THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA REICHERT COLLECTION PRESENTED BY SIDNEY M. EHRMAN JACK GOMPERTZ BERTHOLD GUGGENHIME EDWARD H. HELLER I. W. HELLMAN LESSING J. ROSENWALD RABBI IRVING F. REICHERT ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY COURSE OF LECTURES DELIVERED ON THE ELY FOUNDATION BEFORE THE STUDENTS OF UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK, I891 BY FRANK F. ELLINWOOD, D.D., LL.D. SECRBTARY OF THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH U. S. A.; LECTURER ON COMPARATIVE RELIGION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK FOURTH EDITION NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 191 1 Copyright, 1892, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS GIFT jQjLA^e/ju^ PREFACE The following lectures, prepared amid many cares and duties, have aimed to deal only with practical questions which are demanding attention in our time. They do not claim to constitute a treatise with close connections and a logical order. Each presents a distinct topic, or a particular phase of the present conflict of Christian truth with the er- rors of the non- Christian religions. This indepen- dent treatment must constitute my apology for an occasional repetition of important facts or opinions which have a common bearing on different discus- sions. No claim is made to scholarship in the Oriental languages. The ability to compare origi- nal sources and determine dates and intricate mean- ings of terms, or settle points in dispute by a wide research in Sanscrit or Pali literatures, can only be obtained by those who spend years in study along these special lines. But so many specialists have now made known the results of their prolonged lin- guistic studies in the form of approved English translations, that, as Professor Max Miiller has well said in his introduction to "The Sacred Books of ivi608902 Ti PEE FACE the East," " there is no longer any excuse for ignor- ance of the rich treasures of Oriental Literature." Two considerations lend special importance to the topics here discussed. First, that the false systems in question belong not merely to the past, but to our own time. And second, that the increased inter- communication of this age brings us into closer con- tact with them. They are no longer afar off and unheard of, nor are they any longer lying in passive slumber. Having received quickening influences from our Western civilization, and various degrees of sympathy from certain types of Western thought, they have become aggressive and are at our doors. On controverted points I have made frequent quo- tations, for the reason that the testimonies or opinions of writers of acknowledged competency are best given in their own words. I have labored under a profound conviction that, whatever may be the merit and success of these modest efforts, the general class of subjects treated is destined to receive increased attention in the near future ; that the Christian Church will not long be content to miscalculate the great conquest which she is attempting against the heathen systems of the East and their many alliances with the infidelity of the West. And I am cheered with a belief that, in proportion to the intelligent discrimination which PREFACE VII shall be exercised in judging of the non-Christian religions, and the skill which shall be shown in pre- senting the immensely superior truths of the Chris- tian faith, will the success of the great work of Missions be increased. It scarcely needs to be said that I have not even attempted to give anything like a complete view of the various systems of which I have spoken. Only a few salient points have been touched upon, as some practical end has required. But if the mere outline here given shall lead any to a fuller investi- gation of the subjects discussed, I shall be content. I am satisfied that the more thoroughly the Gospel of Eedemption is compared with the futile systems of self-righteousness which man has devised, the more wonderful it will appear. F. F. ELLINWOOD. Nbw Yokk, January 20, 1893. THE EL T LECTUMES--1%^1. The lectures contained in this volume were deliv- ered to the students of Union Theological Seminary in the year 1891, as one of the courses established in the Seminary by Mr. Zebulon Stiles Ely, in the fol- lowing terms : ** The undersigned gives the sum of ten thousand dollars to the Union Theological Seminary of the city of New York, to found a lectureship in the same, the title of which shall be * The ^lias P. Ely Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity.* ** The course of lectures given on this foundation is to com- prise any topics that serve to establish the proposition that Christianity is a religion from God, or that it is the perfect and final form of religion for man. ** Among the subjects discussed may be : ** The Nature and Need of a Eevelation ; *' The Character and Influence of Christ and his Apostles ; ** The Authenticity and Credibility of the Scriptures, Mira- cles, and Prophecy ; " The Diffusion and Benefits of Christianity ; and " The Philosophy of Beligion in its Kelation to the Chris- tian System. " Upon one or more of such subjects a course of ten public lectures shall be given, at least once in two or three years. The appointment of the lecturer is to be by the concurrent action of the directors and faculty of said Seminary and the undersigned ; and it shall ordinarily be made two years in ad- vance." CONTENTS LECTURE I. PAGE The Need of Understanding the False Religions . . 1 The New *' Science of Religion " to be Viewed with Discrim- ination — The Study of the Oriental Systems too Long a Monopoly of Anti-Christian Scholars — The Changed Aspects of the Missionary Work — The Significant Ex- perience of Ziegenbalz — Fears Entertained in Reference to this Subject by Timid Believers— The Different View taken of the Old Heathen Systems of Greece and Rome — The Subject Considered from the Standpoint of Mis- sionary Candidates — The Testimony of Intelligent and Experienced Missionaries — Reasons for Studying Orien- tal Systems Found in the Increased Intercourse of the Nations; in the Intellectual Quickening of Oriental Minds by Education ; in the Resistance and even Aggres- siveness of Heathen Systems ; in the Diversities of the Buddhist Faith in Different Lands — False Systems to be Studied with a Candid Spirit — The Distinction to be Drawn between Religion and Ethics — Reasons why a Missionary should Pursue these Studies before Arriving on his Field — Reasons why the Ministry at Home Should Acquaint Themselves with Heatheji Systems — Their Ac- tive Alliance with Various Forms of Western Infidelity — Intellectual Advantages to be Derived from such Studies — A Broader and Warmer Sympathy with Universal Hu- manity to be Gained — A Better Understanding of the i Unique Supremacy of the Gospel as the Only Hope of the World — Pastors at Home are also Missionaries to the Heathen — They are Sharers in the Conflict through the Press. CONTENTS LECTUKE n. PAOS The Methods op the Early Christian Church in Dealing with Heathenism 39 The Coincidences of the Present Struggle with that of the First Christian Centuries — The Mediaeval Missionary Work of a Simple Character — That of India, Japan, China, and the Turkish Empire a Severe Intellectual Struggle as well as a Spiritual Conquest— Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Islam, present Obstacles and Resistances Similar to those of Ancient Greece and Rome — How far Contrasts Appear between the Early and the Present Conquests — The Methods of Paul— His Tact in Recognizing Truth wherever Found, and Using it for his Purpose — The Attitude of the Early Christian Fathers toward the Heathen — Augustine's Acknowledg- ment of the Good which he Received from Cicero and Plato — The Important Elements which Platonism Lacked, and which were Found Only in the Gospel of Christ — The Great Secret of Power in the Early Church Found in its Moral Earnestness, as Shown by Simplicity of Life, and especially by Constancy even Unto a Mar- tyr's Death — The Contrast between the Frugality of the Early Church and the Luxury and Vice of Roman Socie- ty — The Great Need of this Element of Success at the Present Time — The Observance of a Wise Discrimination in the Estimate of Heathen Philosophy by the Great Leaders of the Early Church — The Generality with which Classical Studies were Pursued by the Sons of the more Enlightened Christian Fathers — Method Among the Leaders — The Necessity for a thorough Knowledge of the Systems to be Met, as it was then Recognized— The thorough Preparation of Augustine^ Ambrose, Irae- neus, and Others for their Work — Origen's Masterly and Successful Reply to Celsus — The Use Made by the Early Fathers and by the Churches of a Later Day, of the Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle — Heathenism thus Conquered with its Own Weapons. CONTENTS xi LECTURE III. PAGK The Successive Developments op Hinduism 73 The Great Variety in India's Religious Systems — The Early Monotheistic Nature Worship and its Gradual Lapse Into Polytheism — The Influence of Environment on the Development of Systems — The Distinction be- tween Aryanism and Brahmanism, and the Abuses of the Latter in its Doctrines of Sacrifice and Caste — The Causes which Led to the Overthrow of this System of Sacerdotalism — The Upanishads and the Beginnings of Philosophy — The Rise of Buddhism and the Six Schools of Philosophy — Points in Common between them — The Code of Manu and its Countercheck to Rationalism — Its Development and its Scope, its Merits and Demerits — The Meaning of the Word Hinduism as here Used and the Means by which it Gained Ascendency — The Place and Influence of the Two Great Hindu Epics, their Origin, the Compromise which they Wrought, and the New and Important Doctrines which They Developed — The Trimurti and the Incarnations of Vishnu — The Deterioration of the Literature and the Faith of India — The Puranas and the Tantras — The Parallels between Hinduism and Christianity. LECTURE IV. The Bhagavad Gita and the New Testament Ill The Great Interest Felt in this Poem by a Certain Class of Readers — Its Alleged Parallels to the Scriptures — The Plausibility of the Recent Translation by Mr. Mohini M. Chatter ji — Its Patronizing Catholicity — The Same Claim to Broad Charity by Chunder Sen and Others — Panthe- ism Sacrifices nothing to Charity, because God is in All Things — All Moral Responsibility Ceases since God Acts in Us — Mr. Chatterji's Broad Knowledge of Our Script- xii CONTENTS PAOB ures, and his Skill in Selecting Passages for His Pur- pose — His Pleasing Style — The Story of Krishna and Arjuna Told in the Interest of Caste and Pantheism — The Growth of the Krishna Cult from Popular Legends — The Origin of the Bhagavad Gita and its Place in the Mahabharata — Its Use of the Six Philosophies — Krish- na's Exhortation — The Issue of the Battle in which Ar- juna is Urged to Engage — The "Resemblances'* Ex- plained by their Pantheistic Interpretation — Fancied Resemblances which are only in the Sound of Words — Coincidences Springing from Similar Causes — The To- tally Different Meaning which Pantheism gives them — Difference between Union with Christ and the Pantheis- tic Pervasion of the Infinite— The Differentials of Chris- tianity. LECTURE V. Buddhism and Christianity 140 New Interest in Old Controversies Concerning Buddhism — Max Miiller's Reply to the Alleged Influence of the Sys- tem on Christianity — The Distinction to be made between the Credible History of Gautama and Later Legends — The Legends of the Pre-existent States and the Wonders Attending the Earthly Life— The Northern and the Southern Buddhism — The Sources of the Principal Legends— The Four Principal Doctrines of Buddhism, Skandas, Trishna, Kharma, and Nirvana — Difficulties in the Doctrines of Kharma and Nirvana — Various Opin- ions of Scholars in Regard to the Nature of Nirvana — Buddha's Final Reticence on the Subject— The Real Goal at which the Average Buddhist Aims— The Need of a Careful Estimate of the Merits and Demerits of Buddhism, and of the Hold which it- is likely to have on Western Minds— Its Points of Contact with Western Errors — The Fact that Modern Buddhism, like many other False Systems, Claims Christ as a Believer in its Principles— The Theory that the Life of Christ is Mod- CONTENTS xiii PAGE elled after that of the Buddha— The Superior Authen- ticity of the Life of Christ — The Unreliable Character of Buddhist Legends — The Intrinsic Improbability that a Religion claiming a Distinct Derivation from Jewish Sources would Borrow from a far-off Heathen System — The Contrast of Christ's Loving Recognition of the Father in Heaven with the Avowed Atheism of Bud- dhism—The General Spirit of the System Forbids all Thought of Borrowing from it— Points of Contrast. LECTURE VI. Mohammedanism Past and Present 178 Posthumous Legends of Mohammed ; how they were Pro- duced — Ancient Arabia and its Religious Systems — The Vale of Mecca and its Former Uses — The Birth of Mo- hammed, and his Religious Associations — His Tempera- ment and Character — The Beginnings of his Prophetic Mission — Jews and Christians in Arabia and their Influ- ence on Mohammedanism — Their Errors and Shortcom- ings a Help to the Reformer — Strange Doctrines of the Christian Church in Arabia — The Lost Opportunity of the Early Christian Sects and the Fatal Neglect of the Sur- rounding Nations — The Nomads of Arabia specially Pre- pared for Conquest by their Manner of Life and their Enlistment as Mercenary Soldiers — The Question of Mo- hammed's Real Character — The Growth of his Ambition and his Increasing Sensuality and Cruelty — Blasphemous Revelations in Behalf of the Prophet's Own Lust — Dis- criminating Judgment Required on his Career as a Whole — Mohammedan Schools — Noble Characters the Excep- tion — General Corrupting Influence of the System — Its Conquests in Northern Africa and in the Soudan — The Early Races of Northern Africa, and the General Deterioration of the Country — The Piracies of the Bar- bary States — Civilization in Modern Egypt Due to For- eigners—The Bloody Ravages of El Mahdi in the East XIV CONTENTS PAOB and the Fanatic Samadu in the West — The Testimony of a Secular Newspaper Correspondent — Professor Drum- mond and Henry M. Stanley on the Slave Traffic and Mohammedan Civilization — The Alleged Missionary Operations of Mohammedans in West Soudan — The Ac- count Given of Them by Bishop Crowther, Schwein- furth, and Others — Canon Taylor and the Egyptian Pashas— The Effects of European Education — Palgrave on Mohammedan Intolerance of To-day — Mohammedan- ism and Temperance ; Exaggerated Accounts of it ; Proofs to the Contrary — R. Bosworth Smith's Protest against Canon Taylor's Extravagant Glorification of Islam — His Plea for Missions. LECTURE Vn. The Traces of a Primitive Monotheism. Two Conflicting Theories on the History of Religion — That of the Old and New Testaments— That of Modern Evolution — The Importance of this Question — Professor Henry B. Smith's Estimate of Ebrard's Discussion of it — Ebrard's Summing-up of the Argument — Professor Naville's View of the Subject — Conclusions of Rev. W. A. P. Martin, D. D. , and Max Miiller — How far May we Attempt to Es- tablish the Fact of an Early Monotheism from Heathen Traditions ? — Conceptions Differing in Different Nations — Evidences of Monotheism in the Vedas — Professor Banergea's Testimony — The Views Held by the Modern Somajes — Monotheism in China— Monotheistic Worship in the Days of Yao and Shun, 2300 B.C.