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3 1924 068 919 889 
 
RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE WOELD 
 
*' A netc Caiholieity has dawned upon the world. All religiont are now recognized as eaaentUiUy 
 2>tt>in& They repretent the different angles at which man look* at God. Queiitions of origin, poUm'Cs 
 aa to evideneetf erudite dieaeriaiioiia concerning formula, are ditappearing, becauae religiom are no 
 longer judged by their eupposed accordance with the letter of the £ihle, but by their ability to mitiiater to 
 the wante and fulfil the aepiratione of men. The individual, what can it make of him ? At U raitet or 
 debatiea, jmr^ee or corruplt, flll» with happinesa or tormentt with fear, to it it judged to accord with 
 the IHvine will. The credentials of the Hivine origin of every religion are to be found in the heartt and 
 livet of those who believe it. The old intolerance has disappeared, and the old indifference, which 
 succeeded it, has well-7iigh disappeared also. The new tolerance qf faith recognizes at Divine all the 
 creeds which have enabled men to overcome their bestial appetites with visions of things tpiritual and 
 etemal."-~JJJXV/ZU8jLh Review, December, 1888. 
 
RELIGIOTJS SYSTEMS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE WOELD 
 
 National, Cf)cistian, anD lPi)ilo0opbic 
 
 A COLLECTION OP 
 
 ADDEESSES DELIVERED AT SOUTH PLACE INSTITUTE 
 
 IN 1888-89 
 
 BETI8ED, AND IN SOME CASKS EB-WEITTEN, BY THE AUTH0B8 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. 
 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1890 
 
Prtetedby Hazell, Wataon, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, 
 
In compliance with current 
 copyright law, LBS Archival 
 
 Products produced this 
 
 replacement volume on paper 
 
 that meets the ANSI Standard 
 
 Z39.48-1984 to replace die 
 
 irreparably deteriorated 
 
 original. 
 
 1992 
 (So) 
 
PEE PACE. 
 
 " In proportion a* we love truth more and vietory lett, we ihall become anxiout to knote 
 what it ie which lead* our opponenie to think (u thetf do. We ehall begin to tutpect that the pertinacity 
 ofbelifS exhibited by them mutt reeull from a perception of tomething we hMX not perceived. And ice 
 ehall aim to mpplement the portion of truth we have found with the portion found by them." — 
 Hekbeht S?iircsB, Firtt Trinciplei, paxt of § 3. 
 
 r I iHIS volume is published in response to requests from 
 -J- numerous friends who desired to have, in a permanent form, 
 the Lectures delivered on Sunday Afternoons at South Place 
 Institute, during 1888-89, on " Centtes of Spiritual Activity" 
 and " Phases of Eeligious Development." 
 
 These Lectures were first designed to explain and illustrate 
 the different Eeligious Movements of the day, for though most 
 thinking persons are fully persuaded of their own belief they are 
 often unable to understand the standpoint of others equally 
 earnest, and thus fail to do justice to men of different creeds. 
 After the current divisions of Christianity and Modem Ethical 
 Philosophies had been treated, it was thought that Ancient 
 Eeligious Systems might also be profitably studied in the same 
 manner, especially as the general public have very little opportunity 
 of becoming acquainted with them, and not unfrequently mistake 
 their mere accidents, or outward observances, for their spirit and 
 substance. 
 
 It has not been possible, unfortunately, to reproduce the whole 
 of the Lectures, some having been given extempore, and the 
 publication having only been decided upon towards the close of 
 the series. 
 
 Some of the lecturers have been so kind as to re-write their 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 Lectures expressly for this volume, whilst, in the case of one 
 or two, recourse has been had to The Inquirer report, for the 
 substance of the Lecture. The article on "The Quaker Refor- 
 mation" has been specially written for this publication; and 
 thanks are due to Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton for permission 
 to use Canon Rawlinson's Lecture. 
 
 Mr. B. F. C. Costelloe wishes it to be understood that he had 
 not the opportunity of revising the final proof sheets of "The 
 Mass ; " and that in consequence certain errors have crept in. 
 A note of these will be found in the Appendix, p. 561. 
 
 The willingness with which the various lecturers came forward, 
 without fee or reward, to speak on his or her special topic, to 
 audiences not always sympathetic ; and in some cases at the risk, 
 almost certainty, of offending their own co-religionists ; and the 
 sympathy expressed by several eminent men, who from various 
 causes were vmable to take a personal part in the course, have 
 been very encouraging to those who made the arrangements. 
 
 It is hoped that the larger reading public to whom this volume 
 is now ofifered will appreciate as highly as the audiences to 
 whom the Lectures were originally addressed the catholic spirit 
 which devised the scheme, and the ability with which it was 
 carried out. 
 
 WILLIAM SHEOWRING, 1 Hon. &«. 
 
 InaiUute 
 
 CONRAD W. THIES, / a^^Hluee. 
 
 SoTTTH Place Institute. 
 
 } 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 ^ THEJ2PMM0^' fiROBNg_QE^THE RELIQIOU S ) 
 
 Edimrd Clodd 
 
 George Itawlimon 
 
 IF. St. Chad. Boscawen 
 
 Sentiment .... 
 ( Tt^t: T;^FjjQioji_ ^p THE Ass yrians . ' . 
 The Religion of Babylonia . 
 Confucius the Sage and the Religion ) ^ 
 
 OF CHINA 1 •^'^'"** ^'0^' 
 
 Taoism F. H. Balfmir 
 
 The Obiqin of the Spieitual Activityn 
 
 developed in Buddhism as it exists !• Samuel Beal 
 
 in China ) 
 
 Shint6ism Isabella Bird (_Mrt. Buhop) 
 
 The Religions op Japan . . . . C. Pfcmndea . 
 
 Hinduism Sir Alfred C. Lyall , 
 
 Old Indian Poetky and Religious) „ „ 
 
 _ > -'"'■«• Predertka Macdonald 
 
 Thought j 
 
 Buddha and Buddhism .... Mrs. Frederilia Macdonald 
 
 Buddhism in Christianity . . . Arthur LilUe 
 
 The Pabsi Religion Dadalhai Naoroji 
 
 Sikhism Frederio Pincott . 
 
 Jewish Ethics Morris Joseph 
 
 The Jews in Modern Times . . . B. W. Marks 
 
 MithbAISM John M. Jlobertson 
 
 MUHAMMADANISM G. W. Leitner . 
 
 Teutonic Heathendom . . . . F. York Powell . 
 
 -Th e_ Myths of Chbistm astide . . . B. Bithell . 
 
 The Chuech Catholic . . . . B. F. C. Costelloe 
 
 The Mass B. F. C. Costelloe 
 
 The New Chuech, called Swedenboegian Thomas Child 
 
 The Religion of Dante . -, . . Oscar Browning . 
 
 9 
 
 27 
 
 40 
 63 
 
 73 
 
 89 
 101 
 108 
 
 112 
 
 130 
 147 
 172 
 184 
 197 
 212 
 225 
 249 
 283 
 294 
 307 
 329 
 350 
 355 
 
VUl 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 .] 
 
 The Chttech op England . 
 
 The tjNlTABIANS 
 
 konconpoemity 
 
 Methodism 
 
 Independency, oe Local Chuech Goveen- 
 MENT 
 
 The Place of Baptists in the Evolution ) 
 op British Chbistianity . 
 
 The Qdakee Eepormation 
 
 Thomas Chalmers 
 
 Theism 
 
 Spinoza 
 
 Humanity 
 
 Mysticism 
 
 Esoteric Buddhism . 
 
 The Gospel op Secularism 
 A. The Ethical Movement ..Pepi ned 
 _ [ A National Church . 
 
 George U. Curteis 
 Henry W. Orosskey 
 J. Allanson Pioton 
 Mrs. Sheldon Airuis 
 
 Edward White . 
 
 John Clifford 
 
 William Pollard . 
 David Fotheringham 
 Charles Voysey . 
 Sir Frederieh Pollock 
 Frederic Harrison 
 W. S. Lilly . 
 A. P. Sinnett 
 6. W. ihote . 
 Stanton Coit 
 Arthur W. Button 
 
 372 
 376 
 396 
 409 
 
 419 
 
 426 
 
 444 
 4C5 
 473 
 485 
 602 
 506 
 516 
 525 
 531 
 545 
 
 APPENDIX 568 
 
NATIOl^AL RELIGIOl^S. 
 
EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD, 
 
 THE COMMON GEOUND OF THE EELIGIOUS 
 
 SENTIMENT. 
 
 BY EDWARD CLODD.' 
 
 A GLANCE at the syllabus of lectures to which the present is 
 designed as introductory, still more at the schedule of sects in 
 WhUaker'a Almanack, numbering about two hundred and forty- 
 all of whom, the Jews excepted, from " Adventists " to " Wiggan's 
 Evangelistic Mission," profess and call themselves Christians — may 
 remind us of Voltaire's famous taunt that there are thirty religions 
 in England, but only one sauce. 
 
 Closer analysis, however, will show that these sects have certain 
 essential elements in common, into which, " for we have this 
 treasure in earthen vessels," other elements have intruded, defiling 
 their purity and obscuring their nature, but giving to each sect 
 its raison d'etre. Thus it is that the various theological parties 
 have been so anxious to justify their existence, with lamentable 
 waste of effort, in striving to prove one another in the wrong, 
 that the larger question of " things commonly believed among " 
 them has been too often ignored. If the world, especially that 
 vast area of it which is printed in black on the missionary maps, is 
 in such parlous state as the preachers tell us, they might well sink 
 their differences and join their forces against the common enemy 
 of souls. 
 
 In looking down the list of lectures ' thus far announced, we 
 may take credit for sufficient acquaintance with the doctrines and 
 
 ' As the notes of this lecture were not kept, the substance of it has been written 
 from memory with the help of a brief report which appeared in the " Daily Chro- 
 nicle," January 2ncl, ] 888. 
 
 ' This list was afterwards much extended to include lectures on past and present 
 non-Christian religions, and on certain systems of philosophy. 
 
 1 
 
2 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 polity of each religious body to assume what the several exponents 
 have to say, and therefore to dissever fundamentals from accidentals. 
 And it may be no profitless task to seek amidst overlying material 
 for some common principle, to ask whether Newton Hall is or is 
 not entitled to be included, with the Brompton Oratory and 
 jNIr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle, in the list of " Centres of Spiritual 
 Activity ; "• and whether Mr. Frederic Harrison, who, under 
 less favourable circumstances for the healthy discipline of his 
 emotions, might have been a Methodist local preacher or even a 
 captain in the Salvation Army, is not entitled to be classed with 
 ]\Ir. Lilly and Mr. Spurgeon as a spiritually-minded man. 
 
 It is clear that that title cannot be granted in common on the 
 ground of the submission of such men to the same authority. The 
 majority of the lecturers will appeal to the Bible. Now, apart 
 from the difficulty that the miscellaneous writings which make up 
 that book are of uncertain authorship and date, and, as the many 
 sects evidence, of disputed and unsettled meaning, the modern 
 Berean is troubled by this further difficulty, that the essence of 
 Revelation lies in its making known what man otherwise could 
 not have known, and that it tells it in language so clear — a kind 
 of Volapiik which all of any age and any race may read — that 
 there cannot be two opinions about its meaning. That Bible, 
 Koran, Vedas, lYipitaka, Adi-Granth, or any other sacred litera- 
 itures fulfil these conditions may be contended by their several 
 ioflicial expounders, and may win the assent of the indolently 
 i credulous, but to men of sane and lucid soul the assumption is 
 really astounding. And the pity of it is that the genuine and 
 abiding value of these venerable books is obscured by the fictitious 
 value imparted to them, because their priceless worth is in the 
 experience of " men of like passions with ourselves " which they 
 embody, and in the light which they throw on the high-water 
 mark of knowledge reached by the ages in which they were 
 written. They are the materialists who thus make these records 
 of man's speculations and strivings " of none effect," under whose 
 hermeneutic scalpel the spirit escapes, and the letter, dead and 
 useless, remains. The Church of Rome offers refuge from the 
 dilemma created by the varying deliverances of the sects by con- 
 stituting herself the interpreter of Revelation. Vox Ecclesioe vox 
 Dei, and be her major premiss granted the further course of the 
 believer is untroubled. But as her claim rests on the interpreta- 
 tions which she gives to certain passages of Scripture, and on one 
 or two marvellous assumptions behind them, it has no weight with 
 those who reject Revelation. For those who accept it the fact 
 should not be blinked that there is no logical standpoint short of 
 entering her communion . But even the rigidity of which she makes 
 
■COMMON GROUND OF THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 
 
 "boast, as the vicegerent of Him " with whom is no variableness 
 neither shadow of turning," is a fiction. Like the lesser organiza- 
 I'ions — all of them direct or indirect seceders from her — she has 
 maintained her hold from time to time by politic concessions, and 
 by ingenious adaptations to new conditions brought about through 
 advance in knowledge. Until our own time no positions of fresh 
 importance have had to be yielded. The abandonment of the 
 statements of Scripture as to the earth's supreme position in the 
 universe, and as to its rapid creation in time, at the demand of 
 -astronomy and geology, did not involve the surrender of any 
 fundamental dogma. The Church did not thereby, to quote 
 part of the witty epitaph on ]jord Westbury's famous judgment, 
 ■" deprive the orthodox believer of his sure and certain hope of 
 eternal damnation." 
 
 But the demands of palaeontology and anthropology are more 
 serious. They have not brought peace, but a sword. No inge-| 
 nuity of reconcilers, fertile as this has shown itself in resource, 
 ■cim^annohTze^¥¥tSfem^nrinrC!^nesrs, empMsized'iii the'Pauline 
 Ep^les/tEat pain and death came intothe world as the punishment 
 ■of Adam's transgression, with the evidence which the rocks supply 
 •as to the existence of strife aind death ages before man appeared. 
 No such ingenuitycan_harmonize the sta£ements''in Grenesis, as to 
 man's pristine pumyand relatively advanced condition, with the 
 teeming evidence fomished by every part of the earth as to his 
 primitive state being one of savagery, from which favourable con- 
 ditions have enabled a minority to emerge. With this refutation of 
 the theory of the fall of man, the scheme of his Redemption through 
 -Jesus Christ, which is the fundamental part of Christian Theology, 
 vanishes into thin air. 
 
 '• The cusses an' the promerses make one gret chain, an' ef 
 You snake one link out here, one there, how much on't 'ud be lef ? " 
 
 It is this which the Churches have to face ; which none of them 
 have yet faced with frankness. Did dogmas and outworn beliefs die 
 because evidence and argument have done their best, this would 
 have died forty years ago, when M. Boucher de Perthes unearthed 
 his flint implements in the Somme valley. But beliefs do not 
 perish thus. They perish under the slow and silent operation of 
 changes to which they fail to adapt themselves. The atmosphere 
 is altered, the organism cannot respond, and therefore it dies. ' 
 Thus has perished belief in witchcraft, thus is slowly perishing 
 belief in miracles, and, with this, belief in the supernatural 
 generally, as commonly and coarsely defined. 
 
 All these changes the age notes with sympathetic eye. For 
 it is not a flippant, but an earnest, age. It has no sympathy with 
 
4 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD, 
 
 criticism that is destructive only, or with ridicule or ribaldry 
 as modes of attack on current beliefs. It knows that they have 
 a necessary place in the evolution of ideas, that they are capable 
 of explanation, and traceable from birth to full development 
 by the scientific method which is applied to every historical 
 inquiry. Hence we have the modem science of comparative 
 theology, with its Hibbert Lectures, Grififord Lectures, which are 
 critical, as opposed to Bampton Lectures and Hulse Lectures, 
 which are apologetic. It sees that just as man in a savage or 
 barbarous state made use of like materials for the supply of his 
 bodily needs, so his mental processes are identical, his explanations- 
 of phenomena very much the same at corresponding levels of 
 culture. Hence it is that as we find traces of a Stone Age all the 
 world over, so we find traces of fetichism underlying animism,, 
 all the world over. 
 
 Thus much has been said in endeavour to show that the Bible 
 and other sacred books do not afford the common ground of 
 which we are in search. 
 
