiously 
 
74 ^^-^-^ ^^-S ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIOXS. 
 
 driven out of the petty Province, which was given, according to Ids 
 story, to him by the Ahuighty as an everlasting possession. 
 His great form of adoration by Sacrifice of Beasts has ceased for 
 1, 800 years: the last Passover-Lamb has been slaughtered in the 
 Holy of Holies ; the last bullock in the outer court of the Temple. 
 The Hebrews were chosen to be the servants of the Lord, but their 
 Dispensation has proved an entire failure : they have nothinfi to show 
 to justify their existence since the time of the Maccabees, Fallen as 
 the Greeks are, they still retain their Cities and their Language : 
 no one has superseded Plato and Aristotle : the very words uttered 
 by their great Dramatists still ring in our ears ; the very words, 
 which entranced an Athenian audience seated in the Theatre of 
 Bacchus under the hill of the Parthenon, where the Temple of 
 Athens still looks down in its serene beauty ; it was 400 years 
 older than Herod's temple at Jerusalem, every stone of which is 
 gone. The Greek Religious Conception has passed away, because 
 its work was done, and the minds of men have passed to higher 
 things. But, like the remnant of the Religion of Zoroaster, which 
 still survives in India, a remnant of the Hebrew Religion, which 
 came under the patronage of the Persian King at Babylon, 
 still maintains a moribund, profitless existence, appealing to 
 a Past, but with no hope for a Future ; and what profit is there 
 iu a Religious Conception, so devoid of the Spirit of Altruism, so 
 wrapped up in Selfish Egoism, that it cares not for the Millions out- 
 side its miserable fold, and takes no part in stemming the inroad of 
 Atheism, and Agnosticism, and the back-tide of Paganism, which 
 threaten to overwhelm the World ? 
 
 August, 1897. 
 
£SSAVS O.V RELIGIOUS COMCEPTIOYS. 75 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Supeeioe, Exceilence of a Religious Conception, evidenced 
 BY THE Results. 
 
 (i) A calm, aud feai'less, aud unspariug, comparison of its 
 tenets with those of every other Conception, Past, 
 Present, or dimly visioned in the Future, Avhen 
 purified from the degrading survivals of previous 
 Religious Conceptions of the race. 
 
 (2) The unconquerable desire of those, who believe in it, to 
 extend it to other races, and the whole of mankind, by 
 peaceful argument, unselfish sacrifice, and inducements 
 wholly free from carnal advantages. 
 
 Section i . 
 
 In this series of Essays we are weighing Religious Conceptions 
 on their own fundamental merits, quite apart from the accretions of 
 Ritual and Dogma, which have clung to them, and the evil customs 
 and habits of those, who profess to believe them, though these two 
 features are, rightly or wrongly, imputed to the Religious Con- 
 ception. 
 
 We ask ourselves dispassionately, philosophically, and, as far as 
 we can, truthfvilly, without prejudice, without partiality, what did 
 our forefathers, in the History of the World, have presented to 
 them as to, 
 
 (i) The relation of the Soul to the Great Creator. 
 
 (2) The Conception of this Clreator, as far as limited Human 
 
 Thought can deal with the Infinite. 
 
 (3) The whole duty of Man, during the term of mortal life, 
 
 to Himself, his fellow-men, and his Creator. 
 
 (4) The spirit, in which he should patiently bear the ills of 
 
 life, and temperately enjoy the pleasures. 
 
 (5) The submissive feelings, in which Death is to be met, 
 
 and the degree of certainty of a Puture State of 
 Rewards and Punishments beyond the Grave. 
 
 On these subjects, taking them chronologically, 
 
 (i) What did the Egyptian profess ? (See Essay I.) 
 
 (2) What did the Assyrian profess ? (See Essay I.) 
 
 (3) What did the Hindu Sages profess? (See Essay I.) 
 
 (4) What did Moses profess? (See Essay III.) 
 
 (5) What did Zoroaster profess? (See Essay III.) 
 
 (6) What did Gautama Buddha profess ? (Well known.) 
 
 (7) What did Socrates and Plato profess? (Well known.) 
 
76 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS COXCEPTIONS. 
 
 To those, who complacently ignore the Spiritual History of the 
 World, and in their deep ignorance consider, that the j>reat Creator 
 had been for long centuries out of possession of his own Creation, 
 and had left the millions of His poor creatures for fifty generations 
 of men to the unconditional control of Satan, we have only one 
 reply : 
 
 " God so loved the World (the whole World) that He sent His 
 
 only Son," etc. 
 " Grod hated nothing, that He had made." 
 " God does not willingly afflict the Children of Men." 
 
 We recognize His presence in all the ages, at all times, in all 
 circumstances. By a breath of His will, He could have made all 
 men Christians on Creation's dawn, and given them the true Know- 
 ledge, just in the same way, that He gave them the gift of Language 
 to communicate with their fellows, and a Religious Instinct to 
 enalde them to feel after God. Men are very much the same in 
 their natures, but their peculiar characteristics are formed by their 
 environment. We Englishmen would have thought, spoken, and 
 acted, very much as the Egyptians and Assyrians, if we had come 
 into the World at that Epoch of the World's History, on that round 
 of Human Culture, in that degree of Ignorance of Things Physical, 
 and Things Spiritual. We must stand apart from our T^ineteenth- 
 century arrogant environment, and not only consider the circum- 
 stances of other Nations in past ages, but try humbly to 
 
 " Justify the ways of God to man." 
 
 Erom the point of view, from which some modern Missionaries 
 regard the present state of three-fourths of the Human race, the 
 Wisdom, the Justice, and the Love, the inexhaustible Love, of the 
 great Father, are called into question. Can the Iluler of the earth 
 act without a plan in the control of the destiny of His poor 
 creatures, whom He has condescended to make, with a Soul in His 
 own image, and a body only somewhat physically above the beasts 
 that perish. It was all very well for the ignorant Hebrews at the 
 time of the Exodus to imagine, that the great Creator only cared 
 for them, and hated the Egyptians. We know better now. Every 
 good and every perfect gift is from above : all that Science, and 
 Art, and Genius, can produce, are emphatically " ^wpa Geow," 
 " the gifts of God." Consider the part in ancient History played 
 by the Egyptian, the Assyrian, the Persian, the Indian, and the 
 Greek, and contrast with it the miserable example, set by the tiny 
 tribe of tlie Hebrews, self-condemned by their own History, called 
 a generation of vipers by John the Baptist, condemned in the most 
 scathing terms by the Son of God, and utterly swept out of the 
 list of Nations by the Romans i,8oo years ago. 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. yy 
 
 In the fuluess of Time came tliat Sou of God. It would seem, 
 as if the Divine Plan had been to educate the Nations of Asia, 
 Europe, and North Africa by sending at different times different 
 Messengers, Uuidd^wr/ot, to lead them to a just appreciation of the 
 great problem of Existence. We have now in our Libraries the 
 concentrated Wisdom of the elder AVorld, "The Sacred Books": 
 we can judge, how far Mankind had advanced in the great School, 
 in which they were to learn the Nature of God, and the Duty of Man, 
 We pity the intellect and spiritual deficiency of the person, who 
 can read the words of Plato, of Buddha, of Zoroaster, of Confucius, 
 and of the Hindu Sages ; who can spell out the Papyri of Egypt, 
 and the baked bricks of Mesopotamia, all of which have been marvel- 
 lously preserved, and not feel that by a great Miracle a silent voice 
 is heard through a Telephone from the grave, calling out, that 
 there were men of wisdom, of worth, of power to appreciate the 
 Divinity of God, centuries before the self-sufficient, narrow-minded, 
 Theologian of Mediaeval Europe came into existence. 
 
 If the Mediaeval Christians had known of their existence, they 
 would have condemned them to the same fate, to which Pagan 
 Emperors in past ages, and Romish Priests in modern times, 
 condemn the Christian Scriptures when circulated in the Vernacular, 
 and the Church of Rome condemned the writings of all who pre- 
 sumed to differ from them, creating the great "My Doxy" or 
 "Orthodox" party; but the "Your Doxy" or " Allodox " party 
 are now able to get a heaiing, and students of the Nineteenth 
 century humbly think, that they are able to take a wider view of 
 the dealings of God Avith the Human race than was possible to the 
 limited opportunities of obtaining information available to the 
 Bishops of Carthage and Hippo in North Africa, and of Rome 
 and Constantiuople in Europe. To this generation the whole 
 World is thrown open, and we doubt not, that the Twentieth 
 century will sit in severe judgment on our failings and errors. 
 
 I have lately, in an Essay presented to the International Oriental 
 Congress held at Geneva in 1894, gone over in detail with cold 
 impartiality all the Ethical or Book-Religious Conceptions of the 
 Elder World before the great Anno Domini : this Essay is reprinted 
 in my " Linguistic and Oriental Essays," Series IV, pp. 408-431. 
 
 Of the Religious Conceptions of the World Past and Pi'esent we 
 know something, and can class them from different points of view. 
 
 Three of these are Universal and Propagandist, and admit into 
 their fold all God's creatures, without reference to race or Nation- 
 ality, and on perfect equality : 
 
 I. Buddhism, 550 e.g. 
 II. Christianity, the great Anno Domini. 
 III. Islam, 622 A.D. 
 
78 £SSAYS OiV RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Two of the Ancient Keligions Conceptions ?;ave Liitli to a mighty 
 offspring greater than themselves, and totally opposed to their 
 Parents : 
 
 I. The Hindu Eeligious Conception gave birth, b.c. 550, to 
 the Buddhist. 
 II. The Hebrew Eeligious Conception gave birth to the 
 Christian at the Christian era, and from both sprang 
 (indirectly) Islam, 622 A.n. 
 
 Two of the Ancient Religious Conceptions of the World deny 
 the existence of any God, and are practically atheistical : 
 
 I. The Confucianist of China, 550 B.C. 
 II. The Buddhist, 550 b.c. 
 
 This appears to me to disqualify them absolutely from being 
 acceptable to Mankind in the Nineteenth century; at any rate, 
 they lie outside the scope of my inquiry. 
 
 Four of the Ancient Religious Conceptions of the World are 
 dead : 
 
 I. The Mesopotamian. 
 II. The Egyptian. 
 
 III. The Graeco-Roman. 
 
 IV. The Teutonic, Keltic, Slavonic. 
 
 Two of the Ancient Eeligious Conceptions seem but miserable, 
 and profitless, survivals, of what was great and influential in former 
 centuries, but entirely out of touch with the environment of Modern 
 Culture, and not likely to advance the Salvation of Mankind : 
 
 I. The Zoroastrian or Parsi. 
 II. The Hebrew. 
 
 There remain, therefore, but three Theistic, and effective, Ee- 
 ligious Conceptions : 
 
 I. The Brahmanical. 
 II. The Christian. 
 III. The Mahometan. 
 
 It is unnecessary to notice the Animistic Conceptions of Savage, 
 and Barbarian, Tribes, nor does it lie within the scope of this Essay 
 to notice the Sectarian Subdivisions of each of these great Concep- 
 tions. I also omit, as unworthy of serious notice from my point of 
 view, Jainism in India, Taouism in China, and Shintoism in Japan. 
 
ESS A VS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 79 
 
 There is no subject, on which mere Eeligiouists, as distinguished 
 from impartial inquirers into the facts evidenced by History, lose 
 all sense of impartiality and justice, as in their opinions formed of 
 the characteristics, merits, and demerits, the strong and weak sides, 
 of Religious Conceptions of other people. If Christians, they take 
 the lofty standard of their own Books, and compare it with the 
 lamentable and degraded practice of the followers of other Con- 
 ceptions, forgetting that the comparison should be of (i) the 
 Precepts of the one with the Precepts of the other, and (2) the 
 Practice of Christians with the Practice of non-Christians. 
 
 In modern Missionary Reports the story is always told from the 
 Christian point of view : no mercy is given to the characters of 
 those, who will not listen to the Message ; they are classed as 
 idiots, profligates, obstinate atheists, fanatical Mahometans, de- 
 based Polytheists. I once read a Persian account of a war in 
 Upper India, describing the dead on one side (the writer's side) as 
 " all going to heaven," and the dead on the other as " going to 
 hell": so in Missionary Reports, all, who become Christian, are 
 angels, pure from sin, free from vice. This gives an absence of 
 reality to a Human story, and does infinite mischief to the Great 
 Cause. There is indeed an amount of Good in all. No one can 
 have lived for years amid Hindu and Mahometans without respecting 
 their practical excellences, and regretting their Religious errors. No 
 one can have read the Veda and Koran without a recurrence of the 
 same feeling, which came over him, when he read the Dialogues of 
 Plato, viz., that the influence of God's Spirit was not entirely absent 
 from good and holy men in all ages and climes. And no one, who 
 lias considered the practices of the nominal Christian, his gross 
 Immorality, his utter contempt of Divine ordinances, his godless 
 life, his unrepentant Death, his recklessness of the lives and 
 welfare of inferior and weaker races, without feeling, that what- 
 ever may be the high standard of the Christian Conception, it has 
 in the Nineteenth century entirely failed, practically as regards 
 the masses, either to bring them to Christ, or to live lives of 
 Morality. 
 
 I quote the words of a Bishop at the Nottingham-Church-Con- 
 gress, on "Religious Indifference" : 
 
 " The Bishop referred to the increasing Religious indifference 
 " amongst those ' who are to be found in all our churches, who are 
 " not communicants, and never exhibit any interest in vital 
 " religion.' The size and rapid growth of the school of indifference 
 " was one of the most dangerous signs of the times at the close of 
 " the Nineteenth century. The multitude, who belong to this 
 " school, are not open opponents of the Faith of Christ's cause ; 
 " but they simply sit still, and do nothing for Religion at home or 
 " abroad. Ask any clergyman, who works his parish, and visits his 
 " people, and knows their characters, which is the chief difliculty 
 
8o £SSAyS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 ' lie has to contend with, I am certain ho would tell yon, that it 
 ' is neither Romanism, nor extreme Ritualism, nor Erastianism, 
 ' nor Broad-Churchism, nor systematic scepticism, nor any other 
 ' 'ism,' but a half-dead, torpid, indifference about any sort or kind 
 ' of Religion." 
 
 The Bishop closed his address with the sorrowful remark : " ' If 
 ' open sin, and dissipation, and drunkenness, and love of the world, 
 ' are ruining thousands of Churchmen, I am sure that utter in- 
 ' difference about Religion is ruining tens of thousands.' Was 
 'there no remedy for that state of things? Could nothing be 
 ' done to check the progress of Religious indifference, and restore 
 ' health to our Sion? Nothing, in his opinion, could do it but an 
 ' outpouring of the Holy Spirit. For that let them all pray, and 
 ' besiege the Throne of Grace continually. The early Christians 
 ' of the first six centuries turned the World upside down ; yet they 
 ' had none of our many advantages. They had, however, that which 
 ' we seem to lack in 1897, the real presence of the Holy Spirit in 
 ' their work, their preaching, their characters, and their lives. 
 ' This was the secret of their power. This was what they wanted 
 ' amongst them at the end of the Nineteenth century, more prayer, 
 ' closer union with Christ, more of the real presence of God the 
 ' Holy Ghost. For that Presence, when they left the Conference, 
 ' let them resolve to pray, and never to cease praying." 
 
 And there is another painful feature, which has disfigured all 
 Religious Conceptions in all periods of the History of the World, 
 viz., the degradation arising from Priestcraft, and Interference of 
 Worldly Rulers for their own political purposes. Take Chiistianity 
 in the last Nineteen centuries, as it is more widely known, and 
 consider how different is the present form, which it assumes, from 
 the Teaching in Judaea. Consider the blemishes and the causes : 
 I. The survivals of Paganism and Judaism. 
 II. Wicked and Cruel Intolerance. 
 III. Spirituality lost in the outward form of Ritualism. 
 IV, Anthropomorphism : not only in the words but in the 
 spirit, 
 V, Dense formality, 
 VI. Entire inability to keep the majority of mankind moral 
 
 and holy. 
 VII. State-Interference for passing worldly motives. 
 VIII. !Money-seeking, dignity-seeking. Priestcraft. 
 IX. Scriptures denied to the Laity, or rend in unintelligible 
 
 Languages. 
 X. Entire unreality of Worship in State -ceremonials, so- 
 called Religious. 
 XL Sensational misinterprotntion, and misquotation, of Scripture. 
 XII, Dogmatism of an intolerable character on a subject not 
 susceptible of legal proof, and resting entirely on Faith. 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 8 1 
 
 Symbolism appears to have been always the extreme weakness of 
 the Christian Conception, and is so to this clay. Why cannot God 
 be worshipped, and prayer offered, in the same straightforward and 
 truthful way, in which other Human affairs are conducted ? What 
 merit, or charm, is there in forms, and ceremonies, words which 
 have lost their meaning, antiquated observances, and obsolete 
 customs ? Is there not a danger in these of formal surface- 
 worship ? 
 
 After a study of the tenets of all dead, or existing. Religious 
 Conceptions of the World, and stretching out my hands across the 
 abyss of centuries to the men of ancient days, who had Spiritual 
 power given them to speak and write, and whose utterances have 
 come down to us, to Zoroaster, Confucius, the Hindu Sages, 
 Buddha, Socrates, Plato, and the writers of the Old and New 
 Testament, whose breathing of blessed thoughts, clothed in im- 
 mortal words, ring in our ears in the day, and dwell in our thoughts 
 at night, the Soul seems to see, that God has been immanent in all 
 the ages, and in all climes ; dimly seen, imperfectly understood, in 
 the form of Triads, or Avataras (God born in the form of man). The 
 Holy Spirit was dimly shadowed in the Paramatma, until, in the 
 fulness of time, all was made clear by the Incai'nation of the Son 
 of God, and the new Dispensation to all Mankind ; and I humbly 
 submit that man, by much seeking, can hardly find a way of Salva- 
 tion more simple, more complete, more universal, than what was 
 preached in Judaea in Anno Domini, viz. : 
 
 I. Guilt of all mankind, with no single exception. 
 II. Eepentance possible to all, without exception. 
 
 III. Faith in One powerful to save. 
 
 IV. Pardon through the Mediation of the Son of God. 
 
 V. Peace, as the result of Pardon, in this World and the next. 
 VI. Holiness through His Holy Spirit, without which no man 
 can see God the Father. 
 
 Yet these precious Truths were not made known to the wise of 
 that period, the Hebrews of Alexandria, the Greeks of Athens, 
 trained in the Schools of Plato, the thoughtful men of Rome, such 
 as Juvenal, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, but to a rural 
 Asiatic population in dense ignorance, and a bigoted Priesthood, 
 who laid stress on Sabbath-observauces, eating with unwashed 
 hands, giving tithes on every trifle, amputating the male body, 
 men sunk in an intellectual state lower and more dangerous than 
 that of their own ignorant peasantry. It was so ordained, and we 
 can say no more, and by the time, that it became current in Europe, 
 the Divine Truth had become again incapsuled, and again con- 
 cealed in new veils of Human Ritual Superstitions, partly Judaic, 
 and partly Pagan. 
 
82 £SSJyS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Let us now turn to the Future. I contributed to the Inter- 
 national Oriental Congress held at Paris this year (1897) an Essay- 
 on the Modern lleligious Conceptions, which have come into 
 existence since the great Anno Domini, and which are therefore 
 openly avowed enemies of the Christian Conception. This Essay 
 is reprinted in my " Linguistic and Oriental Essays," Series V, 
 in the English Language at p. 475, and in the French Language 
 at p. 827. There are two Categories : 
 
 I. The old Conceptions purified and adapted to the environ- 
 ment of a Civilized Society. 
 II. Modern Conceptions formed from the blending of the old 
 Conceptions with the Christian Conception, either con- 
 sciously or unconsciously. 
 
 The first Category comprises : 
 
 A. Neo-Judaism. 
 
 B. Nco-Hinduism. 
 
 C. Neo-Zoroastrianism. 
 
 D. Neo-Buddhism. 
 
 E. Neo-Confucianism. 
 
 The second Category comprises : 
 
 A. Islam, with its latest evolution, Babiisra. 
 
 B. Brahmoism. 
 
 C. Theosophy. 
 
 D. Hau Hau, etc., of New Zealand. 
 
 E. Mormonism. 
 
 r. Positivism or Comteism, or the Eeligion of Humanity, 
 G. Agnosticism. 
 H. Unitarianism. 
 I. Theism. 
 
 The study of these new Spiritual Phenomena is one of deep 
 interest. Morality of the highest stamp is professed by all : so far 
 the World has advanced. At any rate those, who pass into any one 
 of these new forms, know what they are doing : what they are 
 abandoning, and what they are adopting. They are deliberating 
 upon a matter of paramount importance to their Souls; they are 
 making an election ; they are secure of entire Tolerance. Some of 
 them are desirous to propagate their views : they are bound by no 
 ties of race, or Nationality. No one can say what the Future 
 has in store. 
 
 In these days it is fairly argued whether, 
 
 (i) The same Religious Conception was suitable to all periods 
 of the existence of the Human race, the earliest as 
 well as the latest. 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 83 
 
 (2) Whether in these last days the same Religious Conception 
 is uniquely suitable to the scattered races of Mankind, 
 in all their varying circumstances of climate, and en- 
 vironment, in all their stages of Culture. 
 
 As to the first point, I submit that a judgment cannot be 
 pronounced : we have the great fact, that the Message was never 
 communicated to Man before Anno Domini. As to the second, 
 Experience seems to teach us, that the Doctrines taught in Judaea, 
 free from the contamination of the Middle Ages, and Europe, are 
 suitable to the Human race in every stage of Culture, under any 
 possible environment, and that no other Conception so suitable has 
 been suggested by the wit of man. 
 
 But the end is not yet : one only Kingdom, the British Empire, 
 includes three hundred and fifty millions of population. An 
 American periodical has this year brought out the facts strikingly. 
 I quote it : 
 
 " On a vast plain, the 350,000,000 subjects of Queen Victoria 
 " are assembled before her throne, and on a table near the throne 
 " are the five Sacred Books of the East: the Bible, the Veda, the 
 " Koran, the Tripitaka, and the Zend-Avesta. Rising from her 
 " throne, the Queen says : ' Let all those, who believe in the divine 
 *' inspiration of the Veda, take their sacred books and pass out and 
 " away,' and 200,000,000 go out, while but 150,000,000 remain. 
 " Sadly the Christian Queen again speaks : ' Let those, who believe 
 " in the Korau, now leave.' Her grief increases, as 60,000,000 
 " more go out, and but 90,000,000 remain. Again she speaks, and 
 " again there is an exodus of those, who believe in the Tripitaka, 
 " the sacred book of the Buddhists, and in the Zend-Avesta of the 
 " Parsi, 40,000,000 more. Out of 350,000,000, only 50,000,000 
 " remain, who accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, 
 " and only a part of these are heart-believers. This parable shows, 
 " that the disciples of Jesus still have much to do before it can be 
 " said, that the glad tidings have adequately been made known to 
 " every creature. — The Advance.''^ (" Missionary Review of all the 
 World," Boston, 1897.) 
 