— The Prayer of an Emperor of the Ming Dynasty Quoted by Professor Legge — Remarkable Monument of Monotheism in the Temple of Heaven — A Taouist Prayers-Zoroaster a Mon- otheistic Reformer — The Inscription at Behistun — Testi- mony of the Modern Parsee Catechism — No Nation with- out some Notion of a God Supreme over All — Buddhists in Thibet — Egyptian Monotheism — The Greek Poets — CONTENTS XV PAOX Old Monotheism in Mexico and Peru — Evidences of Ramification and Decline in Polytheism— Egypt and In- dia Give Abundant Proofs— Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taouism all Show Degeneration — Mohammedan Corrup- tion since the Days of the Early Caliphs— The Religions of Greece and Rome Became Effete— Even Israel, in Spite of Instruction and Reproof, Lapsed into Idolatry again and again— Even the Christian Church has Shown Similar Tendencies. LECTURE VIII. Indirect Tributes op Heathen Systems to the Doc- trines OP THE Bible 2( The Universality and Similarity of Race Traditions— Their General Support of the Old Testament History — Tradi- tions of the Creation Found in India, China, among the Northern Turanians and some African Tribes — The Fall of Man as Traced in Assyria and among the Hindus — The Buddhists of Ceylon, Mongolians, Africans and Tahitans had Similar Traditions — The Flood — Traditions of the Chinese, the Iranians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chal- deans, and Peruvians — The Prevalence of Piacular Sac- rifice and Tokens of a Sense of Guilt— Traditions or Traces of Substitution Found in the Vedas — Faint Traces in the Religion of the Egyptians — Traditions of the Iro- quois — Prophecies Looking to Divine Deliverers — The Tenth Avatar of Vishnu yet to Come as a Restorer of Righteousness — The Influence of the Tradition as Util- ized by a Missionary — A Norse Deliverer and Millennium — The Prediction of the Cumaean Sibyl Forty Years be- fore the Birth of Christ — Prevailing Conceptions of some Mediator between God and Man — The Hindu Krishna as an Example — Changes in Buddhism from the Old Athe- ism to Theism, and even to a Doctrine of Salvation by Faith — A Trinity and at last a Saviour — All the False \ Systems Claiming the Teachings and the Character of j Christ. XVI CONTENTS LECTURE IX PAGE Ethical Tendencies op the Eastern and the West- ern Philosophies 294 The Prevalence of Speculation in all Ages in Regard to the Great Questions of Man's Origin and Destiny, and His Re- lations to God — The Various Schemes which have Seem- ingly Dispensed with the Necessity for a Creator in Ac- counting for the Existence of the Visible World— The Ancient Atomic Theories and Modern Evolution — Kan- ada, Lucretius, Herbert Spencer — Darwin's Theory of the Development of Species— Similar Theories Ascribed to the Chinese— The Ethical Difficulties Attending Many Philosophic Speculations, Ancient and Modern — Hindu Pantheism and Moral Responsibility — In the Advance from Instinct to Conscience and Religion, where does Moral Sentiment Begin ? — If It was Right for Primeval Man to Maraud, why Might not Robbery again Become His Duty in Case of Extreme Deterioration ? — Mr. Spen- cer's Theory of the Origin of Moral Intuition — The Nobler Origin which the Scriptures Assign to Man's Moral Nature — The Demonstrated Possibility of the Most Radical and Sudden Moral Changes Produced by the Christian Faith — Tendency of Ancient and Modern The- ories to Lower the General Estimate of Man — The Dig- nity with which the New Testament Invests Him — The Ethical Tendency of the Doctrine of Evolution — The Opinion Expressed on the Subject by Goldwin Smith — Peschel's Frank Admission — The Pessimistic Tendency of all Anti-Biblical Theories of Man's Origin, Life, and Destiny — Buddha, Schopenhauer, and the Agnostics — The more Hopeful Influence of the Bible — The Ten- dency of all Heathen Religions and 'all Anti - Christian Philosophies toward Fatalism — Pantheism and the Philosophy of Spinoza Agreeing in this Respect with the Hindu Vedantism — The Late Samuel Johnson's "Piety of Pantheism," and His Definition of Fatal- CONTENTS XVii PAGE ism — What Saves the Scriptural Doctrine of Fore-or- dination from Fatalism — The Province of Faith and of Trust. LECTURE X. The Divine Supremacy of the Christian Faith 338 The Claim that Christianity is the only True Religion — The \^^ Peculiar Tendencies of Modern Times to Deny this Su- ^' premacy and Monopoly — It is not Enough in Such Times to Simply Ignore the Challenge — The Unique Claim must be Defended — First: Christianity is Dif- ferentiated from all Other Religions by the Fact of a Divine Sacrifice for Sin — Mohammedanism, though Founded on a Belief in the True God and Partly on the Old Testament Teachings, Offers no Saviour — No Idea of Fatherhood is Found in any Non-Christian Faith — The Gloom of Buddhism and the Terror of Savage Tribes — Hinduism a System of Self-Help Merely — The Recognized Grandeur of the Principle of Self-Sacrifice as Reflected from Christ — Augustine Found a Way of Life only in His Divine Sacrifice — Second : No Other Faith than Christianity is Made Effectual by the Power of a Divine and Omnipotent Spirit — The Well- Attested Fact of Radical Transformations of Character — Other Systems have Made Converts only by Warlike Conquest or by Such Motives as might Appeal to the Natural Heart — Christianity Rises above all Other Systems in the Divine Personality of Christ— The Contrast in this Respect be- tween Him and the Authors of the Non-Christian Systems — His Attractions and His Power Acknowledged by all Classes of Men — The Inferiority of Socrates as Compared with Christ— Bushnell's Tribute to the Perfection of this Divine Personality — Its Power Attested in the Life of Paul — The Adaptation of Christianity to all the Circumstances and Conditions of Life — Abraham and the Vedic Patri- archs, Moses and Manu, David's Joy and Gratitude, and the Gloom of Hindu or Buddhist Philosophy — Only XViil CONTENTS PAQX Christianity Brings Man to True Penitence and Humility — The Recognized Beauty and the Convincing Lesson of the Prodigal Son — The Contrast between Mohammed's Blasphemous Suras, which Justify his Lust, and the Deep Contrition of David in the Fifty-first Psalm — The Moral Purity of the Old and New Testaments as Contrasted with all Other Sacred Books — The Scriptures Pure though Written in Ages of Corruption and Surrounded by Im- moral Influences — Christ Belongs to no Land or Age — The Gospel Alone is Adapted to all Races and all Time as the Universal Religion of Mankind — Only Christianity Recognizes the True Relation between Divine Help and Human Effort — It Encourages by Omnipotent Co-opera- tion — The All-Comprehensive Presentation of the Gos- pel. Appendix 381 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY LECTUEE I. THE NEED OF UNDERSTANDING THE FALSE RELIGIONS It is said that the very latest among the sciences is the Science of Eeligion. Without pausing to inquire how far it admits of scientific treatment, certain rea- sons which may be urged for the study of the exist- ing religions of the world will be considered in this lecture. It must be admitted in the outset that those who have been the pioneers in this field of re- search have not, as a rule, been advocates of the Christian faith. The anti-Christian theory that all religions may be traced to common causes, that com- mon wants and aspirations of mankind have led to the development of various systems according to en- vironment, has until recently been the chief spur to this class of studies. Accordingly, the religions of the world have been submitted to some preconceived philosophy of language, or ethnology, or evolution, 2 ORIENTAL MELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY with the emphasis placed upon such facts as seemed to comport with this theory. Meanwhile there has been an air of broad-minded charity in the manner in which the apologists of Oriental systems have treated the subject. They have included Christ in the same category with Plato and Confucius, and have generally placed Him at the head; and this supposed breadth of sentiment has given them a de- gree of influence with dubious and wavering Chris- tians, as well as with multitudes who are without faith of any kind. In this country the study of comparative religion has been almost entirely in the hands of non-evan- gelical writers. We have had *'The Ten Great Be- ligions," from the pen of Rev. James Freeman Clarke ; " The Oriental Religions," written with great labor by the late Samuel Johnson ; and Mr. Moncure D. Conway's " Anthology," with its flowers, gathered from the sacred books of all systems, and so chosen as to carry the implication that they all are equally inspired. Many other works designed to show that Christianity was developed from ancient sun myths, or was only a plagiarism upon the old mythologies of India, have been current among us. But strange- ly enough, the Christian Church has seemed to re- gard this subject as scarcely worthy of serious con- sideration. With the exception of a very ajble work on Buddhism,* and several review articles on Hin- duism, written by Professor S. H. Kellogg, very little has been published from the Orthodox stand- * The Light of Asia and the Light of the World. Macmillan & Co. THE STUDY OF THE FALSE BELIGIONS 3 point.* The term " heathenism " has been used as an expression of contempt, and has been applied with too little discrimination. There is a reason, perhaps, why these systems have been underestimated. It so happened that the races among whom the modem missionary enterprise has carried on its earlier work were mostly simple types of pagans, found in the wilds of America, in Greenland and Labrador, in the West Indies, on the African coast, or in the islands of the Pacific ; and these worshippers of nature or of spirits gave a very different impression from that which the Apostles and the Early Church gained from their intercourse with the conquering Romans or the polished and philosophic Greeks. Our missionary work has been symbolized, as Sir William W. Hunter puts it, by a band of half-naked savages listening to a missionary seated under a palm-tree, and receiving his message with child-like and unquestioning faith. But in the opening of free access to the great Asiatic nations, higher grades of men have been f oimd, and with these we now have chiefly to do. The pioneer of India's missions, the devoted Ziegenbalg, had not been long in his field before he learned the mistake which the churches in Europe had made in regard to the religion and philosophy of the Hindus. He laid aside all his old notions when he came to encounter the metaphysical subtleties of Hindu thought, when he learned something of the immense * The late Professor Moffat, of Princeton Theological Seminary, published a Comparative History of Religions^ but its field was too broad for a thorough treatment. 4 ORIENTAL RELIOI0N8 AND CHRISTIANITY Hindu literature, the voluminous ethics, the mysti- cal and weird mythologies, the tremendous power of tradition and social customs — when, in short, he found his way hedged up by habits of thought wholly different from his own ; and he resolved to know something of the religion which the people of India already possessed. For the benefit of others who might follow him he wrote a book on Hinduism and its relations to Chris- tianity, and sent it to Europe for publication. But so strong were the preconceived notions which pre- vailed among his brethren at home, that his manu- script, instead of being published, was suppressed. " You were not sent to India to study Hinduism," wrote Franke, "but to preach the Gospel." But Ziegenbalg certainly was not wanting in his estimate of the chief end in view, and his success was un- doubtedly far greater for the intelligent plan upon which he labored. The time came when a change had passed over the society which had sent him forth. Others, less friendly than he to the Gospel of Christ, had studied Hinduism, and had paraded it as a rival of Christianity ; and in seK-defence against this flank movement, the long-neglected work of Ziegenbalg was brought forth from obscu- rity and published. It is partly in self-defence against similar influ- ences, that the Christian Church everywhere is now turning increased attention to the' study of Compara- tive Eeligion. In Great Britain a wider interest has been felt in the subject than in this coimtry. And yet, even there the Church has been far behind the THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 5 enemies of evangelical tnith in comparing Christian- ity with false systems. Dr. James Stalker, of Glas- gow, said a few months since that, whereas it might be expected that the advocates of the true faith would be the first to compare and contrast it with the false systems of the world, the work had been left rather to those who were chiefly interested in disparaging the truth and exalting error. Yet some- thing has been done. Such men as Sir Monier Williams, Sir William Muir, Professors Rawlinson, Fairbaim, and Legge, Bishop Carpenter, Canon Hardwick, Doctors Caird, Dodds, Mitchell, and others, have given the false systems of the East a thorough and candid treatment from the Christian standpoint. The Church Missionary Society holds a lectureship devoted to the study of the non-Chris- tian religions as a preparation for missionary work. And the representatives of that Society in the Pun- jab have instituted a course of study on these lines for missionaries recently arrived, and have offered prizes for the best attainments therein. Though we are later in this field of investigation, yet here also there is springing up a new interest, and it is safe to predict that within another decade the real char- acter of the false religions will be more generally understood. The prejudice which has existed in regard to this