 Does Theology ? defining this as including man's notions about 
 god or gods, and his relations with them, amongst every race, and 
 throughout all time, since man had faculty of thought upon such 
 matters. To trace the history of the evolution of ideas of spiritual 
 beings is to trace the history of man's intellectual development. 
 Pru nitive th eolog y is primitive science ; it is the outcome of man's 
 first efiorts to explain the nature^of his surroundings, and of the 
 divers influences which affect him for good, and, still more, for 
 ill, as the malignant character of deities amongst lower races 
 shows. His gods have been, still largely are, projections of him- 
 self; he details their shape and size, their parts and passions, 
 their daily life, advancing in his conception or presentment 
 of them from crude animism to the higher spiritualism as his own 
 ideas have become loftier and purer. But, hide them as we may, 
 the differences between the gods of the lower and the higher 
 culture from the polytheistic stage to the so-called monotheistic 
 stage are differences of degree and not of kind, the common 
 element in them being the ascription of personality with resulting 
 human qualities. The reproach of old may be addressed to Theist 
 ' and Tri-theist to-day : " Thou tboughtest that I was altogether 
 such an one as thyself." And with truth says Epicurus : " The 
 impious man is not he who denies the existence of gods like those 
 commonly worshipped; the impious man is he who asserts the 
 gods to be such as the vulgar conceive them." 
 
 Well, the more a man considers these things and sees that 
 neither sacred books nor theories of deity afford common ground 
 of agreement, while at the same time he notes what abounding 
 
€OMMON GEOUND OF THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 5 
 
 zeal and earnestness the various religious denominations manifest, 
 the more anxious is he to find some basis of unity between those 
 •whose aim is the same — to make men good and unselfish, noble 
 and gentle. 
 
 In wliat, then, does the religious sentiment consist ? Many 
 definitions of Religion have been attempted, with as little success 
 -as attempted definitions of Life. Well that this is so, for that 
 which is capable of analysis has the seeds of dissolution within. 
 Still, some general meaning may be attached to a term which 
 <iesignates what must remain fluent and uncrystallized. Matthew 
 Arnold, in his revolt against anthropomorphism, disentangled 
 religion from all dogma, and defined it as " morality touched by 
 emotion." This is good as far as it goes, and it will be hard to find 
 a better definition, if under the word " emotion " we include that 
 feeling of mystery and reverence which is awakened by perception 
 of our limitations; and the conception of an ideal highest and 
 best, the striving after which quickens man's sense of duty and 
 moves him to action. 
 
 Let us then see whether it be feasible or not to find ultimate 
 ground of unity vn reverence deepened, and right conduct made 
 possible, by knowledge. 
 
 S cience d oe&Jiot.empty the univers e of mystery . hsX only of th e 
 pse udo-mysteries which a,re-<^he product ^^, o f ..a ges when, any c on- 
 cepti9Pi,aoJLcBPdeily,jelat.inTir\Ka§,jagLgos^^^^ Its main concern is 
 to interpret the facts which man gaffi!iers from observation and 
 experience, and to abstain from assertion or denial respecting any- 
 thing beyond its ken. Since it can throw no light on the genesis 
 of matter or motion ; on the beginnings of life, which to it is not 
 one whit less mysterious than the beginnings of the crystal, the 
 ultimate causes which quicken the corpuscles into pulsation being 
 as unknown as those which lock the dead atoms in angular embrace ; 
 or on the connection between thought and its accompanying 
 changes in nerve-tissue ; it brings us face to face with the deep 
 secret of the universe, before which, if a man feel not awed and 
 silenced, no legends of speaking asses, floating axeheads, and 
 ■dead restored to life can move him. 
 
 " Imagination is, after all, but a poor matter when it has to part 
 company with the Understanding, and even front it hostilely in 
 flat contradiction," says Carlyle ; and with such admissions of 
 ignorance on its lips. Science is the more insistent on the 
 necessity of disciplining the imagination which it in no wise seeks 
 to repress. This discipline can be effected by knowledge alone, 
 so that the sum-total of effort to make men better be turned to 
 useful purposes. For so undisciplined are the emotions, so largely 
 are they the sport of intermittent gush or panic, with resulting 
 
6 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 bungling in method and haziness in aim, that the misdirection and 
 waste of energy is frightful. 
 
 How can it be otherwise when every orthodox worker starts with 
 a priori theories of human nature which both research and expe- 
 rience have disproved ? He is as an engineer who builds without 
 knowledge or test of the materials which he uses. How can it be 
 otherwise when the churches teach the innate depravity, yet, 
 withal, full responsibility, of man ; his powerlessness to do aught 
 that is good, yet, withal, his certain doom if he accept not the 
 conditions as to his eternal bliss which were determined in the 
 Councils of the Trinity before the foundation of the world ? 
 
 In opposition to this empirical view of the nature of man,. 
 Science will have entire revision of what constitutes sin and 
 salvation, and of the basis of morals. It can give no place to 
 codes of ethics which rest solely on the assumption of their super- 
 natural origin, although admitting that such assumptions, by 
 appealing to threats and promises of the gods, did usefiil work in 
 rude and rough ages. It sees that morals are imperilled when made 
 dependent on doctrines which are liable to be discredited or dis- 
 proved. It appeals to history and to facts around in proof of the 
 origin of moral codes in man's social needs. For where there is 
 no society there is no sin. Therefore the bases of right and wrong 
 lie in conduct towards one's fellows ; the moral sense or conscience 
 is the outcome of social relations, themselves the outcome of the 
 need of living. The common interests which impel to combination 
 involve praise or blame of the acts of each individual in the degree 
 that they aid or hinder the well-being of all — in other words, add 
 to their pleasure or their pain ; and this praise and blame constitute 
 the moral code, the collective or tribal conscience. Society,, 
 like the units of which it is made up, has to fight for its life, and 
 all primitive laws are laws of self-preservation. Tribal self-pre- 
 servation is based on sympathy between the several members, and 
 it is therefore the ultimate foundation of the moral sense ; what- 
 ever is helpful to it is right, whatever is a hindrance to it is wrong. 
 There is, therefore, no fixed standard of right and vn:ong by 
 which the actions of all men throughout all time are measured. 
 The moral code advances with the progress of the race ; conscience 
 is a growth. That which society in rude stages of culture approves, 
 it condemns at later and more refined stages, although such is the 
 power of custom in investing the antique with sanctity, such the 
 persistence of authority, and so deep its interest against change, 
 that moral qualities are often grafted upon acts apart from any 
 question of their bearing upon character. 
 
 Sin is, therefore, neglect of duty, or commission of wrong, to our 
 fellow-man. To him who is guilty of it we do not say, " God is 
 
COMMON GROUND OF THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 7 
 
 angry -with thee, seek His forgiveness," but, " Thou hast wronged 
 thy fellow, and through this done wrong to man everywhere, nor 
 can the thing done be undone. But sin no more." For the 
 forgiveness of which the Churches talk; by which, through what 
 is called an " act of faith," sin is transferred from a sinner to a 
 Divine Being, whose self-immolation appeases Almighty anger, and 
 secures the sinner's pardon, is an artificial sensation. It is a 
 transaction as fictitious as an accommodation bill which passes 
 current in so far as the transaction it pretends to represent, and 
 the names which it bears, deceive the unwary. There is no 
 forgiveness of sin. The effects of what is done Omnipotence 
 cannot undo, and " forgiveness " can be only a showing forth of 
 the charity of the wronged. " Our deeds," says George Eliot, 
 " are like the children bom to us : they live arid act apart from our 
 own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never." 
 
 It is in lifting us to a higher realm of ethics, where no illusions 
 of " imputed sin " and " imputed righteousness " have place, that 
 Science shows itself a preacher of righteousness. In proving the 
 unvarying relation between cause and effect in the spiritual as in 
 the material, in proving that we are what our ancestors made us, 
 plus the action of circumstances on ourselves, and that in like 
 manner our children inherit the good and evil, both of body and 
 mind, that is in us, it throws upon man the responsibility of 
 working out the salvation of man, with even deeper " fear and 
 trembling." It shows that self-conquest — in other words, the 
 suppression of the over-self, which is the root of sin — lies in 
 obedience, and that obedience lies in knowledge, itself the outcome 
 of study of the history of man. And if to know that it rests witt^ 
 man to make or mar the lives of others be not sufficing stimulus 
 to learning the true that he may do the right ; if to be moved by 
 the thought of the one human heart beating beneath all phases 
 of life ; of common hopes, needs, and destinies, of which this earth, 
 speeding through space, spinning "like fretful midge," is the 
 theatre ; if to have some ideal of a better humanity, justified by 
 its advance thus far — if these be not incentives to the service of 
 man, what else can avail ? Whatever power the belief in a God 
 who " is angry with the wicked every day," and who will punish , 
 them for ever, may have had in the past, has to-day practically ' 
 decayed. He makes no sign ; still do the wicked flourish, as in ^ 
 the time of the Psalmist, like green bay-trees, and the thief fears 
 only the policeman. 
 
 Emerson says, " Every man takes care that his neighbour 
 shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care 
 that he do not cheat his neighbour. Then all goes well. He has 
 changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun." Herein lies 
 
8 KELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 a bit of practical ethic, giving foothold for ascent to higher 
 things. That the ideal lies ahead, that it enlarges, and yet 
 recedes, as we advance towards it, is no reason for relaxing, but 
 rather for quickening, effort. The conception of it is sufficing 
 spur to the pursuit, though the goal be never reached. 
 
 " That low man seeks a little thing to do, 
 Sees it and does it ; 
 This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 
 Dies ere he knows it." 
 
 What dead weight of care do morals, thus regarded, lift from 
 the heart of man ! what new energy is given to effort ! Thought 
 becomes fixed on ^^'^u. ^ g l7''t?"iP ,„"f,uff"°4B^SSiMff,^ ^^^^ ^^ '•'^ 1 ^^ 
 origin _ of evil ; time is set free' frorii useless speculation for 
 proTitabie action ; evils once deemed inherent in the nature 
 of things, and therefore irremovable, making all labour become 
 despair, are accounted for, and shown to be within man's power 
 to extirpate. Surely in all this there is nothing vague, nothing 
 unsubstantial, nothing that can be affected by decay of dogmas 
 or modifications of confessions of faith, but common ground for 
 reverence, for labour, and for hope, wherein lies nutrition for the 
 religious sentiment. 
 
 And, in truth, the Churches are with us. They are finding 
 themselves strong in the degree that they are taking in hand 
 social questions, playing the part of social reformers, and as they 
 see that their only hold upon people lies in their humanitarianism 
 they will cease to obtrude their speculative doctrines. Many 
 of these, one notes, have fallen to the rear, as, e.g. doctrines 
 of eternal punishment and forensic theories of atonement. By 
 and by, others will be dropped, and the Quicunque wit give 
 place to an older and humaner creed, older than the book which 
 contains it, and wide as the family of those who have served their 
 generation and " fell on sleep : " — " Of a truth I perceive that God 
 is no respecter of persons : But in every nation he that feareth 
 Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him." 
 
THE EELIGION OF THE ASSYEIANS. 
 
 BY CANON OEOnOE RAWLINSON. 
 
 Of all the nations of remote antiquity — of those, I mean, which 
 flourished before the rise of the Greeks and Romans iato a con- 
 epicuous place — there is none which occupies a higher position, 
 or more deserves to have a share in our thoughts and attention, 
 than the nation of the Assyrians. " The Assyrian was a cedar in 
 Lebanon," says the prophet Ezekiel, " fair of branches, and with 
 a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature ; and his top was 
 among the thipk boughs . . . nor was any tree in the garden 
 of God like unto him in his beauty " (Ezek. xxxi. 3, 8). The 
 Assyrian Empire, if we regard it as continued in the later 
 Babylonian, lasted eight hundred years, and extended, at its 
 acme, from the Persian Desert to the ^Egean Sea and the Sahara. 
 It included in it Persia, Media, Susiana, Babylonia, Assyi-ia 
 Proper, Mesopotamia, Armenia, great part of Asia Minor, Syria, 
 Phoenicia, Palestine, Idumsea, and Egypt. It was the first 
 example of a really great empire. It consolidated all Western 
 Asia under a single head. It broke the power of the Egyptians. 
 It made great advances in the arts. At a time when Europe was 
 sunk in barbarism it had reached a degree of civilization far 
 from contemptible — in most points equal, in many superior, to 
 the boasted civilization of Egypt. 
 
 Besides the general interest attaching to Assyria from its 
 power and position among the nations of the ancient world, a 
 special interest must always attach to it in a Christian land from 
 the part which it played in the history of the " chosen people " — 
 of that " Israel of God " whereof the Christian community is the 
 -continuation and the representative. Assyria was the fated 
 instrument in God's hand for the destruction, first of the kingdom 
 of Samaria, and then of the kingdom of Judeea, and so for the 
 elevation and purification of later Judaism by the " sweet uses of 
 -adversity." The names of Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, must always remain " household words " ia every land in 
 -which the Bible is read ; and among Bible readers of any 
 
10 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 intelligence, as well as among students of history generally, there- 
 must always be a desire to know what manner of men they were 
 whom those great chieftains led from the banks of the Euphrates- 
 and the Tigris to those of the Jordan and the Nile, to Damascus, 
 Samaria, Jenisalem, Memphis. 
 
 The most important element in the thought of a people, the 
 chief influence by which their character is formed, and their inner 
 and even their outer life determined, is their religion. If we 
 would possess more than a superficial knowledge of the real 
 history of nations, we must study carefully — not only the records 
 of their external deeds, and the monuments that they have 
 left behind them, but — principally and above all else — their 
 religions. 
 
 With these few preliminary remarks on the importance of the 
 subject assigned to me in this Course of Lectures, I shall proceed 
 to grapple with the task allotted me, and endeavour to set before 
 you, as simply and plainly as I can, the true nature of the- 
 Assyrian Religion — or, at any rate, its leading characteristics. 
 
 First, then — the Assyrian religion was a polytheism — a system 
 in which the unity of the Godhead was broken up into fragments, 
 and a large number of deities were presented as objects of adora- 
 tion to the worshipper, each being regarded as distinct from all 
 the rest, each having his own form, his own attributes, his own 
 emblems, his own temples. So far as appears, there was no- 
 esoteric religion, or secret teaching, by which the gods were 
 identified one with another, and explained to be mere aspects of 
 a single deity. This was the case in Egypt, but not, so far as I 
 can see, in Assyria, or Babylonia. There each god was a really 
 distinct personage. The gods, like men, formed a community, in 
 which councils were held, disputes took place, quarrels even 
 might break out, one god might injure or oppress another ; each 
 acted as he pleased, according to his " own sweet will," and wills 
 might conflict ; and so there might even be " war in heaven," a& 
 indeed there was upon one occasion, of which I shall speak at 
 more length further on. 
 
 Secondly, there was not even among the gods a single acknow- 
 ledged chief ruler. There were certain gradations of rank, 
 generally, though not always, observed ; but no authority was 
 exercised ; many gods are called " chief of the gods," " king of 
 the gods," even " god of the gods." Each seems to be supreme 
 in his own sphere. Any one of many may be taken by a wor- 
 shipper as Ms peculiar god, and worshipped almost exclusively of 
 the others. There is no fiovapxici — rather what the Greeks- 
 would have called avapyia — " an absence of government." 
 
 Thirdly, the polytheism is not very multitudinous. "We hear,. 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE ASSYRIANS. II 
 
 indeed, in certain passages, of " the 4,000 " and even of the 
 " 5,000 gods ; " but, practically, only some twenty distinct deities 
 obtain frequent mention in the inscriptions. There are, indeed, a 
 number of local divinities, river gods, country gods, town gods, 
 and village gods — but these are suspected to be in many cases 
 the great gods of the Pantheon, disguised under rustic appella- 
 tions, -while in other cases they are obscure and insignificant 
 personages, known to few, and scarcely worshipped by any. It is 
 not my intention to call your attention to these minor deities, 
 but rather to ask you to concentrate your thoughts for the present 
 on the nineteen or twenty " great gods " of the Assyrian and 
 Babylonian Pantheon. 
 