 It has been wisely remarked (Max Miiller, " Science of Myth- 
 ology"), that the Human mind passed through four spheres of 
 activity, from the earliest period within the reach of Knowledge, 
 to the present day : 
 
 I. Language : there is nothing more ancient. 
 II. Myths : the first attempts at translating the phenomena of 
 Nature and Thought. 
 
 III. Religion, or the recognition of Moral Power, and in the end 
 
 of ojie Moral Power behind and above all Nature. 
 
 IV. Philosophy, or an exercise of the power of reason and 
 
 thouglit, based on the data of experience. 
 
84 
 
 ESSA YS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Another thought presses on the mind, "the Silence of God," since 
 the appearance in Human Form of His Son. In the ekier centuries 
 before the great Anno Domini, He was reported in the Legends of 
 all the Ancient Religions, to be always speaking, and making Him- 
 self manifest as a seen and evident Agent in the affairs of men, 
 each race thinking that they only were the object of His care. 
 Thus grew into existence the Paraphernalia of the Ancient Con- 
 ceptions, Theophanies, Visions of Angels, Miracles, Auguries, Dreams, 
 Prophecy, Signs from Heaven, Divine Yoices. In the latter part of 
 the First century a.d., they ceased, ceased absolutely : the Fortune- 
 teller, the Thaumatourgos, the beholder of Visions, are laughed at. 
 "We feel insensibly, that we are in a new Dispensation, and that the 
 great God does not interfere directly, or indirectly, in Human 
 affairs. We know not why unexplainable events happen : perhaps 
 we may know hereafter, but each one of us at the close of his 
 life, if a long one, knows, whether it has been Sunshine or Shade, 
 that his affairs have been managed by an unseen Power in the best 
 and wisest way possible. 
 
 Happy are those, who have found a resting-place in One, whom 
 they cau trust, the resultof meditation, not of conventional acceptance. 
 But we must not think arrogantly or hardly, or superciliously, of 
 others : they are feeling after God, if haply they could find Him. 
 The Neo- Judaist, the Brahmo-Somajist, the Babi, the Comteist, the 
 Unitarian, the Theist, are deserving of the highest respect, as far 
 as we can judge from the utterances of their great and holy leaders. 
 They are advancing, and understand the great Problem, but have 
 not, according to our views, and their own admission, reached the 
 Solution, They are Progressive in the right direction : leave them 
 an open field. The Neo-Hindu, the Neo-Zoroastriauist or Parsi, 
 the Neo-Confucianist, still appear to be unable to come out of tlicir 
 old bondage : the Neo-Buddhist, the Mahometan, the Agnostic, 
 deserve that sympathy, which can hardly be extended to the 
 Theosophist, the Hau-Hauist, and the Mormon, who are distinctly 
 retrograde in the path of Spirituality. 
 
 Still, the state of the Human race spiritually seems to be more 
 hopeful than it was in the centuries preceding the great Anno 
 Domini, and the dark period of Romish Supremacy, something 
 worse than Judaism and Paganism. " Corruptio ojitimi pessimal 
 
£SSAyS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 85 
 
 Section 2. 
 
 " The unconquerable desire, and manifest duty, of those, who 
 " really believe in a Eeligious Conception, to extend it to other 
 " races, and the whole of mankind, by peaceful argument, unselfish 
 " sacrifice, and inducements, wholly free from worldly advantages, 
 " and the Arm of the Flesh." 
 
 (i) Exordium. 
 
 (2) First period, up to 400 a.d. 
 
 (3) Second Period, up to the Reformation. 
 
 (4) Third Period, up to the end of the Eighteenth century. 
 
 (5) Conclusion. 
 
 All Historical details with regard to the Conversion of each 
 country of Europe are omitted : they are fully stated by competent 
 authors : my motive at present is to draw attention to : 
 
 ( 1 ) The continuity of the enterprise. 
 
 (2) The spirit, in which the work of Evangelization was 
 
 attempted. 
 
 (3) The Methods employed. 
 
 (4) The good and bad features of these Methods. 
 
 (5) The totally different circumstances of the present Epoch. 
 
 (6) The lessons and warnings to be gained from the con- 
 
 sideration of the terrible errors of the Past. 
 
 (i) Exordium. 
 
 One object is, to show that, under the impulse once given and 
 the Command, there has been during the last eighteen and half 
 centuries a movement, varying in speed at different times, some- 
 times indeed stagnant like a glacier, that is impeded, sometimes 
 flowing like a stream, sometimes percolating under the soil. The 
 story of the Conversion of Europe is not one, that reflects credit on 
 the Human race : the ]\rethods made use of were most erroneous, 
 and foreign to the principles of Christianity : the intolerance, 
 and wickedness, of some of the Evangelizers exceeded in atrocity 
 anything attributed to the followers of Mahomet. The doctrines 
 of Christ were not presented to the Non- Christian "World in 
 a Christian spirit, mainly on their own merits, unassisted by the 
 Arm of the Flesh, or the influence of Power, or Worldly Temp- 
 tation. 
 
86 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Another object lias been to show, that the real Method of 
 Evangelization is by, 
 
 (i) Preaching and teaching in the Vernacular of each country. 
 (2) Translating the Bible, and circulating it among the people. 
 
 There has been a continuity of this Method, though progressing at 
 a different degree of speed, and in a more or less complete manner. 
 
 I do not describe work done, or praise, or bhirae, but show 
 coldly what has been the Method, although grievously disfigured 
 by the admixture of bad ingredients, and point out, that the stream 
 of Evangelization now fl.owing at high tide, has sometimes sunk so 
 low, because unholy Methods were used, and holy ones abandoned. 
 Dr. Maclear well says : " The force of Missionary enthusiasm was 
 " not quenched; its ardour was not extinguished: it may have 
 "been overlain with worldliuess and fanaticism, hut it existed'. 
 " the line of contact was not broken ; the succession of the heralds 
 " of the Cross was maintained." (Ely Sermon, p. 11.) 
 
 Just about the time when the Hebrew, after his return from 
 Babylon, had discovered, or seemed to have dreamed of, the 
 universal suitability of the Religious Conception entrusted to him 
 for all mankind, the several National forms of Worship of the 
 adjacent Nations, West of the Euphrates, shrunk into nothingness : 
 their notions, suitable to the infancy of mankind, could not stand 
 before the scorching light of the Schools of Philosophy : they 
 disappeared, while the sevei'al Conceptions of the Nations East of 
 the lliver Euphrates, not being exposed to the same Pationalistic 
 test, have survived to our time in undiminished strength as regards 
 the Millions of their followers. 
 
 If we were not historically certain, that it is the same Chris- 
 tianity, which was taught by the Apostles, and which is now taught 
 in Christendom, we should scarcely recognize the developments, 
 as exhibited in England, Russia, Spain, and France, as having 
 possibly sprang from the same germ in Palestine, so totally 
 different is the whole of their externals from the Gospel delivered 
 by Christ. It took 350 years to stifl.e the dying Paganism of 
 Greece and Rome. Six hundred years more were required to 
 bring to Christ the chief of the barbarian races, which had pressed 
 into Europe, Kelt, Teuton, and Slav ; but it took another 800 
 years before the work of Conversion of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and 
 America, was undertaken in earnest. And this is scarcely stating 
 the full truth, for, if Christendom had been newly established in 
 Europe, it had been trodden out in Asia and North Africa. There 
 seemed to be a retrograde movement, for, while the Christian 
 ]\Iissionaries in a desultory manner were making a few converts in 
 Europe, the Mahometans were converting thousands of Cliristians 
 to their new Eaith in West Asia, North Africa, Turkey, and Spain. 
 This, indeed, is an awful phenomenon for Christians to rellect upon. 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 87 
 
 It must not be supposed, that the Idea of propagating a new 
 Eeligion was a new one : it is true, that all the Religions of tlie 
 old world were National, and it was an understood thing, that 
 each Nation had its established Religious Conception, and neither 
 was able, nor desired to be able,^ to bring others to their view. 
 Imperial Rome was content to tolerate all Rituals and Dogmas, so 
 long as the Roman Religious Conception was respected. The 
 ancient Hindu Sovereigns acted in very much the same way. 
 However, five hundred years before Christ, Gautama Buddha had 
 sent out emissaries to disseminate his peculiar Ideas, and form new 
 Associations. People were willing to listen to them, and be con- 
 verted, although no hope of a Future Life, or worldly advantage, 
 was promised to adherents. The " Noble Way " of Buddha was 
 Universal, for all mankind, and in that respect it differed from all 
 other previous Religious Conceptions, which were strictly National. 
 But, on the other hand, it was only for this World : there was no 
 principle of a new Life both here and hereafter, such as was 
 conveyed in the unique Conception of Repentance, Faith, Pardon, 
 Peace, Holiness, through the Mediation of the Crucified and Risen 
 Christ. It was the Conception itself, not the Idea of Universal 
 Propagation of that Conception, which was the novel feature of 
 Christianity. 
 
 " Slow was the rate of progress of the Conversion of Europe ; 
 *' there never was a period, when the flood was not really rising, 
 " though a casual glance would nut detect it. In the darkest hours 
 " there was ever some streak of light : it is not God's Method of 
 " Rule to give at once great results." (Maclear's " Gradual Con- 
 version of Europe," p. 12.) 
 
 I quote another thoughtful passage : 
 
 " But it is indeed an idle speculation to consider, what would or 
 " would not have happened, had God ordered the World's History 
 " otherwise than He has done. One weighty utterance is sufficient 
 ' ' for us : * When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His 
 " Son.' If, therefore, the World required preparation for that 
 " cardinal turning-point, if a certain condition of ripeness was 
 " required for the proper acceptance of the Gospel by man, then 
 " the History, which I have written in this volume, is probably 
 " a most vital and important step in that preparation, perhaps 
 " hardly less important than the Law, ' which was our schoolmaster 
 " to bring us unto Christ.' For that Law affected only the chosen 
 " people, whereas Hellenic culture aff'ectedthe world." (Mahaffy's 
 " Greek Civilization.'') 
 
 As regards Translation of the Scriptures, only twenty-one 
 versions existed before the Reformation : there were about half 
 a dozen weak attempts at other Languages, which came to nothing, 
 but indicated the spirit of the time : with the exception of two 
 or three very dark centuries, the work of Translation has never 
 
88 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 been suspended for more than a hundred years together, and then 
 only by the interference of the Arm of the Tlesh. In almost every 
 period of the long succession of years from the Ascensiou to the 
 present century, there has always been a special -^upia^m., not 
 coming from the laying on of hands, but falling upon heart, intellect, 
 brain, and hand, of some chosen servant to transfer the Scriptures 
 from Language to Language, for the saving of Souls. 
 
 One feature characterizes the Biography ot all great Missionaries : 
 they were great students of the Scriptures, necessarily in the Latin 
 Yulgate, as for one thousand years no other was available ; but in 
 Museums are exhibited interlineal glosses in the Vernacular, such 
 as the Irish Glosses at Bobbio, and St. Gall, and the Anglo-Saxon 
 in Great Britain, showing that some worthy men were not content 
 with the mere melodious sound of the chanted Latin, but were 
 desirous, that the new story should be understood by their people 
 in their Mother-tongue. "VVe have a singular illustration of this. 
 Boniface stopped for the night at a monastery near Treves. 
 A promising boy, aged 15, named Gregory, after the blessing given 
 at supper, began to read aloud out of the Latin Vulgate. When he 
 had finished Boniface remarked: " You read well and clearly : do 
 you understand the meaning of the words ? " The boy said, that 
 he was quite sure that he did, and read the Latin over again. 
 Boniface said : " I want you to tell me in German what you have 
 just read in Latin" : the boy admitted, that he could not do so. 
 Boniface then translated it word by word, and preached on the 
 subject: it made such an impression upon Gregory, that he 
 left all and followed Boniface, to learn from him how to under- 
 stand the Holy Scriptures. Later on the time of Monks was wasted 
 in idle processions, and liturgical chants, and the meaning of 
 Scripture clean forgotten. 
 
 (2) First Period, xip to 400 a.d. 
 
 By the Edict of Milan the Christian Religious Conception became 
 a " Religio licita.^' This does not at the present Epoch seem a great 
 favour to grant, but the same intolerant cries have at all times 
 come up from an ignorant populace, backed by an interested Priest- 
 hood, who lived by the old Ritual. Let us consider for a moment 
 how wonderfully the sense of Justice has developed, since 313 a.d. 
 I have been stationed at Banaras in North India, a city full of 
 Temples of the Hindu, and Mosques of the Mahometan. By the 
 Laws of British India there is absolute Tolerance, so long as the 
 necessary Police-Regulations are observed, and the Sixth Com- 
 mandment is not broken, which forbids Murder under any possible 
 pretence. " Mpc toj;^ aOcovs,'' was the cry of the Roman populace 
 in the time of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. There was at that 
 time no outward show of Temples, Statues, Processions, and Ritual, 
 
Jt:SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 89 
 
 for the new Faith started on the principle that " God was a Spirit, 
 to be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth " ; and the absence of 
 outward show gave the appearance of Atheism. When Protestantism 
 arose against the Paganism of the Church of Rome, the same charge 
 was brought against the so-called Heretics, that they were Atheists. 
 
 Blameable as was the policy of that great and wise Emperor 
 Marcus Aurelius in ordering the New Religious Conception to be 
 opposed, how much worse was the conduct of Theodosius in the 
 destruction of the Temple of Serapis at Alexandria ! How fright- 
 fully wicked was the conduct of the Christians of that period ! 
 Some of them had undergone persecution in their youth from the 
 Pagan Romans, and yet in their old age they were active in perse- 
 cuting the Pagans, and destroying their Temples. They were the 
 legitimate ancestors of Torqueraada and the Inquisition. 
 
 The Emperor Julian has always been unjustly spoken of : he 
 was disgusted by the servile conduct of the Christian Clergy; he 
 had been educated at Athens, and was acquainted with some of the 
 most celebrated Bishops, who had been taught there. In the life 
 of Basil (I, 285) we have the famous letters which passed between 
 him and Julian on the subject of some document. Julian wrote : 
 
 Reply of Basil : 
 
 " 'Ai'e<^/i'W9, ovK e'fjvws ei fyap e^jvw'f, ovkciv Kcne^iina. 
 
 ( ' ' Thou hast read, but not understood : for if thou hadst understood, 
 thou would not have condemned.") 
 
 Julian is called the "Apostate." He was not more so than 
 Constantine, or any other person, who changes his Religion. A 
 Hindu who becomes a Christian is called so in India. At least 
 Julian was tolerant. If he made an attempt to reintroduce Paganism, 
 it was not the old Paganism of the degraded Roman Empire, but, 
 as he was a thoughtful Philosopher of the School of Athens, he 
 desired to reintroduce the Worship of the Great Gods of Greece 
 and Rome with something of the reality of Christian Worship, and 
 the purity of Christian life. The great figure of Jesus of Nazareth, 
 the Son of God, did not in those days stand forth so conspicuously 
 as it does now. 
 
 With the death of Julian, Paganism died as a ruling Power: it 
 was not a compact body of Doctrine : it had no Sacred Books, but 
 it had become a kind of lUuvies of all the dying Theogonies of 
 the Elder World. In the tombs of the Roman Legion, buried 
 under the Roman wall of Northumberland, are found Inscrip- 
 tions to Isis, Bona Dea, the Great Mother, etc., but they were 
 all impregnated with the dry-rot of Philosophy, Agnosticism, 
 
90 
 
 £SSA VS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 and Atheism. Let not the Christian Religion full to that state. 
 Still, Literature remained in the hands of the Pagans in the Schools 
 of Athens and Alexandria. It never occuirod to the llonian 
 Emperor to found purely Secular Institutions. The rural population 
 (Pagani) clung to their local Shrines, their hereditary lleligious 
 ideas : they still climbed the mountain, or worshipped at the 
 fountain ; the mother still called Lucina to her throes ; the dying 
 man still sacrificed the cock to Aesculapius. They attributed the 
 dreadful calamities of Rome to their own neglect of the Ancient gods, 
 who had made Rome what it was, but who had now departed and 
 left the city to its fate. If the Emperors called themselves 
 Christians, some of them were still as cruel and vicious as Nero : 
 if the Priests were Christians, they had introduced intolerance, 
 and allowed no Religious Conception to exist but their own. 
 
 The nominal Christians used to bring sheep, oxen, and pigs, to 
 sacrifice at the altar of the new Saint, just as they had done before 
 at the altar of the deposed god : they remained Pagans in heart 
 though not in name. They were convinced, that their Saint could 
 do what they wanted, if lie chose. There was a sort of contract in 
 their minds between the God of the Christians and the Saint to 
 take care of the individual Worshipper, and they had reason to be 
 angry if the Saint took the offerings, and did not grant the favour 
 asked. They had not got further than the Patriarch Jacob in their 
 view of the great Controller (Genesis, xxviii, 20-2) : " Do id desT 
 If the Saint did not grant what they wished, they abused him, 
 ill-used him, and beat him. The Human race is more true to its 
 own grovelling, selfish, self, than is generally supposed ; and in their 
 gross, carnal hearts, the same sentiments survive the chauge of form 
 of Ritual or Dogma, and exist among so-called Christians to this day, 
 
 Augustine of Hippo remarked, that the Idols, driven from the 
 Temple, still dwelt in the heart : 
 
 " Magis remanescent in cordibus idola quam in locis templorum." 
 
 They could not find it in themselves to think ill of what their 
 Ancestors had done for so many centuries without suffering any 
 bad consequences, and what they themselves had done in innocent 
 childhood : the Past, the Glorious Past, of Rome weighed on them. 
 Their idea of Tolerance was to crave it, when conquered, and to 
 deny it, when in power, It was as difiicult in the Roman Empire, 
 as in British India, to wean an ignorant heitl in a low state of 
 Culture from Pagan ^yorship : they wore never converted in the 
 heart, and they adapted the ohi Temple, old Ritual, old phraseology, 
 to the new Religious Conceptions, forced upon the base populace 
 by official influence, and which was more suitable to the advance of 
 the age. Development is of the very essence of the Religious Con- 
 ception of the poor foolish Human race. Great Pan was clearly 
 
ESS A YS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 91 
 
 dead : Nature-Worship had passed away. The gods of Rome no 
 longer satisfied the aspirations, the lazy desires of a canaille, which 
 must have some place to resort to, and acknowledge some Power, 
 or Personality, greater than themselves, to whom they could 
 appeal. 
 
 We can here appreciate the exceedingly great value of the 
 Protestant theories of Religion, which place the Conversion of the 
 individual by peaceful and holy argument in the front, and we 
 cannot value too highly that great Christian Free - Thinking 
 Element, which guarantees the existence of Religious Liberty, 
 Entire Tolerance, and Absolute Equality. 
 
 Bishop Lightfoot, in his Sermons on Christianity and Paganism 
 (p. 66, 1890), writes: 
 
 " The source of the superiority of Christianity over Paganism 
 " was fourfold : 
 
 " (i) A more enlightened faith in the will of the Unseen. 
 " (2) A heartier devotion to the canse of Humanity. 
 " (3) A more reverential awe for the Majesty of Purity. 
 " (4) A greater readiness to Do and Suffer." 
 
 A Wco-Platonist and a Mahometan would dispute this superiority: 
 a Buddhist would claim, as his own, all these characteristics. The 
 Bishop says at p. 80 : 
 
 " Though Constantino, and his son Constantius, reigned 55 years, 
 "Paganism was by no means disestablished; Christianity was 
 " only tolerated. Both Emperors were only baptized in articulo 
 " mortis: both were called Supreme Pontiff of the Heathen Cult, 
 " which was still the Official Religion: both dead Emperors were 
 " added to the Divinities of the Pantheon ; coins place this fact 
 " beyond doubt." 
 
 Then came Julian, a.d. 361, who tried to restore the old Religious 
 Conception, but with a reformed Cult. Gratian, in a.d. 383, refused 
 to be Supreme Pontiff, and Paganism was disestablished, and 
 disendowed. The Temple of Serapis at Alexandria was destroyed 
 A.D. 391. With the fall of the Empire Paganism perished out- 
 wardly, though still kept up in secret. Augustine's " City of 
 God " reads like a Paean of triumph over its fall. 
 
 If the chance of war left British India at the mercy of a Hindu, 
 or Mahometan, Potentate, it is possible, and probable, that they 
 would, each in their own way, do something to restore the dignity 
 and wealth of their ancient Religious Conceptions, but it would be 
 found in practice, that the Neo-Hinduism, and Neo-Mahometanism, 
 would be something essentially different from the old forms, for 
 new ideas have been absorbed into the old body. Education, and 
 contact with other Nations, and the general softening influences of 
 Civilization, have done their work. Christianity would not be 
 
92 £^SSA YS OxY RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 expelled, and its influeuccs would still be felt. The Tolerance of 
 the British Rule in India for more than a century has left its 
 indelible mark on the character of the population. 
 
 Besides, there is a Development of the Heligious idea always 
 going on, though with different degrees of force with Nations on the 
 different rounds of Human progress. " Two thousand years ago 
 '' there loomed through the mists of earlier Greek Thought the 
 " consciousness of One God: it came with the sense of the Unity 
 " of the World ; it came with the sense of the Order of the World." 
 (Hatch: Bampton Lectures, p. 173.) 
 
 Plutarch writes (" De Iside et Osire," p. 378) : " There are not 
 " different gods among different people, nor foreign gods, nor 
 " Greek gods, nor gods of the South and North, but just as Sun, 
 " Moon, and Sky, Earth and Sea, are common to all mankind, but 
 " have different names among different races, so, though there be 
 "one ' Beason,' who orders these things, and one 'Providence' 
 " who administers them, there are different honours and appella- 
 " tions among different races, and men use consecrated symbols, 
 " some of them obscure, and some more clear, in this way leading 
 " their thoughts on the path to the Divine. But it is not without 
 " risk, for some men, wholly missing their foothold, have slipped 
 " into Superstition, and others, avoiding Superstition, have fallen 
 " into Atheism." 
 