subject has taken two different forms : First, there has been the broad assumption upon which Franke wrote to Ziegenbalg, that all knowledge of heathen- ism is worse than useless. Good men are asking, " Is not such a study a waste of energy, when we are 6 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY charged with proclaiming the only saving truth ? Is not downright earnestness better than any possible knowledge of philosophies and superstitions ? " And we answer, "Yes: by all means, if only the one is possible." Another view of the subject is more seri- ous. May there not, after all, be danger in the study of false systems? Will there not be found perplexing parallels which will shake our trust in the positive and exclusive supremacy of the Chris- tian faith ? Now, even if there were at first some risks to a simple, child-like confidence, yet a timid attitude in- volves far greater risks : it amounts to a half sur- render, and it is wholly out of place in this age of fearless and aggressive discussion, when all truth is challenged, and every form of error must be met. Moreover, in a thorough study there is no danger. Sir Monier Williams tells us that at first he was surprised and a little troubled, but in the end he was more than ever impressed with the transcendent truths of the Christian faith. Professor S. H. Kellogg assures us that the result of his careful researches in the Oriental systems is a profounder conviction of the great truths of the Gospel as divine. And even Max Miiller testifies that, while making every allow- ance for whatever is good in the ethnic faiths, he has been the more fully convinced of the great supe- riority of Christianity. Really, those are in danger who receive only the superficial and misleading rep- resentations of heathenism which one is sure to meet in our magazine literature, or in works like " Robert Elsmere " and " The Light of Asia." THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 7 One cannot fail to mark the different light in which we view the mythologies of the Greeks and Eomans. If their religious beliefs and speculations had remained a secret until our time, if the high ethical precepts of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius had only now been proclaimed, and Socrates had just been celebrated in glowing verse as the " Light of Greece," there would be no little commotion in the religious world, and thousands with only weak and troubled faith might be disturbed. But simply be- cause we thoroughly understand the mythology of Greece and Bome, we have no fear. We welcome all that it can teach us. We cordially acknowledge the virtues of Socrates and assign him his true place. We enrich the fancy and awaken the intellectual en- ergies of our youth by classical studies, and Christi- anity shines forth with new lustre by contrast with the heathen systems which it encountered in the Roman Empire ages ago. And yet that was no easy conquest. The early church, when brought face to face with the culture of Greece and the self-assertion of Roman power, when confronted with profound philosophies like those of Plato and Aristotle, with the subtleties of the Sto- ics, and with countless admixtures of Persian mys- ticism, had, humanly speaking, quite as formidable a task as those that are presented in the heathen sys- tems of to-day. Very few of the champions of mod- em heathenism can compare with Celsus, and there are no more subtle philosophies than those of ancient Greece. Evidently, the one thing needed to disen- chant the false systems of our time is a clear and ao- 8 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY curate knowledge of their merits and demerits, and of their true relation to Christianity. It will be of advantage, for one thing, if we learn to give credit to the non-Christian religions for the good which they may fairly claim. There has existed a feeling that they had no rights which Christian men were bound to respect. They have been looked upon as systems of unmixed evil, whose enormities it were impossible to exaggerate. And all such mis- conceptions and exaggerations have only led to seri- ous reactions. Anti-Christian writers have made great capital of the alleged misrepresentations which zealous friends of missions have put upon heathen- ism ; and there is always great force in any appeal for fair play, on whichever side the truth may lie. Where the popular Christian idea has presented a low view of some system, scarcely rising above the grade of fetichism, the apologists have triumphantly displayed a profound philosophy. Where the masses of Christian people have credited whole nations with no higher notions of worship than a supreme trust in senseless stocks and stones, some skilful defender has claimed that the idols were only the outward symbols of an indwelling conception of deity, and has proceeded with keen relish to point out a similar use of symbols in the pictures and images of the Christian Church. From one extreme many people have passed to another, and in the end have credited heathen sys- tems with greater merit than they possess. A marked illustration of this fact is found in the influ- ence which was produced by Sir Edwin Arnold's THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 9 "Light of Asia." Sentimental readers, passing from surprise to credulity, were ready to invest the " gen- tle Indian Saint " with Christian conceptions which no real Buddhist ever thought of. Mr. Arnold him- self is said to have expressed surprise that people should have given to his poem so serious an inter- pretation, or should have imagined for a moment that he intended to compare Buddhism with the higher and purer teachings of the New Testament. In considering some of the reasons which may be urged for the study of false systems, we will first proceed from the standpoint of the candidate for the work of missions. And here there is a broad and general reason which seems too obvious to require much argument. The skilful general or the civil engineer is supposed, of course, to survey the field of contemplated operations ere he enters upon his work. The late Dr. Duff, in urging the importance of a thorough understanding of the systems which a mis- sionary expects to encounter, illustrated his point by a reference to the great Akbar, who before entering upon the conquest of India, twice visited the country in disguise, that he might gain a complete knowledge of its topography, its strongholds, and its points of weakness, and the best methods of attack. While all religious teachers must understand their tasks, the need of special preparation is particularly urgent in the foreign missionary, owing to his change of environment. Many ideas and methods to which he has been trained, and which would serve him well among a people of his own race, might be wholly out of place in India or China. Bam Chandra Bose, M, A. 10 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY — himself a converted Braliman — has treated with great discrimination the argument frequently used, that the missionary " need only to proclaim the Glad Tidings." He says : " That the simple story of Christ and him crucified is, after all, the truth on which the regeneration of the Christian and the non-Christian lands must hang, no one will deny. This story, ever fresh, is inherently fitted to touch the dead heart into life, and to infuse vitality into effete nationalities and dead civilizations. But a great deal of rubbish has to be removed in heathen lands, ere its legitimate consequences can be realized. And a patient, persist- ent study of the false religions, and the complicated systems of philosophy associated with them, enables the missionary to throw out of the way those heaps of prejudices and errors which make it impossible for the story of the cross to reach and influence the heart." ^ It has been very wisely said that " any frag- ment of truth which lies in a heathen mind un- acknowledged is an insuperable b£irrier against con- viction : recognized and used, it might prove a help ; neglected and ignored, it is insurmountable." f The late Dr. Mullens learned by careful observa- tion, that the intellectual power of the Hindus had been so warped by false reasoning, that " they could scarcely imderstand how, when two principles are contradictory, one must be given up as false. They are prepared to receive both sides of a contradiction as true, and they feel at liberty to' adopt that which seems the most comfortable. And nothing but a full exposure of evil, with a clear statement of the * Metlwdist Quarterly, f Quoted in Manual of India Missions. THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 11 antagonistic truth, will suffice to awaken so pervert- ed an intellect." * The missionary has often been surprised to find that the idea which he supposed was clearly under- stood, was wholly warped by the medium of Hindu thought, as a rod is apparently warped when plunged into a stream, or as a beautiful countenance is dis- torted by the waves and irregularities of an imperfect mirror. To the preacher, sin, for example, is an enormity in the sight of God ; but to his Hindu listener it may be only a breach of custom, or a ceremonial uncleanness. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as it is set forth in Paul's Epistles, is to the missionary a union in which his personality is still maintained in blest fellowship with God, while to his audience it may be only that out and out pantheism in which the deity within us supplants all individual personality, and not only excludes all joy, but all re- sponsibility. Professor W. G. T. Shedd has clearly pointed out the fact that the modem missionary has a harder task in dealing with the perversions of the heathen mind than that to which the Apostles of the Early Church were called, owing to the prevalence in India and elsewhere of that pantheism which destroys the sense of moral responsibility. He says : " The Greek and Roman theism left the human will free and responsible, and thus the doctrine of sin could be taught. But the pantheistic systems of the East destroy free will, by identifying God and man ; and hence it is impossible to construct the doctrine of Manual of India Mmiom. 12 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY sin and atonement except by first refuting tlie pan* theistic ethics. The missionary can get no help from conscience in his preaching, when this theory of God and the world has the ground. But St. Paul appealed confidently * to every man's conscience in the sight of God,' and called upon the ethics and theology of the Greek and Roman philosophers for a corroboration. The early Apologists, Tertullian and others, did the same thing." The testimonies which have been given within the last few years, by the most intelligent and observing missionaries in Eastern lands, are of such peculiar significance and force, that I shall be justified in quoting a few at some length. Rev. George William Knox, D.D., of Tokio, Japan, in accepting an elec- tion to an honorary membership of the American Society of Comparative Religion, wrote, December 17, 1890 : " I am deeply in sympathy with the ob- jects of the Society, as indeed every missionary must be. We have practical demonstrations of the value of research into the ethnic religions. Even at home the value of such research has already been great, but in these non-Christian lands it is indispensa- ble. It is true that non-Christian systems, as f oimd among the people, rarely exhibit the forms or the doctrines which we learn from books, but I presimae the same would be said by an intelligent Asiatic, were he to study our sacred books and then compare results with much of the religion which calls itself Christian in the West. And yet for the study even of the most debased forms of Christianity in South America or Mexico, let us say, we must needs begin THE STUDY OF TBE 7AL8E RELIGIONS 13 with our sacred books. And so it is with debased Buddhism in Japan. The Buddhism of Ceylon and of the books is unknown to this people, and when it is used as the basis of argument or exposition we do not hit the mark. Yet, after all, our debt is immeas- urable to the societies and scholars that have made accessible the sources that have yielded at last such systems as are dominant here. *• The study of non-Christian systems is essential to the missionary, even though he does not refer to them in his preaching, but contents himself with de- livering the Gospel message. And that is the rule with missionaries, so far as I know. But a knowl- edge of the native systems is imperative, that we may properly present our own. Otherwise we waste time in teaching over again that which is already fully known, or we so speak that our truth takes on the form of error, or we so underestimate the thought of those whom we address, that the preaching of the wisdom of God sounds in their ears the preaching of foolishness. The adaptation of preaching to the hearers of Asiatic lands is a task that may well make us thankful for every help that may be furnished us. . . . The missionary is far too apt to come from the West with exalted notions of his own su- periority, and with a feeling of condescending pity for men who, perhaps, have pondered the deep things of the universe far more than he. Let him really master a philosophy like the Confucian, and he will better illustrate the Christian grace of hu- mility, and be so much the better prepared for his work. His study will show him how astonishing is 14: ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY the light that has shone upon those men whom he has thought of as wholly in darkness. It will thus show him the true way of approach, and enable him to follow the lines of least resistance. It will also reveal to him what is the essential character of the divine message which he himself bears. He will separate that peculiar and spiritual truth which is the Word of Life, and will bring it as glad tidings of great joy. Surely no man can study these ethnic faiths, no matter with what appreciation of their measure of truth, and rejoicing in it, without a con- stantly growing conviction that the one power that converts men and establishes God's kingdom on earth is the Word that is eternal, the Son of God. He gathers in Himself all the truth of all the religions, and He adds that divine Salvation and Life for which all the nations have waited, and without which the highest and deepest thought remains un- able to bring men into living communion with the God and Father of us aU." Eev. Martyn Clark, D.D., Missionary of the Church Missionary Society at Umritsur, India, has given thorough study to the Sanscrit, and has thereby been enabled to