 At the head of the Pantheon in either country stood a god, 
 not the origin of the others, not in any real sense the fountain of 
 divinity, but of higher rank and dignity than the rest — " the first 
 among equals " — ordinarily named first, and assigned the titles of 
 greatest honour, forming thus the principal, or at least the highest 
 object of worship, both to the kings and to the people. This 
 deity is, in Assyria, Asshur ; in Babylonia, II (or Ra). Some critics 
 are of opinion that the two great gods are essentiallj' one, the 
 Assyrian Asshur being neither more nor less than II (or Ra) localized, 
 and regarded as the special god of Assyria, the protector of the 
 Assyrian territory, and the tutelary divinity of the Assyrian 
 kings. But this view is not generally accepted, -and seems to 
 rest upon no sure foundations. There is a marked difference of 
 character between the Babylonian II and the Assyrian Asshur. 
 II, in the Babylonian system, is dim and shadow}' ; his attributes 
 are, comparatively speaking, indistinct ; and his very name is not 
 of frequent occurrence. Asshur in the Assyrian system is, of all of 
 the gods, by far the most pronounced and prominent figure. No 
 name occurs so often as his ; no god has attributes so clearly 
 marked and positive. On these grounds it has been generally 
 held that the two are not to be identified, but to be kept distinct, 
 and to be regarded as respectively peculiar to the two countries. 
 I shall, therefore, speak of them separately. 
 
 II (or Ra) was, as I have already said, a somewhat shadowy 
 being. There is a vagueness about the very name, which simply 
 means " god," and cannot be said to express any particular 
 attribute. His form is never represented on the monuments, and 
 his name is omitted from many lists, as if he were too holy to be 
 spoken of. He does not appear to have had any special temples, 
 and his name is rarely made an element in the personal appella- 
 tions of individuals. He must, however, have been originally the 
 tutelary deity of Babylon, which was named after him. Bab-il, 
 or " the gate of II." 
 
12 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Asshur, the Assyrian substitute for 11, was primarily and 
 especially the tutelary deity of Assyria, and of the Assyrian 
 monarchs. The land of Assyria bears his name without any 
 modification ; its inhabitants are " his servants," or " his people ; " 
 its troops, " the armies of the G-od Asshur ; " its enemies, " the 
 enemies of Asshur." The kings stand connected with him in 
 respect of almost everything which they do. He places them 
 upon the throne, firmly establishes them in the government, 
 lengthens the years of their reigns, preserves their power, protects 
 their forts and armies, directs their expeditions, gives them victory 
 in the day of battle, makes their name celebrated, multiplies their 
 ofi'spriug greatly, and the like. To him they look for the fulfil- 
 ment of all their wishes, and especially for the establishment of 
 their sons, and their sons' sons, on the Assyrian throne to the 
 remotest ages. Their usual phrase, when speaking of him, is 
 " Asshur, my lord." They represent themselves as passing their 
 lives in his service. It is to spread his worship that they carry 
 on their wars. They fight, ravage, and destroy in his name. 
 Finally, when they subdue a country, they are careful to " set up 
 the emblems of Asshur," and to make the people conform to his 
 laws. 
 
 The ordinary titles of Asshur are : " The great lord," " the king 
 of all the gods," " he who rules supreme over the gods." He is 
 also called occasionally " the father of the gods," although that is 
 a title which belongs more properly to another deity. He is 
 figured as a man with a horned cap and often carrying a bow — 
 issuing from the middle of a winged circle, and either shooting 
 an arrow from the bow, or stretching forth his hand, as if to aid or 
 smite. The winged circle by itself is also used as his emblem, 
 and probably denotes his ubiquity and eternity, as the human 
 form does his intelligence, and the horned cap his power. This 
 emblem — the winged circle — either with or without the human 
 figure, is an almost invariable accompaniment of Assyrian royalty. 
 The " great king " wears it embroidered upon his robes, carries it 
 engraved upon his seal or cylinder, represents it above his head in 
 the rock tablets whereon he carves his image, kneels or stands 
 in adoration before it, fights under its shadow, under its protection 
 returns victorious, places it conspicuously upon his obelisks and 
 other monuments ; and, in all these representations, it is re- 
 markable how, by slight modifications, he makes the emblem 
 conform to the circumstances of his own employment at the 
 time. When he is fighting, Asshur, too, has his arrow upon the 
 string, and points it against the monarch's adversaries. When 
 he is returning home victorious with the disused bow in his left 
 hand, and his right hand outstretched and elevated, Asshur has 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE ASSYRIANS. 13 
 
 the same attitude. In peaceful scenes the bow disappears alto- 
 gether. If the king worships, the god holds out his hand to aid ; 
 if he is engaged in secular acts, the divine presence is thought to 
 be sufficiently marked by the circle and the wings without the 
 human figure. 
 
 In immediate succession to Asshur in Assyria, and II (or Ra) in 
 Babylonia, we find in both countries a Triad, consisting of Ann, 
 Bel, and Hea (or Hoa). These three are called in some places 
 specially and distinctively " the great gods." In execrations, 
 where curses are invoked on those who shall do certain acts, they 
 are separated off from all the other deities, and placed together 
 in a clause, which stands at the head of the entire list of ana- 
 themas. In invocations their names follow, for the most part, 
 immediately after the name of Asshur ; and this is their usual 
 and proper place in all complete lists of the chief gods. Ann and 
 Bel in the Babylonian system are brothers, both of them being 
 sons of H (or Ra) ; but this relationship is scarcely acknowledged 
 in Assyria. Hea, in both countries, stands apart, unconnected 
 with the other two, but still their equal, and joined with them in 
 a Triad, wherein he occupies the third place. 
 
 It has been conjectured by M. Francois Lenormant that in this 
 triad we have a cosmogonic myth, and that the three deities 
 which form it represent — Anu, the primordial chaos, or matter 
 without form ; Hea, life and intelligence, considered as moving 
 in and animating matter ; and Bel, the organizing and creating 
 spirit, by which matter was actually brought into subjection, and 
 the material universe evoked out of chaos and settled in an orderly 
 way. But it may be questioned whether the veil which hides the 
 inner meaning of the Assyrian religion, if it had an inner mean- 
 ing, is as yet sufficiently lifted to entitle mere conjectures on its 
 true import to much attention. For my own part, I believe that 
 Anu, Bel, and Hea were originally the gods respectively of the 
 earth, of the heavens, and of the waters, thus corresponding in 
 the main to the well-known Pluto, Zeus or Jupiter, and Poseidon or 
 Neptune, of the Greeks and Romans, who divided between them 
 the dominion over the visible creation. But this early belief 
 became, in course of time, overlaid to a great extent with other 
 notions ; and though Hea continued always to have, more or less, 
 the character of a water deity, Anu and Bel ceased to have 
 peculiar spheres, and became merely " great gods," with a 
 general superintendence over the world, and with no very marked 
 difference of powers. 
 
 Anu is commonly spoken of as " the old Anu," " the original 
 chief," " the king of the lower world," and " the lord of spirits 
 and demons." There is one text in which he seems to be called 
 
14 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " the father of the gods ; " but the reading is doubtful. We 
 cannot identify as his any one of the divine forms which appear 
 on the Assyrian or Babylonian cylinders or other monuments,; 
 nor can we assign to him any distinct emblem, unless it be that 
 of the single upright wedge, which represents him on the 
 Chaldsean numeration tablets. This single upright wedge has 
 the numerical power of " sixty ; " and sixty appears to have been 
 assigned to Anu as his special number. Though a '' great god," 
 he was not one towards whom much preference was shown. His 
 name is scarcely ever found as an element in royal or other 
 appellations ; the kings do not very often mention it, and only 
 one monarch — the first Tiglath-pileser (about B.C. 1130) — speaks 
 of himself as Ann's special votary. 
 
 The second god of the first Triad — the god Bel — familiarly known 
 to us by the mentions of him which occur in the canonical Scrip- 
 tures and in the Apocrypha, is one of the most marked and 
 striking figures in the Pantheon alike of Babylonia and of 
 Assyria. Bel is " the god of lords," " the fiather of the gods," 
 '' the creator," "the mighty prince," and "the just prince of the 
 gods." He plays a leading part in the mythological legends, 
 which form so curious a feature in the Babylonian and Assyrian 
 religion. In the Histori/ of Creation we are told that Bel 
 made the earth and the heaven ; that he formed man by a 
 mixture of his own blood with earth, and also formed beasts, and 
 tliat afterwards he created the sun and the moon, and the five 
 planets. In the War of the Gods we find him contending 
 with the great dragon, Tiamat, and after a terrible single combat 
 destroying her by flinging a thunderbolt into her open mouth. 
 He also, in conjunction with Hea, plans the defence when the 
 seven spirits of evil rise in rebellion, and the dwelling-place of 
 the gods is assaulted by them. The titles of Bel generally ex- 
 press dominion. He is " the Lord " par excellence, which is the 
 exact meaning of his name in Assyrian ; he is " the king of 
 all the spirits," " the lord of the world," and again " the lord of 
 all the countries." Babylon and Nineveh are both of them 
 under his special care, Nineveh having the title of " the city of 
 Bel " in some passages of the inscriptions. His chief temples 
 were at Babylon, at Nipur, at Calah (now Nimrud), and at 
 Duraba (now Akkerkuf). 
 
 Hea (or Hoa), the third god of the first Triad, ranks immediately 
 after Bel in the complete lists of Assyrian deities. He is empha- 
 tically one of the "great gods," and is called " the king," " the 
 great inventor," and " the determiner of destinies." 1 have 
 already remarked that he is especially connected with the element 
 of water, and hence he is " the king of the deep," " the king of 
 
THE EELIGION OF THE ASSYRIANS. 15 
 
 rivers," "the lord of fonutains," and to a certain extent "the lord 
 of the harvest." In the legend of Creation he is joined with 
 Bel in the office of guardian, and watches over the regularity of 
 the planetary courses. In the War of the Gods he and Bel 
 plan the defence, after which Hea commits the execution of the 
 plans made to his son, Mesodach. In the Flood legend Hea 
 naturally plays an important part, since water is his element. It 
 is he who announces to Hasis-adra, the Babylonian Noah, that 
 a deluge is about to destroy mankind, and commands him to 
 build a great ship, in order that he may escape it. It is he again 
 who opposes the wish of Bel to make the destruction complete, 
 and persuades him to let Hasis-adra and his family come out safe 
 from the ark. In the tale of Ishtar's descent into Hades, Hea's 
 counsel is sought by the moon-god ; and by a skilful device he 
 obtains the restoration of the queen of love to the upper world. 
 Indeed, throughout the whole of the mythology we find all clever 
 inventions and well-laid plans ascribed to him, so that his history 
 quite justifies his title of "lord of deep thoughts." Hea is 
 probably intended by the Oe of Helladius, and the Oaanes of 
 Berosus, who came up out of the Persian Gulf, and instructed 
 the first settlers on the Lower Tigris and Euphrates in letters, 
 science, religion, law, and agriculture. 
 
 In direct succession to the three gods of the first Triad — Ann, 
 Bel, and Hea (or Hoa), we find a second still more widely recog- 
 nized Triad, comprising the moon-god, the sun-god, and the god 
 of the atmosphere. There is much difference of opinion with 
 respect to the name of the last god of these three, which is never 
 spelt phonetically, but only represented by a monogram. He has 
 been called Iva (or Yav), Vul, Bin, Yem (or Im), and recently 
 Himmon. It does not much signify which of these names is 
 preferred, as all rest upon conjecture ; but, since convenience 
 requires that he should be spoken of by a single definite appella- 
 tion, I shall adopt that of " Vul," which was originally given to 
 him by my brother. The second Triad then is one consisting of 
 Sin, Shamas, and Vul, the gods respectively of the moon, the 
 sun, and the atmosphere. 
 
 It is very noticeable that in Assyria and Babylonia the moon- 
 god took precedence of the sun-god. Night was probably more 
 agreeable to the inhabitants of those hot regions than day ; and 
 the cool placid time when they could freely contemplate the 
 heavens, and make their stellar and other observations, was 
 especially grateful to the priestly astronomers, who had the 
 superintendence and arrangement of the religion. Sin, the moon 
 — the first element in the name Sinakhirib (Sennacherib), is thus 
 one of the leading deities. He is called " the chief of the gods of 
 
i6 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 heaven and earth," " the king of the gods," and even "the god of 
 the gods." These seem, however, to be honorific expressions, used 
 by his votaries in the warmth of their hearts, with some touch of 
 Oriental hyperbole. Sin was more properly " the illuminator," 
 " he -who dwells in the sacred heavens," " he who circles round 
 the heavens," and " the lord of the month." Further, for some 
 recondite reason which is not explained, he was selected to preside 
 over architecture ; and, in this connection, he is " the supporting 
 architect," " the strengthener of fortifications," and " the lord of 
 building." A close bond of sympathy united Sin with the two 
 other members of the second Triad. When the seven spirits of 
 evil made war in heaven, and directed their main attack upon 
 Sin, as the chief leader of the angelic host, Shamas and Vul 
 instantly came to his aid, withstood the evil spirits, and, fighting 
 firmly side by side with Sin, succeeded in repulsing them. The 
 three gods are frequently conjoined in invocations, anathemas, 
 and the like. In offerings and festivals, however, Sin is united 
 with Shamas only, the place of Vul being taken by a goddess 
 who is entitled " the divine mistress of the world." 
 
 Sin was among the gods most widely and devoutly worshipped, 
 both in Babylonia and Assyria. He had temples at Ur, 
 Borsippa, Babylon, Calah, and Dur Sargina. The third month 
 of the year, called Sivan, was dedicated to him. In another 
 month not so dedicated, we find sacrifice to him prescribed on 
 nine days of the thirty. His name was widely used as an element 
 in royaJ and other appellations, as in Sennacherib, Sin-iddina, 
 Sin-gasit, Naram-Sin, Sin-taggil, Sin-shar-uzur, and the like. 
 A crescent moon is the ordinary emblem of Sin, but sometimes 
 he is represented in a human form, with a long robe about him^ 
 and a triple crown upon his head, the crown being surmounted 
 by a crescent. 
 
 Shamas, the sun-god, occupies the middle position in the 
 second I^iad, which is either " Vul, Shamas, Sin," or " Sin, 
 Shamas, Vul," but more commonly the latter. His titles are 
 either general or special. In a general way he is called " the 
 establisher of heaven and earth," "the judge of heaven and 
 earth," " the warrior of the world," and " the regent of all 
 things ; " while, with direct reference to his physical nature, he is 
 " the lord of fire," "the light of the gods," "the ruler of the 
 day," and " he who illumines the expanse of heaven and earth." 
 The Assyrian kings regard him as affording them especial help 
 in war. He is " the supreme ruler, who casts a favourable eye 
 on expeditions," " the vanquisher of the king's enemies," " the 
 breaker up of opposition." He " casts his motive influence " over 
 the monarchs, and " causes them to assemble their chariots and 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE ASSYRIANS. 17 
 
 Iheir warriors ^ " he -"goes forthwith their armies," and enables 
 them to extend their dominions ; he chases their enemies before 
 them, causes opposition to cease, and brings them back with 
 victory to their own country. Besides this, in time of peace he 
 helps them to sway the sceptre of power, and to role over their 
 subjects with authority. It seems that, from observing the 
 manifest agency of the material sun in stimulating all the 
 functions of nature, the Assyrians and Babylonians came to 
 the conclusion that the sun-god exercised a similar influence over 
 the minds of men, and was the great motive agent in human 
 history. 
 
 The worship of Shamas was universal. The seventh mouth, 
 Tisri was dedicated to him, and, in the second Elul — the inter- 
 •calary month — ^he had, like the moon-god, nine festivals. His 
 emblem appears upon almost all the religious cylinders ; and in 
 .almost all lists of the gods, his name holds a high place. Some- 
 times he is a member of a Triad, composed of himself together 
 with Sin and Asshur. In the mythological legends, however, he is 
 mot very frequently mentioned. We find him, indeed, defending 
 the moon-god, in conjunction with Vul, when the seven spirits 
 make their assault upon heaven ; and in the Deluge tablets we are 
 told that it was he who actually made the Flood. But otherwise 
 the Assyrian mythology is silent concerning him, offering in this 
 respect a remarkable contrast to the Egyptian, where the sun is the 
 j)riucipal figure. 
 