 How Missionaries should ponder over these lines ! The idol is 
 nothing, absolutely nothing : to exhibit it at Missionary Meetings, 
 or even in a Museum, unless done reverently, is an insult to the 
 Human race. The piece of wood or stone represents the Religious 
 Conception of one of the poor uninstructed Chilcben of God, " who 
 felt after God if haply he could find Him." Both Hindu and 
 Romanists have said to me, that it was not the image, which they 
 venerated, but the idea personified in that image. By looking 
 intently at the image, and for the moment forgetting all the World 
 besides, they tried to fix their Souls upon the Infinite. Perhaps 
 shutting their eyes would have the same result to Souls habitually 
 living close to God. 
 
 It is not sufficiently dwelt upon, how in the 400 years preceding 
 Anno Domini, the whole civilized World was entering on a new 
 realm of thought: Confucius in China, Buddha in India, Socrates, 
 and the School of Plato, in Greece, were leaving indelible marks on 
 the minds of men. Great Pan was dying: an incurable wound 
 had been inflicted on the old National Religions, by Reason and 
 Ridicule : the Jews, even the most rigorous, were advancing, in spite 
 of their Thora, along the same path. Civilization is as infectious 
 as Cholera, and travels from town to town ; and parties, susceptible 
 of the intellectual and spiritual infection, are found everywhere. 
 
 In no one particular were the eyes of men more open than this : 
 What is the reward of Virtue ? what profit has man in keeping the 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS: 93 
 
 Law of God ? The Hebrew before the Exile had no thought beyond 
 this World ; temporal blessings were the only reward, and yet clearly 
 the good suffered, and the wicked triumphed. It is of no use for 
 the Psalmist to say, that he never saw the righteous begging their 
 bread (xxxvii, 25) : facts were against him. 
 
 When the Hebrew Kingdom was entirely destroyed, and the 
 Persian and Greek ruled, when Antiochus Epiphanes defiled tlie 
 Temple, it then came upon them, that the reward was not in this 
 World, and that there was a Future State. Homer and the Greeks 
 had arrived at this earlier ; the Latins knew all about the next 
 World ; the Hindu and Buddhist solved the problem by Metemp- 
 sychosis. 
 
 The early death of Josiah was a crushing event. Of what use 
 was it to serve God ? The explanation in the Psalms of what was 
 seen in the Temple did not cover the problem : the wisdom of the 
 Son of Sirach is at fault to explain it. 
 
 Another point of view has to be considered. The elder World, 
 including Greece and Rome, looked upon the State-Religion, the 
 Local Deity, as part of the Constitution, part of the ethnical, 
 local, and moral, prospects of the Nation, which could neither be 
 questioned, nor changed. Plato and Cicero clearly admitted this 
 fact. The man, who doubted, or left his National Eaith, was 
 declared to be " Impious," to have committed a crime against the 
 State, and deserving of Punishment. 
 
 Christianity, following Buddhism, and preceding Mahometanism, 
 introduced a new principle, that Religion was Universal, and not 
 limited to this or that Nation. While the Christians were doAvn- 
 trodden, they pleaded for Tolerance on the ground of National Law, 
 and that the Divinity required the service of the Heart. The Edict 
 of Milan provided, that each person should be allowed to worship his 
 own Deity, in order that that Deity might look favourably on the 
 Empire. This admits the existence of other Deities, and proves, 
 that the Edict could not have been drafted by a Christian, who 
 could not make such an admission. The Hebrews may have been 
 up to the time of the Prophets Monolatrists, and not Monotheists, 
 admitting that Moab and Ammon had their gods, but that their God 
 was a stronger one ; but the Christian and the Mahometan were 
 never so. 
 
 When the time came for the Teutons to give up the Worship of 
 their Divinities, whose names still survive in the days of the week, 
 the lower classes did little more than obey orders, and debase the 
 New Religious Conception to the level of the old by changing the 
 terminology, not the idea. With the usual ingratitude of Perverts, 
 while the Priests of the new Conception took credit for the 
 abundance of the Harvest, the cessation of illness, victory in battle 
 in reply to their prayers, when opposite events occurred, they were 
 attributed to the wrath of the insulted Teuton Gods. I have not 
 
94 
 
 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 remarked this intellectual phenomenon in India, for in fact the 
 Worship of the old gods has not diminished, and the erection of 
 new Temples, and repair of old ones, in a time of Peace, and 
 a realm of Law, are conspicuous. 
 
 Of those, who opposed Christianity in the fourth century a.d., 
 there were distinct groups : 
 
 ( 1 ) Those who would make no compromise : the stupid old 
 
 conservatives, who exist at all periods, who know 
 nothing, understand nothing, and remain in their 
 ignorance. 
 
 (2) Those who, from a desire of a quiet life, kept silent. 
 
 (3) Those who, being moderate in their views, and thoughtful 
 
 in their natures, dreamed of some union and compromise 
 between the old and new Idea. 
 
 All the above were firmly attached to the old Religious Con- 
 ception, as would be natural with persons of low Culture ; but the 
 worldly people, indifferent to anything spiritual, went over blindly 
 to the new Religious Conception of those in Power. The greater 
 the amount of Paganism, that clung to the new Ritual, the more 
 staunch these adherents were : but the eyes of the generations of 
 mankind were being opened to the folly of Polytheism, the frightful 
 moral impurity of the Olympian gods, and a conviction grew upon 
 the thoughtful, that there did exist a great Eternal Universal Power, 
 known as Numen Divinum Divinitas, the author and sustainer of 
 the World. We may expect something like this in the expiring 
 Religious Conception of the Hindu and Buddhist. 
 
 The Biography of one man of that period of change has come 
 down to us, which is characteristic of the Epoch. In the last 
 generation of real Paganism there lived a man named Praetcxtatus. 
 He died 384 a.d., before Alaric appeared before Rome. He was 
 a tolerant, wise, genuine, man, well skilled in all the learning of 
 the time. He not only knew the history of his own Graeco-Roman 
 Cult, but of the other contemporary Conceptions, such as those of 
 Mitra, Isis, the Great Mother, etc., and he tried to unite them all, 
 so as to resist lawfully and with dignity the new Chiistian idea. 
 He was a contemporary of Jerome and Augustine. 
 
 When the Christians quarrelled among themselves, and actually 
 killed each other in a dispute about the election of a new Pope, 
 Praetextatus interfered, exiled one of the candidates, and supported 
 Damasus. He gave Christians the cynical advice, that they should 
 love each other more: he rallied them on their luxurious living, and 
 large Revenues. The Inscription on the tomb of his wife Paulina has 
 come down to us : " You, my husband, by teaching me have saved 
 ' ' me from the arm of Death : you took me to the Temple, and 
 " under your eyes I was initiated into all the mysteries. I should 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 95 
 
 " have been happy, if the gods had allowed me to survive you. 
 " I am still happy, because I die thine, as I lived, and as I shall 
 " still remain after my Death." This is coming very near Christi- 
 anity. The moderate Christians and Pagans might have united: 
 but just as in former times the Pagans had persecuted the Christians, 
 so later on the Christians persecuted the Pagans, and so it would 
 be again, if the Church of Home, which learns nothing, and forgets 
 nothing, got into power. 
 
 (3) Second Period: Conversion of Europe. 
 
 Many excellent Books have been written on this subject; they 
 are all partizan-books. I wish to regard the progress of the new 
 Idea from a philosophical point of view. If any enlightened 
 Mahometan, like Saiyad Ahmed Ali, of Aligarh, North India, 
 were to write a Book on the Conversion of Asia to Islam, and to 
 narrate with satisfaction, how Christian Churches were destroyed 
 or turned into Mosques, and the Priests slaughtered, and their lauds 
 confiscated, we should pass a severe judgment upon him. The end 
 does not justify the means. We ought to recollect, that the Powers 
 of the Earth are only instruments in the hands of the great 
 Controller of Human events. We look with equal disgust on the 
 Methods adopted in past ages to make Nations Christian, or to 
 make them Mahometan. 
 
 Europe to this day is not entirely even nominally Christian : 
 there are Millions of Mahometans in the European portion of 
 the Turkish Empire, and thousands of Hebrews scattered over 
 Europe. As a fact, portions of Lithuania were not converted to 
 a Nominal Christianity until the Thirteenth century a.d., and then 
 by the most violent and abominable Methods. Up to 1230 a.d.. 
 Human Sacrifices were offered in Lithuania, and male and female 
 slaves were burned with their Master and Mistress. Moreover, 
 Millions are only Census- Christians. The Unitarians can scarcely 
 be classed as Christians for any practical purpose, any more 
 than the Hebrew. 
 
 There was a marked difference in the mode of Conversion. In 
 the early centuries the spread of the new Idea had gone upwards, 
 springing sometimes from the words, and example, of a Christian 
 slave, male or female. The first Christians were essentially men 
 of low degree, not many wise, not many great, nor were the tenets 
 of the new Idea formularized, nor were the Ministers instructed, 
 nor was there any Literature of any kind. There must have been 
 a very difiicult two centuries, when the new Idea rested on its own 
 innate strength, and Divine impulse. 
 
 The political state of Europe was changing. Powerful and 
 ignorant Pagan races had spread over North Europe from the East, 
 
96 ESSAYS OJ^ 
 
 ESSAYS Orr-REUGIOirS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 the Kelts, the Teutons, aud the Slavs : they were the velucles 
 chosen by God for the reception of the new Idea from the 
 worn-out Roman and Greek races. They wore followed by the 
 Huns. The Roman arms had penetrated to Britain in the North, 
 that isolated race, 
 
 " Penitm totd divisos orhe Britannos'''' ; 
 
 to the South in the African Sahara, to the East to the shores of 
 the River Tigris and beyond. Greek Philosophy had shaken tlie 
 blind confidence in the Supeimatural. The common herd had not 
 much of the Religious Instinct to get rid of, and they did not take 
 in much beyond the externals of the new Religious Conception. 
 
 From one point of view the whole Christian community in the 
 first two centuries had the functions to discharge of a Missionary 
 Society, and had the opportunity also. They were strangers and 
 sojoui'ners in the midst of a great mass of Paganism : there was no 
 standing still, or making compromise. They had not to go out of 
 their street, or their town, to find persons worthy of Conversion : 
 there were their slaves, their neighbours, their fellow-townsmen. 
 The very words which they used, their every action, if they were 
 indeed Christians, betrayed them. The Christian mistress could 
 not ill-treat her slave ; the Christian man could not give a free rein 
 to his low appetites ; the soft answer, the abstention from returning 
 a blow, the putting up with injuries, betrayed a something, which 
 made an impression, disarmed an enemy, and perhaps attracted an 
 inquirer. The meeting for family-prayer, the Psalm-singing, the 
 pure life of chastity, mxist have made Pagans feel, that there was 
 some new element in life, that there was a Beauty in Holiness, 
 a Power in self-control. Such exhibitions in the Nineteenth 
 century would have the same effect. In Rome, at that time, the 
 masses, who took lessons in Cruelty in the Flavian Amphitheatre, 
 had lost all sensibility to Pity, all capacity for Mercy. 
 
 Of course, those, who opposed the spread of Christianity in the 
 three first centuries, get no quarter from an Ecclesiastical Historian. 
 Clearly, like the Hindu conservatives in India, they did not under- 
 stand the movement : it was clearly a destructive one ; of that there 
 was no doubt, and destructive of something, which had been valued 
 by them. They were good old conservatives, who were content 
 with things as they were : the Olympian gods would last their 
 time, and they had no stomach for mai'tyrdom. 
 
 And it has been acutely remarked by a great author, Dr. Arnold, 
 that in all great moral movements there are two motors, belonging 
 to totally different classes : (i) the serious reformer, (2) the libertine 
 anarcliist. The Apostles liad to warn their flocks against the wild 
 licentious doctriiu's, which liad fastened like linijiets on an imperfect 
 Christianitv. The neo-Christian, l)()th then and now, fell far short 
 
ESSA VS OJV RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 97 
 
 in practice of the doctrine, wliicli he preached. Those, who perse- 
 ciited Socrates, called him. an Atheist : that was according to the 
 prevailing opinion of the time. Those, who persecuted the Christians, 
 called them Atheists ; and, when the Christians got the upper hand, 
 and the Arm of the Flesh was on their side, the Christians called 
 the Heathen Atheists. It is the old story : orthodoxy means " my 
 doxy," and atheism means the non-recognition of " my gods." We 
 have to get to the standpoint of the speaker to understand the 
 argument. 
 
 The problem of the Conversion of Europe seems to resemble the 
 problem of the Conversion of India at the present moment : but 
 how diiferent is the environment ! While, on the one hand, the 
 preacher of the new Idea has entire Toleration, and liberty, so long 
 as he does not injm^e others, and has no fear of incarceration by the 
 Authorities, or of being stoned by the Mob in a Realm of Law, yet, 
 on the other hand, he dares not touch, or insult, a place of 
 Worship of others, and, if such an incident had occurred as that of 
 the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, while I was Magistrate of 
 Banaras, I should have placed Peter and John in the Police Lock-up, 
 and inquired into the cause of death. Had Hypatia been killed 
 by the Bishop and Clergy of an Indian Diocese, I rather suspect, 
 that the parties concerned, including the Bishop, would have found 
 their way to the Gallows. 
 
 Whether by the connivance of the Christian Priests or not, 
 somehow or other the converts in Europe, notably in Friesland, 
 connected the abundance of the Harvest, and the success of the 
 Fishery, with the arrival of the Christian Missionary : this is the 
 very lowest form of Superstition. When will the enlightened 
 Christianity of the Nineteenth century disconnect the solemn order 
 of the Seasons, and the laws, which regulate the abundance and 
 scarcity of the Seasons, fi'om Prayer and Temple -Worship '? In 
 India to this day Prayers are being offered simultaneously in adjacent 
 temples for more Rain, by those who have Cotton-cultivation, and 
 for no Rain at all, by those, who cultivate the Sugar-cane on 
 ii-rigated land. AVhy not leave the Clerk pf the Weather to 
 manage his own affaii's ? 
 
 So when, by use of medical knowledge, or some lucky chance, 
 in fact by the Providence of God, and His all-seeing Wisdom, men 
 recovered from sickness, the converts in the Early Missions in 
 Europe were taught to attribute this healing to the new Religious 
 Conception : how the Deaths were explained away we know not. 
 But it is a low form of Conversion to retain such notions. Possibly 
 such stories may belong to the lying legends of an over-credulous 
 age. It must be admitted, that out of Palestine no consideration is 
 shown by the most devout Christian to a Miracle. The modern 
 Missionaiy should stoutly disclaim all sympathy with any Reports 
 of occurrences out of the ordinary evolutions of Nature. The 
 
98 ^SSA YS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 medicine man, the Qavf^Knovp'-io'i, or the Faith -healer, shouhl he 
 sternly denounced. The spiritual Conversion of a Soul is tlu; 
 greatest possible Miracle. The saving of a Soul from well-merited 
 Punishment by Faith in one Powerful to save is the greatest of all 
 possible Human Conceptions. 
 
 Not only was it deemed to be right, but a duty, to compel the 
 Heathen to come in to the Christian Church, and to punish severely 
 any, who after joining the Chui-ch, altered their mind and left it ; 
 but this right is asserted still by no less an authority than Cardinal 
 Vaughan : " Occasions are not wanting for the employment of the 
 " Civil sword in defence of the Church. Neither the Church nor 
 " the State, whenever they are united on the basis of Divine Right, 
 " have any knowledge of Tolerance. The Peace of Christ goes 
 " hand in hand with Unity, not with Division. The Church has 
 " the right, in virtue of her Bivine Commission, to require of everyone 
 " to accfft her doctrine : there can be no tolerance of error in 
 " matters of Religion." (Cardinal Yaughan, "Essays on Religion," 
 p. 402, 1867.) 
 
 The influence of a Queen was made use of to convert a King. 
 We have the notable instance of the King of Kent in the time 
 of Augustine of Canterbury. Great indignation would be felt, if 
 a Mahometan wife persuaded a Christian King to accept Islam. 
 A whole Regiment of Soldiers entered the stream en masse to be 
 baptized under orders of their Chieftain. Three thousand French 
 warriors were baptized then and there with King Clovis. Tlie 
 Russian peasants were driven by whips into the River Dnieper, and 
 baptized by force. They would have become Mahometans under 
 similar influences brought to bear upon tlieir bodies. Cases of 
 individual Conversion under the influence of argument and prayer 
 were rare. 
 
 In those days there was not such a wide abyss of social habits 
 between the Missionary and the Natives, to the Conversion of whom 
 he was delegated, as there exists now. The hardship, to which 
 the Missionary was exposed from climate and entire deprivation of 
 social necessities, was much less. As a set-ofl' to this, in a Realm of 
 Law like British India there is no personal danger fi'om arbitrary 
 violence, and unfailing means of communication with the mother- 
 country, which were entirely wanting in the days of the great 
 English Missionary Boniface. 
 
 Alcuin (a.d. 780) insisted on the worthlessness of Baptism without 
 Faith and conviction of Sin. He did not regard Baptism as an 
 opus operatum, and he did not scruple to inveigli against the 
 tendency at his time to identify Conquest by force of arms with the 
 Conversion of the Soul. We stretch out our arms to bless this 
 mediaeval Christian, who could see and speak so clearly. 
 
 Let us read what happens in our own Epoch. A tliousand of 
 the troops of the newly converted King of Kent and his French 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 99 
 
 wife had indeed walked into tlie River and were baptized : not 
 a word about Soul-Conversion. In modern times Tippu Tib, the 
 great Slave-dealer, sells to the emissaries of Cardinal Lavigerie, 
 a complete village of slaves cajjtured with the usual accompani- 
 ments of rapine, rape, murder, and ai'son, men, women, and 
 children, in the proper proportion, and all are baptized and started 
 in a Christian Church: what an outcry there would be, if the 
 Mahometans had done the same, and had circumcised Christian 
 Boys ! 
 
 The Bishop at Loanda used to baptize all the slaves forcibly 
 deported for the Portuguese West Afi'ican Colony from South 
 America. 
 
 There was an ebb and flow in the tide of Missionary zeal. 
 Gregory the Great seriously and justly blamed the French 
 Churches, which had obtained an early Christianity, for not caring 
 to carry the Gospel to their Pagan Neighbours. The same slack- 
 ness was evidenced by the British Church, which actually refused 
 to take any steps to convert the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain. 
 Somehow or other the Pagan Northmen, who had settled in North 
 Prance, reappear to History as Christian Normans. 
 
 Still more remarkable is the absence of any desire of the great 
 Protestant Reformers of Europe, though they had studied the 
 Scriptures and were devoted to Christ, to caiTy the Gospel to 
 Regions Beyond. Even in the reign of Queen Elizabeth no effort 
 was made. It cannot be said, that at that Epoch the Duty was 
 unknown, as Erasmus, not a Protestant, but whose voice was heard 
 in his Missionary treatise, pp. 115, 116, recognizes the Duty. 
 
 Boniface's Methods were thoroughly bad, exceptionally bad 
 from the standpoint of his own Epoch. He used the Arm of the 
 Flesh unscrupulously to overcome the inhabitants of another 
 country (he was an Englishman and the people were Germans), 
 who had difi^erent views from his own of the relation of the Soul 
 to God. He might by kindly reason and argument have shown 
 them the better way : but where was his authority in the Scriptures 
 to destroy their objects of reverence, appropriate their property to 
 his own use, and while getting rid of Idol- Worship with one 
 hand, introduce the still more degraded fetish-Worship of relics 
 with the other ? He erred greatly in another direction. He strove 
 by force or chicanery to force into obedience to Home the indepen- 
 dent Christianities founded on the Continent by Columbanus and 
 Gall : ho is reported to have baptized thousands : how many indi- 
 viduals had he tested as to their knowledge, elementary knowledge, 
 of Christ ? He was not a hypocrite : he never pretended to work 
 miracles : he wrought according to the limitation of Human powers, 
 with an inflexible will and entire devotion to Borne and the Frank 
 King, who supported him. 
 
 Charlemagne attempted to introduce Christianity by blood and 
 
100 ^^.S-^}'^ CA' RELIGIOUS COXCEPTIOXS. 
 
 sword into Germany ; he beheaded in one day 4,500 Saxons, who 
 opposed him. One of the main causes of the irruption of the 
 Northmen upon Great Britain, Irehmd, and France was to avenge 
 the wrong done by Charlemagne. (Stoke's "Keltic Church," p. 264.) 
 He did not scruple to destroy idols, and appropriate the Temples 
 to the new Idea : a greater wrong than this to Human Nature can 
 scarcely be imagined. Cardinal Vaughan, in his address this year 
 (1.897), seems to allude to this with satisfaction at the Ebb's Fleet 
 celebration. The Pope ordered that the Temples of the idols were 
 not to be destroyed, but sprinkled with holy water, and furnished 
 with altars, on which Worship could be offered to deified mortals, 
 such as the Virgin Mary. 
 
 Still, the Missionaries of that period were devoted men, and did 
 what they could : there wore no " Missionary Intelligencers " pub- 
 lished monthly to cover them with undeserved praise, and chronicle 
 the illnesses of their wives, and the prolific birth of their children. 
 Their names have become mere shadows. We have the outlines of 
 good and devoted men, who made it their life's occupation in a rude 
 and barbarous age, with no support from rich Associations, no 
 Salaries, or Pensions, or Allowances, no motive but to serve their 
 Master, no instructions but the promptings of the Holy Spirit to 
 spread the gentle civilizing precepts of the new lleligious Con- 
 coption. 
 
 If not of the same race with the men, amidst whom they settled, 
 they were on the same round of Human Culture, in the same 
 environment of customs and prejudices, and under the same cloud 
 of ignorance as to Geography, History, and Astronomy. There 
 "was no superb Albocracy then as now, and they dealt tenderly 
 with the usages of the people, as they could sympathize with them, 
 pitied their superstitions, from which they had so lately emerged 
 themselves, and if permitted became fathers of their new flock. 
 Eoniface started from Exeter, Columbanus from Glasgow, Aidan 
 migrated to the Holy Island : let us think of their material outfit, 
 and contrast it with that of the modern Missionary, who is outfitted 
 by a Missionary Society. Let us reflect on the comfortable homes 
 of the modern Missionary, his carriages, and the dress of himself 
 and his wife, and how he holds his head above the Native Pastors, 
 and would scorn the idea of his daughter's intermarriage with one 
 of them : he rails against Caste, and in matters matrimonial and 
 social practises it : perhaps the converted Hindu, like tlie late 
 Nehemiah Nilkant, a Brahman, has a pedigree of hundreds of 
 years; while the white man has sprung from behind the counter 
 into the pulpit. 
 