expose the fallacies and misrepresentations which the Arya Somaj, in its bitter controversy with the Gospel, has put forth as to the real charac' ter of the Vedic literature. No man is better able to judge of the importance of a correct understanding of the errors of the non-Christian systems than he. In a letter accepting an honorary membership of the above-named Society he says : " The object of the Society is one in which I am deeply interested, and THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIQIONS 15 I shall at all times do what I can to further its aims. I am convinced that there is much that is helpful to the cause of Christ to be learned in this field of research." Rev. H. Blodgett, D.D., veteran Missionary of the American Board in Peking, in accepting a similar honor, says : *^ My interest in these studies has been deep and growing. It is high time that such a so- ciety as you represent should be formed. The study of Comparative Religion has long enough been in the hands of those who hold all religions to be the outcome of the natural powers of the human mind, unaided by a revelation from God. It is time that those who believe in the revelation from God in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament founded upon the Old, should study the great ethnic relig- ions in the light derived from the Bible." Rev. James S. Dennis, D.D., long a Missionary of the Presbyterian Mission in Beyrout, Syria, says in the same connection : " The great missionary move- ment of our age has brought us face to face with problems and conflicts which are far more deep and serious than those which confront evangelistic efforts in our own land, and it is of the highest importance that the Church at home should know as fully as pos- sible the peculiar and profound difficulties of work in foreign fields. These ancient religions of the East are behind intrenchments, and they are prepared to make a desperate resistance. Those who have never come into close contact with their adherents, and dis- covered by experience the difficulty of dislodging them and convincing them of the truth of the Gos- 16 OEIENTAL BELIOIONS AND CHRISTIANITY pel, may very properly misunderstand the work of the foreign missionary and wonder at his apparent failure, or at least his slow progress. But I wonder at the success attained in the foreign field, and con- sider it far more glorious and remarkable than it is generally accounted to be. A fuller acquaintance with the strength, and resources, and local eclat, and worldly advantages of these false religions, will give the Church at home greater patience and faith in the great work of evangelizing the nations." * A specific reason for the study of the non-Chris- tian religions is found in the changes which our in- tercourse with Eastern nations has already wrought. With our present means of intercommunication we are brought face to face with them, and the contact of our higher vitality has aroused them from the com- parative slumber of ages. Even our missionary ef- forts have given new vigor to the resistance which must be encountered. We have trained up a gener- ation of men to a higher intellectual activity, and to a more earnest spirit of inquiry, and they are by no means all won over to the Christian faith. And there are thousands in India whom a Government * Similar views, thongh in briefer terms, have been presented by Rev. William A. P. Martin, D.D., of Peking ; Rev. JohnL. Nevins, D.D., of Chefou ; Rev. A. P. Happer, D.D., and Rev. B. C. Henry, D.D., of Canton ; Professor John Wortabet, M.D., of Beyrout ; Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, D.D., Missionary of the Reformed Church in Madras; Rev. Z. J. Jones. D.D., Missionary of the American M. E. Church at Bareilly, India-, Rev. K. C. Chatter- gee and Ram Chandra Bose, both converts from high caste Hinduism and both eminent ministers of the Gospel in India; And Rev. E. W. Blyden, D.D., the accomplished African scholar of Liberia. THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 17 education has left with no real faith of any kind, but whose pride of race and venerable customs is raised to a higher degree than ever. They have learned something of Christianity; they have also studied their own national systems; they have be- come especially familiar with all that our own sceptics have written against Christianity ; still further, they have added to their intellectual equipment all that Western apologists have said of the superiority of the Oriental faiths. They are thus armed at every point, and they are using our own English tongue and all our facilities for publication. How is the young missionary, who knows nothing of their systems or the real points of comparison, to deal with such men ? It is very true that not all ranks of Hindus are edu- cated ; there are millions who know nothing of any religion beyond the lowest forms of superstition, and to these we owe the duty of a simple and plain pre- sentation of Christ and Him crucified ; but in every community where the missionary is likely to live there are men of the higher class just named ; and besides, professional critics and opposers are now em- ployed to harass the bazaar preacher with perplex- ing questions, which are soon heard from the lips of the common people. A young missionary recently wrote of the surprise which he felt when a low caste man, almost without clothing, met him with argu- ments from Professor Huxley. Missionary Boards have sometimes sent out a specialist, and in some sense a champion, who should deal with the more intelligent classes of the heathen. But such a plan is fraught with disadvantages. What 2 18 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY is needed is a thorough preparation in all mission- aries, and that involves an indispensable knowledge of the forces to be met. The power of the press is no longer a monopoly of Christian lands. The Arya Somaj, of India, is now using it, both in the vernac- ular and in the English, in its bitter and often scur- rilous attacks. One of its tracts recently sent to me contained an English epitome of the arguments of Thomas Paine. The secular papers of Japan present in almost every issue some discussion on the com- parative merits of Christianity, Buddhism, Evolution, and Theosophy, and many of the young native min- istry who at first received the truth unquestioningly as a child receives it from his mother, are now call- ing for men whom they can follow as leaders in their struggle with manifold error.* Even Mohammedans are at last employing the press instead of the sword. Newspapers in Con- stantinople are exhorting the faithful to send forth missionaries to " fortify Africa against the whiskey and gunpowder of Christian commerce, by proclaim- * The Japan Mailoi September 30, 1891, in reviewing the prog- ress of religious and philosophic discussion as carried on by the native press of the Empire, says : "The Buddhist literature of the season shows plainly the extent to which the educated members of the (Buddhist) priesthood are seeking to enlarge their grasp by contact with Western philosophy and religious thought. We happen to know that a prominent priest of the Shinsu sect is deeply immersed in Comte's humanitariauipm. In Kyogaku- roushu (a native paper) are published instalments of Spencer's philosophy. Another paper, the Hauseikwai, has an article urging the desirability of a general union of all the (Buddhist) sects, such as Colonel Olcott brought about in India between the northern and the southern Buddhists." THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 19 ing the higher ethical principles of the Koran." Great institutions of learning are also maintained as the special propaganda of the Oriental religions. El Azar, established at Cairo centuries ago, now num- bers ten thousand students, and these when trained go forth to all Arabic speaking countries.* The San- skrit colleges and monasteries of Benares number scarcely less than four thousand students, f who are being trained in the Sankhyan or the Vedanta philo- sophy, that they may go back to their different prov- inces and maintain with new vigor the old faiths against the aggressions of Christianity. And in Kioto, the great religious centre of Japan, we find over against the Christian college of the American Board of Missions, a Buddhist university with a Japanese graduate of Oxford as its president. In a great school at Tokio, also, Buddhist teachers, aided by New England Unitarians, are maintaining the superiority of Buddhism over Western Christianity as a religion for Japan. ^ Another reason why the missionary should study the false systems is foimd in the greatly diversified forms which these systems present in different lands and different ages. And just here it will be seen that a partial knowledge will not meet the demand. It might be even misleading. Buddhism, for exam- ple, has assumed an endless variety of forms — now * Leaves from an Egyptian Note-hook. \ Papers of Rev. Mr. Hewlett in the Indian Evangelical Review. X In an address given in Tokio, by Rev. Mr. Knapp, of Boston, Buddhists in Japan were advised to build their religion of the future upon their own foundations, and not upon the teachings of Western propagandists. 20 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY appearing as a system of the baldest atheism, and now presenting an approximate theism. Gautama was certainly atheistic, and he virtually denied the existence of the human soul. But in the northern development of his system, theistic conceptions sprang up. A sort of trinity had appeared by the seventh century A.D., and by the tenth century a supreme and celestial Buddha had been discovered, from whom all other Buddhas were emanations. To-day there are at least twelve Buddhist sects in Japan, of which some are mystical, others pantheis- tic, while two hold a veritable doctrine of salvation by faith. ^ China has several types of Buddhism, and Mon- golia, Thibet, Nepaul, Ceylon, Burmah, and Siam present each some special features of the system. How important that one should understand these differences in order to avoid blundering, and to wisely adapt his efforts ! In India, under the common ge- neric name of Hinduism, there are also many sects : worshippers of Yishnu, worshippers of Siva, wor- shippers of Krishna. There are Sikhs, and Jains, and devil worshippers ; among the Dravidian and other pre- Aryan tribes there are victims of every conceivable superstition. Now, a missionary must know something of these faiths if he would fight with " weapons of precision." Paul, in becoming all things to all men, knew at least the differences between them. He preached the gospel with a studied adaptation. He tells us that he so strove as to win, and " not as those who * The Twdve Buddhist Sects of Japan, by Bunyiu Nanjio, Oxon. THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 21 beat the air." How alert were the combatants in the arena from which his simile is borrowed! How closely each athlete scanned his man, watched his every motion, knew if possible his every thought and impulse ! Much more, in winning the souls of darkened and misguided men, should we learn the inmost workings of their minds, their habits of thought, and the nature of the errors which are to be dislodged. But how shall the false systems of religions be studied? First, there should be a spirit of entire candor. Truth is to be sought always, and at any cost ; but in this case there is everything to be gained and nothing to be lost by the Christian teacher, and he can well afford to be just. Our divine Exemplar never hesitated to acknowledge that which was good in men of whatever nationality or creed. He could appreciate the faith of Roman or Syro-Phoenician. He could see merit in a Samaritan as well as in a Jew, and could raise even a penitent publican to the place of honor. It was only the Pharisees who hesi- tated to admit the truth, until they could calculate the probable effect of their admissions. The very best experience of missionaries has been found in the line of Christ's example. " The surest way to bring a man to acknowledge his errors," says Bishop Bloomfield, "is to give him full credit for whatever he had learned of the truth." * " What should we think," says a keen observer of the work of missions — "what should we think of an engineer who, in attempting to rear a light-house on a sand- * Quoted in Manual of India Missions, 22 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND GHRI8TIANITT bar, should fail to acknowledge as a godsend any chance outcropping of solid rock to which he might fasten his stays ? " * But in urging the duty of candor, I assume that an absolute freedom from bias is impossible on either side. It is sometimes amusing to witness the assurance with which professed agnostics assume that they, and they alone, look upon questions of comparative religion with an unbiased and judicial mind. They have no belief, they say, in any religion, and are therefore entirely without prejudice. But are they ? Has the man who has forsaken the faith of his fathers and is deeply sensible of an antagonism between him and the great majority of those about him — has he no interest in trying to substantiate his position, and justify his hostility to - the popular faith ? Of all men he is generally the most prejudiced and the most bitter. We freely admit that we set out with a decided preference for one religious sys- tem above all others, but we insist that candor is possible, though an absolutely indifferent judgment is out of the question. Paul, who quoted to the Athenians their own poet, was fair-minded, and yet no man ever arraigned heathenism so terribly as he, and none was so intensely interested in the faith which he preached. Archbishop Trench, in discussing the exaggerations from which a careful study of the Oriental religions would doubtless save us, says, " There is one against which we are almost unwilling to say a word. I mean the exaggeration of those who, in a deep devo- * Quoted in Manual of India Missions, THE STUDY OF TEE FALSE RELIGIONS 23 tion to the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, count themselves bound, by their allegiance to Him, to take up a hostile attitude to everything not dis- tinctly and avowedly Christian, as though any other position were a treachery to his cause, and a sur- render of his exclusive right to the authorship of all the good which is in the world. In this temper we may dwell only on the guilt and misery and defile- ments, the wounds and bruises and putrefying sores of the heathen world ; or if aught better is brought under our eye, we may look askant and suspiciously upon it, as