 Vul, the god of the atmosphere, who completes the second 
 Triad, has, on the whole, a position quite equal to that held by 
 ;Sin and Shamas, whom he even, occasionally, precedes in the 
 lists. Some kings seem to place him on a par with Ann, or even 
 with Asshur, recognizing Ann and Vul, or Asshur and Vul, as 
 •especially " the great gods," and as their own peculiar guardians. 
 In a general way, Vul corresponds with the Indra of the early 
 Hindoos, or the " Jupiter Tonans " of the Romans, being " the 
 prince of the power of the air," the lord of the whirlwind and 
 tempest, and the wielder of the thunderbolt. His most common 
 titles are, " the the lord of the air," " the minister of heaven and 
 earth," and " he who makes the tempest to rage." He is re- 
 garded as the destroyer of crops, the rooter up of trees, the 
 scatterer of the harvest ; famine, scarcity, and even their conse- 
 quence, pestilence, are ascribed to him. He is said to hold in 
 his hands a "flaming sword," with which he effects his ravages ; 
 and this " flaming sword," which probably represents lightning, 
 seems to form his emblem on the tablets and cylinders, where it 
 is figured as a double or triple bolt. But Vul has also a softer 
 character. As the god of the atmosphere, he gives the rain ; 
 
18 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 and hence he is " the careful and beneficent chief," " the give? 
 of abundance," and " the lord of fecundity." In this capacity he 
 is naturally chosen to preside over canals, the great fertilizers 
 in Mesopotamia ; and thus we find among his titles " the lord of 
 canals," and " the establisher of works of irrigation." 
 
 Next in succession to the eight gods already described, may be 
 placed six goddesses, closely connected with six of them. It is 
 a general rule of Oriental mythologies, that each male principle 
 shall have a female counterpart. From this rule, in the Baby- 
 lonian and Assyrian mythology, the highest of the gods, II and 
 Asshur, are exempt ; but otherwise almost all the principal 
 deities are united in pairs, of whom one is male and the other 
 female. Anu has a wife called Anat or Anata, Avho is a pale and 
 shadowy personage, the mere faint reflection of her husband, 
 whose name she receives, merely modified by a feminine termina- 
 tion. Bel or Bil has a wife, Bilat, known to the classical writers 
 as Beltis or Mylitta — a term standing to Bil as Anat to Ann,, 
 but designating a far more substantial personage. Beltis Ir 
 " the mother of the gods," " the great goddess," " the great lady," 
 " the queen of the lands," and " the queen of fecundity." Shfr 
 corresponds to the Cybel6 of the Phrygians, the Ehea of the 
 Greeks, and the "Magna Mater" or "Bona Dea" of the Eomaus. 
 Occasionally, she adds to this character the attributes of Bellona, 
 and even of Diana, being spoken of as presiding over war and hunt- 
 ing. The wife of Hea has been called Dav-kina, Nin-azu, and Nin- 
 ki-gal. She is called "the queen of Hades," and "the lady of the 
 house of death." She was the mistress of the realms below, while 
 on earth she had the special office of watching and soothing the last 
 hours of the dying. To the wife of Sin, no proper name is given > 
 but she is frequently associated with her husband under the 
 appellation of " the great lady." The wife of Shamas is Gula 
 or Anunit. She was, like Beltis, a " great goddess," but had 
 a less distinctive character, being little more than a female sun. 
 Finally, Vul had a wife called Shala or Tala, whose common' 
 title is sarrat, " queen," but who is a colourless and insignificant 
 personage. 
 
 We now come to a group of five deities, who are connected 
 together by the fact that they have, all of them, an unmistakably 
 astral character. There are Nin or Ninip, Marduk or Merodach, 
 Nergal, Ishtar, and Nebo, who correspond respectively to the 
 planets Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. 
 
 Nin (or Ninip), who presided over the most distant of the visible 
 planets, Saturn, was more an object of worship in Assyria than in- 
 Babylonia. He has been called " the Assyrian Hercules ; " and. 
 \io doubt he in many respects resembles that hero of the classical. 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE ASSYRIANS. 19 
 
 nations. Among his titles are the following : " The lord of the 
 brave," " the warlike," " the champion," " the warrior who sub- 
 dues foes," " the reducer of the disobedient," " the exterminator 
 of rebels," "the powerful lord," "the exceeding strong god," 
 and " he whose sword is good." He presides in a great measure 
 both over war and hunting. Most of the Assyrian monarchs 
 represent themselves as going out to war under his auspices, and 
 ascribe their successes mainly to his interposition. He is espe- 
 cially useful to them in the subjection of rebels. He also upon 
 some occasions incites them to engage in the chase, and aids them 
 strenuously in their encounters with wild bulls and lions. It is 
 thought that he was emblematically portrayed in the winged 
 and human-headed bull which forms so striking a feature in the 
 architectural erections of the Assyrians. 
 
 As Nin was a favourite Assyrian, so Merodach was a favourite 
 Babylonian, god. From the earliest times the Babylonian 
 monarchs placed him in the highest rank of deities, worshipping 
 him in conjunction with Ann, Bel, and Hea, the three gods of the 
 first Triad. The great temple of Babylon, known to the Greeks 
 as the " Temple of Bel," was certainly dedicated to him ; and it 
 would, therefore, seem that the later Babylonians, at any rate, 
 must have applied to him the name of Bel, or " lord," which 
 in earlier times had designated a dijBFerent member of their 
 Pantheon. Merodach's ordinary titles are "the great," "the 
 great lord," "the prince," "the prince of the gods," and "the 
 august god." He is also called "the judge," "the most ancient," 
 " he who judges the gods," " the eldest son of heaven," and, in 
 one place, " the lord of battles." Occasionally, he has still higher 
 and seemingly exclusive designations, such as " the great lord of 
 eternity," " the king of heaven and earth," " the lord of all 
 beings," "the chief of the gods," and "the god of gods." But 
 these titles do not seem to be meant exclusively. Merodach is 
 held in considerable honour among the Assyrians, being often 
 coupled with Asshur, or with Asshur and Nebo, as a war-god, 
 one by whom kings gain victories and obtain the destruction of 
 their enemies. But it is in Babylonia, and especially in the later 
 Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar and Neriglissar, that 
 his worship culminates. It is then that all the epithets of the 
 highest honour are accnmulated upon him, and that he becomes 
 an almost exclusive object of worship; it is then that we find 
 such expressions as — " I supplicate the king of gods, the lord 
 of lords, in Borsippa, the city of his loftiness ; " and " god 
 Merodach, great lord, lord of the house of the gods, light of the 
 gods, father, even for thy high honour, which changeth not, a 
 temple have I built ! " 
 
20 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 In his stellar character ■ Merodach represented the planet 
 Jupiter, with which he was supposed to have a very intimate 
 connection. The eighth month (Marchesvan) was dedicated to 
 him. In the second Elul, he had three festivals — on the third, 
 on the seventh, and on the sixteenth day. 
 
 Nergal, who presided over the planet Mars, was essentially a 
 war god. His name signifies " the great man," or " the great 
 hero; " and his commonest titles are "the mighty hero," " the 
 king of battle," " the destroyer," " the champion of the gods," 
 and " the great brother." He " goes before " the kings in their 
 warlike expeditions, and helps them to confound and scatter their 
 enemies. Nor is he above lending them his assistance when they 
 indulge in the pleasures of the chase. One of his titles is " the 
 god of hunting ; " and, while originally subordinated to Nin in 
 this relation, ultimately he outstrips his rival, and becomes the 
 especial patron of hunters and sportsmen. Asshur-bani-pal, who 
 is conspicuous among the Assyrian kings for his intense love of 
 field sports, uniformly ascribes his successes to Nergal, and does 
 not even join with him any other deity. Nergal's emblem was 
 the human-headed and winged lion, which is usually seen, as it 
 were on guard, at the entrances of the royal palaces. 
 
 Ishtar, who was called Nana by the Babylonians, corresponded 
 both in name and attributes with the Astarte (or Ashtoreth) of 
 the Phoenicians and Syrians. Like the Greek Aphrodite and 
 the Roman Venus, she was the queen of love and beauty, the 
 goddess who presided over marriage, and even over the loves of 
 animals. He own frailty was notorious. In one of the Izdubar 
 legends she courts that romantic individual, who, however, 
 declines her advances, reminding her that her favour had always 
 proved fatal to those persons on whom she had previously 
 bestowed her affections. There can be little doubt that — ^in 
 Babylon at any rate — she was worshipped with unchaste rites, 
 and that her cult was thus of a corrupting and debasing character. 
 But, besides this soft and sensual aspect, Ishtar had a further 
 and a nobler one. She corresponded not to Venus only, but also 
 to Bellona, being called " the goddess of war and battle," " the 
 queen of victory," " she who arranges battles," and " she who 
 defends from attack." The Assyrian kings very generally unite 
 her with Asshur in the accounts which they give of their military 
 expeditions, speaking of their forces as those which Asshur and 
 Ishtar have committed to their charge, of their battles as fought 
 in the service of Asshur and Ishtar, and of their triumphs as the 
 result of Asshur and Ishtar aiding them and exalting them above 
 their enemies. Ishtar had also some general titles of a lofty but 
 vague character ; she was called " the fortunate," " the happy," 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE ASSYRIANS. 21 
 
 " the great goddess," " the mistress of heaven and earth," and 
 " the queen of all the gods and goddesses." In her stellar char- 
 acter she presided over the planet Venus ; and the sixth montli, 
 Elul, was dedicated to her. 
 
 Nebo, the last of the five planetary deities, presided over 
 Mercury. It was his special function to have under his charge 
 learning and knowledge. He is called "the god who possesses 
 intelligence," " he who hears from afar," " he who teaches," or 
 " he who teaches and instructs." The tablets of the royal library 
 at Nineveh are said to contain '' the wisdom of Nebo." He is 
 also, like Mercury, the minister of the gods, but scarely their 
 messenger — an office which belongs to a god called Pakn. At 
 the same time, as has been noticed in the case of other gods, 
 Nebo has a number of general titles, implying divine power, 
 ■which, if they had belonged to him alone, would have seemed to 
 prove him to be the Supreme Deity. He is " the lord of lords, 
 who has no equal in favour," " the supreme chief," " the sus- 
 tainer," " the supporter," " the ever-ready," " the guardian of 
 heaven and earth," " the lord of the constellations," " the holder 
 of the sceptre of power," "he who grants to kings, the sceptre of 
 royalty for the governance of their people." It is chiefly by his 
 omission from several lists, combined with his hnmble place 
 when he is mentioned together with the really " great gods " 
 that we are assured of his occupying a (comparatively) low 
 position in the general pantheon. 
 
 The planetary gods had in most cases a female counterpart. 
 Nebo was closely associated with a goddess called Urmit or 
 Tasmit ; Nergal with one called Laz, and Merodach with Zir- 
 panit or Zir-banit. Nin, the son of Bel and Beltis, is sometimes 
 made the husband of his mother, but otherwise has no female 
 counterpart. Ishtar is sometimes coupled with Nebo in a way 
 that might suggest her being his wife, if it were not that that 
 position is certainly occupied by Urmit. 
 
 The Assyrians and Babylonians worshipped their gods in 
 shrines or chapels of no very great size, to which, however, was 
 frequently attached a lofty tower, built in stages, which were 
 sometimes as many as seven. The tower could be ascended 
 by steps on the outside, and was usually crowned by a small, 
 but richly adorned, chapel. The gods were represented by 
 images, which were either of stone or metal, and which bore the 
 human form, excepting in two instances. Nin and Nergal were 
 portrayed, as the Jews perhaps portrayed the cherubim, by 
 animal forms of great size and grandeur, having human heads 
 and huge outstretched wings. There was nothing hideous, or 
 even grotesque, about the representations of the Assyrian gods, 
 
22 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 Tho object aimed at was to fill the spectator with feelings of awe 
 and reverence ; and the divine figures have, in fact, universally 
 an appearance of calm placid strength and majesty, which is 
 solemn and impressive. 
 
 The gods were worshipped, as generally in the ancient world, 
 by prayer, praise, and sacrifice. Prayer was offered both for 
 oneself and others. The " sinfulness of sin " was deeply felt, and 
 the divine anger deprecated with much earnestness. " my 
 lord," says one suppliant, " my sins are many, my trespasses are 
 great ; and the wrath of the gods has plagued me with disease, 
 and sickness, and sorrow. I fainted, but no one stretched forth 
 his hand ; I groaned, but no one drew nigh ; I cried aloud, but 
 no one heard. Lord, do not thou abandon thy servant. In 
 the waters of the great storm do thou lay hold of his hand. The 
 sins which he has committed do thou turn to righteousness." 
 Special intercession was made for the Assyrian kings. Praise 
 was even more frequent than prayer. Hymns to the gods are 
 numerous. Sacrifice almost always accompanied prayer and 
 praise. Every day in the year seems to have been sacred to some 
 deity or deities ; and some sacrifice or other was offered every 
 day by the monarch, who thus set an example to his subjects, 
 which they were probably not slow to follow. The principal 
 sacrificial animals were bulls, oxen, sheep, and gazelles. Liba^ 
 tions of wine, and the burning of incense, were also parts of the 
 recognized worship ; and offerings might be made of anything 
 valuable. 
 
 It is an interesting question how far the Assyrians and 
 Babylonians entertained any confident expectation of a future 
 life ; and, if so, what view they took of it. That the idea did 
 not occupy a prominent place in their minds, that there was a 
 strong contrast in this respect between them and the people of 
 Egypt, is palpable from the very small number of passages in 
 which anything like an allusion to a future life can be even 
 suspected. StUl, there certainly seem to be places in which the 
 continued existence of the dead is assumed, and where the hap- 
 piness of the good and the wretchedness of the wicked in the 
 future state are indicated. In one passage the happiness of the 
 king in another world seems to be prayed for. In two or three 
 others, prayer is offered for a departing soul in terms like the 
 following : — " May the Sun give him life, and Merodach grant 
 him an abode of happiness ! " Or, " To the Sun, the greatest of 
 the gods, may he ascend ; and may the Sun, the greatest of the 
 gods, receive his soul into his holy hands ! " The nature of the 
 happiness expected may be gathered from occasional notices, 
 where the soul is represented as clad in a white radiant garment, 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE ASSYRIANS. 23 
 
 ■as clvvelliDg in the presence of the gods, and as partaking of 
 ■celestial food in the abodes of blessedness. On the other hand, 
 Hades, the receptacle of the wicked after death, is spoken of as 
 ■"the abode of darkness and famine" — the place "where earth is 
 men's food, and their nourishment clay ; where light is not seen, 
 but in darkness they dwell ; where ghosts, like birds, flutter 
 their wings ; and on the door and the doorposts the dust lies 
 undisturbed." Different degrees of wickedness seem to meet 
 ■with different and appropriate punishments. There is one place 
 — apparently a penal fire — reserved for unfaithful wives and 
 •husbands, and for youths who have dishonoured their bodies. 
 M. Lenormant seems, therefore, to be in error when he says that 
 ■" though the Assyrians recognized a place of departed spirits, 
 yet it was one in which there was no trace of a distinction of 
 rewards and punishments." 
 
 Among the sacred legends of the Babylonians and Assyrians 
 the following were the most remarkable. They believed that at 
 -a, remote date, before the creation of the world, there had been 
 war in heaven. Seven spirits, created by Ann to be his 
 messengers, took council together, and resolved to revolt. 
 ■" Against high heaven, the dwelling place of Ann, the king, they 
 plotted evil," and unexpectedly made a fierce attack The raooii- 
 .god, the sun-god, and Vul, the god of the atmosphere, withstood 
 them, and after a fearful struggle beat them off. Then there was 
 peace for a while. But once more, at a later date, a fresh revolt 
 broke out. The hosts of heaven were assembled together, in 
 number five thousand, and were engaged in singing a psalm 
 ■of praise to Anu, when suddenly discord arose. " With a loud 
 cry of contempt " a portion of the angelic choir " broke up the 
 holy song," uttering wicked blasphemies, and so " spoiling, con- 
 fusing, confounding, the hymn of praise." Asshur was invited 
 to put himself at the head of the rebels, but " refused to go forth 
 ■with them." Their leader, who is unnamed, took the form of a 
 ■dragon, and in that shape contended with the god Bel, who 
 proved victorious in the combat, and slew his adversary by means 
 ■of a thunderbolt, which he flung into the dragon's gaping mouth. 
 Upon this the entire host of the wicked angels took to flight, aad 
 was driven to the abode of the seven spirits of evil, where they 
 Tvere forced to remain, their return to heaven being forbidden. 
 In their room man was created. 
 