 The Missionary of that period craved of the Ruler the gift of 
 a petty island, or some valueless land, and practised Community 
 life, as distinguished from JMonasticism. In his humble way he 
 exhibited the new Christian life, analogous to the "Noble Way" 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. loi 
 
 of Buddha, and he went about preaching the new Idea of Human 
 Life, and the Promise of Life beyond the grave. Sometimes the 
 Chiefs threw in their lot Avith him. In lona the Abbot was head 
 of the Community, and the Bishop was one of the Community. 
 Such servants of Christ did not seek personal comfort : they 
 did not allow themselves the blessings of Family- life : they were 
 celibates, and their food, raiment, and rooftree, were of the same 
 pattern as that of the people, whose hearts they came to win. They 
 employed Natives as their assistants : they laid the foundation of 
 Secular Instruction : they all spoke the Language of the People : 
 they studied and translated the Scriptures, and with their own 
 hand made copies for the new Churches. There were no Printing- 
 presses then. Patrick, Columba, Columbanus, and Boniface, had 
 all studied the Scriptures, and loved to read and meditate upon 
 them, and made them their rule in life : if asceticism could be 
 imputed to them, it was only external. " True Keligion," said 
 Columbanus, "consists not in the humiliation of the body, but of 
 the heart : the external observances are not the end, but the means." 
 
 On the subject of the Language to be employed in Public 
 "Worship, Augustine of Canterbury was blind : he chose to assume, 
 that Latin was the Sacred Language. Ulfilas, Cyril, Methodius, 
 had their eyes opened : his were shut. Latin was dead, dead even 
 in Spain and Italy, and had never been understood in Great Britain ; 
 but the Anglo-Saxon, and Welsh, Languages were entirely banished 
 from the Churches, over which he had control, and no attempt was 
 made to translate the Scriptures. The Priest kept to himself the pre- 
 rogative of oral explanation. It was not so in North Britain, where 
 the Missionaries from lona had influence. Ctedmon (a.d. 680) burst 
 forth with a poetic Bible : this was followed by a Translation of 
 the Psalms, and Bede left to us the precious legacy of the Gospel 
 of John. 
 
 Twice this little island of Great Britain has had the privilege 
 of being called to Evangelize the World. The names of Aidan, 
 Pauliuus, Chad, Cuthbert, Benedict Biscop, Wilfrid, Willebrod, 
 Winefrid alias Boniface, can never be forgotten. 
 
 (4) Third Period. 
 
 The time came, when the Gospel was conveyed to countries out of 
 Europe. The efforts, that have been made during the Nineteenth 
 century by the Protestant and Eomish Churches, are too well known 
 to require mention. Allusion is now made to the efforts made on a 
 very limited scale in previous centuries. We must recollect that loco- 
 motion then was difficult : Geographical Knowledge was scant and 
 inaccurate. In Mahometan countries, both to the Missionary and 
 Convert, change of Faith meant Death, and in barbarous Begions 
 
102 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 fearful suiferings had to be counted upon. Wo must not be hard 
 on previous generations, because so little was done. It is true, that 
 they did not even do what they might have done, but the magnificent 
 opportunities of modern days were absent. Of course the same 
 Duty existed ; but the means were wofully deficient, and the 
 Methods had not been worked out by experience. The countries, 
 in which some efforts had been made, were : 
 
 I. Asia: India, China, Japan. 
 
 II. Africa : Abyssinia. 
 
 III. Oceania: nothing. 
 
 IV. America : Mexico, Paraguay. 
 
 The prospect of the same Gospel being preached in the same 
 country (say British India) by twenty or thirty different Organiza- 
 tions, in differing forms, sometimes violently hostile to each other, 
 is not encouraging : it is a melancholy phenomenon. 
 
 Foremost, but by no means the originator, among Missionaries 
 of this Period stands Francis Xavier : he landed in Groa 1542 a.d., 
 and died aged 46, 1552 a.d., after service of only ten years in Goa, 
 Travancor, (^eylon, the Indian Archipelago, and Japan : he died 
 of want and neglect in the little island of Sancian, near Hongkong. 
 His Methods were decidedly sensational, and spasmodic. In the 
 Illustrated Catholic Missions of London, Dec, 1890, in a short notice 
 barely exceeding a column of half-page, it is deemed of importance 
 to record, that at Goa he " went about the streets ringing a bell to 
 draw the little children after him": in Ceylon he "evangelized 
 the poor and oppressed" Pearl-fishers, " baptizing ^^ws of thousands ": 
 in Travancor "God first gave him the gift of tongues without 
 learning them." In describing his Methods the writer says, that his 
 life was not merely that of a great " thaumaturgus," miracle-worker, 
 " but first and foremost a life of self-denial, mortification, penance, 
 " and humiliation, combined with lieroic love of God, and conse- 
 " quent zeal for souls ; and wherever Missionary work has succeeded, 
 " is succeeding, or will ever succeed, it is only by these Methods, the 
 " Methods of the Apostles, Patrick, Poniface, Xavier, and all Avho 
 " are animated by his spirit, and hope for his reward." Oh that 
 the Missionaries of the Church of Rome would be content with these 
 last attributes, omitting the thaumaturgy ! Oh that the Protestant 
 Missionaries would take up a life of sell-denial, and be ready to die 
 at their posts, not saddling the Missionary Society with the educa- 
 tion of Missionary children, and abandoning their posts, just, when 
 after a useless and expensive apprenticeship, they have become 
 useful, for the sake of a sick wife ! Can such be called Apostles? 
 
 Xavier's meiits were : absence of Ambition, and Vanity ; un- 
 daunted energy ; entire self-consecration ; no idea of leaving his 
 Field ; very bold ; the same to all men ; sympathy and tenderness 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 103 
 
 for all his fellow-labourers ; a peacemaker always ; great nobility 
 of character; very full in his reports ; good for dispatch of business ; 
 great purity of life ; great endurance and patience. 
 
 His faults were: leaning entirely on the Arm of the Flesh; 
 ignorance of any foreign language ; not truthful ; impulsive and 
 constantly meddling in Worldly Politics ; revengeful against all, 
 who opposed him ; totally indifferent to the Translation of the Eible ; 
 worshipper of Saints and Angels; encouraging his Missionaries to 
 flatter and act as spies ; requiring no preparation before baptism ; 
 an ascetic ; desirous to be an autocrat ; crave for Romance ; bap- 
 tizing young children in articulo mortis ; never making any attempt 
 at individual Conversion of the Soul. 
 
 It was found, that in the South of India, in Travancor, there was 
 an ancient Syrian Christian Church : the date of the foundation of 
 that Church is disputed : it is not probable, that it existed before 
 the Sixth century a.d., and there is little evidence of Christian life 
 during ten centuries ; but it did exist, and maintained a certain 
 Ritual, ruled over by an Abuna fi-om the Syrian Patriarch at 
 Mardin, in Mesopotamia. Francis Xavier, in 1545, tried to induce 
 a spiritual submission to the Pope by offering a salary to this 
 Abiina from the Portuguese King: this is a sample of the Mis- 
 sionary Methods of the Period. Strange to say, the Syrian Church 
 preferred its independence, but there was a secession of a portion, 
 who called themselves the Syro-Pomanists, under the Bishop of 
 Goa. When they first came into contact with Western Christians, 
 they were Jlestorians, and had been so from the commencement ; 
 but in 1665, when all communication with the Nestorian Patriarch 
 had long been effectually prevented by the Romanists, they came 
 under the Patriarch of Antioch of the Syrian Church. ("Syrian 
 Church of Malabar," 1873, p. 7.) 
 
 It is interesting to record, that a small section of the Romish 
 Missionaries tried the expedient of a certain fusion of Romish and 
 Indian practices, if not of dogma : it failed, as the Vatican rejected 
 the notion with scorn. The Phenomenon is possible in the present 
 dissolving state of the Indian Intellectual Kaleidoscope. The 
 Salvation- Army supplies a quasi-Christian ingredient, which might 
 combine with a branch of the great Hindu Tree. 
 
 This is one of the Problems of the Twentieth century. Mis- 
 sionary Societies of all Churches and Nationalities have, in spite of 
 warning, persistently determined to convey to the inhabitants of 
 Asia, Afi'ica, Oceania, and North and South America, the Gospel 
 of Christ in a European, or American, capsule, so that the converts 
 not only become Christianized but Europeanized. There will be 
 an intellectual revolt on the part of the ancient races of Asia : 
 they were civilized, when the people of Europe were still savages. 
 They have Legends, ancient Ritual, time-honoured Customs, 
 Sacred Eooks, National Pride : will they not submit the precious 
 
104 
 
 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 ore of the Gospel to a new crucible, and refuse to occupy the position 
 of Middle-class Eiu-opeans and Americans ? 
 
 (5) Conclusion. 
 
 "We must not suppose, that God's witnesses are at any time 
 entirely absent from any great assembly of Human creatures. 
 Amidst the Hindu, Buddhists, Conf ucianists, and Mahometans, there 
 have at all times been some, who tried to see God face to face, or 
 attain that spiritual state, which was closest to God, or partook of 
 the elements of the highest Virtue conceivable by their limited 
 intellects. So amidst those dark ages of Christianity, when Ke- 
 ligion was being propagated by the sword, false miracles, lying 
 legends, and unwox'thy expedients, amidst this wilderness of true 
 Religious Conceptions, amidst these dry bones of Ritual observance, 
 the cruel oppression of the poor non- Christian, the destruction of 
 time-honoured shi'ines, which had been the only ideal of Religion 
 to countless Millions for centuries, ever and anon we come iipon 
 the track of true Saints of God. Some sparks from the Divine 
 Workshop illuminate the whole Region : wiser counsels are uttered, 
 if not attended to : the faults above described were the faults of 
 the Messenger, not of the Message. Something whispers in our 
 ear, that the matter was from God, and not from Rome, or Gaul : 
 that this was the Method deliberately ordained for the Conversion 
 of Europe, for the object was to advance the Kingdom of God, not the 
 transitory Kingdom of Roman, Kelt, Teuton, or Slav. The work 
 was painfully Human ; the workers poor miserable men ; the 
 object was essentially divine, to convert the heart. Some think, 
 that this spiritual operation can be performed by Ritualistic Symbols, 
 brought to bear en bloc on families, tribes, and Nations ; others 
 think on Scriptural grounds, that Conversion is the sole work of 
 the Holy Spirit working on individual consciences. We sadly 
 remark the absence of charity in what was done : let me take heed, 
 that there is no lack of charity in the mode of describing it : the 
 treasure is given to us in earthen vessels ; but it is given, and it 
 is there : let us condemn the fault, but speak lovingly of the offender. 
 Perhaps, if we had been placed in theii' environment, we should 
 have done the same : perhaps in Heaven the desire to do His Will 
 will be some excuse for the shockingly defective modes of doing it. 
 
 A narrowness of vision is evidenced in many writers ; their 
 environment was practically limited by the Roman Empire, the orbit 
 of Greek and Roman Literature with the conventional knowledge of 
 the Hebrew race. The knowledge of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania, 
 and America was limited, and yet the four great pre-Christian 
 Religious Conceptions had come into existence, Brahma, Buddha, 
 Zoroaster, Confucius, influencing hundreds of millions even to this 
 day. The English theologian discusses the work of the Great 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 105 
 
 Creator over tlie lohole World, the round orb circumnavigated by 
 our ships, and described by our Geographers, and yet he restricts 
 his arguments to the comparatively small Roman Empire, or the 
 insignificant Hebrew race, as if they represented the whole World. 
 Luke the Evangelist set the example by telling us that Augustus 
 Caesar issued a decree "that all the World (?) oiKov/nevtj) should 
 be taxed," and that "devout men out of every Nation under 
 Heaven" were present on the day of Pentecost (Acts, ii, 5), This 
 has led insensibly in Religious treatises to the use of exaggerated 
 and lax expressions, Avhich would never be used in the description 
 of the affairs of ordinary life. A kind of poetic glamour is thrown 
 over the whole subject, and things are deemed to be possible, which 
 are in ordinary life impossible. And yet the subject discussed is 
 of such paramount importance to the Soul, that the strictest 
 accuracy of expression should be maintained. 
 
 For Luke, the Gentile Physician, Buddha had lived in vain ; 
 for him in vain had Asoka two hundred years before the great 
 Anno Domini erected the tablets, which still exist in different 
 parts of the vast Indian Empire, pieaching Peace, and Mercy, 
 and Holiness. " A completely new idea in the History of 
 " the World had been started in the third Buddhistic Council 
 " in the Third century before the great Anno Domini under 
 " King Asoka, the idea of conquering all Nations by the sole 
 " Power of Truth. A resolution was carried at that Council to 
 " send Missionaries to all Nations to preach the Noble Way, the 
 " new Gospel of Altruism. Such an idea had never entered 
 " into the minds of the ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, or Brahman, 
 " or Hebrew, not even of the Greeks : it presupposed quite 
 " a new conception of the World; it assumed a belief, that the 
 " different Nations of the World, however separated from each 
 " other by language, colour, custom, and Geograpliical distribution, 
 "formed one united family; that Humanity was not an empty 
 " name." (Max Mviller, Oriental Congress, September, 1892.) 
 
 We have no light to attribute Universality to the experiences 
 of the tiny Nation of the Jews, or to claim a monopoly of moral 
 goodness to the Nineteenth century nominal Christian. The great 
 Asiatic Nations up to the time of Alexander the Great had main- 
 tained an isolated existence : they had neither borrowed ideas, nor 
 lent them : they created, each of them, their own Philosophy, 
 developed their own form of Ritual, and gave birth to their own 
 gigantic Literature. Buddha first broke the silence and the isola- 
 tion of past centuries : Buddhism, driven from Nearer India, 
 took refuge in Further India, and the Extreme Orient. 
 
 The interference of the Civil Power with the work of the 
 Missionary is quite legitimate, if his conduct he such, as is likely to 
 cause a breach of the Peace, and loss of life. I myself in the Panjc4b 
 ordered the Chapel of a Missionary to be pulled down, which he had 
 
I06 liSSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 ei'ectcd on tlie edge of a sacred tank, regardless of the feelings of the 
 Hindu worshippers. The French Government in Algeria is always 
 in anxiety, lest the unguarded words of the Missionary sliould rouse 
 the indignation of the people, and cause political trouble. The 
 only remedy is, to expel the Missionary, if he attempts to turn the 
 world upside down. The Grovernment of British India may be 
 compelled to do so also, if the Missionary will continue to interfere 
 with the Laws Regulating the Sale of Alcohol, the Opium-Trade, 
 and tlie internal administration of Military Cantonments, forgetting 
 the Lord's words : " Render unto Caesar the things, which are 
 Caesar's, and unto God the things, that are God's." 
 
 The advantages and disadvantages of high European Civilization 
 are pretty equally balanced. The European Missionary considers 
 himself so socially superior to the Natives, that his influence for 
 good is diminished. The Press, if a blessing on one side, is a 
 cavise of boundless evil on another: the power of locomotion, and 
 the entire Toleration of all forms of Worship, are not without 
 corresponding drawbacks. 
 
 We are gradually freeing ourselves from the notion, that the 
 Nicene Fatliers were inspired, or better informed, and wiser tluin 
 those, who happened to be born centuries later: it is admitted 
 now by Roman Catholic and Protestant, tluit our Lord's great 
 Commission is binding on all, and that it has never been fulfilled. 
 
 What said the early Fathers ? Setting aside those, who adopted 
 Millennium-ideas, it does not appear, that a universal reign of the 
 Gospel was anticipated before the end of the World. Chrysostom 
 considered, that the Prophecies of the preachers of the Gospel had 
 been adequately fulfilled before the taking of Jerusalem. Jerome 
 considered, that the whole of Isaiah xi had reference to the 
 first advent of our Lord. Basil and Cyril entertained the same 
 view ; they ap])lied the Prophecies to the spread of the Gospel, that 
 had been already witnessed. Augustine wrote on the signs of the 
 approaching end : the Gospel was to be preached /or a tvitness in all 
 lands : that the accomplishment of this would be a sign of the 
 coming end : the result of the Preaching would be, not that all 
 would believ(>, but some only, and that the rest would be unbelievers, 
 and opposed to the faithful. 
 
 " e<s fiapTvpiov ttucti roa eOuetri : Km rare tj^eno tcAo?. Kai (T\rf:ov 
 (1)9 opu)/nev, o KoafJLO's uttci's rn'f Trcpl xpiarou ctccKTKdXt'a'i TraTrXn- 
 pwrni. 
 
 Cyril of Jerusalem thought the Preaching of the Gospel to the 
 ivhole World so nearly complete, as to show that Christ was coming : 
 
 This gives us a measure of their strange Geographical ignorance, 
 an ignorance often evidenced by modern Preachers and Writers. 
 Augustine states : 
 
 " Omnes enim gentes promissae sunt, non omnes homines omnium 
 gentium : non enim omnium est fides." 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 107 
 
 "We cannot in these days rest satisfied with the opinion of Jerome 
 and Augustine, that it is enough for us to preach the Gospel, and 
 that it will be woe to those, who do not listen to it. We cannot 
 quote the words used in the Parable of the Marriage-Feast, that 
 '■'■we must compel them to come in " with the Arm of the Flesh, murder, 
 tortures (the advice of Augustine of Hippo), and the confiscation of 
 property, all for Christ, as was the practice of Charlemagne, Olaf 
 of Norway, or the Spanish Inquisition. 
 
 Jerome writes : " iSignum Domini adventus est Evangelium in 
 tota orbe praedicari, ut nullus sit excusabilis." Fifteen hundred 
 years have passed away and the Lord has delayed His coming. We 
 cannot conclude with those old Fathers, that the Prophecies, and 
 the Great Commission, have been fulfilled. There are no longer any 
 ends of the round World: we know approximately the area and the 
 population of the Globe, and the fact, that in 1,900 years only one- 
 third of that population has been converted, the large majority 
 only nominally, and a large portion to false and degraded forms of 
 the Teaching in Judaea. We cannot, therefore, comfort ourselves, 
 and sit still waiting for a Millennium, and the Conversion of mankind 
 by a Miracle. The wheels of God grind very slowly, but they 
 grind very fine. 
 
 The Kelts, Teutons, Slavs, each adopted a separate system of 
 Theology, separate names of Deities, separate forms of Worship : 
 to the eye of the Philosopher they may have been the same or 
 similar, but they were looked upon as totally different : the Greek 
 and Roman terminology was essentially different, though the same 
 in substance. There were in those days tiibes differing from all the 
 great recognized forms, but the Missionary of those days had no 
 power of discrimination, and called them all, as now, " enemies of 
 God, and children of Satan," because the Gospel had never been 
 explained to them, and therefore they had never comprehended it. 
 
 Oh that the preaching in Judaea had come down to us undefiled, 
 accompanied by the Gospel of John, and the Epistles of Paul ! To 
 the first generation of Christians there were no Scriptures : they 
 had been taught the precious Idea orally, and had accepted Christ 
 in His fulness on the testimony of the Apostles and eye-witnesses. 
 
 In the second or third generation Legends, the story of Miracles, 
 Symbolism, forced fulfilment of Old Testament Prophecies, Alle- 
 gories, Exaggerations, Apocalyptic Visions, Ritual, the Conception 
 of a sanctified body called the " Church," and the Judaical revival 
 of a " Priesthood," darkened the original simple words of the great 
 Founder of the new Dispensation. Later on Worldliness, Luxury, 
 Temporal Power, Intolerance, the Pagan Arts of Statuary, Painting, 
 and Architecture, the carnal policy of ambitious Prelates, the 
 arbitrary Edicts of Emperors, altered the whole character of the 
 pure and simple Doctrines of the New Testament. 
 
I08 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 My task is completed. The followers of the new Dispensation 
 of Jesus Clirist did what the Hehrews in their early centuries and 
 their later Diaspora never did, preached their p^ood tidings to the 
 Gentile World, not always wisely, or well, but continuously. The 
 followers of the Hindu Sages, Zoroaster, and Confucius, never did 
 so. Their Ileligious Conceptions were meant for themselves, and 
 themselves only: the rest of the AVorld might perish for what 
 they cared. 
 
 Buddha led the way with a Universal Propagandism. Our 
 Lord's command, five centuries later, in the same sense was un- 
 mistakable. Mahomet adopted the same fundamental principle of 
 his teaching six centuries later still. Those must think poorly of 
 the Power, Wisdom, and Love, of the great Controller of Human 
 events, who can assume, that Buddha and Mahomet acted without 
 His Permission, or that their schemes were allowed to take root in 
 defiance of His Veto. 
 
 " Factum valet," even if " Fieri non debet." 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 109 
 
 V. 
 
 The Philosophical Aspect of the Idea of Metempsychosis. 
 
 The Idea of the Tiansniigration of the Eternal entity, called tlie 
 Soul, or " ^I'r;^?/," or " Auima," or A'tma, or Ruh, into successive 
 mortal substances, either Human, or Animal, or Vegetable, or Mineral, 
 is neither new, nor unnoticed, in the History of Mankind, nor is it 
 in itself unreasonable. I propose to treat it in detail : 
 
 I. Europe. 
 
 A. Pythagoras and Empedocles. 
 
 B. Homer. 
 
 C. Plato. 
 
 D. Virgil. 
 
 E. Ovid. 
 
 F. Lucan. 
 
 G. Claudian. / 
 H. Irish Book of Balimote. 
 
 A. Pythagoras was born at Samos about 580 B.C., travelled in 
 Egypt, and settled at Crotona, in South Italy, about 540 B.C., tlie 
 ])eriod of the return of the Hebrew from Babylon. He was the first, 
 who adopted the title of Philosopher ; started a School of Philosophy, 
 and applied the word Koo-/(os to the Universe, of which he knew so 
 small a portion. Among others of the great Ideas, to which he gave 
 birth, or perhaps only reduced from oral legends to writing, were 
 these : (i ) that the Soul, ■^vx7> ^^^ immortal, and it is obvious to the 
 senses, that the body was only mortal ; (2) that the immortal Soul 
 passed from one body at its death into another. The idea was called 
 by him Menei.iylrvx^'-^ai^ (Metempsychosis), or the Transmigration of 
 the Soul from one place of habitation to another; perhaps the more 
 perfect term would have been Me-revrrwf^iuTwai'i (Metensomatusis), 
 as it was the body which was changed, not the Soul. 
 