though all recognition of it were a dis- paragement of something better. And so we may come to regard the fairest deeds of unbaptized men as only more splendid sins. We may have a short but decisive formula by which to try and by which to condemn them. These deeds, we may say, were not of faith, and therefore they could not please God ; the men that wrought them knew not Christ, and therefore their work was worthless — hay, straw, and stubble, to be utterly burned up in the day of the trial of every man's work. " Yet there is indeed a certain narrowness of view, out of which alone the language of so sweeping a condemnation could proceed. Our allegiance to Christ, as the one fountain of light and life for the world, demands that we affirm none to be good but Him, allow no goodness save that which has pro- ceeded from Him ; but it does not demand that we deny goodness, because of the place where we find it, because we meet it, a garden tree, in the wilderness. It only requires that we claim this for Him who 24 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY planted, and was willing that it should grow there ; whom it would itself have gladly owned as its author, if, belonging to a happier time, it could have known Him by his name, whom in part it knew by his power. "We do not make much of a light of nature when we admit a righteousness in those to whom in the days of their flesh the Gospel had not come. We only affirm that the Word, though not as yet dwelling among us, yet being the ' light which light- eth every man that cometh into the world,' had also lighted them. Some glimpses of his beams gilded their countenances, and gave to these whatever brightness they wore; and in recognizing this brightness we are ascribing honor to Him, and not to them ; glorifying the grace of God, and not the virtues of man." "^ In marked contrast with this, and tending to an extreme, is the following, from the pen of Bishop Beveridge. It is quoted by Max Miiller, in the open- ing volume of " The Sacred Books of the East," as a model of candor. " The general inclinations which are naturally im- planted in my soul to some religion, it is impossible for me to shift off; but there being such a multi- plicity of religions in the world, I desire now seri- ously to consider with myself which of them all to restrain these my general inclinations to. And the reason of this my inquiry is not, that I am in the least dissatisfied with that religion I have already embraced; but because 'tis natural for all men to have an overbearing opinion and esteem for that * HvJsean Lectures. 1846. THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 25 particular religion they are bom and bred-up in. That, therefore, I may not seem biased by the preju- dice of education, I am resolved to prove and exam- ine them all ; that I may see and hold fast to that which is best. . . . Indeed, there was never any religion so barbarous and diabolical, but it was pre- ferred above all other religions whatsoever by them that did profess it ; otherwise they would not have professed it. . . . And why, say they, may you not be mistaken as well as we? Especially when there are, at least, six to one against your Christian religion ; all of which think they serve God aright ; and expect happiness thereby as well as you. . . . And hence it is that in my looking out for the truest religion, being conscious to myself how great an as- cendancy Christianity holds over me beyond the rest, as being that religion whereunto I was born and baptized; that the supreme authority has en- joined and my parents educated me in ; that which everyone I meet withal highly approves of, and which I myseK havej by a long-continued profes- sion, made almost natural to me ; I am resolved to be more jealous and suspicious of this religion than of the rest, and be sure not to entertain it any longer without being convinced by solid and sub- stantial arguments of the truth and certainty of it. That, therefore, I may make diligent and impartial inquiry into all religions and so be sure to find out the best, I shall for a time look upon myself as one not at all interested in any particular religion whatsoever, much less in the Christian religion ; but only as one who desires, in general, to serve and 26 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY obey Him that made me in a right mamier, and thereby to be made partaker of that happiness my nature is capable of." * Second, in studying the false systems it is im- portant to distinguish between religion and ethics. In the sphere of ethics the different faiths of men may find much common ground, while in their relig- ious elements they may be entirely true or utterly false. The teachings of Confucius, though agnostic, presented a moral code which places the relations of the family and state on a very firm basis. And the yery highest precepts of Buddhism belong to the period in which it was virtually atheistic. Many great and noble truths have been revealed to man- kind through the conscience and the understanding, and these truths have found expression in the prov- erbs or ethical maxims of all races. To this extent God has nowhere left himseK without witness. But all this is quite apart from a divinely revealed religion which may be cherished or be wholly lost. The golden rule is found not only in the New Tes- tament, but negatively at least in the Confucian clas- sics ; f and the Shastras of the Hindus present it in both the positive and the negative form. And the still higher grace of doing good to those who injure us, was proclaimed by Laotze, five hundred years before Christ preached the Sermon on the Mount. * Private Thoughts on Religion, Parti., Article 2. f Confucius not only taught that men should not do to others what they would not have done to them, but when one of his dis- ciples asked him to name one word which should represent the whole duty of man, he replied ' ' Reciprocity. " THE STUDY OF THE FAL8E BELIQI0N8 27 The immense superiority of the ethical standard in Christianity, lies in its harmony and complete- ness. Confucius taught the active virtues of life, Laotze those of a passive kind ; Christianity incul- cates both. In heathenism ethical truths exist in fragments — mere haK truths, like the broken and scattered remains of a temple once beautiful but now destroyed. They hold no relation to any high re- ligious purpose, because they have no intelligent relation to God. Christian ethics begin with our relations to God as supreme, and they embrace the present life and the world to come. The symmetry of the divine precept, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thy- self," finds no counterpart in the false religions of the world. Nowhere else, not even in Buddhism, is found the perfect law of love. The great secret of power in Christianity is God's unspeakable love to men in Christ ; and the reflex of that love is the highest and purest ever realized in human hearts. Thirdly, the false systems should be studied by the Christian missionary, not for their own sakes so much as for an ulterior purpose, and they should be studied in constant comparison with the religion which it is his business to proclaim. His aim is not that of a savant. Let us not disguise it : he is mainly endeavoring to gain a more thorough prep- aration for his own great work. The professional scholar at Oxford or Leipsic might condemn this acknowledged bias-^this pursuit of truth as a means and not as an end — but if he would be entirely frank, be WQuld pften find himself working in the 28 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY interest of a linguistic theory, or a pet hypothesis of social science. It was in this spirit that Spen- cer and Darwin have searched the world for facts to support their systems. * I repeat, it is enough for the missionary that he shall be thoroughly candid. He may exercise the burning zeal of Paul for the Gospel which he pro- claims, if he will also exercise his clear discrimina- tion, his scrupulous fairness, his courtesy, and his tact. Let him not forget that he is studying religions comparatively ; he should proceed with the Bible in one hand, and should examine the true and the false together. Contrasts will appear step by step as he advances, and the great truths of Christianity will stand out in brighter radiance, for the shadows of the background. If the question be asked, when and where shall the missionary candidate study the false systems, I answer at once ; before he leaves his native land ; and I assign three principal reasons. First : The study of a new and difficult language should en- gross his attention when he reaches his field. This will prove one of the most formidable tasks of his life, and it will demand resolute, concentrated, and prolonged effort. Second : In gaining access to the people, studying their ways and winning their confi- * Whoever will read the Preface of Mr. Spencer's work on So- ciology will be surprised at the means which have been used in collecting and verifying supposed facts ; a careful perusal of the book will show that all classes of testimony have been ac- cepted, so far as they were favorable. Adventurers, reporters, sailors, and that upon the briefest and most casual observation, have been deemed capable of interpreting tlie religious beliefs of men. Even Peschel doubts many of their conclusions. THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 29 dence, the missionary will find great advantage in having gained some previous knowledge of their habits of thought and the intricacies of their beliefs. Third : The means and appliances of study are far greater here at home than on the mission fields. A very serious difficulty with most missionaries is the want of books on special topics ; they have no access to libraries, and if one has imagined that he can best understand the faiths of the people by personal contact with them, he will soon learn with surprise how little he can gain from them, and how little they themselves know of their own systems. Those who do know have learned for the purpose of baffliag the missionary instead of helping him. The ac- cumulation and the arrangement of anything like a systematic knowledge of heathen systems has cost the combined effort of many missionaries and many Oriental scholars ; and now, after three generations have pursued these studies, it is still felt that very much is to be learned from literatures yet to be translated. Such as there are, are best found in the home libraries. Let us for a few moments consider the question how far those who are not to become missionaries may be profited by a study of false systems. To a large extent, the considerations already urged will ap- ply to them also, but there are still others which are specially important to public teachers here at home. Pean Murray, in an able article published in the "Homiletic Keview" of September, 1890, recom- mended to active and careworn pastors a continued study of the Greek classics, as calculated to refresh 30 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND GHRISTIANITT and invigorate tlie mind, and increase its capacity for the duties of whatever sphere. All that he said of the Greek may also be said of the Hindu classics, with the added consideration that in the latter we are dealing with the living issues of the day. Sir Mo- nier Williams, in comparing the two great Epics of the Hindus with those of Homer, names many points of superiority in the former.^ It is safe to say that no poems of any other land have ever exercised so great a spell over so many millions of mankind as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, of India, and no other production is listened to with such delight as the story of Eama as it is still publicly read at the Hindu festivals. Of philosophies, no system of India has ap- proached so near to veritable divine revelation as that of Plato, but in variety and subtlety, and in their far-reaching influence upon human life, the Indian schools, especially the Vedanta, are scarcely excelled to this day. And they are applied philos- ophies ; they constitute the religion of the people. Max Miiller has said truly that no other line of investigation is so fascinating as that which deals with the long and universal struggle of mankind to find out God, and to solve the mystery of their rela- tions to him. Unfortunately, himian history has dealt mainly with wars and intrigues, and the rise and fall of dynasties ; but compared with these coarse and superficial elements, how much more interest- ing and instructive to trace in all races of men the common and ceaseless yearnings after some solution See Indian Wisdom. THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 31 of life's mysteries ! One is stirred with a deeper, broader sympathy for mankind when he witnesses this universal sense of dependence, this fear and trembling before the powers of an unseen world, this pitiful procession of unblest millions ever trooping on toward the goal of death and oblivion. And from this standpoint, as from no other, may one measure the greatness and glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To my mind there is nothing more pathetic than the spectacle of world-wide fetichism. It is not to be contemplated with derision, but with profoundest sympathy. We all remember the pathos of Scott's picture of his Highland heroine, with brain disor- dered by unspeakable grief, beguiling her woes with childish ornaments of " gaudy broom " and plumes from the eagle's wing. But sadder far is the specta- cle of millions of men made for fellowship with God, building their hopes on the divinity dwelling in an amulet of tiger's teeth or serpent's fangs or curious shells. And it ought to enlarge our natures with a Christ-like sympathy when we contemplate those dark and desperate faiths which are but nightmares of the soul, which see in all the universe only malevolent spirits to be appeased, which, looking heavenward for a father's face, see, as Kichter ex- pressed it, "only a death's head with bottomless, empty sockets " instead of a loving smile. ''^ * Archbishop Trench, after speaking in his Hulsean lectures of the advantages which we may gain from an earnest study of the struggles of thoughtful men, who amid heathen darkness have groped after a knowledge of the true God, and of the gratitude 32 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND GERISTIANITT And what a field do the greater but equally false systems present for the study of the human mind and heart ! How was it that the simple nature wor- ship of the Indo- Aryans grew into the vast deposit of modem Hinduism, and developed those social customs which have become walls of adamant ? How could Buddhism grow out of such a soil and finally cast its spell over so many peoples ? What were the elements of power which enabled the great sage of China to rear a social and political fabric which has survived for so many centuries ? How was it that Islam gained its conquests, and what is the secret of that dominion which it still holds ? These surely are questions worthy of those who are called to deal with human thought and human destiny. And when by comparison we find the grand differentials which raise Christianity infinitely above them all, we shall have gained the power of presenting its truths more clearly and more convincingly to the minds and hearts of men. There are some specific advantages flowing from the study of other religions of which I will give little more than an enumeration. which we ought to feel who have received a more sure word of prophecy, adds in words of rare beauty : *' And perhaps it shall seem to us as if that star in the natural heavens which guided those Eastern sages from their distant home, was but the symbol of many a star which, in the world's mystical night, such as, be- ing faithfully followed, availed to lead humble and devout hearts from far-off regions of superstition and error, till they knelt be- side the cradle of the Babe of Bethlehem, and saw all their weary wanderings repaid in a moment, and all their desires finding a perfect fulfilment in Him." THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 33 1. It impresses us with the universality of some more or less distinct conception of God. I am aware that from time to time explorers imagine that they have found a race of men who have no notion of God, but in almost every instance subsequent investigation has found a religious belief. Such mistakes were made concerning the aborigines of Australia, the Dyaks of Borneo, the Papuans, the Patagonians, and even the American Indians. The unity of the race finds a new and striking proof in the universality of religion. 