 The Chaldaean legend of Creation, according to Berosus, was the 
 following : " In the beginning all was darkness and water, and 
 therein were generated monstrous animals of strange anU peculiar 
 shapes. There were men with two ■wings, and some even with 
 four, and with two faces, and others with two heads, a man's and 
 
2.4 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 a woman's ; and there were men with the heads and horns of 
 goats, and men with hoofs like horses ; and some with the upper 
 parts of a man joined to the lower parts of a horse, like centanrs ; 
 and there were balls with human heads, dogs with four bodies and 
 with fishes' tails ; men and horses with dogs' heads ; creatures 
 with the heads and bodies of horses, but with the tails of fish ; 
 and other animals mixing the forms of various beasts. Moreover 
 there were monstrous fishes and reptiles and serpents,, and divers 
 other creatures which had borrowed something from each other's 
 shapes, of all which the likenesses are still preserved in th& 
 temple of Bel. A woman ruled them all, by name Omorka, 
 which means ' the sea.' Then Bel came forward and split the 
 woman in twain ; and of the one half of her he made the heaven, 
 and of the other half the earth ; and the beasts that were in her 
 he caused to perish. And he split the darkness, and divided the 
 heaven and the earth asunder, and set the world in order, and 
 the animals that could not bear the light perished. Bel, upon 
 this, seeing that the earth was desolate, yet teeming with pro- 
 ductive power, commanded one of the gods to cut ofi" his head, 
 and to mix the blood which flowed forth with earth, and form 
 men therewith, and beasts that could bear the light. So man 
 was made, and was intelligent, being a partaker of the divine 
 wisdom. Likewise Bel make the stars, and the sun and moon, 
 and the five planets." 
 
 The legend of the descent of Ishtar into Hades runs as follows : 
 " To the land of Hades, the land of her desire, Ishtar, the daughter 
 of the moon-god Sin, turned her mind. When Ishtar arrived at 
 the gate of Hades, to the keeper of the gate she spake : ' O 
 Keeper of the entrance, open thy gate I Open thy gate, I say 
 again, that I may enter in ! If thou openest not thy gate, if thon 
 dost not let me in, I will assault the door, the gate I will break 
 down, I will attack the entrance, I will split open the portals. I 
 will raise the dead to be the devourers of the living I Upon the 
 living the dead shall prey ! ' Then the porter opened his mouth 
 and spake, and thus he said to great Ishtar : ' Stay, lady, do not 
 shake down the door ; I will go and inform Qneen Ninkigal.' So 
 the porter went in, and to Ninkigal said: 'Curses thy sister 
 Ishtar utters ; yea, she blasphemes thee witli fearful curses.' 
 And Ninkigal, hearing his words, grew pale, like a flower when 
 cut from the stem. Like the stalk of a reed she shook. And she 
 said, ' I will cure her rage ; I will speedily cure her fary. Her 
 curses I will repay. Light up consuming flames! Light up a 
 blaze of straw I Be her doom witli the husbands who left their 
 wives ; be her doom with the wives who forsook their lords ; be 
 iev doom with the youths of dishonoured lives. Go, porter, and 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE ASSYRIANS. 25 
 
 open the gate for her ; but strip her, as some have been stripped 
 ere now.' The porter went and opened the gate. ' Lady of 
 Tiggaba, enter,' he said ; enter, it is permitted. The Queen of 
 Hades to meet thee comes.' So the first gate let her in ; but she 
 was stopped, and there the great crown was taken from her head. 
 ' Keeper, do not remove from me the crown that is on my head.' 
 ' Excuse it, lady, the queen of the land insists upon it;s removal.' 
 The next gate let her in, but she was stopped, and there the 
 earrings were taken from her ears. ' Keeper, do not take oiF 
 from me the earrings from my ears.' ' Excuse it, lady, the 
 queen of the land insists upon their removal.' The third gate 
 let her in, but she was stopped, and there the precious stones were 
 taken from her head. ' Keeper, do not take off from me tlie gema 
 that adorn my head.' 'Excuse it, lady, the queen of the land 
 insists on their removal.' The fourth gate let her in, but she was 
 stopped, and there the small jewels were taken from her brow, 
 ' Keeper, do not take off from me the small jewels that deck my 
 brow.' * Excuse it, lady, the queen of the land insists upon their 
 removal.' The fifth gate let her in, bat she was stopped, and 
 there the girdle was taken from her waist. ' Keeper, do not take 
 off from me the girdle that girds my waist.' ' Excuse it, lady, 
 the queen of the land insists upon its removal.' The sixth gate 
 let her in, but she was stopped, and there the gold rings were 
 taken from her hands and feet. ' Keeper, do not take off from 
 me the gold rings of my hands and feet.' ' Excuse it, lady, the 
 queen of the land insists upon their removal.' The seventh gate 
 let her in, but she was stopped, and there the last garment was 
 taken from her body. ' Keeper, do not take off, I pray, the last 
 garment from my body.' ' Excuse it, lady, the queen of the laud 
 insists on its removal.' 
 
 " After Mother Ishtar had descended into Hades Ninkigal saw 
 her and derided her to her face. Then Ishtar lost her reason, and 
 heaped curses upon the other. Ninkigal upon this opened her 
 mouth and spake : ' Go, Namtar, and bring her out for punish- 
 ment. Afflict her with disease of the eye, the side, the feet, the 
 heart, the head.' 
 
 "The divine messenger of the gods lacerated his face before 
 them. The assembly of the gods was full. The Sun came, and 
 with him the Moon his father, and thus spake he weeping unto 
 Hea, the king. 'Ishtar has descended into the earth, and has 
 not risen again ; and ever since the time that Mother Ishtar 
 descended into hell the master had ceased from commanding, the 
 slave had ceased from obeying.' Then the god Hea in the depth 
 of his mind formed a design ; he modelled for her escape the 
 figure of a man in clay. ' Go and save her, Phantom,' he said, 
 
-26 EELIGIOXJS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ' Present thyself at the portal of Hades ; the seven gates of 
 Hades will all open before thee. Ninkigal will see thee and take 
 pleasure because of thee. When her mind has grown calm, and 
 her anger has worn itself away, awe her with the names of the 
 great gods. Then prepare thy frauds. On deceitful tricks fix 
 thy mind. Use the very chiefest of thy deceits. Bring forth 
 fish out of au empty vessel. That will astonish Ninkigal, and to 
 Ishtar she will restore her dress. Thy reward — a great reward — 
 for these things shall not fail. Go, Phantom, save her, and the 
 assembly of the people shall crown thee ! Meats, the best in the 
 city, shall be thy food ! Wines, the most delicious in the city, 
 shall be thy drink. A royal palace shall be thy dwelling — a 
 throne of state thy seat. Magician and conjuror shall kiss the 
 hem of thy garment.' 
 
 " Ninkigal opened her mouth and spake ; to her messenger, 
 Namtar, command she gave : ' GrO, Namtar, the temple of justice 
 adorn I Deck the images ! Deck the altars ! Bring out 
 Anunnak, and let him take his seat on a throne of gold ! Pour 
 -out for Ishtar the water of life ; from my realms let her depart.' 
 Namtar obeyed ; he adorned the temple, decked the images, 
 decked the altars ; brought out Anunnak and set him on a throne 
 of gold ; poured out for Ishtar the water of life, and suffered hei* 
 to depart. Then the first gate let her out, and gave her back the 
 garment of her form. The second gate let her out, and gave her 
 back the jewels for her hands and feet. The third gate let her 
 ■out and gave her back the girdle for her waist. The fourth gate 
 let her out and gave her back the small gems she had worn upon 
 her brow. The fifth gate let her out and gave her back the pre- 
 cious stones that had been upon her head. The sixth gate let 
 her out and gave her back the earrings that were taken from her 
 «ars. And the seventh gate let her out, and gave her back' the 
 crown she had carried on her head." 
 
 So ends this curious legend. There are many others, especially 
 an account of the Deluge, which is of great interest. But the 
 inexorable march of time warns me that I must not trespass 
 longer upon your patience, but must thank you for your kind 
 attention, and make my bow. 
 
THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA. 
 
 BY W. ST. CHAD BOSCAWEN. 
 
 In coming before you this afternoon, to lecture on the Eeligion 
 •of Babylonia, I feel that I stand in a dififerent position from the 
 lecturers who have preceded me. Unlike 'the learned scholars 
 who have spoken to you regarding the teachings, creeds and 
 ceremonies of Buddhism, Hinduism, or Mohammedanism, I 
 can bring before you no sacred canon of books upon which to 
 base my analysis of this ancient religion. Among the sacred 
 writings of the land of Chaldea — we find no class of works which 
 can be studied in the same systematic manner, or submitted to 
 the same analysis as the Vedas, the Sutras, or the Quran. There 
 is another difficulty which we encounter upon the threshold of 
 the exposition of the principal features of the history of religions 
 development in Chaldea. It carries us back to so remote an 
 antiquity, before the birth of the most ancient of the religions 
 with which we are familiar, and which have formed the data 
 upon which the students of the science of comparative religious 
 have formulated the laws governing the growth of religions in 
 general, that it is extremely difficult to trace its growth and 
 development in accordance with those laws which are applicable 
 to the Aryan and other systems. 
 
 Our earliest inscriptions from the cities of Southern Chaldea 
 carry us back to a period certainly long prior to B.C. 3800, and 
 jet these inscriptions prove that religion had already passed 
 through more than one of the earlier stages of development. 
 Animism or Shamanism, the crude cultus of the magician and 
 sorcerer, ever in contact with the evil opponents in nature, the 
 spirits which waged war against man had passed away and given 
 place to the worship of the Creator God {Dimmera). While, 
 however, this progress had been attained, and a crude theocracy 
 formulated, yet the older creeds still lingered on and intermingled 
 with the religion of the period ; and fragments of their litanies 
 and liturgies are still preserved to us. 
 
 It is in this mixed character of the religion in the inscriptions 
 that one of our chief difficulties is found. 
 
28 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 The sacred literature is by no means scanty; thousands of 
 tablets exist in our museums, which contain prayers, litanies^ 
 and liturgical texts. Our difficulty lies rather, however, in the 
 fact that these tablets present no regular arrangements, as to 
 class, date, or authorship ; and this is still further complicated by 
 the fact that many of the tablets are rather to be regarded as 
 scattered pages of lost works than complete works in themselves. 
 
 Fragmentary, varied in date and character, as most of these 
 tablets are, the patient study and research of such able scholars 
 as the late M. Francois Lenormant in France, and the Eev. Professor 
 A. H. Sayce in England, have done much to introduce system and 
 order where chaos formerly existed ; and to enable us to ascertain, 
 with some degree of approximation, the oldest of the religious 
 books of Chaldea. Among these tablets are a large number whose 
 religious teaching centres round the ancient city of Eridu. This 
 ancient city, the older name of which was Eri-dugga (" the Holy 
 City "), was the Jerusalem, the Umritzsa, the Mecca, of Chaldea.. 
 Situated on the shores of the Persian Gulf, which at that remote 
 period came much farther inland ^ than at the present day, it was 
 the sacred city of Ea, the all-wise god of the sea. Ea was the god 
 not only of the material watery sea, but also of the mystic deep,* 
 the Oceanos which surrounded the earth like a serpent, and which 
 was his symbol. 
 
 Here then grew up the creed of the worship of the sea-god. 
 They heard his voice in the murmur of the waves, and in the 
 ebbing and flowing tide.^ They saw his anger in the stormy 
 waves, which lashed themselves with fury, and made the sea wild 
 with tossing billows. In the deep depths of its coral caves he 
 dwelt — invisible to men, yet knowing all things. 
 
 It is difficult to trace the origin of this cult ; it is, perhaps, to 
 be attributed to a tribe who entered Chaldea from the sea, or who,, 
 at any rate, were a race of navigators, as shown by the epithets 
 of their god : " lord of the boatment," " lord of ships," " lord 
 of sea and rivers," all of which are those of a seafaring people. 
 We have certainly a trace of this early school of religious teaching 
 preserved in the legend of Cannes, recorded by Berosus. This- 
 strange fish-man rose day by day from the waters of the Erythraean 
 Sea, to teach men the first elements of civihzation. In this 
 
 • The site of Eridu is now marked by the mounds of Abu Shahrein on the east 
 bank of the Euphrates, about twenty miles south of Mughin, or Dr. Calculating 
 the growth of alluvial at a similar proportion to that of the present day, about 
 six feet per annum, it must have been earlier than B.C. 3000, considerably, when 
 Eridu was an open port on the shores of the Gulf. 
 
 - This region was called Absu or Apsu, the Apason of Damascius, and is explained, 
 by Sit nemeki, " the house of deep knowledge." 
 
 ' W. A. I., ii. 18-30-35. 
 
THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA. 29 
 
 tradition the epithets found on the tablets : " the wise one," " the 
 intelligent," " the one who knows all things," are evidently 
 embraced in the character of the instructor applied to Oannes. 
 In these older tablets, partially magical, we find the devotee in his 
 trouble turning to Ea to aid him to remove his sickness or drive 
 away a malevolent foe — but the holy one, while being the supreme 
 god and father of all, holds no direct communication with men. 
 They hear his voice in the waves, they feel his presence and his 
 breath in the cool breeze at eventide. '' In the innermost recesses 
 we have smelt his pure breath," says one of the hymns. Thus he 
 made himself manifest like Yaveh to Adam in the garden, in the 
 cool of the evening, but they saw him not. A mediator was 
 found ! ! Day by day, as they looked toward the eastern horizon 
 bounding the sea, they saw a bright being rise from the sea. 
 Each day he rose from it, bringing with him light and brightness, 
 and driving away the dread darkness, and all day long he 
 remained with men, casting over them his all-seeing eye; when 
 once again at even he sank to rest in his western home on the 
 border of the far-distant sea. Surely this bright being must be 
 a child of the sea-god. Each day he left his father's house and 
 came forth in his character of " protector of good men " (Silik- 
 mulur-dugga), and each night he returned to his father's house 
 in the mysterious region of the Absu, " the house of deep 
 knowledge." " Surely," they said, " he must be our messenger to 
 the all-wise divine father." Thus, through all these older hymns, 
 we find the teaching of the worship of Ea and his communion 
 with men by the meditation of his son, Mardugga, " the holy 
 son," which was afterwards corrupted into Marduk or Merodach. 
 The epithets applied to Merodach in these hymns, dating from 
 the third millennium before the Christian Era, are very remarkable, 
 and show n high development of anthropomorphism ; " Merodach, 
 substance of myself;" "Merodach, firstborn of the deep (apsi), 
 thou canst make pure and prosperous ; " " Merodach, the son of 
 Eridu." It was Merodach who bore to his father the plaint 
 of the sick and sinful : " To his father he approached, his message 
 he repeated, ' my father, the disease of the head is fallen upon 
 the man.' " It is from his father that he receives the instruction 
 to heal : " my son, what dost thou not know ? What shall I 
 tell to thee more ? What I know thou knowest. Go, my son 
 Merodach, take the man to the house of purification, and remove 
 his ban and expel his curse." 
 
 The " protector of good men " {Silik-'invl'w-dugga) became him- 
 self the god of good men, the god of goodness, the good god. 
 
 Here, then, the element of dualism was introduced, and its 
 appearance in Chaldean mythology is most interesting and 
 
30 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 extremely valuable to students of the religious developments of 
 surrounding nations. 
 
 Darkness and night were to the early myth-maker the repre- 
 sentatives of evil. It was at night that the demons, the vampires, 
 and ghoul-like foes of man came forth to war against him. The 
 demon of chaos, the his-his tiamat or dragon of the sea, was 
 the queen of primaeval night, and the ruler of the powers of evil. 
 Eetween the powers of evil and darkness, and Merodach, the holy 
 son, the offspring of his all-wise father Ea, the good god, there 
 was a never-ceasing war — a dread struggle waged mom after mom 
 and eve after eve. 
 
 Each morning the bright one rose from his home, the dark 
 serpent of night, the serpent with seven heads and seven tails, 
 the hebdominal serpent, coiled round the earth holding it in 
 bondage. Through the darkness darts the " first ray of light," the 
 arrow of the god, like the arrow of Apollo or the spear of Michael. 
 The serpent is wounded — the wound grows wider and wider, 
 the edges are tinged with golden red, the blood of the dragon, 
 who slowly uncoils. Through the broken coil comes the con- 
 quering bright Sun-god, clad in glistering armour, and armed with 
 all the panoply of war. His curved sword or sabre, his mace, his 
 sacred bow made of the wood of the tree of the gods, and his 
 quiver full of death-dealing arrows. Like Mithra, Michael, or 
 Apollo, he comes forth as the warrior of the gods to crush the 
 evil one. 
 