 There is little doubt, that Pythagoras got his idea about the Soul 
 from Egypt, which he had visited : that he derived it from India is 
 out of all reason, as his Idea differs from the Indian Idea in impor- 
 tant particulars, and from the Buddhist Idea m toto, while there is 
 a resemblance of his Idea to the Egyptian Idea, both in essentials 
 and details. 
 
 Empedocles lived at Agrigentum, in Sicily, 460 to 430 b.c. He 
 was remarkable in his life as a thinker, and propounder of new 
 doctrines at that particular Epoch, when the mind of man, both in 
 
no ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 the East and "West, was wakiug up from its torpor. He gave birth, 
 to germs of Truth, which were developed in succeeding centuries by 
 Plato and Aristotle : he propounded the doctrine of Transmigration 
 of the Soul, possibly deriving it from Pythagoras. His end was as 
 mysterious as his life, for be disappeared, and it was reported that 
 be bad leaped into the crater of Mount Etna. Horace writes thus : 
 
 " Deus immortalis haberi 
 Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Aetnam 
 Insiluit." 
 
 Herdclitus Ponticus relates, that Pythagoras professed to have 
 been once born, as Athalidcs, the son of Hermes, and then to have 
 obtained a boon from his father : 
 
 " ^wv7a Koi TeXei'nwvra /iiinjjLiTjv fcXed/ twu 
 ovju.jSaivoi'rwu." 
 
 Consequently he remembered the Trojan War, when, as Euphorbus, 
 he was wounded by Menelaus ; and, as Pythagoras, he could still 
 recognize the shield, which Menelaus had hung up in the temple of 
 Apollo at Branchidae ; and, similarly, he remembered his subsequent 
 birth as Hermotimus, and then as Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos. 
 It is noteworthy, that his was a unique experience in Greek History. 
 Hoiatius Elaccus alludes to this in his Odes, I, xxviii, 9 : 
 
 " habentque 
 " Tartara Panthoiden iterum Oreo 
 
 " Demissum, quamvis clipeo Trojana refixo 
 " Tempora testatus nihil ultra 
 
 " Nervos atque cutem morti concesserat atrae." 
 
 The absence of all recollection of acts done in a former state of 
 existence is explained by the Hindu Philosopher by the assertion, 
 that at each death the Soul is divested of mind, understanding, and 
 consciousness. Still, some men did recollect their former existences. 
 
 Plato, in the Dialogue'of Meno, vol. I, p. 281, places the following 
 words in the mouth of Socrates : 
 
 " Certain wise men and women spoke of a glorious Truth, that 
 " the Soul of man is immortal, and at one time has an end, 
 " which is called 'dying,' and at another time is born again, but is 
 " never destroyed. And the moral is, that a man ought to live 
 " always in perfect holiness. For in the ninth year Persephone 
 " sends the souls of those, from whom she has received the penalty 
 " of ancient crime, back again into the light of this World, and 
 " these are they, who become noble kings, and mighty men, and 
 " great in wisdom, and are called saintly heroes in alter ages." 
 
ESSAYS O.V 7^EL/G/0C/S CONCEPTIONS. m 
 
 " The Soul, then, as being immortal, and having been born 
 again many times, and having seen all things, that tliere are, 
 whether in this World or in the World below, has Knowledge 
 of them all : and it is no wonder, that she should be able to call 
 to remembrance all that she ever knew about virtue, and about 
 everything; for as all Nature is akin, and the Soul has learned all 
 things, there is no difficulty in her eliciting, or as men say learning, 
 all out of a single recollection, if a man be strenuous, and does 
 not faint : for all mc[uiry and all learning are hut recolleclion 
 
 If it be true that all knowledge is nothing else than reminiscence, 
 it is surely necessary, that we must at some time have learned what 
 we remember. 
 
 " OTl 7jfltV II /ilU0lj(Tl^ OVK uWo Tl ij Ul'dfll' lj(T(<} TV^jy^ai'd Ol'ffa." 
 
 Eut this is impossible : our Soul existed before it came within the 
 Human form. Cicero, in his " Tusculan Disputations," I, 24, writes, 
 speaking of the Soul : " Habet primum memoriam, et earn infinitam 
 rerum innumerabilium quam quidem Plato Recordationem esse vult 
 superioris vitae." 
 
 Following the order of Jowett's Edition of Plato's Dialogues, 
 I pass on to vol. I, " Phaedo," p. 443 : 
 
 Cebes answered : "I agree, Socrates, in the greater part of what 
 ' you say. But in what relates to the Sonl men are apt to be in- 
 ' credulous : they fear that, when she has left the body, her place 
 ' may be nowhere, and that on the very day of death (of the body) 
 ' she may be destroyed and pei'ish. If she could only hold together, 
 ' and be herself, when she is released from the evils of the body, 
 ' there would be good reason to hope, Socrates, that what you say 
 ' is true. But much persuasion and many ai"guments are required 
 ' in order to prove that, when the man is dead, the Soul still 
 ' exists, and has any force or intelligence." 
 
 Socrates replied : " Whether the Souls of men after death are, 
 ' or are not, in the World below, is a question which may be argued 
 ' in this way. The ancient Doctrine affirms, that they go hence 
 ' into the other World, and return hither, and are born from the 
 ' dead. So our Souls must exist in the other World, for, if not, 
 ' how could they have been born again ? But as there is no evidence 
 ' of this, other arguments will have to be adduced." 
 
 Socrates then works out a long argument to prove, that not every 
 thing living is born of the dead, and the Soul will exist after death 
 as well as before birth : then comes the greater question to decide 
 Avhat becomes of the Soul which leaves the body pure, and the Soul 
 which leaves the body impure. This brings out the terrible theory 
 of Retribution, and at p. 459, Socrates tells us that the Souls of 
 men who followed after gluttony, and wantonness, and drunkenness, 
 
112 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 will pass into Asses, and animals of that sort, and the Souls of 
 those, who have chosen the portion of injustice and tyranny, will 
 pass into wolves or hawks ; and the Souls of those, who have 
 practised the civil and social virtues, which are called Temperance 
 and Justice, will pass into some gentle social nature like their own, 
 such as that of bees, wasps, and ants, or even back again into the 
 form of man, and just and moderate men will spring from them ; 
 and he, who is a philosopher or lover of learning, and abstains from 
 all fleshly lusts, and refuses to give himself up to them, is alone 
 permitted to obtain the Divine Nature. 
 
 Socrates opens out, p. 457, another solemn delusion, which has 
 preyed on the Human mind for centuries, and still maintains its 
 grasp : 
 
 " The Soul, which has been polluted and is impure at the 
 " time of her departure, and is the companion and servant of the 
 " body always, and is fascinated with the desires and pleasures of 
 *' the body .... such a Soul is held last by the corporeal 
 " element, and is depressed and dragged back again into the 
 " visible World, because she is afraid of the invisible World and 
 "the World below: prowling about tombs and sepulchres, in 
 " the neighbourhood of which are seen ghostly apparitions of Souls, 
 " which have not departed pure, but are cloyed with sight and 
 " therefoi'e visible, and they continue to wander, until through the 
 " craving of the corporeal, which never leaves them, they are im- 
 " prisoned finally in another body. And they may be supposed to 
 " find their prisons in the same natures, which they had in their 
 " former lives." 
 
 Milton, in his " Comus," re-echoes this idea (1. 463) : 
 
 " But when Lust, 
 " By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, 
 " But most by lewd and lavish act of sin, 
 " Lets in defilement to the inward parts, 
 " The Soul grows clotted by contagion, 
 " Imbodies, and irabrutes, till she quite lose 
 " The divine property of her first being. 
 " Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp, 
 " Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres, 
 " Lingering, and sitting by a new-made grave, 
 "As loth to leave the body that it loved, 
 " And link'd itself, by carnal sensuality, 
 *' To a degenerate, and degraded state." 
 
 Plato, in his "Phaedrus,'' returns to the subject (vol. ii, pp. 125, 
 126). I quote Jowett's " Introduction,'' page 80, as condensing the 
 subject. Socrates is the speaker : " The Soul is Immortal, for she 
 " is the source of all motion, both in herself and others. Her form 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 113 
 
 " may be described in a figure as a composite nature made up of 
 " a charioteer, and a pair of winged steeds. The steeds of the gods 
 " are immortal, but the steeds of the Soul are, one mortal, and the 
 " other Immortal. The Immortal Soul soars up into the Heavens, 
 " but the mortal drops her plumes and settles upon the earth. 
 
 " On a certain day Zeus goes forth in a winged chariot, and an 
 " array of gods and demigods, and of Human Souls, foHows him; 
 " the mortal steed of the Soul sinks down to the earth. Yet, if tlie 
 " Soul has followed in the train of her god, and once beheld Truth, 
 " she is preserved harmless ; but if she drops her wing and falls to 
 " the earth, then she takes the form of a man. The Soul, which has 
 " seen most of the Truth, pas-<es into a Philosopher, or a Lover; 
 " that which has seen Truth in a second degree, into a King, or 
 " Warrior, and so on to the ninth degree. In all these conditions 
 " the lot of him, who lives righteously is improved, and the lot of 
 " him who lives unrighteously deteriorates. At the end of every 
 " thousand years the Soul has another choice, and may go upwards 
 " or downwards, may descend into a beast, or return again to the 
 " form of man. But the form of man can only be acquired at all 
 " by those, who have once beheld the Truth, for the Soul of man 
 " alone apprehends the Universal, and this is the recollection, 
 " ava^in]ai<i, of that Knowledge, which she obtained when in the 
 " company of the god. Ten thousand years must elapse before 
 " the Souls of men in general can regain their first lot, and have 
 " their wings restored to them. But the Soul of a Philosopher, 
 " or a Lover, who has three times in succession chosen the better 
 " life, may receive win^s, and go her way in three thousand years." 
 
 In the " Timaeus," vol. iii, p. 624, we read : " The great Creator 
 " considered, that a perfect AVorld could not exist without mortals, 
 " If they were created by Him, and received Life from Him, they 
 " would be on equality with the gods : the inferior gods were therefore 
 " ordered to form animals, and the Creator would supply the divine 
 " and immortal part. Accordingly, Souls were created as numerous as 
 "the stars, and each Soul had a star, but was implanted in a body : they 
 " had certain passions, but, if they conquered, then they would live 
 " righteously ; and, if they were conquered by them, unrighteously. 
 *' He, who lived well during his appointed time, was to return to his 
 " star, and there he would have a suitable existence; but if he 
 " failed in attaining this, in the second generation he would pass 
 " into a woman, and, should he not desist from his evil ways, he 
 " would be changed into some brute beast, who resembled him in 
 " his evil ways, and would not cease from his lusts, and transfor- 
 " mation, until he returned to the form of his first and better 
 " nature." 
 
 Again, at page 675 we read: "Thus were created women, but 
 " the race of birds was created out of innocent, light-minded 
 " men, who, although their minds were directed towards Heaven, 
 
114 ESSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEFTIOXS. 
 
 ' ' imagined in their simplicity, that the clearest demonstration of the 
 ' • things above would be obtained by sight : these were transformed 
 " into birds and grew feathers instead of hair. The reason why (|uad- 
 " rupeds aud polypods Avere created is, that the Creator gave the more 
 " senseless of them the more support, that they might be attracted 
 *' to the earth. The inhabitants of the water were made out of 
 " the most entirely ignorant and senseless beings." This and much 
 more is narrated, and Plato closes the Dialogue with the following 
 words: "These are the laws, by which auimals pass into one 
 another, both now and ever changing, as they lose or gain wisdom 
 and folly." 
 
 Strabo, Book IV, writes : 
 
 Valerius Maximus, Book V, and Diodorus, Book VI, could also 
 be quoted. 
 
 In the Introduction to the "History of Religion" (1896), is 
 a chapter (xxii) on the " Transmigration of Souls," by Dr. F. B. 
 Jevons, of Durham, no mean authority on such subjects, and being 
 lately published, it may be presumed, that it is an up-to-date view 
 of the subject. The twelve pages of this Chapter go over ground 
 not necessarily part of the argument, but a knowledge of which is 
 necessary to arrive at an understanding of the germs, from which 
 the Idea rose. 
 
 I. The general Idea of Barbarians was, that after death the 
 individual "■Homo'''' rejoined his "totem," and assumed the shape 
 of the plant or animal, which was worshipped as the " totem." 
 
 II. As the Religious Idea of the Human race developed, more 
 advanced Ideas came into existence, one of which was the Idea of 
 " Retribution in a future state," for acts done during life. These 
 two Ideas in some communities existed side by side, notably in Egypt 
 and India : this state of things may have lasted for a long period, 
 but the two Ideas acted and reacted on each other, and at last the 
 artificial combination of the "Retribution" theory with Totcmism 
 produced in Egypt a real theory of Metempsychosis, but an incom- 
 plete one : ( i ) it was only the wicked, who were doomed to 
 Transmigration; (2) the Soul of a man migrated into animals, 
 returning finally to Human form; (3) there was no escape from 
 this cycle, but, when the Human form was again attained, the Soul 
 had another trial and another chance of becoming Osiris, which 
 was the Egyptian formula for Eternal Happiness. 
 
 In India the process was different : the Idea of Transmigration 
 was extended to the virtuous, as well as the wicked, who 
 passed into animals or men according to their deeds and knowledge. 
 Here is the yenuine tlieury of Metempsychosis, or Transmigration 
 of Souls; and man has been introduced into the list of Metamorphoses. 
 
£SSA VS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. \ \ 5 
 
 All men were born again : the good had a good birth, and the bad 
 a bad one, according to their deeds and deserts : there was no 
 escape from this environment ; whether the Soul behaved badly or 
 well he had to be reborn. 
 
 Thus far the Brahman : the Buddhist went further ; with him 
 there was no god, no Immortal Soul, and there could be no Trans- 
 migration of Souls, but a transmission of Karma or Character (not 
 Soul) : the extinction of cravings for delights of the body, or 
 Nirvana, was the object of the Buddhist : this will be described 
 further on. 
 
 The accomplished authoress of an Article in the Edinburgh Review, 
 April, 1897, "Sculptured Tombs of Hellas," makes the following 
 important suggestions : 
 
 " At Athens and Delphi the doctrines of Orphism took strong 
 "hold; but it was in Lower Italy, owing to the teaching of 
 " Pythagoras, and Empedocles, that they developed most completely, 
 " and issued in a Totemistic Doctrine of the Transmigration of 
 " Souls. Many a barbarian believed, that after Death he would 
 " pass into the shape of the sacred animal, who had been his token 
 " (Totem) in this world. 
 
 " The Inscription on one Greek vase from Apulia, and on golden 
 " tablets from Thurii and Peletia in Italy, suggest something more : 
 
 " ' Thou wilt feel a stream of cold water flowing from the mere 
 " ' of Mnemosyne : in front of it stand guards. Say : " I am the child 
 " ' of Earth, and starry sky : 
 
 " ' F/y? 7ra?9 ei/tt icai ovpavov acrrepoevro^. 
 
 " ' 1 am of heavenly birth ; I am parched and faint with thirst; give 
 " ' me cool water from the mere of Mnemosyne," and they will give 
 " ' thee the divine water to drink.' " 
 
 The Doctrine is clear : the irjitiated Soul may not drink of the 
 oblivious waters of Lethe : it is reborn by remembering again, by 
 virtue of the Divine Life in him : this is the Doctrine of Plato's 
 'Ava^iinjaiM. Immortality is but the reassertion of the Divine Life 
 in Man. 
 
 In their groping after the Future, Men stretched out their hands 
 into the dark abyss, and as they advanced in intellect, their specu- 
 lations were more daring. We must speak and write humbly, 
 for in this Nineteenth century a.d., we have no knowledge, only 
 that Faith, the "evidence of things not seen " (Hebrews, xi, i). 
 The two Theories were : 
 
 ( 1 ) The continuance of this life in another World. 
 
 (2) Retribution. 
 
 In the first theory the Future Life was very much as the old 
 
Il6 ESSJVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 one : the Chief required his wives, his servants, his jewels, his 
 iiriuour, and his food ; ancient Tombs reveal this. In the 
 second theory the Future Life depended on conduct in the present. 
 Later ages struck out new Ideas : 
 
 ( 1 ) Absorption of the Soul, and practical destruction of its 
 
 individuality. 
 
 (2) The Transmigration of the Soul into a new body. 
 
 (3) The wandering of the Soul, free from its corporeal 
 
 covering, in its old earthly environment. 
 
 Let us dispose of the last alternative first : it lies outside the limits 
 of an Essay on the Transmigration of Souls from one Earthly 
 tenement to another, such as was the case of these poor Souls, 
 as described by Socrates in the " Phaedo," and Milton in the 
 " Comus," quoted above at p. 956. 
 
 The following quotation from Shakespeare's " Measure for 
 Measure," III, Scene i : 
 
 " . . . . and the delighted Spirit 
 
 " To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
 
 " In thrilling region of thick- ribbed ice ; 
 
 " To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, 
 
 " And blown with restless violence round about 
 
 " The pendent world : 't is too horrible ! " 
 
 In uncultured tribes the Idea was, that the Soul would not 
 remain quiet unless proper funeral rites were performed to the poor 
 body : this is brought out strongly in the Sixth Book of Virgil's 
 "Aeneid," 337: the boatman Charon would not ferry across 
 the Styx those, who had not been properly buried. Moreover, 
 in some cases the Spirit came back, and vented its wrath upon 
 its nearest relations. This is the real motive of the worship of 
 Ancestors in China. 
 
 The Greek and Roman Poets, Homer and Virgil, reflecting the 
 beliefs of their age, give us a most unphiloso])liical and unsatis- 
 factory substitute for either of the three alternatives. 
 
 The Elysian Fields are certainly a somewhat higlier type than the 
 sensual Paradise of Mahomet, or the Purgatory of the Church of 
 Home. Some very bad cases lived in perpetual torture, though the 
 story of Tantalus and Sisyphus both seem allegories of the result of 
 particular vices ; but the position of those, who were deemed good, 
 seems the most unhappy. Dido still had her sorrows, from which 
 she sought consolation from her dead husband, to whose memory 
 she had been unfaithful. Achilles mourned the change from 
 activity to hopeless idleness, but he retained memory of the past : 
 
£SSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 117 
 
 " Quam vellent ae there in alto 
 Nunc et pauperiem et duros perferre labores ! " 
 
 YiEGiL : Aeneid, vi, 436. 
 
 " M/y O/y jLioi OawaTov 76 TrapavSa, <patBi/ii 'OSurraeu. 
 " BouXoif^itji' K eyrapovpo'} itvv OrjTevejiieu uWio, 
 " 'H iruaiv vcKvecrat. KciTaCpOiiiievoiaiv avaaaeiv. 
 
 Homer: Odyssey, xi, 488. 
 
 " Scoff not at death," he answered, "noble Chief. 
 
 " liather would I in the Sun's warmth divine 
 " Serve a poor churl, who drags his days in grief, 
 
 " Than the whole lordship of the dead were mine." 
 
 Woesley's Translation. 
 
 When such were the conceptions in the time of Homer with 
 regard to the future condition of the dead, even those who Avere 
 conventionally deemed " good," there could have been no con- 
 temporary Idea of Transmigration of Souls. Centuries later, when 
 Yirgil handled the subject, the Idea as described above had crept 
 in ; the World had advanced, and Pythagoras and Plato had spoken, 
 opening out new vistas of thought. 
 
 Yirgil, in the Sixth Book of the " Aeneid," writes (1. 735) : 
 
 " Quin et, supremo cum lumine vita reliqnit, 
 
 " Non tarn en omne malum miseris, nee fuuditus omnes 
 
 " Corporeae excedunt pestes : penitusque necesse est 
 
 " Multa diu concreta modis inolescere miris. 
 
 " J^rgo exercentur poenis, veterumque malorum 
 
 " Supplicia expendunt. Aliae panduntur inanes, 
 
 ' ' Suspensae, ad ventos : aliis sub gurgite vasto 
 
 " lufectum eluitur scelus, aut exuritur igni. 
 
 " Quisque suos patiraur Manes : exinde j^er amplum 
 
 " Mittimur Elysium, et pauci laeta arva teneiuus. 
 
 " Donee longa dies, perfecto temporis orbe, 
 
 " Concretam exemit labem, purumque reliquit 
 
 " Aethereum sensum, atque, aura'i simplicis ignem. 
 
 " Has omnes, ubi mille rotam volvere per aunos, 
 
 " Lethaeum ad fluvium Dens evocat agmine magno ; 
 
 " Scilicet iinmemores supera ut convexa revisant, 
 
 " Kursus et incipiant in corpora velle reverti." 
 
 Anchises showed to Aeneas some of his descendants, who, having 
 been freed from the stain of former lives, and having drank of the 
 waters of Lethe, were about to assume new forms, and enter the 
 battle of life again : this called forth Aeneas' sad remark : 
 
Il8 £SS.n'S ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 " pater, anne aliqiias ad coelum hinc ire putaudum est 
 
 " Sublimes animas, iterumque iu tarda reverti 
 
 " Corpora ? Quae lucis miseris tarn dii'a cupido ? " 
 
 Eut Virgil, in the "Aeneid,''III, 20-40, describes the Transmigration 
 of a comparatively innocent man, Polydorus, son of King Priam of 
 Troy, into a tree overhanging his tomb, from the branches of which 
 blood flowed, when they were cut with a knife, and the un- 
 fortunate Soul thus imprisoned had the power of recognizing those, 
 who amputated his limbs, and speaking with an intelligible voice : 
 
 " Gemitus lacrimabilis imo 
 " Auditur turaulo, et vox reddita fertur ad aures : 
 " Quid miserum, Aenea, laceras? jam parce sepulto ; 
 " Parce pias scelerare manus. Non me tibi Troja 
 " Externum tulit : aut cruor hie de stipite manat. 
 " Heu ! fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum. 
 " Nam Polydorus ego : hie confixum ferrea texit 
 " Telorum seges, et jaculis increvit acutis," 
 
 Ovid, in his " Metamorphoses," about the date of the Christian 
 era, naturally touches on this subject : 
 
 " genus attonitum gelida formidine mortis! 
 
 " Quid Styga, quid tenebras, quid numine vana, timetis, 
 
 " Materiem vatum, falsique piacula mundi? 
 
 " Corpora sive rogus flamma, seu tabe vetustas 
 
 " Abstulerit, mala posse pati non ulla putetis. 
 
 " Morte carent animae : semperque priore relicta 
 
 " Sede, novis domibus habitant, vivuntque, receptae. 
 
 " Ipse ego, nam memini, Trojani temjiore belli, 
 
 " Panthoides Euphorbus eram, cui pectore quondam 
 
 " Sedit in adverse gravis hasta minoris Atridae, 
 
 " Cognovi clypeum, lacvae gestaminae nostrac, 
 
 " Nixper Abantcis templo Junonis in Argis. 
 