2. The study of false systems brings to light an almost unanimous testimony for the existence of a vague primeval monotheism, and thus affords a strong presumptive corroboration of the Scriptural doctrine of man's apostasy from the worship of the true God. 3. The clearest vindication of the severities of the Old Testament Theocracy, in its wars of extermina- tion against the Canaanites and Phoenicians, is to be found in a careful study of the foul and cruel types of heathenism which those nations carried with them wherever their colonies extended. A religion which enjoined universal prostitution, and led thus to sod- omy and the burning of yoimg children in the fires of Moloch, far exceeded the worst heathenism of Africa or the islands of the Pacific. The Phoenician settlements on the Mediterranean have not even yet recovered from the moral blight of that religion ; and had such a cultus been allowed to spread over all Europe and the world, not even a second Deluge could have cleansed the earth of its defilement. The extermination of the Canaanites, when considered as 8 34 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY a part of one great scheme for establishing in that same Palestine a purer and nobler faith, and sending forth thence, not Phoenician corruption, but the Gos- pel of Peace to all lands, becomes a work of mercy to the human race. 4. The ethics of the heathen will be found to vin- dicate the doctrines of the Bible. This is a point which should be more thoroughly understood. It has been common to parade the high moral maxims of heathen systems as proofs against the exclusive claims of Christianity. But when carefully consid- ered, the lofty ethical truths found in all sacred books and traditions, corroborate the doctrines of the Scriptures. They condemn the nations " who hold the truth in unrighteousness." They enforce the great doctrine that by their own consciences all mankind are convicted of sin, and are in need of a vicarious righteousness, — a full and free salvation by a divine power. My own experience has been, and it is corroborated by that of many others, that very many truths of the Gospel, when seen from the stand-point of heathenism, stand out with a clearness never seen before. Many prudential reasons like those which we have given for the study of false systems by mis- sionaries, pertain also to those who remain at home. Both are concerned in the same cause, and both en- counter the same assailments of our common faith. We are all missionaries in an important sense : we watch the conflict from afar, but we are concerned in all its issues. The bulletins of its battle-fields are no longer confined to missionary literature ; they are THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 35 found in the daily secular press, and they are dis- cussed with favorable or unfavorable comments in the monthly magazines. The missionary enterprise has come to attract great attention: it has many friends, and also many foes, here at home ; it is mis- represented by scoffers at our doors. The high merits of heathen systems, set forth with every de- gree of exaggeration, pass into the hands of Chris- tian families, in books and magazines and secular papers. Apostles of infidelity are sent out to heathen coimtries to gather weapons against the truth. Natives of various Oriental lands, once taught in our mission schools perhaps, but still heathen, are paraded on our lecture platforms, where they entertain us with English and American argu- ments in support of their heathen systems and against Christianity. Young pastors, in the literary clubs of their various communities, are surprised by being called to discuss plausible papers on Bud- dhism, which some fellow-member has contributed, and they are expected to defend the truth. Or some young parishioner has been fascinated by a plausible Theosophist, or has learned from Robert Elsmere that there are other religions quite as pure and sacred as our own. Or some chance lecturer has disturbed the community with a discourse on the history of religious myths. And when some anx- ious member of a church learns that his religious instructor has no help for him on such subjects, that they lie wholly outside of his range, there is apt to be something more than disappointment : there is a loss of confidence. 36 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND 0HRI8TIANITT It is an unfortimate element in the case that error is more welcome in some of our professedly neutral papers than the truth : an article designed to show that Christianity was borrowed from Buddhism or was developed from fetichism will sometimes be wel- comed as a new sensation, while a reply of half the length may be rejected. There is something ominous in these facts. Whether the secular press (not all papers are thus unfair) are influenced by partisan hatred of the truth or simply by a reckless regard for whatever is most popular, the facts are equally portentous. And if it be true that such publications are what the people most desire, the outlook for our country is dark in- deed. The saddest consideration is that the power of the secular press is so vast and far reaching. When Celsus wrote, books were few. When Vol- taire, Hume, and Thomas Paine made their assail- ments on the Christian faith, the means of spreading the blight of error were comparatively few. But now the accumulated arguments of German infidels for the last half -century may be thrown into a five-cent Sunday paper, whose issue will reach a quarter of a million of copies, which perhaps a million of men and women may read. These articles are copied into a hundred other papers, and they are read in the villages and hamlets ; they are read on the ranches and in the mining camps where no sermon is ever heard. It is perfectly evident that in an age like this we cannot propagate Christianity under glass. It must grow in the open field where the free winds of heaven THE STUDY OF THE FALSE RELIGIONS 37 shall smite and dissipate every cloud of error that may pass over it, and where its roots shall only strike the deeper for the questionings and conflicts that may often befall it. Error cannot be overcome either by ignoring it or by the cheap but imbecile scolding of an ignorant pulpit. I cannot express the truth on this point more forcibly than by quoting the trenchant words of Pro- fessor Ernest Naville, in his lectures on "Modem Atheism." After having admitted that one, who can keep himself far from the strifes and struggles of modem thought, will find solitude, prayer, and calm activity, pursued under the guidance of conscience, most conducive to unquestioning faith and religious peace, he says : " But we are not masters of our own ways, and the circumstances of the present times im- pose on us special duties. The barriers which sepa- rate the school and the world are everywhere thrown down; everywhere shreds of philosophy, and very often of very bad philosophy, scattered fragments of theological science, and very often of a deplorable theological science, are insinuating themselves into the current literature. There is not a literary re- view, there is scarcely a political journal, which does not speak on occasion, or without occasion, of the problems relating to our eternal interests. The most sacred beliefs are attacked every day in the or- gans of public opinion. At such a juncture can men, who preserve faith in their own souls, remain like dimib dogs, or keep themselves shut up in the nar- row limits of the schools? Assuredly not. We must descend to the common ground and fight with 38 ORIENTAL BELIOIONS AND CHRISTIANITY equal weapons the great battles of thought. Foi this purpose it is necessary to state questions which run the risk of startling sincerely religious persons. But there is no help for it if we are to combat the adyersaries on their own ground ; and because it is thus only that we can prove to all that the torrent of negations is but a passing rush of waters, which, fret as they may in their channels, shall be found to have left not so much as a trace of their passage upon the Kock of Ages." The fact that Professor Naville's lectures were delivered in Geneva and Lausanne, to audiences which together numbered over two thou- sand five hundred people, affords abundant proof that the people are prepared to welcome the relief afforded by a clear and really able discussion of these burning questions. In the ordinary teaching of the pulpit they would be out of place, but every public teacher should be able to deal with them on suitable occasions. In a single concluding word, the struggle of truth and error has become world-wide. There are no ethnic religions now. There is Christianity in Cal- cutta, and there is Buddhism in Boston. The line of battle is the parallel that belts the globe. It is not a time for slumber or for mere pious denunciation. There must be no blundering : the warfare must be waged with weapons of precision, and then victory is sure. It is well if our missionary effort of a century has drawn the fire of the enemy ; it is well if the time has come to hold up the truth face to face with error, and to fight out and over again the conflict of Elijah and the Priests of Baal. LECTUEE n. THE METHODS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN DEALING WITH HEATHENISM The coincidences of our present conquest of the non-Christian races with that to which the Apostolic Church was called are numerous and striking. Not even one hundred years ago was the struggle with heathen error so similar to that of the early Church. To a great extent the missionary efforts of the mediaeval centuries encountered only crude systems, which it was comparatively easy to overcome. The rude tribes of Northern Europe were converted by the Christianity of the later Roman Empire, even though they were conquerors. Their gods of war and brute force did not meet all the demands of life. As a source of hope and comfort, their religion had little to be compared with the Christian faith, and as to philosophy they had none. They had inherited the simple nature worship which was common to all branches of the Aiyan race, and they had expanded it into various ramifications of polytheism ; but they had not fortified it with subtle speculations like those of the Indo- Aryans, nor had their mythologies become intrenched in inveterate custom, and the na- tional pride which attends an advanced civilization. At a later day Christian missionaries in Britain 40 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND GHRISTIANITT found the Norse religion of the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, scarcely holding the confidence of either rulers or subjects. They had valued their gods chiefly for the purposes of war, and they had not always proved reliable. The king of Northumbria, like Clovis of France, had vowed to exchange his deities for the God of the Christians if victory should be given him on a certain battle-field ; and when he had assembled his thanes to listen to a dis- cussion between the missionary Paulinus and the priests of Woden on the comparative merits of their respective faiths, the high priest frankly admitted his dissatisfaction with a religion which he had found utterly disappointing and useless ; and when other chief counsellors had given the same testimony, and a unanimous vote had been taken to adopt the Chris- tian faith, he was the first to commence the destruc- tion of the idols.* The still earlier missionaries among the Druid Celts of Britain and France, though they found in Druidism a more elaborate faith than that of the Norsemen, encountered no such resistance as we find in the great religious systems of our day. Where can we point to so easy a conquest as that of Patrick in Ireland, or that of the Monks of lona among the Picts and Scots ? The Druids claimed that they already had many things in common with the Christian doctrines, f and what was a still stronger element in the case, they * The Norsemen, Maclear. f The Druid bard Taliesen says: '* Christ, the Word from the beginning, was from the beginning our teacher, and we never METHODS OF THE EARLY GHURGH 41 made common cause with the Christians against the wrongs inflicted on both by pagan Rome. The Ro- man emperors were not more determined to extir- pate the hated and, as they thought, dangerous in- fluences of Christianity, than they were to destroy every vestige of Druidism as their only hope of con- quering the invincible armies of Boadicea. And thus the mutual experience of common sufferings opened a wide door for the advancement of Christian truth. The conquests of Welsh and Irish missionaries in Burgundy, Switzerland, and Germany, encountered no elaborate book religions, and no profoimd philos- ophies. They had to deal with races of men who were formidable only with weapons of warfare, and who, intent chiefly on conquest and migration, had few institutions and no written historic records. The peaceful sceptre of the truth was a new force in their experience, and the sympathetic and seK-deny- ing labors of a few missionaries tamed the fierce Vikings to whom Britain had become a prey, and whose incursions even the armies of Charlemagne could not resist. How different is our struggle with the races now under the sceptre of Islam, for example — ^inflated as they are with the pride of wide conquest, and look- ing contemptuously upon that Christian faith which it was their early mission to sweep away as a form of idolatry ! How different is our task in India, which boasts the antiquity of the noble Sanskrit and lost His teaching. Christianity was a new thing in Asia, but there never was a time when the Druids of Britain held not its doc- trines." — St. Paid in Britain, p. 86. 