 The serpent, defeated, sinks slowly away, and her allies, the 
 black storm-clouds, lie in heaps on the horizon like flies. The 
 victor "crushes the brain of the serpent with his mace." The 
 head of the serpent is bruised, and victory rests with goodness 
 and right. 
 
 Eventidedraws near, the victor of the mom has made his triumphal 
 progress o'er the azure field of heaven, and now sinks to his home 
 in the west, where the gates of the setting sun guarded by the 
 Scorpion Kerubim open to receive him. Scarce has he reached 
 the threshold, when there creeps slowly on his heel the rebom 
 serpent of night, and the victor, like Achilles, is wounded in his 
 vulnerable part. Thus, day by day, the prophecy in Genesis finds 
 its repetition in nature. The head of the serpent is crushed and 
 bruised, yet night by night he comes upon the path of the victor 
 to bruise his heel. 
 
 Thus we find in the old mythology of Chaldea, as in those of 
 the Aryan and Semite, the myth of the daily recurring war 
 between light and darkness, between good and evil, with its 
 beautiful native poetry. It is the teaching of this school of Eridu, 
 " the holy city," with its almost monotheistic worship of Ea and 
 
THE EELIGION OF BABYLONIA. 31 
 
 his divine son, that exercised a most powerful influence on the 
 future developments of the national religious life. 
 
 In tracing the growth and development of religious belief in 
 Babylonia, we must remember that religious progress synchronizes 
 with social progress. The weird creeds, animism, fetish worship, 
 etc., with their liturgies of magic, belong to the family and early 
 tribal stages. With the settlement in cities came the rise of the 
 city god, the temple and the local school of theology. Ur became the 
 centre of the worship of the moon-god. Erech became the centre 
 of the cultus of Nana, Larsa and Sippara, the Northern and 
 Southern Heliopoli ; and Kutha or Tigabba the " city of the 
 bowing down of the head," the great centre of eschatological 
 teaching, and the worship of Nergal, the " great devourer," the 
 god of death. One of the most ancient religious centres was that 
 of Sergul, the city of the fire-god, contemporary with Eridu. 
 
 The local centres of religious life in Chaldea were most im- 
 portant features in the intellectual progress of the people ; for 
 each became the seat of a school of prophets and teachers, and 
 much of the learning and wisdom, which in after time made 
 Babylon the Alma Mater of Western Asia, was first elaborated in 
 these local schools. There grew up, therefore, in Babylonia, as 
 early as the twenty-fifth century before the Christian Era, a series 
 of local educational centres. The local priests and doctors were 
 most jealous of the teaching of their school, and the rights and 
 privileges of their temple ; and like the Brahmins in India, and 
 the priests in Egypt, were by far the most influential caste in the 
 land. The king often was by birth, and always by right of office, 
 a khattesi, or " high priest," and as such head of the church and 
 state. It is these local centres like the local polyarchies, that is 
 one of the most characteristic features of Babylonian religious 
 life, and which exercised a great power in its subsequent 
 developments. 
 
 It would require more time than is at my disposal this after- 
 noon to describe the nature and character of the teaching in these 
 various temple colleges ; two, however, deserve more than a mere 
 passing notice. The first of these is the city of Ur, in which the 
 Semites first make their appearance, a city of especial interest 
 as being the birthplace and early home of Abram, the ancestor 
 of the Hebrew people. The characteristic feature here was the 
 worship of the Moon-god in his temple " of the great light," 
 under the names of Aku, " the disk ; " Nannar, " the bright one ; " 
 or Sin, " the bright." A name which is preserved in the names 
 of Sinai and the wilderness of Sin. 
 
 The worship of the moon has always preceded that of the sun 
 among nomad races, so here we see the Moon called the father 
 
32 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of the Sun-god, and represented as an aged man with bright horns 
 and a crystal beard. 
 
 Father, longsuffering and full of forgiveness, whose hand upholds the life of all 
 mankind : 
 
 Lord, Thy divinity fills the far-distant heaven and the widespread sea veith 
 reverence. 
 
 On the surface of the peopled earth, he bids sanctuaries be placed, and proclaims 
 -ioT (each) its name. 
 
 Father, creator of gods and men, who causes the shrine to be founded, who 
 •establishes his offering. 
 
 In Heaven who is supreme 7 Thou alone art supreme 1 
 
 In Karth who is supreme ? Thou alone art supreme I 
 
 As for thee, thy will is made known in heaven, and the angels bow down their 
 ^aces. 
 
 As for thee, thy vrill is made known in earth, and the spirits kiss the ground. 
 
 As for thee, thy will is spread on high as the wind, the stall and the fold bring 
 ■forth. 
 
 As for thee, thy will is declared on earth, and the green herb grows. 
 
 As for thee, thy will is made known in the resting-place, and the sheepoote, and 
 all living things increase. 
 
 As for thee, thy will has created law and justice, in that man by it has made 
 ■a law. 
 
 As for thee, thy will is as the far-distant heaven and the innermost parts of the 
 earth, no man hath known it. 
 
 As for theo, who can explain thy will ; what can rival it ? 
 
 These hymns exhibit considerable advance on the cruder 
 thoughts of the older Turanian magic songs and litanies ; and it 
 must, to a large degree, be attributed to the influence of a purer 
 and more poetic thought inspired by the desert life of the Semitic 
 people. It is curious in these hymns, dating back certainly to 
 the twenty-fifth century before the Christian era, to find phrases 
 and expressions almost similar to those used by the Hebrew 
 psalmists. The discovery of these fragments of the liturgy of the 
 temple of the " great light," in which the ancestors of Terakh and 
 Abram worshipped, is a very important one, for the monuments now 
 show that the city of Kharran in North Mesopotamia, to which 
 Abram emigrated, was a colony from Ur of the Chaldees, and its 
 " temple of brightness " an adjunct of the mother-temple of Ur. 
 Perhaps in these hymns and psalms we may trace the first inspira- 
 tions of the songs of Zion. 
 
 The second centre of religious life to which I would call your 
 attention i* the dual city of Sippara, the Sepharvaim of the Old 
 Testament t(2 Kings xviii.), a city from which the Samaritan 
 colonists were taken. It was one of the oldest cities of the 
 Chaldean Empire, being by Berossus attributed to antediluvian 
 ages — the city in which Xisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah, placed the 
 records of pre-diluvian history. . The explorations upon the site 
 now marked by the mounds of Abbu Hubba prove it to be a city 
 whose temj)lej dedicated to the sun-god, had grown old and 
 
THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA. 33 
 
 decayed, at as remote a period as B.C. 3800, and some archaic in- 
 scriptions from the site may be ascribed to an even more remote 
 antiquity. Here there grew up a most powerful temple, with its 
 schools, libraries, observatories ; and supporting a vast number of 
 priests, doctors, and scribes. The cultus located here was that of 
 the worship of the bright sun-god under his name of Barbar or 
 Samas, and the legends and myths of his wars and loves are most 
 poetic, and valuable to the student of comparative mythology. 
 According to the fragments which have been recovered from the 
 library of this temple, the hymns are full of the most beautiful 
 poetry. The sun, in a morning hymn, is described as opening 
 the great gates of the rising sun and coming forth upon the world 
 "like a wife pleased and giving pleasure," an expression which 
 finds its equivalent in the Hebrew Psalms (xix. 5 et seq.) : " The- 
 Sun which as a bridegroom cometh out of his chamber, and re- j 
 joiceth as a strong man to run his course." Spreading bright 
 light, he looks upon all nations, and all nations turn their face to 
 him ; " his name is in all mouths ; " " thou art a banner," a rally- 
 ing point, " to all the wide earth." In another hymn we read of 
 the beautiful, all-seeing eyes of the sun, " the judge of men." 
 His strength, like that of Samson, is in his bright golden locks 
 and beard, which represent his rays of light shorn and marred by 
 the cold, cutting winter. He dies to rise again in all his youthful 
 beauty. In the temple were his sacred chariot and horses, such as 
 those of the Greek Apollo or the Syrian sun-god, which were 
 destroyed by Josiah (2 Kings ixiii. 11). These are two of the 
 chief centres of religious life which were in contact with the 
 Hebrew people in pre-captivity times, and are therefore of more 
 interest to us than some of the others, of which time does not 
 permit me to speak. 
 
 In tracing the growth and development of religious life in 
 Babylonia we must always maintain a synchronism with the social 
 progress of the people, and thus we shall be able to establish a 
 regular sequence in the progressive stages. 
 
 The age of polyarchy and the varied local schools of religious 
 thought was terminated by the period when the various city 
 kingdoms beceime amalgamated into one, and the empire was 
 consolidated under the government of one powerful ruler. Such 
 partial consolidations had taken place at various times, as, for 
 example, in B.C. 3800, when Sargon I., of Agade or Akkad, became 
 ruler of the land, or later, about B.C. 2500, when the kings of 
 Ur, Urbahu and Dungi, had founded a united empire in South 
 Babylonia. 
 
 But the grand and final consolidation took place about B.C. 2200, 
 when a powerful prince, Kammurabi, proclaimed himself king of 
 
 3 
 
34 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 Sumir and Akkad, namely, Nortlj and South Babylonia, and assumed 
 the epithet of " builder of the land," namely, founder of the empire, 
 and made Babylon his capital. Babylon had before this been but 
 a second-rate city. It is true that dynasties from Dintir-Ki, or 
 Babylon, had from time to time held sway, but it was not until 
 this period that Babylon became the religious and secular capital 
 of the empire. Its central position, its accessibility from all 
 parts, made it an excellent site for the national capital, and, once 
 established as such, it remained so for more than two thousand 
 years. 
 
 With the establishment of Babylon as the national capital came 
 the elevation of the local god of Babylon into the position of the 
 national god. 
 
 A similar change followed the conversion of the old Canaanite 
 fortress of Jebus into the Hebrew capital of Jerusalem. By the 
 removal of the Ark, the Hebrew palladiuTn, to the new capital, it 
 formed a species of compact between Yaveh and the royal house, 
 and Yaveh of Jerusalem became the national god. This change 
 was only gradual, taking, as M. Benan remarks, nearly four 
 centuries to reach its full development. In this centralization of 
 religious as well as secular authority in one common centre lies 
 the great secret of Babylonian national prosperity, and as long 
 as the alliance was maintained the power of the empire was 
 tinbreakable. 
 
 The local god of Babylon was Marduk, or Merodach, but on his 
 elevation to the position of national god he assumed many of the 
 attributes of his father Ea, and also of Bel, " the lord of the world," 
 and became known as Bel-Merodach, the Belus of the Greek writers. 
 Khammurabi restored and beautified his great temple called by 
 the name of E-Sagilla, " the house of the lofty head," and every 
 monarch from this period until the days of Cyrus added his 
 quota to its adornment and wealth. It became the metropolitan 
 cathedral of Babylonia, the centre of all religious life throughout 
 the vast empire. The dynasty of Khammurabi lasted over two 
 centuries, and thus the work begun by the founder was cemented 
 and made firm, and although there were numerous temples of far 
 greater antiquity and of more impressive religious associations, 
 yet for all time this edifice became the national temple of Babylonia, 
 and one of the wonders of the world. 
 
 It was, however, during the important period of the Neo- 
 Babylonian Empire, founded by Nabupalassar in B.C. 625, and 
 his successors, that this great national religion was at the zenith 
 of its glory. 
 
 This is the period upon which we are now getting a flood of 
 light by the recent discoveries in Babylonia ; is one of the most 
 
THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA. 35 
 
 important in the history of reUgious development in Western 
 Asia ; and one which throws an extremely important light upon 
 the post-captivity aspect of Judaism. For it is upon this period, 
 from B.C. 586 to B.C. 538, that the Jewish people were in the 
 closest contact and relationship with their captors — a contact 
 almost amounting to an absorption by their captors. Merodach 
 now occupied almost the same position in regard to the affairs of 
 Babylonia that Yaveh occupies in the writings of the later Jewish 
 prophets. He is the national god. Babylon is " spoken of as his 
 •chosen field or land " — Babylon as his chosen city which he loves, 
 while Bit Saggil is the abode which he loves. The enemies of the 
 "nation are his enemies. This is notably shown in case of the 
 ■overthrow of the Medes. Prior to B.C. 549, the Medes, growing in 
 power, had been a serious danger threatening the empire — as 
 ■enemies of the empire they are also enemies of the national god. 
 Thus, in the inscription : " Merodach, the great lord caused Cyrus, 
 his little servant, to go up against Astyages, the king of the 
 Barbarians ; he overthrew him, his city Ecbatana he captured, and 
 his spoil he carried away ; " Cyrus is here spoken of as the little 
 servant of the national god, because he is doing his work. 
 Nabonidus himself is the greater servant. Here, then, Merodach 
 occupies exactly the same position that is assigned to Cyrus by 
 Yaveh in Isaiah xlv. 28, xlvi. 1, where he is spoken of as " Cyrus, 
 my prince." Kings and princes do his work in destroying these 
 foes, and he applies to these enemies the same epithet as the 
 Hebrew god, " the unrighteous (la magari), who shall be utterly 
 •swept off the face of the earth." He is a jealous god, and, as such, 
 brooks no interference with his sovereignty. This is shown in 
 the progress of events which led to the fall of the Babylonian 
 Empire. Nabonidus, the last of the native Babylonian kings, who 
 ascended the throne in B.C. 555, was a vacillating ruler, caring 
 rather for pleasure, and especially apparently for antiquarian 
 researches, than for the duties of state. In the valuable chronicle 
 tablet we read the often-repeated phrase : " Bel came not forth ; " 
 denoting that the annual processions of the gods were not cele- 
 "brated. In addition to this neglect of the worship of Merodach, 
 the king, actuated perhaps by his antiquarian zeal, gathered 
 together in the temple of Bel the statues of all the gods from the 
 -various great temples of the land. This, naturally, had a most 
 serious effect on the priest caste. The priests of Bel-Merodach 
 were offended, and ergo the god himself also, at being brought in 
 •contact with these local divinities ; and the priests of the various 
 local temples, many of them older than Babylon itself, were 
 naturally incensed against the king, who deprived them of their 
 local palladia. The action of the king, naturally produced a 
 
36 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 religions revolution in the land, and a powerful opposition to the 
 king. 
 
 The sole controlling element in the land was found in Belshazzar, 
 the king's son, who seems to have been most punctilious in his 
 religious duties, as well as an active and able soldier. But the 
 gods, as represented by the priests, were against him, and his fate 
 was certain. The Babylonians, like the Jews, were at this time 
 looking to the same source for deliverance. Cyrus, the Persian, 
 was hailed alike by Jew and Babylonian as the one who would 
 restore the capital — and restore the national temple, and restore 
 the national religion — and bring peace to each alike. There was 
 a very rich and powerful Jewish element in the population, and 
 it is very probable that they took the popular side in this national 
 crisis. The great banking firm, who lent money to kings and 
 princes, and farmed the Babylonian revenues of both temples and 
 state are now admitted, by almost all Assyriologists, to be of 
 Jewish origin. Their name, Egibi, or Ikibi, is the exact equivalent 
 of the Hebrew Yakob, or Jacob. One strong argument that these 
 people sided with the Babylonians in welcoming Cyrus as the 
 deliverer is shown in the fact that their commercial transactions,. 
 of which we possess thousands of documents, are only interrupted 
 for a few days by the events of the fall of Babylon. It is not, 
 therefore, to be wondered, with these elements in his favour, that 
 Cyrus entered city after city, and lastly Babylon itself, without 
 fighting. It was on the evening of the 15th of the month 
 Tammuz, the great festival of the marriage of Ishtar and Tammuz 
 Adonis, in the year B.C. 538, that Babylon fell, Belshazzar was slain, 
 and the empire fell. 
 
 " That night they f?lew him on his father's throne, 
 The deed unnoticed, and the hand unknown ; 
 CrownlesB and sceptreless Belshazzar lay, 
 A robe of purple round a form of clay." 
 