 " Omnia niutantur : nihil interit. Errat, et illinc 
 
 " Hue venit : hinc illuc, et quoslibet occupat artus 
 
 " Spiritus, eque feris humana in corpora transit, 
 
 " Inque feras noster, nee tempore deperit ullo, 
 
 " Utque novis facilis signatur cera figuris, 
 
 " Ncc manet, ut fuerat, nee forraas servat easdem, 
 
 " Sod tamen ipsa eadem est: animam sic semper eandem 
 
 " Mse:' 
 
 (xv, 153-172.) 
 
 Lucan, in his "Pharsalia," I, 454, a.d. Go, writes thus with regard 
 to the Druids : 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 119 
 
 " Vobis auctoribus umbrae 
 " !N"on tacitas Erebi sedes, Ditisque profundi 
 " Pallida regna petunt : regit idem spiritus artus 
 " Orbe alio : lougae, canitis si coguita, vitae 
 " Mors media est. Certe populi quos despicit Arctos 
 " Pelices errore suo, quos ille, timorum 
 " Maximus, baud urget leti metus. lude ruendi 
 " In feri'um mens prona viris, animaeque capaces 
 " Mortis, et ignarum rediturae parcere vitae." 
 
 Julius Caesar, in his " De Bello Gallico," Book VI, Section xiii, 
 writes about the ancient Druids of Bi-itain : 
 
 " In primis haec volunt persuadere, non interire animas, sed 
 ab aliis post mortem transire ad alios : atque hoc maxime ad virtutem 
 excitari putant, metu mortis neglecto." 
 
 It is clear, that it was impressed on the thoughtful Philosopher, 
 that some explanation must be found of the caprices of Human 
 fortune, for the holy and good are subjected to unmerited suffering, 
 while good gifts are showered upon most unworthy recipients. 
 Claudian, a.d. 400, remarked this phenomenon, and marvelled : 
 
 " Saepe mihi dubiam tenuit sententia mentem, 
 " Curarent Superi terras, an nullus inesset 
 " Rector, et incerto fluerent mortalia casu : 
 " Nam, cum dispositi quaesissem foedera mundi, 
 " Praescriptosque maris fines, amnisque meatus, 
 " Et lucis, noctisque, vices : tunc omnia rebar 
 " Concilio firmata Dei : 
 
 " Sed cum res Hominum tanta caligine volvi 
 " Aspiciam, laetosque diu florere nocentes, 
 " Vexarique pios, rursus labefacta cadebat 
 " Eeligio." 
 
 And the same uncertainty prevails to the present hour. 
 
 There is a curious Irish Legend recorded in the "Book of 
 Balimote," 1400 a.d., which certainly reads as if the notion of 
 Transmigration was held at some previous period : 
 
 " Tuan, son of Cairill, as we are told, 
 '' Was freed from sin by Jesus : 
 " One hundred years complete he lived, 
 " He lived in blooming manhood. 
 
 " Three hundred years in the shape of a wild ox 
 " He lived on the open extensive plains : 
 " Two hundred aud fifty years he lived 
 " In the shape of a wild boar. 
 
120 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 " Tliree hundred years he was still in the flesh 
 
 " In the shape of an old bird : 
 
 " One hundred delightful years he lived 
 
 " In the shape of a salmon in the flood. 
 
 " A fisherman caught him in his net, 
 " He brought it to the king's palace : 
 " When the bright salmon was there seen, 
 " The Queen immediately longed for it. 
 
 " It was forthwith dressed for her, 
 
 " Which she alone ate entire : 
 
 " The beauteous Queen became pregnant, 
 
 " The issue of which was Tuan." 
 
 2. NON-EUEOPEAN COUNTRIES. 
 
 A. 
 
 Egypt. 
 
 B. 
 
 North American Redmen, 
 
 C. 
 
 The Hebrew. 
 
 D. 
 
 The Manichean. 
 
 E. 
 
 The Mahometan. 
 
 E. 
 
 The Hindu. 
 
 G. 
 
 The Buddhist. 
 
 A. i:</i/pt. 
 
 Herodotus, b.c. 470, and therefore anterior to Plato, writes 
 (II, 123): "The Egyptians were the first to broach the opinion, 
 " that the Soul of man is Immortal, and that, when the body dies, 
 " it enters in the form of the animal, which is born at tlie moment, 
 " thence passing from one animal into another, until it has circled 
 " through the forms of all the creatures, which tenant the earth, 
 " water, and air, after which it enters again into a human frame, 
 " and is born anew. The whole period of Transmigration is three 
 " tliousand years. There are Greek writers, some of an earlier 
 " date, some of a later, who have borrowed this doctrine from the 
 " Egyptians, and put it forward as their own." 
 
 It is unnecessary to state here any further details with regard 
 to the Egyptian Idea; it is sufiicient to refer to the standard 
 authorities on the subject of Egyptian Antiquities. 
 
£ssAys av religious conceptions. 121 
 
 B. North American Redmen. 
 
 With a view of showina; the universality of the Idea, I merely 
 refer to the "Golden Bough" of Mr. Frazer (i, 39, 61 ; ii, 97), in 
 which mention is made of the Idea of Souls of dead animals occupying; 
 trees, and the Soul of a man in a turtle. The Red Indians believed, 
 that the Soul animating the body of an infant was the Soul of some 
 deceased person, 
 
 From Tylor's " Primitive Man " we gather, that enslaved Negri>es 
 have been known to commit suicide, in order that they may revive 
 in their native land. 
 
 The aborigines of Australia hold white men to be the ghosts of 
 their own dead, in the simple formula : " Black fellow tumble down, 
 jump up white fellow." 
 
 With regard to this last view, it may be well to quote Henry 
 
 Stanley's account of his meeting with four white men, who had 
 
 come out from Embomma, on the West Coast of Africa, to welcome 
 
 him at the close of his journey through the Dark Continent : " The 
 
 ' sight of the pale faces of the Merchants gave me the slightest 
 
 ' suspicion of an involuntary shiver. The pale colour, after so 
 
 ' long gazing on the rich black, and richer bronze, had something 
 
 ' of an unaccountable ghastliness. In fact, they lo^'ked like the 
 
 ' ghosts of dead Africans." (Vol. ii, p. 462.) 
 
 C. The Helreiv. 
 
 The Idea of the Hebrew on the subject of Eschatology was ex- 
 ceedingly elementary previous to the return from exile. Their World 
 was a three-storied house : they dwelt on the first floor ; above them 
 in the clouds was the second story, the Heavens, to which only 
 two men had ever reached, Enoch and Elijah ; in the ground-story 
 was the Sheol, or Hades, in which all dwelt promiscuously, for 
 Samuel, when he was summoned up to the first floor, told Saul, 
 that on the morrow he would be down with him in Sheol : good and 
 bad, without difl"erence. 
 
 There is little doubt that some of the Hebrew Sects held the Idea 
 of Transmigration of Souls. We come across the Idea in the 
 Christian Scriptures of a possible existence of a former life. We 
 know, that a Future State was not a Hebrew dogma at the time 
 of our Lord, as the Sadducees openly denied it. Now when the 
 Sadducees, tempting the Lord on the subject of the Resurrection, 
 asked Him whose wife would the woman be of the seven brothers, 
 our Lord rebuked them : " Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures '' ; 
 and yet it does not appear an unreasonable question from their 
 point of view, and many a Christian tombstone records the wish 
 of a bereaved husband, possibly a husband of two wives, to be 
 united to the lost companions of his life. 
 
122 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 But when the Pharisees, poiuting to a mean who was born blind, 
 asked him: " INIaster, who did sin, this man or his Parents, that 
 he was born blind?" our Lord did not rebuke them, nor did He 
 point out, that the question was a foolisli one, as no man could 
 possibly sin before his birth, but He replied : " Neither Itm this 
 vian sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God might be 
 made manifest in him." 
 
 Bishop Lightfoot of Durham notices the speculations of the 
 Rabbis on this subject in his Commentary : one was, that sin was 
 possible already in the womb, since the embryo in its later stages 
 was possessed of consciousness. This seems hard on the newborn 
 babe, who, by the theory of Augustine of Hippo, is already saddled 
 with the '■'■ feccatum originaW'' of his reputed ancestor Adam. 
 
 It is anyhow clear, that this question on the part of the Pharisees 
 implies the Idea of Metempsychosis, or they would never have 
 propounded such a problem, and our Lord, in His Wisdom, did not 
 satisfy their curiosity. The question is left an open one. 
 
 I am informed by a very competent authority, a Medical man, who 
 lived among the Hebrews many years in Palestine, that the common 
 Idea of the modern Hebrew is, that at the moment of a child's birth, 
 an Angel strikes it on the mouth, causing it to forget all that it knew 
 in a previous existence, and the dimple on the upper lip is the result 
 of the blow." I add a quotation from Shechter, " Studies in 
 Judaism," i8g6, pp. 345-347 : 
 
 " These legends with reference to the embryo period in the life 
 " of a child, are chiefly based on the notion of the pre-existence of 
 
 " the Soul Care is taken to make the child forget all 
 
 " it has seen and heard in these upper regions in its state of pre- 
 " existence. Before it enters the Woild an angel strikes it on the 
 " upper lip, and all its knowledge and wisdom disappear at once. 
 " The pit in the upper lip is a result of this stroke, which is also 
 " the cause why children cry, when they are born." 
 
 Clearly children do inherit some of the results of the sins of their 
 parents in diseased bodies : it may be possible, that they inherit 
 the results of their own sins in a former existence. Those eyes, 
 which once glanced lustfully, cruelly, or enviously, are now closed 
 to the outer world. This is a mere hypothesis, but it is right to 
 consider it. There is nothing inconsistent with, nor opposed to, 
 Revealed Religion in the Idea, that to an individual Soul the oppor- 
 tunity should be given of repeated incarnations. Gradually, in this 
 way, defects of character of individual Souls would be subdued, and 
 they would be more fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. Had the very 
 root-conception of the matter been wrong, and fundamentally wicked, 
 our Lord would have condemned it. Notoriously by ]\[osaic Law the 
 sins of the Parents were deemed to be visited on the children : one 
 portion of the argument of the Pharisees was sound, though con- 
 trary to elementary modern ideas of Justice, and condemned by 
 
ESS A YS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 123 
 
 Ezekiel (cap. xviii) at the time of the Captivity : if the other 
 portion had been -wickedly wrong, or ridiculous, our Lord would 
 scaixely have failed to condemn it, as He never sj^ared those, who 
 tempted Him by improper questions. 
 
 If there had not existed among the Hebrews of that time an 
 Idea of the possibility of a Soul returning to a new body after an 
 interval of more or less length, how is it that our Lord was 
 identified as Elijah or one of the Prophets, since whose death 
 centuries had passed ? and, still more markedly, what could have 
 induced Herod to suppose, that Jesus was identical with John the 
 Eaptist, whom he a short time before had himself beheaded ? 
 
 In truth. Nature exhibits unlimited examples of decay in the 
 works of Creation, and regeneration : there may be a channel of 
 compensation for unmerited (as far as Human eye can see) suffering, 
 and a vengeance taken upon neglected opportunities, abused privi- 
 leges, and intolerable tyranny of lustful Power. 
 
 It may be part of the Divine discipline (as it was, that the Soul 
 of Dives in torments should look across an abyss, and see the Soul 
 of Lazarus in bliss) to suffer such sinning Souls to assume in a 
 second birth the very reverse of their previous lot, with the possi- 
 bility of atoning for their gross sins. 
 
 The Apocalyptic writings betray the yearning of the heart of 
 man to know something of the Future. The Hevelation of John 
 has not helped us much to pierce the veil : at any rate, in the Nine- 
 teenth century after Christ we know with certainty as little as was 
 known in the First, but the World has lasted long enough to prove, 
 that Paul's anticipations of the early coming of Christ were vague 
 and unsupported by fact. Millions have passed away to their 
 unknown home, but the Lord has delayed His coming, notwith- 
 standing that Wickedness does abound. 
 
 I approach with reverent reserve the Miracle of our Lord, by 
 which an evil spirit passed out of a man, and at its own petition 
 entered the bodies of a herd of swine ; that is to say, it subdivided 
 itself by the occupation of many bodies of the herd, while, although 
 consisting of many individualities, as a Homan Legion, it had 
 dwelt in one Human frame. This is one of the difficult portions 
 of the New Testament. It does not necessarily follow, that the 
 population of Gadara were Hebrew : the presumption based on 
 Geography, and the fact that they kept herds of swine, which were 
 unclean to the Hebrew, is, that they were not. In their Pagan 
 minds they had conceived the Idea, that malignant demons could 
 take possession of the bodies of living men, and impel them to 
 fi'antic movements. At any rate, this story also is based on the 
 existence of an Idea at that time prevalent in Syria, that Souls 
 and Spirits could migrate from one mortal tenement to another. 
 The very notion of such a thing in modern times would be rejected 
 without argument : not the Miracle, but the Human circumstances, 
 which preceded and followed the Miracle. 
 
124 £SSAyS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 The references in the late work called " Zohur " to the Idea of 
 Metempsychosis, are collected by Gratz ("Histoiy of the Jews," 
 vol. iv). We get some clue to the thoughts of the Hebrews on this 
 subject from the following quotations from Josephus, whose date, 
 and means of information, are so well known : 
 
 T. ("Antiquities of the Jews," Book XVIII, cap. i, § 3.) 
 " The Pharisees believe, that Souls have an immortal vigour in 
 " thcra, and that under the earth there will be rewards and 
 " punishments according as they have lived virtuously or viciously 
 " in this life ; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting 
 " prison, but that the former shall have poiver to revive and live 
 " again : on account of which doctrines they are able greatly to 
 *' persuade the body of the people." 
 
 II. (" Wars of the Jews," Book II, cap. viii, § 14.) "The 
 " Pharisees say, that all Souls are incorruptible, but that the Son/s 
 " of good men only are removed into other bodies, but that the Souls 
 " of bad men are subject to eternal punishment. The Sadducees 
 " take away the belief of the Immortal duration of the Soul, and 
 " the punishments and rewards in Hades." 
 
 III. ("Wars of the Jews," Book III, cap. viii, § 5.) "Do 
 " not you know, that those, who depart out of this life according to 
 " the Law of Nature, and pay that debt, which was received from 
 " God, when He that lent it is pleased to require it back again, 
 " enjoy eternal fame : that their homes, and their posterity, are 
 " sure, that their Souls are pure and obedient, and obtain a most 
 " holy place in Heaven, whence in the revolution of ages they 
 " are again sent into pure bodies; while the Souls of those, who 
 " have acted madly against themselves, are received by the darkest 
 *' place in Hades." 
 
 In an article by Dr. Ginsburg, in Smith's " Dictionary of 
 Christian Biography," vol. I, p. 361, word "Kabbalah," we read 
 as follows : 
 
 " It is an absolute condition of the Soul to return to the Infinite 
 " Source, from which it emanated, after developing on earth the 
 " perfections, the germs whereof are implanted in it. If the Soul, 
 " after assuming a Human body, and its^^rs^ sojourn on earth, fails 
 " to acquire that experience, for which it descends from Heaven, 
 " and becomes contaminated by sin, it must reinhahit a body again, 
 " a7id again, until it is able to ascend in a piiritied state. This 
 " transmigration, however, is restricted to three times. If two 
 " Souls on their residence in Human bodies are still too weak to 
 " acquire the necessary experience, they are united, and sent into 
 " one body, in order that by their combined efforts they may be able 
 " to learn that, which they were too feeble to effect separately." 
 
 Paul, in the Romans, ix, 11, writes: "For the children being 
 not yet born, neither having done any good or evil," to justify the 
 Doctrine of Election. 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 125 
 
 D. The Manichean. 
 
 The Manicheans held the Doctrine in various forms, as detailed 
 in "Acta Martyrum," 1748 a.d. (Syriac and Latin): it is stated 
 at page 203, that they supposed that the Souls of men entered ants. 
 Neander, in his Church History, II, 218, alluded to it. 
 
 E. The Mahometan. 
 
 "We should scarcely have expected to find traces of the Idea 
 in a Religion so modern, so universal, and free from the old-world 
 Ideas, as the Mahometan ; yet they are found. Arabian writers 
 allude to three forms of Transmigration. The shifting of Souls 
 into green birds was recognized (Baidawi, Commentary on " Sura," 
 HI, 165) as coming near to this Idea. 
 
 A scholarly friend has helped me to the following quatrain from 
 Omar Khaiyyam : 
 
 CIJL-J 
 
 L-J , ^_jbl.i > t5»A-wi» ,.,»_*.>- , .—J&LS 
 
 ^_jsLi_j o_j^^w* ^_J-r^-^ ^ 
 
 " That essence, which is inherently fit for form, 
 
 " Sometimes is an animal, and sometimes a plant: 
 
 " Think not, that form becomes non-existent; 
 
 " It is known as existing, although there may not be any shape." 
 
 I am indebted to my friend, Professor Edward G. Browne, 
 of Pembroke College, Cambridge, so well known for his Maho- 
 metan studies, for the following important communication : 
 
 " The question as to the prevalence of the doctrine of Trans- 
 " migration of Souls in Mahometan countries is a difficult but 
 " very interesting one. Although the belief appears to be held, 
 " and to have been held, by many sects in Islam, especially 
 " the ultra-Shi'ite sects of Persia, it is a fact, that they mostly 
 " repudiate it formally, i.e., they will not admit that they hold the 
 
 " tandsulch-i-anouh {J'%j^ f^^)? which is the technical term in 
 " Arabic for this doctrine. But they believe in what they call 
 "the ' Hi/'at ' (^■jl^x:>-j') or ' Eeturn,' which is to us almost 
 " undistinguishable. The Babi, for instance, speak of the 're- 
 " turn' in this 'Manifestation' or dispensation of the saints and 
 
126 £SS/1YS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 " sinners of former dispensations. I saw at Kirman, in Persia, 
 " a Babi woman, who believed herself to be a 'return' of Kurratu'l- 
 " 'Ayn, the martyr-poetess. And I have cited in my Translation 
 " of the Neio Eistorij of the Bab (Cambridge, 1893, pp. 334-338 
 " and 357) instances of this belief, especially one (p. 338), where 
 " a dog is declared by a Babi saint to be the ' return' of a certain 
 " unbeliever. These heterodox sects generally fight shy of 
 " admitting, that they hold the doctrine of Metempsychosifi under 
 *' its ordinary name, tmidsu/ch, but, under the name of rijUit, hold 
 " a doctrine, which it seems impossible to distinguish therefrom. 
 " In tlie next number of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 
 " I hope that a paper will appear, which I have written on 
 " a little-known sect called the Huriifi, which flourished in the 
 " Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries of our era in Persia and 
 " Turkey, in which paper I discuss this matter more or less. 
 " In Mahometan philosophical works, even modern ones, siich as 
 " the Asrdr-i-Hikam of Haji Mulla Hadi of Sabzawar, a chapter 
 " is generally consecrated to the formal refutation of the doctrine, 
 " which is therefore recognized as existing in Mahometan countries. 
 " My impression is, that nearly all the extreme Shi'ite sects, 
 " which had their origin in Persia, really hold the doctrine. There 
 " are some well-known lines in the Mdsnavi, which look like an 
 " enunciation of the doctrine, though orthodox Mahometans try 
 ' ' to explain them away. They run : 
 
 " ' I died from the Mineral, and became a Plant: I died from 
 " the Plant, and reappeared as an Animal. 
 
 " ' I died from the animal state, and became a man : why, then, 
 " should I fear ? when did I ever grow less by dying ? 
 
 " ' l^ext time I shall die from humanity, that I may clothe 
 " myself in wings with the Angels. 
 
 *' ' Beyond the Angels, too, must I rise : all things shall perish 
 " save Mis Face .'' 
 
 " This is the general sense of the lines, and there is a very 
 " similar passage in Ibn Yamin. I have discussed the way, in 
 " which they interpret the doctrine in my ' Year amongst the 
 " Persians.' '' 
 
 F. Hindv,. 
 
 The Hindu Sages, with their speculative Genius, will find 
 a cause for everything, or at least invent one. How came the 
 necessity of Transmigration into existence ? They had the un- 
 doubted fact, that men did die, and the strong conviction, that 
 the Soul did not die. I (^uote the following from the Satapatha- 
 Brahmana : 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 127 
 
 " The gods live constantly in fear of Death, 
 
 " The mighty Ender, so with tedious rites 
 
 " They worshipped, and repeated Sacrifice, 
 
 " Till they became Immortal. Then the Ender 
 
 " Said to the gods : ' As ye have made yourselves 
 
 " Imperishable, so will men endeavour 
 
 " To free themselves from me : what portion, then, 
 
 " Shall I possess in man?' The gods replied : 
 
 " ' Henceforth no being shall become Immortal 
 
 ' ' In his own body : this his mortal frame 
 
 " Shalt thou still seize : this shall remain thine own, 
 
 " This shall become perpetually thy food ; 
 
 " And even if he through religious acts 
 
 " Henceforth attains to Immortality, 
 
 " Shall first present his body, Death, to thee.' " 
 
 (" Indian "Wisdom," p. 34.) 
 
 Transmigration became the terrible nightmare of Indian Meta- 
 physicians : all their efforts were directed to getting rid of this 
 oppressive scare. As the embodied Soul, says the Bhagavad Gita, 
 moves swiftly on through boyhood, youth, and age, so will it pass 
 through other forms hereafter. The one engrossing problem is : 
 How is a man to break this iron chain of repeated existences ? how 
 is he to shake off all personality ? how is he to return to complete 
 absorption {sayujga) into pure unconscious Spirit ? or, failing this, 
 is he to work his way through successive births to any of the three 
 inferior conditions of bliss ? 
 
 ( 1 ) Living in the same sphere with the personal God (Salokya). 
 
 (2) Close proximity to that God (Samipya). 
 
 (3) Assimilation to the likeness of that God (Sarupya). 
 
 Professor Ehys Davids, in his "Hibbert Lectures," p. 80, expresses 
 his opinion, that the Arians, when they entered India from the 
 North-West, did not bring the idea of Metempsychosis with them. 
 It is not mentioned in the Veda. In one of the earlier Upanishads, 
 600 B.C., we read: "Those, whose conduct has been good, will 
 quickly attain some good birth, birth as a Brahmana, or a Kshatriya, 
 or a Vaisya." 
 