42 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY its sacred literature, and claims, as the true represent- ative of the Aryan race, to have given to western nations their philosophy, their religion, and their civilization! How much more difficult is our en- counter with Confucianism, which claims to have laid the foundations of the most stable structure of social and political institutions that the world has ever known, and which to-day, after twenty-five centuries of trial, appeals to the intellectual pride of all intel- ligent classes in a great empire of four hundred millions ! And finally, how different is our task with Buddhism, so mystical and abstruse, so lofty in many of its precepts, and yet so cold and thin, so flexible and easily adapted, and therefore so varied and many sided! The religious systems with which we are now confronted find their counterparts only in the heathenism with which the early Church had to deal many centuries ago ; and for this reason the history of those early struggles is full of practical instruction for us now. How did the early Church succeed in its great conquest ? What methods were adopted, and with what measures of success? In one respect there is a wide difference in the two cases. The Apostles were attempting to convert their conquerors. They belonged to the vanquished race ; they were of a despised nationality. The early fathers also were subjects of Pagan powers. Inso- much as the Eoman emperors claimed divine honors, there was an element of treason in their propagan- dism. The terrible persecutions which so long de- vastated the early Church found their supposed justification in the plea of seK-defence against a METHODS OF THE EARLY CHURGH 43 system which threatened to subvert cherished and time - honored institutions. Candid writers, like Archdeacon Farrar, admit that Christianity did hasten the overthrow of the Roman Empire. But we find no conquering powers in our pathway. Christianity and Christian civilization have become dominant in the earth. The weakness of the Chris- tian Church in its conquests now is not in being baf- fled and crippled by tyranny and persecution, but rather in the temptation to arrogance and the abuse of superior power, in the overbearing spirit shown in the diplomacy of Christian nations and the un- scrupulous aggressions of their commerce. There is also a further contrast in the fact that in the early days the advantages of frugality and simple habits of life were on the side of the missionaries. Roman society especially was beginning to suffer that decay which is the inevitable consequence of long-contin- ued luxury, while the Church observed temperance in all things and excelled in the virtues which al- ways tend to moral and social victory.* On the other hand, we who are the ambassadors to the heathen of to-day, are ourselves exposed to the dangers which result from wealth and excessive lux- ury. Our grade of life, our scale of expenditure, even the style in which our missionaries live, excites the amazement of the frugal heathen to whom they preach. And as for the Church at home, it is hardly safe for a Persian or a Chinaman to see it. Every- one who visits this wonderful el dorado carries back such romantic impressions as excite in others, not so * Uhlhorn's Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism. 44 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY much the love of the Gospel as the love of mammon. When the Church went forth in comparative pov- erty, and with an intense moral earnestness, to preach righteousness, temperance, and the judgment to come ; when those who were wealthy gave all to the poor — like Anthony of Egypt, Jerome, Ambrose, and Francis of Assisi — and in simple garments bore the Gospel to those who were surfeited with luxu- ries and pleasures, and were sick of a life of mere indulgence, then the truth of the Gospel conquered heathenism with all that the world could give. But whether a Church in the advanced civilization of our land and time, possessed of enormous wealth, enjoying every luxury, and ever anxious to gain more and more of this present world, can convert heathen races who deem themselves more frugal, more tem- perate, and less worldly than we, is a problem which remains to be solved. We have rare facilities, but we have great drawbacks. God's grace can over- come even our defects, and He has promised suc- cess. But in the proud intellectual character of the sys- tems encountered respectively by the ancient and by the modem Church, there are remarkable parallels. The supercilious pride of Brahminism, or the lofty scorn of Mohammedanism, is quite equal to that self- sufficient Greek philosophy in whose eyes the Gos- pel was the merest foolishness. And the immovable self - righteousness of the Stoics- has its counter- part in the Confucianism of the Chinese literati. A careful comparison of the six schools of Hindu philosophy with the various systems of Greece and METHODS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 45 Borne, will fill the mind with surprise at the numer- ous correspondences — one might almost say iden- tities. And that surprise is the greater from the fact that no proof exists that either has been bor- rowed from the other. The atomic theory of creation advanced by Lucre- tius is found also in the Nyaya philosophy of the Hindus. The pessimism of Pliny and Marcus Au- relius was much more elaborately worked out by Gautama. The Hindus had their categories and their syllogisms as well as Aristotle. The concep- tion of a dual principle in deity which the early Church traced in all the religious systems of Egypt, Phoenicia, and Assyria, and whose influence poisoned the life of the Phoenician colonies, and was so cor- rupting to the morals of Greece and Eome, was also elaborated by the Sankhya philosophy of Ka- pila, and it has plunged Hindu society into as deep a degradation as could be found in Pompeii or Her- culaneum.* The Indian philosophy partook far more of the pantheistic element than that of Greece. Plato and Aristotle had clearer conceptions of the personality of the deity and of the distinct and re- sponsible character of the human soul than any school of Hindu philosophers — certainly clearer than the Vedantists, and their ethics involved a stronger sense of sin. German philosophy has borrowed its pantheism from India rather than from Greece, and in its most * The same dualism of the male and the female principle is found in the Shinto of Japan. See Chamberlain's translation of the Kojiki. 46 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY shadowy developments it has never transcended the ancient Vedantism of Vyasa. As in the early centuries, so in our time, different systems of religion have been commingled and inter- woven into protean forms of error more difficult to understand and dislodge than any one of the faiths and philosophies of which they were combined. As the Alexandrian Jews intertwined the teachings of Judaism and Platonism ; as Manichaeans and Gnos- tics corrupted the truths of the Old and New Testa- ments with ideas borrowed from Persian mysticism ; as various eclectic systems gathered up all types of thought which the wide conquests of the Eoman Em- pire brought together, and mingled them with Chris- tian teachings ; so now the increased, intercommuni- cation, and the quickened intellectual activity of our age have led to the fusion of different systems, an- cient and modem, in a negative and nerveless reli- gion of humanity. We now have in the East not only Indian, but Anglo-Indian, speculations. The unbelieving Calcutta graduate has Hegel and Spi- noza interwoven with his Vedantism, and the eclectic leader of the Brahmo Somaj, while placing Christ at the head of the prophets and recognizing the au- thority of all sacred bibles of the races, called on Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Mohammedans to unite in one theistic church of the New Dispensation in India. Not even the old Gnostics could present so striking an admixture as that of the Arya Somaj. It has appropriated many of those Christian ethics which have been learned from a century of contact with missionaries and other Christian residents. It METHODS OF THE EARLY OHJJROH 47 has approved the more humane customs and reforms of Christendom, denouncing caste, and the degra- dation of woman. It has repudiated the corrupt rites and the degrading superstitions of Hinduism. At the same time its hatred of the Christian faith is most bitter and intense. And there are other alliances, not a few, between the East and the West. In India and Japan the old Buddhism is compounded with American Spirit- ualism and with modem Evolution, under a new ap- plication of the ancient name of Theosophy. In Japan representatives of advanced Unitarianism are exhorting the Japanese Buddhists to build the re- ligion of the future on their old foundations, and to avoid the propagandists of western Christianity. The bland and easy-going catholicity which pro- fesses so much in our day, which embraces all faiths and unfaiths in one sweet emulsion of meaningless negations, which patronizes the Christ and His doc- trines, and applies the nomenclature of Christianity to doctrines the very opposite of its teachings, finds a counterpart in the smooth and vapid compromises of the old Gnostics. " Gnosticism," says Uhlhom, "combined Greek philosophies, Jewish theology, and ancient Oriental theosophy, thus forming great systems of speculative thought, all with the object of displaying the world's development. From a panthe- istic First Cause, Gnosticism traced the emanation of a series of aeons — beings of Light. The source of evil was supposed to be matter, which in this material world holds light in captivity. To liberate the light and thus redeem the world, Christ came, 48 ORIENTAL BELIQIONS AND CHRISTIANITY and thus Christianity was added as the crowning and victorious element in this many-sided system of speculation. But Christ was regarded not so much as a Saviour of individual souls as an emancipator of a disordered kosmos, and the system which seemed to accord great honor to Christianity threatened to destroy its life and power." So, according to some of our Modem Systems, men are to find their future salvation in the grander future of the race.* Not only do we encounter mixtures of truth and error, but we witness similar attempts to prove that whatever is best in Christianity was borrowed from heathenism. Porphyry and others maintained that Pythagoras and Theosebius had anticipated many of the attributes and deeds of Christ, and Philostratus was prompted by the wife of Severus to write a his- tory of Appolonius of Tyana which should match the life of Christ. And in precisely the same way it has been variously claimed in our time that the story of Christ's birth, childhood, and ministry were borrowed from Buddha and from Krishna, and that the whole conception of his vicarious suffering for the good of men is a clever imitation of Prometheus Bound. Now, in the earlier conflict it was important to know the facts on both sides in order to meet these allegations of Porphyry, Marinus, and others, and it is equally important to understand the pre- cise ground on which similar charges are made with * The late George Eliot has given expression to this grim sol- ace, and Mr. John Fiske, in his Destiny of Man, claims that the goal of all life, from the first development of the primordial cell, is the perfected future man. METHODS OF THE EARLY OHUBGH 49 equal assurance now.* The very same old battles are to be fought over again, both with philosophy and with legend. And it is very evident that, with so many points of similarity between the early struggle of Chris- tianity with heathenism and that of our own time, it is quite worth our labor to inquire what were the general methods then pursued. Then victory >crowned the efforts of the Church. That which hu- manly speaking seemed impossible, was actually ac- complished. From our finite standpoint, no more preposterous command was ever given than that which Christ gave to his little company of disciples gathered in the mountains of Galilee, or that last word before his ascension on Mt. Olivet, in which He placed under their responsible stewardship, not only Jerusalem, but all Judea and Samaria, and the " uttermost parts of the earth." The disciples were without learning or social influence, or political power. They had no wealth and few facilities, and so far as they knew there were no open doors. They were hated by their Jewish countrymen, ridiculed by the ubiquitous and cultured Greeks, and frowned upon by the conquering powers of Eome. How then did they succeed ? How was it that in three or four centuries they had virtually emptied the * Voltaire found great delight in the so-called Ezour Veda, a work which claimed to be an ancient Veda containing the essen- tial truths of the Bible. The distinguished French infidel was humbled, however, when it turned out that the book was the pious fraud of a Jesuit missionary who has hoped thus to win the Hindus to Christianity. 