 Cyrus was hailed as a deliverer, a messiah. He freed the 
 Babylonians from the eccentricity of an unpopular man, and 
 afforded to the Jews the prospect of a deliverance. He is hailed 
 by the national god as his servant, his viceroy, and the inscrip- 
 tions firom the temple of Merodach clearly reveal this. Thus is 
 the Persian ruler spoken of : " Merodach, the great lord, restorer 
 of his people, beheld with joy the deeds of his vice-regent, who 
 was righteous in hand and heart. To his city of Babylon he 
 summoned his march, like a friend and a comrade he went by 
 his side ; without fighting or battle he caused him to enter his 
 city of Babylon. The lord god, who in his mercy raises the 
 dead to life and who benefits all men in difficulty and prayer ; has 
 
THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA. 37 
 
 in favour drawn to him and made mighty his name. Merodach, 
 the great lord, freed the heart of his servant, whom the people of 
 Babylon obey." These passages are suflBcient to show Cyrus was 
 welcomed by the Babylonians, and the short tiu'e in which he 
 assumed and established here in his new empire proves the will- 
 ingness of the people to submit to him. The policy of Cyrus in 
 thus recognizing the religion of Babylon, and becoming a prayer- 
 ful servant of Nebo and Merodach, would seem to directly contra- 
 dict the statements of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah (ch. xlv. 1), 
 where he is attributed with the most iconoclastic tenets, but it is 
 only in perfect accordance with the subsequent action of Cambyses 
 and Darius in Egypt, where the former conformed to the worship 
 of Neit, and the latter to the adoration of Ammon, to whom he 
 he built a temple in the oasis of El Kargeh. 
 
 It was remarked by the late Emanuel Deutsch how remarkable 
 was the change wrought in the Hebrew people during the period 
 of the captivity. They entered the land a people ever falling 
 into idolatry, and falling from the service of the national god. In 
 no way were they centralized, either in national or religious life, 
 with no great national ambition, with only a law applicable to 
 desert life, and no code suitable to civic life. Yet in the short 
 period of about sixty years they return from their captivity a new 
 people. 
 
 We can see, perhaps, some of the forces which produced this in 
 the perfectly systematized social and religious codes of Babylonia 
 with which they came so intimately associated. The national 
 temple was the centre of all religious life, as the second temple 
 became to the Jews. The great temple was fed by the local 
 temples, which existed in all towns and villages and which cor- 
 responded to that important post-captivity institution, the Syna- 
 gogue. The Babylonian festivals corresponded to the Hebrew 
 great festivals almost day for day. In Nisan the feast of the 
 spring or opening, which varied from the first to the eighth or 
 fifteenth of Nisam according to the period of the equinox cor- 
 responded to the Passover. In Tisri there came the harvest feast, 
 the feast of tabernacles ; while the strange festival of darkness 
 and weeping on the fifteenth of Adar, which preceeded " the great 
 day when the destinies of all men were forecast," bears a strange 
 resemblance to the Jewish feast of Purim. The temple of the 
 Babylonians was essentially the same in name and construction 
 and arrangement as that of the Jews. The Hekal, the " holy 
 place," literally the " palace," was separated as in the Jewish 
 temple from the holy of holies, by a veil. This latter was called 
 by the name of parakku, the " shut-off portion," a word cognate 
 with the Hebrew paroketh, " the veil." Within it were the most 
 
38 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 precious records of the people or city, similar to the Jewish ark, 
 placed in stone cists, as in the temples at Ballawat and Sippara. 
 Immediately above them was the throne of the god, covered by a 
 species of baldachino, corresponding to the mercy seat, and sup- 
 ported by Kerubim or composite figures. Most of their institu- 
 tions which distinguished them from the Gentile (poim) nations 
 are to be found in Babylonia. The Sabbath, called by the Baby- 
 lonians the white day, " or the day of the rest of the heart," was 
 kept on the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth 
 days with a strictness as great as that of the most Pharisaic Jews, 
 No food was to be cooked, no fire to be lit, the clothes of the body 
 might not be changed, it was even unlawful to wash. The king 
 might not ride in his chariot or exercise any act of judgment or 
 royalty. Sacrifice must not be ofi'ered until after sunset, when 
 the Sabbath was over. One remarkable restriction was, that no 
 medicine should be taken. " Medicine for the sickness of his- 
 body he shall not apply," which, no doubt, gave rise to the 
 Pharisaic question to Jesus, " Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath 
 day ? " In addition to this, even that distinctive ceremony which 
 the Jews regarded as characteristic of their people, the rite of cir- 
 cumcision, we now know was a Chaldean custom long before Abram 
 left his Chaldean home. With these remarkable resemblances it 
 is not astonishing that in so short a time the Samaritan colonists- 
 from Babylonia became assimilated to Judaism. The law& 
 which had been sufiicient for the Hebrew people in the early 
 nomadic stages of their life, in the first settlement in Palestine 
 under the patriarchs and their wanderings in the desert, was 
 totally inadequate for the new life of the city and town dweller. 
 We now find the captivity producing that wonderful compendium 
 of laws, entering into the minutest details of civic, domestic, and 
 social life, the Talmud, and when we examine these laws, it is 
 perfectly apparent that the whole is based upon the precedents of 
 Babylonian laws. 
 
 The captivity was truly the renaissance of the Jewish people. 
 Broken into divers factions, disintegrated in all their national 
 affinities ; with no common bond, no common aim, with a half- 
 developed religion confined almost exclusively to the school 
 of Jerusalem prophets. We find them returning from a short 
 captivity of less than seventy years, a changed and new people. 
 Zealous of the worship of the national god — impregnated with 
 a national love and spirit, so deeply ingrained into their nature 
 that the severest precautions to which anybody of people has 
 been subjected have failed to eradicate it from the hearts of even 
 the poorest and the weakest. Entering Babylon with an 
 incomplete law, they emerge with a religious and secular code 
 
THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA. 39' 
 
 perfect ia all its branches. With these facts before us we cannot 
 too highly estimate the influence of Babylonia as a centre of 
 religious development and influence. 
 
 In my lecture this afternoon, I have been able to deal with 
 only one section in the vast mass of Babylonian literature — but 
 certainly I believe the most important section. The material 
 is ample, the work has been the result of the labour of a few 
 patient students, but the time will come — is rapidly drawing 
 near, when no student of the science of religion will feel his work 
 complete without a careful study of these ancient tomes which for 
 centuries have lain hidden in the treasure-houses of antiquity. 
 From them we learn that not only was Babylon the motherland 
 of culture and civilization, of arts, science, and letters, but also 
 that in her temple schools were taught the first principles 
 of many of the great doctrines of religion, which we hear at the 
 present day set forth from our pulpits. 
 
40 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CONFUCIUS THE SAGE AND THE EBLIGION 
 
 OF CHINA. 
 
 BT PROFESSOR JAMES LE66E. 
 
 The subject which I have nndertaken to bring before you is, 
 you perceive, twofold : Confucius the Sage and the Religion 
 of China. I purposely worded it so. Two errors are frequently 
 fallen into about Confucius. Some writers represent him as the 
 author of what I may call the State religion of his country ; 
 while others contend that his teaching is merely a system of 
 morality, without the element of religion. I have thought it 
 would be well if I constructed my lecture this afternoon so as 
 to correct both those errors, and give you, so far as the time 
 will permit, some information as to who and what Confticius 
 was, and what was the nature of that religion which was his 
 by inheritance. We shall thus see how the two errors about 
 him have arisen, be able to form an opinion as to the service 
 which he did for China and the world, and also to pass a 
 judgment as to the religious beliefs and practices which have 
 obtained among the Chinese people from time immemorial. 
 
 First, then, let me ispeak to you of Confucius, giving you a 
 brief sketch of his history, character, and teachings, without 
 bringing in the subject of religion. I need hardly tell you that 
 the name Confucius is merely the Latinized form of the three 
 Chinese words K'ung Fti-tsze (^ ^ -^), meaning " The Master 
 K'ung," equivalent in the mouths of his disciples to "Our 
 Master K'ung," and accepted generally as the denomination 
 of him as the most distinguished, or among the most dis- 
 tinguished, of all human teachers. He was emphatically a 
 teacher. He was not a hero, whose history can be made inter- 
 esting by a record of his military prowess, nor a man of science, 
 who enlarged the boundaries of knowledge, and opened the way 
 to new triumphs of man over nature. He was the sage, the 
 man of calm and practical wisdom, inspired by the love of 
 mankind, and inculcating the lessons of human duty. 
 
 His surname, as I have just intimated, was K'ung ; and his 
 birth took place in the year B.C. 5.51, in what was then the 
 
CONFUCIUS AND THE RELIGION OF CHINA. 41 
 
 feudal state of ILt, a portion of what is now the province of 
 Shan-tung, on the eastern seaboard of China. But though he 
 was born in Lt, his family had migrated thither from the 
 duchy of Sung, in the present province of Ho-nan. The K'ung 
 clan was a branch of the ducal house of Sung, which itself was 
 descended from the kings of the dynasty of Shang, who had 
 ruled from B.C. 1766 to 1123, and who traced their lineage back 
 to Hwang Ti, the first year of whose reign is said to have been in 
 B.C. 2697. There are tens of thousands of K'ungs now living, who 
 boast of being descended from Confucius, and who have thus an 
 ancestry going back into the mists of antiquity for more than four 
 thousand five hundred years. Between the K'ungs and another 
 more powerful clan of Sung there was a hereditary enmity ; and 
 the great-grandfather of our subject fled in consequence to the 
 marquisate of Lti, and settled there. Confucius' father is known 
 to us as sustaining an honourable position, and an officer of 
 extraordinary strength and bravery. In his old age, for reasons 
 into a detail of which I need not go, he divorced his wife, and 
 contracted a second marriage with a young lady of the family 
 of Yen, of whom Confucius was born in B.C. 551, as I have said. 
 
 The old father died soon afterwards, when the boy was in his 
 third year ; and his mother and he were left in straitened 
 circumstances. The lad developed early the tendencies of his 
 -character. He has left us a very brief account of his mental 
 growth, saying that at fifteen his mind was set on learning, 
 and that at seventy he could do whatever his heart prompted, 
 confident that it was right. When his mother died, in his 
 twenty-third or twenty-fourth year, he raised the coffin in which, 
 probably on account of her poverty, she had buried her husband 
 near the place where they lived, and took it and her coffin to 
 the place in which the K'ungs had first found refuge in L6, 
 and laid them there in the same grave. Before his mother's 
 ^eath he had married himself, and he appears to have lived 
 with his wife happily enough for about fifty years. There is no 
 sufficient evidence that he divorced her, as has been alleged, 
 •or ever introduced a concubine into his family. So far as his 
 own practice is concerned, Confucius was a monogamist. His 
 •children were not many. He had one son, merely an ordinary, 
 average man, but who left a son superior to himself, and to 
 whom we are indebted for the most complete and philosophical 
 -account of his grandfather's teachings. Probably in his twenty- 
 second year Confucius commenced his labours as a teacher in 
 his native village. But he was not what we call a schoolmaster, 
 ^teaching boys the rudiments of education. His house was the 
 lesort of young and inquiring spirits, whose attention he directed 
 
42 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 to the ancient monuments of the nation's history and literature^ 
 unfolding to them at the same time the principles of human duty 
 and of government. This was the work of his life. His disciples,, 
 first and last, amounted, it is said, to three thoasand ; and among 
 them there were between seventy and eighty whom he highly 
 valued, and praised as " scholars of extraordinary ability." From' 
 the time that he thus comes before us on the stage of public 
 life, and especially during the long period of wandering among 
 different states that subsequently befell him, he always appears 
 attended by companies of his disciples. These must have sup- 
 ported him. In his earlier school he received all who came 
 to him for instruction, and did not refuse the smallest fee ; but 
 he required from all an ardent desire for improvement and 
 a good measure of capacity. It is difficult for us, however, to 
 understand this feature of his course: how, while dependent 
 on the sympathy and support of his followers, he yet maintained 
 among them the most entire authority and independence. When 
 Mencms, who is styled " a secondary Sage," came after him, about 
 a century and a half later, and went about the country in the 
 same way, enforcing the lessons of "the Master," he accepted, 
 the gifts of different princes to an extent that startled even his 
 disciples. But Confucius never did so. He would not demean 
 himself to receive help from a ruler whom he disapproved, and 
 who would not carry out his principles in the government of his 
 people. Confucius must have been supported by the free-will 
 contributions of his disciples. This point in the study of his 
 course has often suggested to me the passage in the Gospel of 
 Luke where it says (chap. viiL 1-3) that Jesus "went about 
 through cities and villages, preaching the good tidings of the 
 kingdom of God, and with Him the twelve and certain women 
 that had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities : Mary Mag- 
 dalene and Joanna, the wife of Ohnza, Herod's steward, and 
 Susanna, and many others, which ministered to them of their 
 substance.'' 
 
 A noble by descent, and soon widely known for his attainments,, 
 Confucius might have expected to be called to a position in the 
 government of the State. But the time was one of great corrup- 
 tion and disorder. The general government of the kingdom was 
 feeble, and every feudal state was torn by contentions between 
 its ruler and the Heads of the clans in it, as well as by collisions 
 between those clans themselves. It was not till he was over 
 fifty that Confdcius was made governor of one of the towns of 
 Ltl. There his administration was so successful that he was 
 soon raised to higher dignities, and at last became Minister of 
 Crime for the whole State. " He strengthened," we are told,. 
 
CONFUCIUS AND THE EELTGION OF CHINA. 43 
 
 " the rnling house, and weakened the usurping chiefs. A trans- 
 forming government went abroad. Dishonesty and dissoluteness 
 were ashamed, and hid their heads. Loyalty and good faith 
 became the characteristics of the men, and chastity and docility 
 those of the women. Confucius became the idol of the people, 
 and flew in songs through their mouths. The people of other 
 states flocked in crowds to Ltl, to enjoy the blessing of its good 
 order." But this sky of bright promise was soon overcast. The 
 other states became jealous of the prosperity of Lil, and afraid of 
 the influence of its Minister of Crime. The Marquis of Ch'i, the 
 nearest of them, succeeded, by a most scandalous scheme, in 
 alienating the mind of the ruler of Lt. from his wise counsellor. 
 Confucius became convinced that it was unbecoming his character 
 to continue longer in the State. Slowly and sorrowfully he left 
 it, and in b.c. 496 went forth, with a company of his disciples, to 
 thirteen years of homeless wandering, trying to find a ruler who 
 had ears to hear his instructions and goodness and wisdom to 
 follow them. The quest was in vain, but the record of his 
 experiences during that long and painful time is full of interest. 
 
 More than once he and the faithful few who would not leave 
 him were in danger of perishing from want, or at the hands of 
 excited mobs. On one occasion, when they were surrounded by 
 an infuriate multitude and the disciples were alarmed, he calmly 
 said to them, " Heaven produced the virtue that is in me. What 
 can these people do to me ? " This was always the way in which 
 Confucius spoke in his highest utterances about himself. He 
 never claimed to be anything more than man ; but he felt that 
 he had a divine mission. He knew the Way ; — the way for the 
 individual to perfect himself and the way for governors to rule 
 so as to make their people happy and good. To teach this was 
 his mission, and he would be faithful to it to the last. In the 
 midst of his disciples, famishing and frightened, he was always 
 calm, and cheered them, singing to his lute. 
 
 The wanderers occasionally came across recluses, men who had 
 withdrawn from the world in disgust, and derided him, always 
 striving, and striving in vain, with his plans of reformation. 
 " Than follow one who withdraws from this ruler and that, had 
 you not better follow those who withdraw from the world alto- 
 gether ? " said one of those recluses to a disciple. When his 
 words were reported to the master, he said, " It is impossible to 
 associate with birds and beasts. If I associate not with the 
 people, with whom shall I associate ? If the right way prevailed 
 in the world, there would be no need for me to change its state." 
 
 At length Confucius was recalled to Lt in b.c. 483, but he 
 was now in his sixty-ninth year. Only five years more remained 
 
44 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 to him. He hardly re-entered public life, but devoted the time 
 to completing his literary tasks. His son died in 482, but he 
 bore that event with more equanimity than he did the death of 
 his favourite disciple in the year following. His own death took 
 place in the spring of 478. The account which we have of it is 
 the following : — Early one morning he got up ; and with his 
 hands behind him, and trailing his staff, he moved about by the 
 door, crooning over — 
 
 " The great mountain must crumble, 
 The strong beam must break, 
 And the wise man wither away like a plant." 
 