 In the Kaushitaki Brahmana Upanishad we read: "All, who 
 "depart from this world, go to the Moon: in the dark fort- 
 " night the Moon sends them forth into new births: they are born 
 " either as a worm, or a grasshopper, or a fish, or a bird, or a lion, 
 " or a boar, or a serpent, or a tiger, or a man, or some animal, 
 " according to their deeds and their knowledge." 
 
 It is possible that the Arian immigrants, long after their entry 
 into India, derived the idea from the Non-Arian occupants of the 
 Gangetic Valley, whom they found in possession on their arrival. 
 
128 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 The Hindu, being essentially of a more dreamy temperament, gives 
 evidence of this Idea of the Soul having recollection of some- 
 thing, that has happened in a previous state of existence. That 
 a man should in his new Birth recollect the circumstances of his 
 previous incarnation, is a common feature in Legends, but Manu (IV, 
 148) specially notices this capacity as the reward of a self-denying 
 and pious life. I quote a poetical translation from a passage in the 
 Vishnu Purana, vrhich I made at Banda, in North India, as far back 
 as 1853: 
 
 THE HINDU NOTION OF A FUTURE STATE. 
 
 \_From the 8anskrit.'\ 
 
 Maiteexa (the Pupil). 
 
 " Parasura, you've told me 
 
 " All that I wished to hear, 
 ** How out of chaos sprang this 
 
 " God-made hemisphere. 
 
 *' How zone on zone, and sphere on sphere, 
 
 " In ever- varying forms, 
 " The wondrous egg of Brahma 
 
 " With living creatures swarms. 
 
 " All great and small, all small and great, 
 
 " On their own acts depend : 
 " All their terrestrial vanities 
 
 ** In punishment must end. 
 
 " Released from Yama, they are born 
 
 " As men, as beasts, again ; 
 " And thus in countless circles still 
 
 " Revolving still remain. 
 
 " Tell me, oh ! tell me what I ask, 
 
 " What you alone can tell : 
 " By what acts only mortal men 
 
 " Can free themselves from Hell ?" 
 
ASSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 129 
 
 PaeIsuea (the Teacher). 
 
 " Listen, Maitreya, best of men : 
 
 " The question you have brought 
 " Was once by royal Nakula 
 
 *' Of aged Bhisma sought. 
 
 ** And thus the hoary sage replied : 
 
 " Listen, my Prince, this tale 
 " A Brahman guest once told me 
 
 *' From far Kalinga's vale. 
 
 '* He from an ancient Muni too 
 
 " The wondrous secret gained, 
 " In whose clear mind of former births 
 
 " The memory remained. 
 
 " Never before had human ear 
 
 " The tale mysterious heard : 
 *' Such as it was I tell it you, 
 
 " Kepeating word for word. 
 
 " As from the coil of mortal birth 
 
 " Eeleased the Muni lay, 
 " He heard the awful King of Death 
 
 " Thus to his menials say: 
 
 ** Touch not, I charge thee, anyone, 
 
 " Whom Vishnu has let loose : 
 " On Madhu- Sudan's followers 
 
 ' ' Cast not the fatal noose. 
 
 " Brahma appointed me to rule 
 
 " Poor erring mortals' fate, 
 " Of evil and uncertain good 
 
 " The balance regulate. 
 
 " But he, who chooses Vishnu 
 
 " As spiritual guide, 
 " Slave of a mightier lord than me, 
 
 " Can spurn me in my pride. 
 
 " As gold is of one substance still, 
 
 " Assume what form it can, 
 " So Vishnu is the selfsame power 
 
 " As Beast, as God, or Man. 
 
I 50 ESS A YS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 " And as the drops of watery spray, 
 " Raised by the wind on high, 
 
 " Sink slowly down again to earth 
 " When calm pervades the sky, 
 
 " So particles of source divine 
 
 " Created forms contain : 
 " When that disturbance is composed, 
 
 " They reunite again. 
 
 "But tell us, Master, they replied, 
 " How shall thy slaves descry 
 
 " Those who with heart and soul upon 
 ' ' The mighty Lord rely ? 
 
 "Oh! they are those, who truly love 
 " Their neighbours, them you'll know, 
 
 " Who never from their duty swerve, 
 " And would not hurt their foe. 
 
 " Whose hearts are undefiled 
 
 " By soil of Kali's age, 
 " Who let not others' hoarded wealth 
 
 " Their envious thoughts engage. 
 
 " No more can Vishnu there abide, 
 " Wliere evil passions sway, 
 
 " Than glowing heat of fire reside 
 " In the moon's cooling ray. 
 
 " But those, who covet others' wealth, 
 " Whose hearts are hard in sin, 
 
 " And those, whose low degraded souls 
 ' ' Pride rampant reigns within ; 
 
 " Whoever with the wicked sit, 
 " And daily frauds prepare, 
 
 " Who duties to their friends forget : 
 " Vishnu has nothing there. 
 
 " Such were the orders, that the King 
 " Of Hell his servants gave : 
 
 " For Vishnu his true followers 
 " From death itself can save." 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 UI 
 
 I now quote from the well-known play of " Sakontala," by 
 Kalidasa. I give the English translation, and then the original : 
 " When a being, in other respects happy, becomes conscious of 
 " an ardent longing on seeing charming objects, and hearing sweet 
 " sounds, then in all probability, without being aware of it, he 
 " remembers in his mind the friendships of former births firmly 
 " rooted in his heart." 
 
 Even in Manu's time it was an accepted dogma, that the Souls 
 of men, popularly regarded as emanations from the Deity, might 
 descend into the bodies of animals and trees, or rise to those of 
 higher beings. It was therefore an easy expansion of such a 
 doctrine to imagine the "Divine Soul" itself as passing through 
 various stages of incarnation for the delivery of the World from the 
 effect of evil and sin, and for the maintenance of order in the whole 
 cycle of Creation. (" Indian Wisdom," p. 336.) 
 
 Thus began the great series of the Ten Avatara, or the Deity 
 born as an animal, or a man, for the benefit of mankind : 
 
 Three times as animals. 
 
 Once as half man and half animal. 
 
 Eive times as man. 
 
 Once still to come, when the World has become wholly 
 
 depraved, seated on a white horse in the skies, with 
 
 a drawn sword in his hand. 
 
 Manu, the great codifier of existing oral Law, occupying a 
 position analogous to Confucius, Zoroaster, and Moses, writes 
 (XII, iii, 40, 54, 55): 
 
 " An act, either mental, verbal, or corporeal (thoughts, words, or 
 " deeds), bears good or evil fruit. The various Transmigrations of 
 " men through the highest, middle, and lowest stages, are pioduced 
 " by acts." This triple order implies the passage of the Soul 
 through (i) Deities, (2) Men, (3) Animals, or (4) Plants, according 
 to the dominance of one or other of the three Gana : (i) Goodness, 
 (2) Passion, (3) Darkness: and each of these three degrees has 
 three sub -degrees. Those, who have committed great crimes, pass 
 
132 
 
 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 through terrible Hells for a long scries of years, and then pass 
 through various bodies. A Brahman-killer's ISoul enters the body 
 of a boar, or an ass : the violator of the bed of a Guru migrates 
 a hundred times into the form of grasses, shrubs, plants, etc. 
 
 It is clear from this that, as in all Religious Conceptions, the 
 purest and most modern, the Priesthood had their own way, and 
 maintained their authority of Terrorism of the most debased kind 
 over an abject and ignorant community. The Hell-lire Sermon 
 is not a new, or a local, invention, 
 
 G. The Buddhist. 
 
 I quote the words of Gilbert's "Mikado": "Buddhism makes 
 " the punishment or reward fit the crime or merit. A niggard 
 " is reborn either in a state of suffering, or, if into mankind again, 
 " into a state of abject poverty. A liberal man is reborn rich. 
 " A man, who takes away life, is reborn with a short span of life. 
 " One, who abstains from taking life, is reborn with a long span." 
 
 Thus the Soul has to bear the consequences of its own acts only. 
 It is tossed hither and thither at the mercy of a force set in motio7i 
 hy itself alone, but which can never be guarded against, because its 
 operation depends on past actions wholly beyond control and even 
 iinremembered. Even great genius, and congenital excellence, are 
 not natural gifts, to Iwpa Qeov, but the result of habits formed, and 
 powers developed, through a succession of previous existences. So, 
 again, sufferings of all kind, and moral depravity, are simply the 
 consequence of acts done by each Soul of its own free will in former 
 bodies, which acts exert upon that Soul an irresistible Power, called 
 very significantly Adrishta, because felt and not seen. ("Indian 
 Wisdom," pp. 68, 69.') 
 
 When the chief Lama of Tibet dies, it is presumed, that his Soul 
 has passed into some body, and that body must be looked for, and 
 placed on the throne of the deceased. A search is made for a body 
 with certain marks, which are presumed to indicate the presence of 
 the late Lama, and when found he is hailed as successor. The same 
 thing happened, when the Sacred Bull died in Egypt : the Priests 
 had to look out for another Bull, with marks indicating its fitness. 
 The mode of election of the Pope of the Bomish Church is something 
 in the same way, but meaner motives there exercise their influence. 
 In the " Cariya Pi'taka " of the Pali Sacred Books the principle is laid 
 down, that the qualifications necessary for making a Buddha cannot 
 be acquired during, and do not depend on the action of, one life 
 only, but are the last result of many deeds performed through a long 
 series of consecutive lives. 
 
 Although the Idea, that every man had passed through many 
 existences before his birth on earth, and will pass through many 
 more alter his death, was distinctly borrow^ed from Hindu writers, 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 133 
 
 yet the honour of first and solely employing the stories of previous 
 births for educational purposes, and to inculcate great lessons of 
 Morality, must be attributed to Buddha and his followers. This 
 fact was always known to the limited circle of those, who cared for 
 this Branch of Science; but in 1895 the first volume of a work 
 "was published by the Cambridge University Press, which introduces 
 the subject to the general public. The volume is entitled "The 
 Jataka, or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births," translated from 
 the Pali by various hands under the Editorship of Professor E. B. 
 Cowell of Cambridge. 
 
 Now unquestionably the date of these Stories can be carried back to 
 the date of the Council of Yesali, 380 b.c. : this is important, as it 
 places them anterior to, and independent of, any Christian influence. 
 The art of Alphabetic writing no doubt existed in India at that period, 
 as testified by the Rock-Inscriptions of Asoka, so that date, if 
 arrived at on literary grounds, can be accepted on Palaeographic 
 grounds ; but a material corroboration has also been supplied by 
 the sculptures on the carvings of the railing of the shrines of 
 Sanchi, Amaravati, and Bharhut, where the titles of the Jataka 
 are clearly inscribed on some of the carvings, and the date of the 
 erection of these shrines has been arrived at on independent grounds. 
 And a remarkable confirmation is found in the Travels of Pah Hian, 
 who, when he visited Ceylon, 400 a.d., saw representations of the 
 500 bodily forms assumed by Buddha in his successive births, and 
 these legends were habitually made use of to illustrate the teaching 
 of Buddhist Doctrine. 
 
 It is quite uncertain, when they were collected into a systematic 
 volume like the present Jataka : no doubt they were fii'st orally 
 delivered from time to time ; then gradually they were copied into 
 one volume. Probably the Christian New Testament came together 
 in the same manner. They are all in the Pali Language. The 
 first volume of the Edition contains 150 Birth Stories, partly prose, 
 and partly verse; and each consists of (i) a Preface, which 
 is the story of the Present, detailing how it happened that 
 Buddha was led to tell the story; (2) the story of the birth; 
 (3) a short Summary, in which Buddha identifies the actions, 
 for to Buddha is attributed the power claimed by Pythagoras of 
 remembering on a gigantic scale all the transactions of his 
 previous existence. Every story is illustrated by one or more poetic 
 couplets, or Gatha, uttered by Buddha, to point the moral of the 
 tale. The Language of the Gatha is much more archaic than that 
 of the story, and some might think, that they were the kernel of 
 the story ; however, in the opinion of others the Language of the 
 Stories may indeed be later, but they are merely the redaction into 
 writing of materials handed down orally from the earliest period : 
 the Stories were necessarily anterior to the Gatha, though not 
 necessarily in the same words. 
 
134 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Professor Fausboll, of Copenhagen, is the sole Editor of the 
 Pali Text, five volumes of which have appeared. The Translation 
 is conducted by a band of friends, who employ a uniformity of 
 technical terms and transliteration, and certain common principles 
 of Translation. 
 
 But it is not the first attempt, for the first volume is dedicated by 
 the author to Professor Rhys Davids, his friend and preceptor, and 
 in the Preface we learn that in 1880 the Professor published one 
 volume containing the " Nidhana-Katha," or complete History of 
 Buddha, both before and during his last birth, and 40 stories : his 
 work ceased there, and it has been since taken up by his friends 
 and pupils. The 40 stories of the earlier volume appear retranslated 
 in the later work as the first 40 of the 150, which it contains. 
 
 But the Introduction to Professor Rhys Davids' work above 
 alluded to, entitled " Buddhist Birth Stories," in Triibner's Series, 
 is well worth noticing : it occupies pp. i-lxxxvii of the volume. 
 
 He calls attention to the fact, that the fairy-tales, parables, fables, 
 riddles, and comic and moral stories, of the Buddhist Collection 
 bear a striking resemblance to similar ones current in West Asia 
 or Europe. Now, in many instances this resemblance is due to 
 the fact, that they were borrowed from the Buddhist ones. A second 
 fact is, that these stories contain the oldest, most complete, and 
 most important, Collection of Folklore extant. I merely mention 
 these facts, but they have no relation to the subject-matter of this 
 Essay, which is confined to the consideration of the great Problem 
 of the Transmigration of Souls, and the power to recollect the 
 events of previous lives, indicating a continuity of thought from 
 one life to another. The chief Collections of Stories of this kind, 
 which grew out of this fundamental source, are : 
 
 Jataka-mala (in Sanskrit), 
 
 Pancha-Tantra, alias Hitopadesha (in Sanskrit), 
 Kalilag and Damanag (in Syriac), 
 Kalilut and Damanat (in Arabic), 
 " Arabian Nights " (in Arabic), 
 Aesop's Pables (in Greek), 
 Phaedrus (in Latin), 
 and the great crop of modern European Folklore, and Beast-Stories. 
 
 Professor Rhys Davids gives us in his Preface the accepted 
 theory as to the mode, in which the Pali Jataka Book came into 
 existence. Their origin is due to "the Religious Faith of the 
 " Early Indian Buddhists, who not only repeated a number of 
 " fables, parables, and stories, ascribed to the Buddha, but gave 
 " them a peculiar sacredness and special Religious signification 
 " by identifying the best character in each with the Buddha 
 " himself in some previous birth." The parables and fables, for 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 135 
 
 they were no more, became their Jataka, a word invented to 
 distinguish the stories thus sanctified. We find the word in the 
 Inscription of the Buddhist Tope at Bharhut, and it clearly must 
 have been a long recognized term to be thus honoured. Gradually 
 came the time for collecting the scattered Jataka into a volume, 
 and this probably took place before the Council of Vesali, 380 b.c. 
 A tradition as to the time and occasion, at or on which they were 
 uttered, may have given rise to the earliest Introductory Story. 
 They were written in the Pali Language, carried to Ceylon about 
 200 B.C., and, with the exception of the verses at the close of 
 each, translated into Sinhalese. About the Fifth century a.d. an 
 unknown Author retranslated them into Pali, and compiled the 
 volume now translated into English. 
 
 It is a remarkable and incontestable fact, that Buddha taught by 
 Parables, but no Miracles are imputed to him. 
 
 Professor Ehys Davids, at page Ixxv of his Preface, and in his 
 " Hibbert Lectures," pp. 88-109, lays stress on the real meaning 
 of Transmigration to the Buddhist. It is not the passage of a 
 Soul from one body to another, for the Buddhists do not admit of 
 the existence of a Soul, or of a God. The Doctrine is somewhat 
 intricate, and is fully explained in the " Manual of Buddhism" by 
 the same author, pp. 99-106; and perhaps what does take place, 
 may better be described as " Transmigration of Character,''^ for it is 
 entirely independent of the Idea of the existence within each body 
 of a distinct Soul, Ghost, or Spirit. The Bodhisat is not supposed 
 to have a Soul, which on the death of one body is transferred 
 to another, but to be the inheritor of the Karma, or Character, 
 acquired by previous Bodhisats. 
 
 The insight and goodness, the moral and intellectual perfection, 
 which constitute Buddhahood, could not according to the Buddhist 
 theory be acquired in one lifetime. They were the accumulated 
 result of the continued effort of many generations of successive 
 Bodhisats. The only thing, which continues to exist, when a man 
 dies, is his Karma, the result of his words, thoughts, and deeds, 
 literally his "doing"; and the curious Idea, that the result is 
 concentrated in some new individual, is due to the older Idea 
 of Soul. 
 
 Professor Rhys Davids, at p. i i4of his "Hibbert Lectures," 1881, 
 sums up the Philosophy of the Idea as follows : 
 
 " Predestination is the logical expression from the Monotheistic 
 " point of view of the weight of the Universe arrayed against the 
 " Individual. Pre-existence, or that part of the Transmigration of 
 " Karma, which is insisted upon in the early Buddhism, is an 
 " ethical meeting of the same difficulty. 
 
 " The fact, underlying all these theories, is acknowledged to be 
 " a very real one : the history of an individual does not begin with 
 
136 ASSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 ' ' his birth. He has been endless generations in making, and he 
 " cannot sever himself from his surroundings. 
 
 ' ' A great American writer says, that it was a poetic attempt to 
 " lift this mountain of Fate, when the Hindu said : Tate is nothing, 
 " but the deeds committed in a previous existence.' Schelling 
 " writes : * There is in every man a certain feeling, that he has 
 " been what he is from all eternity.' We may put a newer and 
 " deeper meaning into the words of the poet : 
 
 " ' Our deeds follow us from afar, 
 " And what we have been makes us what we are.' " 
 
 3. The Modern Aspect. 
 
 It is no longer a question of Eeligious Dogma or Philosophy, but 
 a mere sentimental, or intellectual, mystery, yet somehow or other 
 it exists, and there is more in it than appears at first sight. The 
 Poets throw around it a halo of unreality. I have gathered the 
 following thoughts either in print or conversation : 
 
 "The Soul sojourning in the earthly body has been likened to 
 " a current of air drafted through an Aeolian harp, and passing on 
 " again into the great air of Heaven, but for ever resounding an 
 " individual chord. So some portion of the Eternal Soul of the 
 " Universe, dwelling for a while in an earthly body, takes identity, 
 " and passing onward joins once more, but is not absorbed into the 
 " Universal Soul, so as to lose absolutely its own identity." 
 
 Let me quote "Wordsworth's celebrated Ode on the "Intimations 
 of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." The idea 
 of Metempsychosis underlies the whole Poem. 
 
 " The sunshine is a glorious birth ; 
 " But yet I know, where'er I go, 
 " That there hath past away a glory from the Earth. 
 
 " But there 's a tree, of many, one, 
 A single Field, which I have looked upon, 
 Both of them speak of something that is gone 
 
 " The Pansy at my feet 
 
 " l)oth the same tale repeat : 
 Whither is fled the visionary gleam ? 
 Where is it now, the glory and the dream ? 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 137 
 
 " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
 " The Soul, that rises with us, our Life's Star, 
 
 " Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 " And Cometh from afar : 
 
 " Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 
 " And not in utter nakedness, 
 *' But trailing clouds of Glory do we come 
 
 " From God, who is our Home : 
 " Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! 
 " Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
 
 " Upon the growing Boy, 
 *' But He beholds the Light, and whence it flows, 
 " He sees it in his joy. 
 
 *i * * liif * 
 
 ** Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own. 
 
 % ^ % % -H- 
 
 " And no unworthy aim, 
 
 " The homely Nurse doth all she can 
 " To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, 
 
 " Forget the Glories he hath known, 
 " And that Imperial Palace whence he came. 
 
 " But for those first affections, 
 " Those shadowy recollections, 
 " "Which, be they what they may, 
 " Are yet the fountain-light of all our day 
 
 " Our Souls have sight of that Immortal Sea, 
 " Which brought us hither, 
 " Can in a moment travel thither." 
 
 I follow with a quotation from Tennyson's " Two Voices" 
 
 " It may be that no life is found, 
 " Which only to one engine bound 
 " Falls off, but cycles always round. 
 
 " As old mythologies relate, 
 
 " Some draught of Lethe might await 
 
 " The slipping through from state to state. 
 
 " As here we find in trances men 
 
 " Forget the dream, that happens then, 
 
 " Until they fall in trance again, 
 
I3S ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 " So might we, if our state were such, 
 
 "As one before, remember much, 
 
 " For those two likes might meet and touch. 
 
 " But, if I lapsed from nobler place, 
 
 " Some legend of a fallen race 
 
 " Alone might hint of my disgrace ; 
 
 " Some vague emotion of delight 
 " In gazing up an Alpine height, 
 " Some yearning toward the lamps of night. 
 
 " Or, if through lower lives I came, 
 " Tho' all experience past became 
 " Consolidate in mind and frame, 
 
 " I might forget my weaker lot, 
 ' ' For is not our first year forgot ? 
 " The haunts of memory echo not. 
 
 " Much more, if first I floated free, 
 " As naked essence must I be 
 " Incompetent of memory : 
 
 " For memory dealing but with time, 
 " And he with matter, could she climb 
 " Beyond her own material prime ? 
 
 " Moreover, something is or seems, 
 " That touches me with mystic gleams 
 " Like glimpses of forgotten dreams: 
 
 " Of something felt like something here, 
 " Of something done, I know not where, 
 " Such as no language may declare." 
 
 This will find an echo in the Souls of many. Do we not seem, 
 in our musing hours, to have heard something long before, to have 
 thought some thought, to have uttered some word, to have seen 
 some landscape, in a previous existence, or under different cii'cum- 
 stances ? This happens to fresh young minds oftener than to the 
 jaded intellects of those in middle life or old age. Have we not 
 sometimes felt, that we have fallen from a higher intellectual and 
 spiritual age somewhere, that we understood things better once, 
 which seem now a puzzle ? Of course, Dreams develop these feelings, 
 specially Day-Dreams, where the direction of the thoughts are 
 guided by the will, which is not in the torpor of sleep : and sweet 
 Music helps it. 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 139 
 
 In Charles Dickens's " Dombey and Son," p. 210 of the original 
 Edition, we come unexpectedly on the following words : "an 
 undeveloped recollection of a previous state of existence." 
 