4 50 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY Eoman Pantheon of its heathen deities, and had gained the sceptre of the empire and the world ? It is easy to misapprehend the forces which won the victory. The disciples first chosen to found the Church were fishermen, but that affords no warrant for the belief that only untutored men were em- ployed in the early Church, or for the inference that the Salvation Army are to gain the conquest now. They were inspired ; these are not ; and a few only were chosen, with the very aim of setting at naught the intolerant wisdom of the Pharisees. But when the Gospel was to be borne to heathen races, to the great nations whose arrogance was proportionate to their learning and their power, a very different man was selected. Saul of Tarsus had almost every needed qualification seen from a human point of view. Standing, as he must, between the stiff big- otry of Judaism and the subtleties of Greek philos- ophy, he was fortunately familiar with both. He was a man of rare courtesy, and yet of matchless courage. Whether addressing a Jewish governor or the assembled philosophers and counsellors of Athens, he evinced an unfailing tact. He knew how to conciliate even a common mob of heathen idola- tors and when to defy a high priest, or plead the immunities of his Eoman citizenship before a Eo- man proconsul. In tracing the methods of the early Church in dealing with heathenism, we begin, therefore, with Paul ; for although he was differentiated from all modem parallels by the fact that he was inspired and endowed with miraculous power, yet that does METHODS OF THE EARLY CHUBGH 51 not invalidate the force of those general principles of action which he illustrated. He was the first and greatest of all missionaries, and through all time it will be safe and profitable to study his characteris- tics and his methods. He showed the value of thorough training in his own faith, and of a full un- derstanding of all the errors he was to contend with. He could reason with Jews out of their own Scrip- tures, or substantiate his position with Greeks by citing their own poets. He was certainly uncom- promising in maintaining the sovereignty of the one God, Jehovah, but he was not afraid to admit that in their blind way the heathen were also groping after the same supreme Father of all. The un- known God at Athens he accepted as an adumbra- tion of Him whom he proclaimed, and every candid reader must admit that in quoting the words of Aj-atus, which represent Zeus as the supreme creator whose offspring we are, he conveys the impression of a real resemblance, if not a partial and obscured identity. The essential principle here is that Paul frankly acknowledged whatever glimpses of truth he found in heathen systems, and made free use of them in presenting the fuller and clearer knowledge revealed in the Gospel. No man ever presented a more terri- ble arraignment of heathenism than that which he makes in the first chapter of his epistle to the Ro- mans, and yet, with marvellous discrimination he proceeds, in the second chapter, to show how much of truth God has imparted to the understandings and the consciences of all men. And he seems to 62 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND GHRISTIANITT imply the Holy Spirit's regenerative work through Christ's atonement, when he maintains that whoever shall, "by patient continuance in well doing, seek glory and immortality," to him shall " eternal life " be given; but "tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." Peter was not prepared to be a missionary till he had been divested of his Jewish narrowness by witnessing the power of grace in the Roman centurion at Cesarea. That widened out his horizon immensely. He saw that God in his ulti- mate plan was no respecter of persons or of races. There has been great difference of opinion as to whether the annual worship of the supreme God of Heaven in the great imperial temple at Peking is in any degree a relic of the worship of the true God once revealed to mankind. Such Chinese scholars as Martin and Legge and Douglass think that it is ; others deny it. Some men raise a question whether the Allah of the Mohammedan faith is identical with the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Sales, the pro- foundest expositor of Islam, considers him the same. Moslems themselves have no doubt of it : the intent of the Koran is that and nothing else ; Old Testament teachings are interwoven with almost every sura of its pages. I think that Paul would have conceded this point at once, and would the more successfully have urged the claims of Jesus, whom the Koran presents as the only sinless prophet. , Of course Mo- hammedans do not recognize the Triune God as we now apprehend Him, from the New Testament stand- point; neither did ancient believers of Israel fully METHODS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 53 conceive of God as He has since been more fully re- vealed in the person and the sacrifice of his Son — Jesus Christ. Both the teachings and the example of Paul seem to recognize the fact that conceptions of God, some- times clear and sometimes dim, may exist among heathen nations ; and many of the great Christian fathers evidently took the same view. They admitted that Plato's noble teachings were calculated to draw the soul toward God, though they revealed no real access to Him such as is found in Christ. Arch- bishop Trench, in his Hulsean lectures on " Christ the Desire of the Nations," dwells approvingly upon Augustine's well-known statement, that he had been turned from vice to an inspiring conception of God by reading the " Hortensius " of Cicero. Augustine's own reference to the fact is found in the fourth book of his "Confessions," where he says: "In the ordi- nary course of study I fell upon a certain book of Cicero whose speech almost all admire — not so his heart. This book contains an exhortation to philos- ophy, and is called " Hortensius." But this book al- tered my affections and turned my prayers to Thy- seK, O Lord, and made me have other purposes and desires. Every vain hope at once became worth- less to me, and I longed with an incredible burning desire for an immortality of wisdom, and began now to arise that I might return to Thee. For not to sharpen my tongue did I employ that book : nor did it infuse into me its style, but its matter." The " Hortensius " of Cicero has not survived till our time, and we know not what it contained ; but 54 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY we cannot fail to notice this testimony of a mature and eminent saint to the spiritual benefit which he had received at the age of thirty-one, from reading the works of a heathen philosopher. And a most interesting proof is here furnished for the freedom with which the Spirit of God works upon the hearts of men, and the great variety of means and agencies which He employs, — and that beyond the pale of the Christian Church, and even beyond the actual knowledge of the historic Christ. It would be interesting to know whether the regeneration of Augustine occurred just then, when he says in such strong language, that this book altered his affections and turned his prayers unto God, and made him " long with an indescribable burning desire for an immortality of wisdom." All men are saved, if at all, by the blood of Christ through the renewing of the Holy Ghost ; but what was the position of such men as Augustine and Cornelius of Cesarea before they fully and clearly saw Jesus as the actual Mes- siah, and as the personal representative of that Grace of God in which they had already reposed a general faith, is at least an interesting question. Not less positive is the acknowledgment which Augustine makes of the benefits which he had re- ceived from Plato. And he mentions many others, as Virgininus, Lactantius, Hilary, and Cyprian, who, like himseK, having once been heathen and students of heathen philosophy, had, as Jie expresses it, "spoiled the Egyptians, bringing away with them rich treasures from the land of bondage, that they might adorn therewith the true tabernacle of the METHODS OF THE EARLY CHVROH 55 Christian faith." Augustine seems to have been fond of repeating both this argument and this his favorite illustration. In his " Doctrine of Christ " he expands it more fully than in his " Confessions." He says : " Whatever those called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, may have said conformable to our faith, is not only not to be dreaded, but is to be claimed from them as unlawful possessors, to our use. For, as the Egyptians not only had idols and heavy burdens which the people of Israel were to abhor and avoid, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver and apparel which that people at its de- parture from Egypt privily assumed for a better use, not on its own authority but at the command of God, the very Egyptians unwittingly furnishing the things which themselves used not well ; so all the teaching of the Gentiles not only hath feigned and superstitious devices, and heavy burdens of a useless toil, which we severally, as under the leading of Christ we go forth out of the fellowship of the Gen- tiles, ought to abhor and avoid, but it also containeth liberal arts, fitter for the service of truth, and some nost useful moral precepts ; as also there are found among them some truths concerning the worship of the One God Himself, as it were their gold and sil- ver which they did not themselves form, but drew from certain veins of Divine Providence running throughout, and which they perversely and wrong- fully abuse to the service of demons. These, the Christian, when he severs himself from their wretched fellowship, ought to take from them for the right use of preaching of the Gospel. For what else have 56 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY many excellent members of our faith done ? See we not how richly laden with gold and silver and ap- parel that most persuasive teacher and most blessed martyr, Cyprian, departed out of Egypt? Or Lac- tantius, or Victorinus, Optatus, Hilary, not to speak of the living, and Greeks innumerable ? And this, Moses himself, that most faithful servant of God, first did, of whom it is written, that * he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.' " Let us for a moment pause and see of what these treasures of Egypt consisted, and especially what Plato taught concerning God. Like Socrates, he ridiculed the absurd but popular notion that the gods could be full of human imperfections, could make war upon each other, could engage in intrigues, and be guilty of base passions. And he earnestly maintained that it was demoralizing to children and youth to hold up such beings as objects of worship. Such was his condemnation of what he considered false gods. He was equally opposed to the idea that there is no God. " All things," he says, " are from God, and not from some spontaneous and unintelli- gent cause." " Now, that which is created," he adds, " must of necessity be created by some cause — but how can we find out the Father and maker of all this universe ? If the world indeed be fair, and the artificer good, then He must have looked to that which is external — for the world is the fairest of creatures, as He is the best of causes." Plato's representation of the mercy of God, of his providential care, of his unmixed goodness, of his eternal beauty and holiness — are well-nigh up to the METHODS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 57 New Testament standard. So is also his doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The fatal deficiency- is that he does not knoio. He has received no divine revelation. " We will wait," he said in another passage, " for one, be it a god or a god-inspired man, to teach us our religious duties, and as Athene in Homer says to Diomede, to take away the darkness from our eyes." And in still another place he adds : " We must lay hold of the best human opinion in order that, borne by it as on a raft, we may sail over the dangerous sea of life, unless we can find a stronger boat, or some word of God which will more surely and safely carry us" ^ There is a deep pathos in the question which I have just quoted, " How can we find out the Father and maker of all this universe? " And in the last sentence quoted, Plato seems to have felt his way to the very threshold of the revelation of Christ.f * Quoted by Ulilhorn in The Conflict of Christianity with Heath- enism, p. 70. He also quotes Seneca as saying: *'0h, if one only might have a guide to truth I " f Plato showed by his writings and his whole life that he was a true seeker after the knowledge of God, whom he identified with the highest good. Though he believed in an eflBcient creatorship, he held that matter is eternal. Ideas are also eternal, but the world is generated. He was not a Pantheist, as he clear- ly placed God outside of, or above, the universe. He regarded the soul of man as possessed of reason, moral sensibility, and appe- tite. On the doctrine of future immortality Plato was most emphatic. He also believed that the soul in a previous state had been pure and sinless, but had fallen. He taught that recovery from this fallen condition is to be accomplished by the pursuit of phi- losophy and the practice of virtue (not as merit but as discipline), by contemplating the highest ideal which is the character of God, 58 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY Augustine shows a discrimination on this subject too important to be overlooked, when he declares that while the noble philosophy of the Platonists turned his thoughts away from his low gratifications to the contemplation of an infinite God, it left him helpless. He was profited both by what philos- ophy taught him and by what it could not teach : it created wants which it could not satisfy. In short, he was prepared by its very deficiencies to see in stronger contrast the all-satisfying fulness of the Gospel of Eternal Life. Plato could tell him noth- ing of any real plan of redemption, and he confesses and by thinking of eternity. Plato regarded suffering as disci- plinary when properly improved. True philosophy may raise the soul above the fear of death. This was proved by Socrates. Both Socrates and Plato seemed to believe in a good demon (spirit) whose voice was a salutary and beneficent guide. As to eschatol- ogy, Plato looked forward to a heaven where the virtuous soul shall dwell in the presence of God, and in the enjoyment of pure delights. Aristotle's idea of God was scarcely less exalted than that of Plato. He expressed it thus : '* The principle of life is in God ; for energy of mind constitutes life, and God is this energy. He, the first mover, imparts motion and pursues the work of creation as something that is loved. His course of life must be similar to what is most excellent in our own short career. But he exists forever in this excellence, whereas this is impossible for us. His pleasure consists in the exercise of his essential energy, and on this account vigilance, wakefulness, and perception are most agreeable to him. Again, the more we examine God's nature the more wonderful does it appear to us. He is an eternal and most excellent being. He is indivisible,