 There is a ring of pathos in the lines by that charming writer 
 George Eliot : 
 
 " Oh may I join the choir invisible 
 " Of those immortal dead, lolio live again 
 " In minds made better ly their presence : live 
 " In pulses stirred to generosity, 
 " In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
 " For miserable aims that end in self, 
 " In thoughts sublime that pierce the night-like stars, 
 " And with their mild persistence urge men's search 
 " To vaster issiies .... 
 " This is life to come." 
 
 Professor Ehys Davids admits, that there is some analogy between 
 this beautiful sentiment of the modern Positivist and the Buddhist 
 doctrine of Karma ; but the modern Poet is thinking of the Future, 
 the ancient Prophet dwells on the Past. 
 
 In Archbishop Trench's " Day of Death " occur the following 
 lines : 
 
 " Or the Soul long strives in vain 
 " To escape with toil and pain, 
 '' From its half -divided chain " : 
 
 which I fifty-five years ago, at Naples, rendered into monkish Latin: 
 
 " An se demum cura plena 
 " Expedibit multa poena 
 " Semirupta Mens catena ? " 
 
 We recollect the Emperor Hadrian's address to his Soul : 
 
 " Animula vagula blandula, 
 " Hospes comesque corporis, 
 
 " Quos nunc abibis in locos? 
 " Pallidula rigida nudula, 
 
 " Nee, ut ante, dabis jocos " : 
 
 rendered so nobly by the Poet Pope : 
 
 " Poor little pretty fluttering thing, 
 
 " Must we no longer live together ? 
 
 " And dost thou prune thy timid wing, 
 
 " And take thy flight, thou knowest not whither? " 
 
I40 
 
 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 I finally quote one living Poet, Mr. Lecky : 
 
 *' So in our dreams some glimpse appears, 
 
 " Though soon it fades again, 
 " How other lands, or times, or spheres, 
 
 " Might make us other men. 
 
 " Now half our being lies in trance, 
 
 " Nor joy, nor sorrow, brings, 
 " Unless the hand of circumstance 
 
 " Can touch the latent strings. 
 
 " "We know not fully what we are, 
 
 " Still less what we might be, 
 " But hear/am^ voices from the far, 
 
 " Dim lands beyond the sea ! " 
 
 Some thoughts rise in my mind. Can it be, that such a Divine 
 Creation as a Soul can only be used for one brief life, perhaps 
 a very brief one indeed of a few summers, perhaps the tenant of 
 a Human form unworthy of it, owing to want of Culture, or absence 
 of Virtue ? 
 
 " Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 
 
 " Some Soul once pregnant with celestial fire : 
 
 " Hands that the rod of Empire might have swayed, 
 *' Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre." 
 
 Gkax's Elegy. 
 
 Would not a Soul be strengthened for the daily combat of life by 
 undergoing different conditions of its poor mortal place of temporary 
 habitation, different environments of the mortal coil, different 
 experiences of Human vicissitudes ? On the other hand, would not 
 a Soul, having left a pure and holy tenement, be defiled and 
 degraded by contact with some base Human embodiment of 
 Carnality, Vice, and Degradation, which the Holy Spirit, which 
 deigns to dwell with Man, has abandoned in despair and anger ? 
 
 What becomes of the accumulated Millions of Souls, if after the 
 accomplishment of one brief term of service, they are never em- 
 ployed again ? Do they fade like the leaves of the forest in Autumn, 
 having done what they were created to do ? What is the meaning 
 of absorption into the Divine Essence, or, as the Christian Minister 
 fondly puts it, "being with Christ"? The whole subject is 
 a mystery. 
 
 What is the Soul (*wx7) Psyche) ? Can it die ? Some say 
 that it can, and quote the New Testament: "Fear Him, who 
 is able to destroy both Soul {^I'X'i) ai^d Body (Sw/tn) in Gehenna." 
 
£SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 141 
 
 It is vain to argue on such, a subject : the intellect is finite, and 
 the subject of this question is infinite. 
 
 But there is a third indwelling part of the " ^o?»o," whicli 
 appears before us : the Spirit (Jlvedi-ia). This comes of God, and is 
 God, and can certainly never die, and can certainly leave the body ; 
 but this lies outside the subject of this Essay, which is restricted 
 to the opinions formed by men at different periods, and in different 
 countries, and degrees of Culture, as to the Transmigration of the 
 Soul (^I'xv) f^om one Body (Sw/ut) to another. 
 
 Sometimes we come into contact with a young creature, whose 
 Soul seems fresh from Heaven, and fit for Heaven. Having been 
 blessed with the tenement of a docile body, the two entities, Soul 
 and Body, move in unison : they ripen fast, and are soon removed. 
 Sometimes we meet, or hear of, persons, who seem devoid of 
 Soul altogether. Again, we come upon persons, who seem to have 
 inherited an evil Soul : some are fierce and bitter in temperament, 
 who, if they have not inherited these characteristics, are qualifying 
 at the next birth to enter a tiger ; some are gross and carnal, who 
 are qualifying to pass into swine at the next opportunity. 
 
 Again, there are instances of mysterious attraction betwixt Soul 
 and Soul (I do not allude to the attractions of carnal Earthly 
 Love) : there exists sometimes a wonderful feeling, that creates 
 a link between two Souls, though they occupied their brief earthly 
 span two or three centuries apart ; yet there seems to be a 
 mysterious union, the ^^ idem sentire de rebus Humanis et Divinis." 
 Has not some one unexpectedly come upon passages in some book, 
 which existed before his birth, but never heard of till lately, whicli 
 reveal to him his own hidden thoughts, passing under review the 
 mysterious Problem of Self, the World, and God, suggesting 
 solutions, long before revealed to him in his musings by day, 
 or his waking hours by night? Still more wonderful is the 
 solution of hard problems, which he has striven for in vain, sought 
 for from his contemporaries without success, but revealed to his 
 astonished eyes in a book of the last century. There must surely 
 be some affinity of that portion of us, which is Divine, with that 
 which existed, or exists in others. I do not ask for sensational 
 common-form expressions of the ignorant formularist, whether 
 Hindu, Buddhist, Mahometan, or Christian, who has not even 
 thought out the problem, but the reverential humble expressions 
 of thought of one, who 
 
 " extra 
 " Processit longe flammantia moenia mundi, 
 " Atque omme immensum peragravit mente animoque." 
 
 Lucretius. 
 
 Then clearly there are sins peculiar to the body, in which the 
 enlightened Soul can take no pleasure, carnal appetites, low and 
 
142 
 
 ESSAYS 0/\' RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 evil desires, envy, hatred, and malice. A man's "better self" 
 loathes such things, but has to endure them in an ill-assorted 
 union. The great Soul will not condescend to profit by the loss of 
 his neighbour, will not sell its purity for gold, will not utter a lie 
 even for its own advantage, is ready to sacrifice itself for the benefit 
 of others, looks on the world around with a pitying eye, but willing 
 to continue in its mortal tenement, if it can benefit the poor and 
 suffering. "Altruism," not "Egoism," is the Law of its Nature, 
 following the example of Gautama Buddha, who was the first to 
 propound the noble Idea of " Loving others better than one's self," 
 and the precepts given Five centuries later by One Greater than the 
 Buddha. On the other hand, in a comparatively innocuous, quiescent, 
 body, there are grievous sins of the Soul, of which the Body has no 
 cognizance, such as Denial of the Lord, who bought us, World- 
 liness. Lust for Power, such as Satan offered to the Lord at the 
 Temptation, Lust for Wealth, such as that of the Eich Man in 
 the Parable, whose Soul in the midst of his enjoyments that very 
 night was required. 
 
 It is necessary to draw one line absohitely : a Soul is a Soul, 
 a body is a body ; the Soul is an eternal entity, the body is a 
 perishable atom : and in that last particular all creatures having 
 life are on the same level. "When the breath of life departs, the 
 poor clay-tenement returns to dust. But the incidence of death 
 was not written for the Soul. Now we know, as a positive fact, 
 that there is an ineffaceable division between the " genus Homo,^'' 
 and the rest of the Animal-Creation. The Sacred Books of every 
 Religion may not afiirm it, but it is a fact, which is written in 
 clear letters in the History of the "World, that the intelligence of 
 animals, such as the Elephant, the Horse, the Dog, and the Cat, though 
 most worthy of note, is limited, and no degree of Culture would 
 carry it beyond certain limited boundaries, or prolong it from 
 generation to generation ; while the intelligence of the " genus 
 Homo " is unlimited : even now it is only in the course of develop- 
 ment. Things are known to us at the close of the Nineteenth 
 century absolutely unknown, and undreamed of, at the close of the 
 Eighteenth century. To the "genus Homo''^ alone has been 
 conceded the two great congenital gifts of (i) Articulate Speech, 
 (2) a Religious Instinct. Therefore Transmigration of a Soul into 
 the body of an animal, not calculated to be the tenement of a Soul, 
 is a thing impossible. 
 
 The gist of the matter is, that in all speculations of men of the 
 Nineteenth century, and in all reverential communings with the 
 Soul as to its future destiny after its parting from the mortal tene- 
 ment, in which it is now included, there are but two alternatives : 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 143 
 
 A. "To be with Christ" in a mysterious, indefinable, state 
 of existence, and yet non-existence : this is the fond 
 vision of holy men. The reply to the inquirer is an 
 illustration of " Obscurum per ohscurius." 
 
 No one ever came back, and revealed the mystery beyond the 
 tomb. The Old and New Testaments are silent. The 
 sad lines of the late Poet Laureate come back to us : 
 
 " When Lazarus left his chamel-cave, 
 
 " And home to Mary's house return' d, 
 " "Was this demanded, if he yearn' d 
 
 " To hear her weeping by his grave ? 
 
 " ' Where wert thou, brother, those four days ? ' 
 
 " There lives no record of reply, 
 
 *' Which telling what it is to die 
 " Had sui'ely added praise to praise. 
 
 • " Behold a man raised up by Christ ! 
 
 " The rest remaineth unreveal'd : 
 " He told it not ; or something seal'd 
 " The lips of that Evangelist." 
 
 Tennyson : In Ifemoriam, xxxi. 
 
 B. To transmigrate into another individual body of the " genus 
 mmo." 
 
 The theory of Purgatory is not only unscriptural, but a mere 
 intellectual delusion. If sins are to be purged after death, it seems 
 more reasonable, that they should be purged under the same con- 
 ditions as those, in which they were committed in this mortal life : 
 in practice it appears to be only a machinery for bringing money 
 to the Priesthood. 
 
 My thoughts pass fi'om the dying ejaculations of the great Eoman 
 Emperor, quoted above, who was denied the opportunity of knowing 
 Christ, to the Soul of the young man of our own time, who had 
 been chosen from his boyhood, had been consecrated in the bloom 
 of his youth, to the service of his Master; to whom the gift had been 
 conceded of an ingenuous countenance, on which the word 'A^aTrtj, 
 not "Epu)9, was written, from whose lips flowed words that burn, 
 the reflection of thought, that breathed ; whose life represented the 
 simplicity, the holiness, the seK- sacrifice, the high desire, the very 
 Christ, whom he preached; whose Soul, having found a mortal 
 tenement worthy of the habitation of its Divine Essence, rejoiced 
 in the discharge of holy duties, the daily something accomplished, 
 something done. Many the poor sinning brother and sister were by 
 
144 £SSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 him brougM to Christ on the dying bed in the Hospital ; the happy- 
 Soul of the Teacher lending itself in deep sympathy, and pure aim, 
 to the poor distracted, trembling, hopeless, !Soul of the unhappy 
 sinner. No pride there : but for God's Grace the Soul of the saved 
 one would have been in the same plight as the Soul of the all but 
 lost one; for with God there is no Trpoo-wTroXj/Y"*' ^'^^ t^'- P^*^^ 
 Human race are all on the same level, the certainty of condemna- 
 tion but for the Saviour. 
 
 Him, the tenement of such a Soul, a fever acquired in his 
 holy visiting of the sick, laid low, and the term of his days was 
 accomplished ; there was no murmur on his part. He had done 
 what he could, and filled up the little space, for which he was 
 ordained to glorify God ; the ministration of his Master only lasted 
 three years, was not that sufficient for him also ? The example of 
 his death is even more precious than his life : he has his reward. 
 Better to die thus. 
 
 " ov 6 ©e'os (ptXet OvijoKei veos. ' 
 
 But for the poor Soul, for it there is no death : of it may be said : 
 
 " It hoped that with the brave and strong 
 
 " Its destined course might lie, 
 " To toil amidst the busy throng, 
 
 " With purpose pure and high." 
 
 Ann Beonte. 
 
 " Hei mihi ! quid feci ? unde lapsus sum ? " 
 
 It does not die like the poor clay-tenement ; it is still for ever with 
 the Lord : in its deep humility it pleads nothing in its own favour, 
 for it had only done its duty and is content. But still it pants for 
 new opportunities to save Souls : it pines for re-embodiment in another 
 weak vessel : it thinks of the hospital fever-struck patient with 
 no fellow-Christian near to whisper words of Repentance, Pardon, 
 and Peace : it is ready : can we believe, that Aeons of unemployed 
 happiness will satisfy the inexhaustible desire of the '^I'X'/ ^"d 
 lYveui^ia to do their Master's work. Can Idleness be bliss to a Soul, 
 which during its short period of embodiment was in ceaseless holy 
 activity, doing the Lord's work among his fellow-creatures ? 
 
 Another point of view is the comforting one, that being allowed 
 to tread the Earth again, a great unrepenting sinner has a chance 
 of escaping the awful penalties, whatever may be the correct ren- 
 dering of the word aiwi'iov, " for a season," as in Philemon, 15, or 
 "everlasting," "age-lasting," as in Matthew, xviii, 8. The idea, that 
 a life of a few summers, or of a few days, decides the fate of a poor 
 
ESSAYS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 145 
 
 Soul for Eternity, is too awful to be entertained. To what an extent 
 the preponderant weight of a mere dogma of a man in the Middle 
 Ages can influence good holy weak men, is evidenced by the two 
 following stanzas in the " Day of Doom," by Michael Wigglesworth, 
 which is still read in Christian New England. "Eeprobate " (in 
 the technical sense) Infants are in his poem summoned to judgment. 
 
 " Then to the Bar they all drew near, 
 
 " Who died in infancy, 
 " And never had, or good or bad, 
 
 " Effected personally." 
 
 The little children cry out, pleading their innocence, but are rebuked 
 as sinners ; every sin is a crime. 
 
 " A crime it is : therefore in bliss, 
 
 " You may not hope to dwell : 
 " But unto you I shall allow 
 
 " The easiest room in Hell." 
 
 Cases are frequent of men repenting in middle life, or in advanced 
 years, and passing from Death unto Life, because the chance was given 
 them. There is no limit to the Mercies of God ; but Justice must 
 be combined with Love. In India fifty years ago, two very young 
 ofiicers were driving home fi'om the Eegimental mess in a state 
 of intoxication ; they had not counted twenty summers, and were 
 still in the blind folly of youth, and had commenced a life of 
 profligacy. Their vehicle was upset, and one was cast out dead ; 
 the other was taken to the hospital with a compound fractm-e of 
 both legs : there he lingered under the blessed influences of a Sister 
 of the Hospital, an angel in the form of a woman, and eventually 
 came out a changed man, lived a long life of holy benevolence, and 
 then entered into his rest. Let us think of the poor lad, the thread 
 of whose life was snapped in the midst of his sins. " Nobody ever 
 spoke to me," a poor dying lad once said to a kindly visitor in 
 India, who came to soothe his last repentant hours. He had had 
 previously no chance given him, no opportunity of recovering his 
 self-control. Setting aside as impossible the idea of Everlasting 
 Torture in such, or in any, case, perhaps in a new environment 
 a better life might be spent : and the Soul of the poor lad, whose 
 body perished while still in his teens, in a new incarnation might 
 have been blessed with a fresh Revelation of Christ, and, if needs 
 be, suffer, but be patient and strong, and try to atone for past errors. 
 As long as the heart beats with Human affections, as long as the 
 Soul gives birth to Divine aspirations, this wondrous speculation 
 will be entertained. 
 
146 £SSAVS ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 " I]u}9 '^/ei'of.iijv ; TToOev eijui', 7i'uo9 'x^dpii' 7j\6ov ; a7reX6e7u; 
 
 " YIlo9 ^vuafiai tl fxa6e7v, /tirfSev iTrioTa/xevo^', 
 " Ovhev ewv 'yeuo/iitji'' TraXiv eaaopLai, wv Trdpo^ rja, 
 
 '* Ovhev, Kal ixrjCev, ru)i> juLepoTrwv to lyeVo?." 
 
 Antliologia Palatina, viii, 118. 
 
 The poor vile body is indeed mortal ; but the Soul is Immortal. 
 Shall we not say with Walter Pater (" Plato and Platonism," 
 p. 64) : " The teaching of Pythagoras, like all the graver utterances 
 " of primitive Greek Philosophy, is an instinct of the Human mind 
 " itself, and therefore a constant Tradition in Human History, 
 " which icill ever recur, fortifying this or that Soul, here or there, 
 " in a part at least of that old sanguine assurance aboiit itself" ? 
 
 To many, much that has been written in this my last Chapter may 
 appear as a dream, and it may please those, who are narrow-minded, 
 and incapable of reflection on the History of the Past, and 
 unsusceptible of Reverential Thought as to the Future, to describe 
 Chapters I and II as " the teaching of Satan," which is the 
 general description in certain Religious and Missionary circles 
 of the Religious Convictions of the Elder "World. Be it so ! 
 " Stir sum corda." 
 
 Novemler, iSgj. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Herdclitus Ponticus 
 Horatius Flaccus : Odes, I 
 Plato : Dialogues 
 Miltou : "Comus" ... 
 
 Strabo, IV 
 
 Valerius Maximus, V 
 
 Diodorus, VI 
 
 Dr. F. B. Jevons : "History of Religion" 
 
 Authoress of " Sculptured Tombs of Hellas " : Edinburgh Review, 
 
 April, 1897 ... 
 
 Shakespeare : " Measure for Measure "... 
 Virgil: "Aeneid,"VI 
 Homer: " Odyssey," XI 
 
 (Worsley's Translation of above.) 
 Virgil: "Aeneid,"VI 
 Virgil : "Aeueid," III ... 
 Ovid: "Metamorphoses" 
 Lucan : "Pharsalia" 
 Julius Caesar : " De Bello Gallico " 
 Claudian 
 
 Iiish Legend : "Book of Balimote " 
 Herodotus, II 
 Frazer : " Golden Bough " 
 Tylor : " Primitive Man " 
 Henry Stanley : " In Darkest Africa " ... 
 The New Testament 
 Bishop Lightfoot of Durham ... 
 Shechter : " Studies in Judaism " ... 
 Ezekiel, xviii 
 The New Testament 
 Gratz : "Zohur" 
 
 Josephus : " Antiquities of the Jews," " Wars of the Jews " , 
 Dr. Ginsburg : Smith's "Dictionary of Christian Biography" 
 New Testament : Romans, ix, 1 1 
 " Acta Martyrum," 1748 A.D. 
 Neander : Church History, II, 218 
 Baidawi : Commentary on " Sura," III, 165 
 Omar Khaiyyam 
 
 14 
 12 
 
 14 
 14 
 14 
 14 
 
 15 
 16 
 16 
 17 
 17 
 17 
 18 
 18 
 18 
 19 
 19 
 [19 
 [20 
 
 [21 
 
 r2i 
 
 [21 
 
 [21 
 
 [23 
 [23 
 [24 
 [24 
 [24 
 [24 
 [25 
 [25 
 
 [25 
 
32 
 
 JJ 
 
 148 ^^^^KS- ON RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Professor E. G. Browne, Pembroke College, Cambridge : " New 
 
 History of the Bab," pp. 334-8 ... ... ... 125 
 
 Mdsiiavi ... ... ... ... ... ... 126 
 
 Professor Browne : " Year amongst the Persians " ... ... 126 
 
 Satap^tha-Brahmana (" Indian Wisdom," p. 34) ... 127 
 
 Professor Rhys Davids : "Hibbert Lectures " ... 127, 135 
 
 Kaushftaki Bnihmana Upanishad ... ... ... 127 
 
 Vishnu Purdna, translated by R. N. Gust ... ... ... 128 
 
 Kalidasa : "Sakdntala" ... ... ... ... i:;i 
 
 Manu (" Indian Wisdom," p. 336) ... ... ... . ... 131 
 
 Manu, XII, iii, 40, 54, 55 ... ... ... ... 131 
 
 Gilbert :" Mikado " 
 
 Monier- Williams : " Indian Wisdom," pp. 68-9 ... 
 
 "CarivdPltaka" (Pah) ... 
 
 Professor E. B. Cowell, Cambridge : "The Jdtaka of Buddha " 
 
 (translation) 
 Professor Fausboll, Copenhagen : " The Jataka of Buddha" (text) 1 34 
 
 Professor Rhys Davids : Preface to " Nidhdna-Katha " ... 134 
 
 Professor Rhys Davids : " Manual of Buddhism " (S.P.C.K.) 135 
 Wordsworth : Ode on the " Intimations of Immortality from 
 
 Recollections of Early Childhood " ... ... ... 136 
 
 Tennyson: "Two Voices" ... ... ... ... 137 
 
 Charles Dickens: " Dombey and Son," p. 210 of Original 
 
 Edition ... ... ... ... ... ... 139 
 
 Archbishop Trench : " Day of Death" ... ... ... 139 
 
 (R. N. Gust : Latin translation of the above.) ... ... 139 
 
 "Farewell of Emperor Hadrian to his Soul " ... ... 139 
 
 (Translation of above by Pope.) ... ... ... ... 139 
 
 Poem by Mr. Lecky ... ... ... ... ... 140 
 
 Gray: " Elegy in a Country Churchyard " ... ... ... 140 
 
 New Testament : Matthew, x, 28 ... ... ... 140 
 
 Lucretius ... ... ... ... ... ... 141 
 
 Tennyson: " In Memoriam," xxxi ... ... ... 143 
 
 Ann Bronte ... ... ... ... ... ... 144 
 
 Michael Wigglesworth : " Day of Doom " ... ... 145 
 
 " Anthologia Palatina," viii, 118 ... ... ... ... 146 
 
 Walter Pater : " Plato and Platonism," p. 64 ... ... 146 
 
 BOOKS EEAD, BUT NOT QUOTED. 
 
 F. Peek : " Aeonian Metempsychosis " {Contemporcvry Revieu'). 
 " Encyclopaedia Britannica," 9th Edition. 
 Monier-Williams : " Religious Thought in India." 
 
 STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, PKINTERS, HERTFORD. 
 
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