 After a little he entered the house, and sat down opposite the 
 door. The disciple Tsze-kung, who was in attendance on him, 
 had heard the words, and said to himself, " I am afraid the 
 master is going to be ill." With this he hastened into the house, 
 when Confticius told him a dream which he had had in the night, 
 and which he thought presaged his death, adding, "No intel- 
 ligent monarch arises ; there is no ruler in the kingdom who will 
 make me his master ; my time has come to die." So it was. 
 He took to his couch, and after seven days expired. 
 
 Such was the death of the great sage of China. His end was 
 not unimpressive, but it was melancholy. He uttered no prayen,- 
 and he betrayed no apprehension. "The mountain falling came 
 to nought, and the rock was removed out of its place. So death 
 prevailed against him, and he passed. His countenance was 
 changed, and he was sent away." 
 
 I have thus given you a very condensed outline of the events 
 of Confucius' life. Of his personal appearance, his habits, and 
 his sayings we have abundant details in the records of his 
 disciples. He was tall, and methodical, doing everything in the 
 proper way, time, and place. He was nice in nis eating, out not 
 a great eater. He was not a total abstainer from spirituous drink, 
 but he never took too much. To confine myself to what they 
 tell us of him as a teacher : — They found him free from foregone 
 conclusions, arbitrary determinations, obstinacy, and egoism j he 
 would not talk with them about extraordinary things, feats of 
 strength, rebellious disorder, and spiritual beings ; he frequently 
 discoursed to them about the books of poetry and history and 
 the rules of propriety ; there were three things, he said, in 
 which the greatest caution was required : fasting (as preparatory 
 to sacrifice), going to war, and the treatment of disease ; he 
 insisted on their cultivating letters, ethics, leal-heart«dness, and 
 truthfulness ; and there were three things on which he seldom 
 dwelt : the profitable, the decrees of Heaven, and perfect virtue. 
 
CONFUCIUS AND THE RELIGION OF CHINA. 45 
 
 He held that society was made up of •five relationships : those 
 of husband and wife, of parent and child, of elder and younger 
 brother or generally of elders and youngers, of ruler and minister 
 or subject, and of friend and friend. A country would be well 
 governed when all the parties in those relationships performed 
 their parts aright, though I must think that he allowed too much 
 to the authority of the higher party in each of them. I do not 
 mean to say that there was no such moral teaching in the litera- 
 ture of China before his time. There was much, but he invested 
 it all with a new grace and dignity. His greatest achievement, 
 however, in his moral teaching was his inculcation of the Golden 
 Rule, which he delivered at least five separate times. Tsze-kung 
 once Basked him whether there were any one word which might 
 serve as a rule of practice for all one's life. His reply was, " Is 
 there not sh'A?" that is, reciprocity, or altruism; and he added 
 the explanation of it : " What you do not want done to yourself, 
 do not do to others." The same disciple on another occasion 
 saying that he observed the rule, Confucius simply remarked, 
 "Ah 1 you have not attained to that ! " He tells us, indeed, in 
 one important passage — and we do not think the worse of him 
 for the acknowledgment — that he was not able himself to follow 
 the rule in its positive form in any one of the relationships. 
 
 Many of his short sayings are admirable in their pith and 
 sagacity. What could be better than these ? — 
 
 " Learning without thought is labour lost ; thought without 
 learning is perilous." 
 
 " It is only the truly virtuous who can love or hate others." 
 
 " Can there be love which does not lead to strictness in the 
 training of its object ? Can there be loyalty which does not lead 
 to the mstruction of its object ? " 
 
 " To be poor without murmuring is diflScult ; to be rich without 
 being proud is easy." 
 
 There was nothing he liked to set forth more than the character 
 of Tils superior or ideal man. I will give you one specimen, and 
 only one : " The scholar considers leal-heartedness and good faith 
 to be his coat of mail and helmet, propriety and righteousness 
 to be his shield and buckler ; he walks along bearing over his 
 head benevolence ; he dwells holding righteousness in his arms 
 . before him ; the government may be violently oppressive, but he 
 does not change his course : such is the way in which he main- 
 tains himself." 
 
 It may occur to you that, notwithstanding all I have said, 
 Confucius does not appear to you in any other character but as 
 an ethical teacher of great merit ; but I did not wish in this part 
 of the lecture to exhibit him in any other. Wherein we must 
 
46 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 attach to his teachings a religions sanction will be seen in the 
 other part to which I will immediately proceed. 
 
 Certain failures in his character and writings, moreover, have 
 been pointed out, and by no one so much as myself. He enun- 
 ciated, for instance, as we have seen, the Grolden Rule ; but he did 
 not, or would not, appreciate the still higher rule, when his atten- 
 tion was called to it, that good should be returned for evil, and 
 that the evil will thereby be overcome. "While he taught truth- 
 fulness, moreover, there are many passages in the Spring and 
 Autumn which he claimed especially as his own work, that 
 Awaken doubts as to its historical veracity. But, after all, these 
 •charges are not very heavy ; and he would have recked little of 
 them himself. When he was once charged with slighting an 
 important rule of propriety, all that he said in reply was, " I am 
 fortunate. If I have any errors, people are sure to know them." 
 You will not be sorry to hear the magnificent eulogium which his 
 grandson pronounced on the ideal sage and king, being understood 
 to have had Confucius in his mind : — 
 
 " Possessed of all sagely qualities, showing himself quick in 
 apprehension, clear in discernment, of far-reaching intelligence 
 and all-embracing knowledge, he was fitted to exercise rule ; 
 magnanimous, generous, benign, and mild, fitted to exercise 
 forbearance ; impulsive, energetic, firm, and enduring, fitted to 
 maintain a strong hold ; self-adjusted, grave, never swerving from 
 the mean, and correct, fitted to command reverence ; accomplished, 
 ■distinctive, concentrative, and searching, fitted to exercise dis- 
 crimination. Therefore his fame overspreads the Middle Kingdom, 
 and extends to all barbarous tribes. Wherever ships and car- 
 riages reach, wherever the strength of man penetrates, wherever 
 the heaven overshadows and the earth sustains, wherever the sun 
 and moon shine, wherever frosts and dews fall, all who have blood 
 and breath unfeignedly honour and love him." 
 
 Secondly, let me pass on now to consider what is the nature of 
 the religion of China, what it was in the very earliest times, and 
 what it continues substantially to be at the present day. As we 
 succeed in the study and exhibition of this, we shall discover 
 more clearly the deep foundation of the moral teaching of Con- 
 fucius, and wherein the religion itself fails to supjuy to the 
 Chinese people all that is necessary for the nourishment of their 
 spiritual being and the making of them what they ought to be. 
 
 There have been from time immemorial two sacrificial services 
 in China : one addressed to the supreme Being and the other 
 to the spirits of the dead. I call them sacrificial services in 
 accordance with the general usage of writers on the subject ; but 
 we must not import into the words sacrifice and sacrificial aU 
 
CONFUCIUS AND THE RELIGION OF CHINA. 47 
 
 the ideas which we attach to them. The most common term 
 for sacrifice in Chinese is tsi (^), and the most general idea 
 symbolized by it is an offering whereby communication aad 
 communion with spiritual beings are effected. The offerings, we 
 Are told, and the language employed in presenting them, were for 
 the purpose of prayer, or of thanksgiving, or of deprecation. Our 
 meaning of substitution and propitiation does not enter into the 
 term, excepting in the sense of making propitious and friendly. 
 
 I will speak first of the former service. 
 
 The earliest name for the supreme Being among the Chinese 
 fathers appears to have been THen, or " Heaven." When the 
 framers of their characters made one to denote " Heaven " (5c)> 
 they fashioned it from two already existing characters, represent- 
 ing "one" ( — •) and "great" (;^), signifying the vast and 
 bright firmament, overspreading and embracing all, and from 
 which came the light, heat, and rain which rendered the earth 
 beneath fruitful and available for the support and dwelling of 
 man and all other living beings on its surface. But their mindfs 
 did not rest in the material, or I might almost say the immaterial, 
 sky. The name soon became symbolical to them of a Power and 
 Ruler, a spiritual Being, whom they denominated Ti ('^), 
 " God," and Shavg Ti (J; •^), « the supreme God." I cannot 
 render these terms in English in any other way. The Chinese 
 dictionaries tell us that Ti represents the ideas of lordship and 
 rule. 
 
 So it was that the name for the sky which they beheld became 
 to the earliest Chinese personal as the denomination of their 
 concept of God. The same process of thought must have 
 taken place among our own Early Fathers, though the personal 
 name has displaced the material and symbolical term among us 
 much more than it has among the Chinese. The name Heaven 
 iai God, however, has not altogether disappeared from our 
 common speech. Witness such phrases as " Heaven knows," 
 " Please Heaven." I find the same significance in the words of 
 Daniel to the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar, " Thou shalt know 
 that the heavens do rule," and in the penitent language of the 
 returning prodigal, " Father, I have sinned against Heaven and 
 in thy sight." 
 
 The worship of God was associated with a worship of the more 
 prominent objects of nature, such as heaven and earth, the sun 
 and moon, the starry host, hills and streams, forests and valleys. 
 It has been contended from this that the most ancient religion of 
 the Chinese was a worship of the objects of nature. I do not think 
 
48 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OP THE WORLD, 
 
 it was so, and I am supported in my opinion by the express 
 testimony of Confucius that " by the ceremonies of the sacrifices 
 to heaven and earth they served God." The words supply an 
 instance of his unfrequent use of the personal name, which he 
 employed, I suppose, to give greater emphasis to his declaration. 
 If it was 80 in the worship of those greatest objects of nature, 
 much more must it have been so in that of the inferior objects. 
 Even though the presidency of those objects may be ignorantly and 
 puperstitiously assigned to different spiritual beings, the prayers 
 to them show that the worship of them is still a service of God. 
 In a prayer, for instance, to the Cloud-master, the Rain-master,, 
 the Lord of the Winds, and the Thunder-master, it is said, " It is 
 yours, spirits, to superintend the clouds and the rain, and ta 
 raise and send abroad the winds, as ministers assisting the 
 supreme God." To the spirits of all the hills and rivers under 
 the sky, again, it is said, " It is^^yours, Spirits, with your 
 Heaven-conferred powers and nurturing influences, each to preside 
 over one district, as ministers assisting the Great Worker and 
 Transformer." 
 
 Thus then I may affirm that the religion of China was, and is^ 
 a monotheism, disfigured indeed by ignorance and superstition, 
 but still a monotheism, based on the belief in one supreme Being, 
 of whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things. 
 
 Very soon that religion became a state-worship, and in doing 
 so it took a peculiar form. The only performer allowed in it is 
 " the One Man," the sovereign of the nation himself. Its 
 celebration, moreover, is limited to a few occasions, the greatest 
 being that at the winter solstice. Then the service is, or ought 
 to be, an acknowledgment by the Emperor, for himself, his line, 
 and the people, of their obligations to God. It is said of this 
 ceremony that it is " the utmost expression of reverence " and 
 " the great€st act of thanksgiving." It may have degenerated 
 into a mere formality, but there is the original idea underlying it. 
 It grew probably from the earliest patriarchal worship, though 
 there is no record of that in Chinese literature. The sovereign 
 stands forth in it, both the father and priest of his people. I do 
 not term him the ^2^^-priestj for there is no other priest in all 
 the empire. No one is allowed in the same direct manner to 
 sacrifice to God. There never has been in China a priestly class 
 or caste, and I cannot consider this a disadvantage. The restric- 
 tion of the direct, solemn worship of God has been unfortunate, 
 excluding the people generally from communion with Him, — the 
 highest, privilege of man and the most conducive to the beauty 
 and excellence of his whole character ; but better this even than 
 a priestly class, claiming to stand between men and G^d, them- 
 
CONFUCIUS AND THE RELIGION OF CHINA. 49 
 
 selves not better than other men, and in no respect more highly 
 gifted, and yet shutting up the way into the holiest that is open 
 to all, and assuming to be able by rites and performances of 
 theirs to dispense blessings which can only be obtained from the 
 great God with whom all have to do. 
 
 Only on one other point in this part of my lecture will I touch : 
 the relation between men and God as their Governor and the 
 connection between the religion and morality. King T'ang, the 
 founder of the Shang dynasty in B.C. 1766, thus spoke : — "The 
 great God has conferred even on the inferior people a moral 
 sense, compliance with which would show their nature invariably 
 right. To mate them tranquilly pursue the course which it would 
 indicate is the work of the sovereign." Much to the same effect 
 spoke Wii, the -first king of the Cha,n dynasty, in 1122 : — "He 
 even, to help the inferior people, made for them rulers, and 
 made for them instructors, who should be assisting to God, so as 
 to secure tranquillity throughout the nation." Thus government 
 ie from God and teaching is from God. They are both divine 
 ordinances. vThe king and the sage are equally God's ministers, 
 having their respective functions ; and they have no other divine 
 right to their positions but that which arises from the fulfilment 
 of their duties. The dynasty that does not rule so as to secure 
 the well-being of the people has forfeited its right to the throne. 
 An old poet, celebrating the rise of the dynasty of which he was 
 a scion, thus sang : — 
 
 " Oh ! great is God ; His glance on earth He bent, 
 Scanning our regions with severe intent 
 For one whose rule the people should content. 
 The earlier lines of kings had practised ill, 
 And ruling, ruled not aiter God's just will ; 
 He therefore 'mong the states was searching still." 
 
 So it was with the sovereign ; and as for the teacher, if he did 
 not set forth aright the will of Gtod, he had no function at all. 
 
 See the application of all this to the case of Confucius and the 
 religious character which it imparts to his moral teachings. The 
 treatise of his grandson, to which I have already alluded, com- 
 mences with this sentence : — ""What Heaven has conferred " (on 
 man) " is called his nature ; an accordance with this nature is 
 called the path " (of duty) ; " the regulation of this path is called 
 the system of instruction." Now who ever sought to regulate 
 the path of duty by his instructions as our sage did ? In doing 
 80, he taught man indeed to act in accordance with his nature ; 
 but accordance with that nature was the fulfilment of the will 
 of Heaven. The idea of Heaven or God as man's Maker and 
 Governor was fundamental to the teachings of Confucius, and 
 
 4 
 
50 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 on this account I contend that those who see in him only a moraF 
 teacher do not understand him. What he said was with a divine 
 sanction ; and they who neglected and disobeyed his lessons were- 
 as he said, " offending against Heaven, and had none to whom they 
 could pray." 
 
 And further the account which I have given of the state 
 religion supplies probably the true reason why Confucius gene- 
 rally spoke of Heaven, and seldom used the personal name God. 
 We ought to find the expressions of a devout reverence and 
 submission in such utterances as the following : — " Alas ! there is 
 no one that knows me. But I do not murmur against Heaven, 
 nor grumble against men. There is Heaven ; that knows me." 
 
 But I hasten on to speak, next and finally, of that other 
 worship — if we should call it so — the sacrifices to ancestors and 
 to others not of the same line as their worshippers. 
 
 How this worship took its rise I am unable to say. Herbert 
 Spencer holds that " the rudimentary form of all religion is the 
 propitiation of dead ancestors who are supposed to be still 
 existing, and to be capable of working good or evil to their 
 descendants." This view is open to the criticism which I made on 
 the Confucian sacrifices generally : that our idea of propitiation 
 is not in them. It is not found either in those to the supreme 
 Being or in those to the dead. 
 
 Of course sacrificing to the dead involves a belief in the 
 continued existence of the souls or spirits of men after their life 
 on earth has come to a close, and also that they continue in the 
 possession of their higher faculties, so as to be conscious of 
 the services rendered to them, and to be able to exercise 
 an influence on the condition of their descendants and others in 
 the world. 
 
 Sacrificing to the departed great, who were not of the same 
 line as their worshippers, admits of an easy explanation. It 
 is a grateftd recognition of the services which they rendered 
 to their own times and for all time. In the Record of Ritual 
 Usages we read, "According to the Institutes of the Sage 
 Kings, sacrifices should be offered to him who had given laws 
 to the people, to him who had persevered to the death in the 
 discharge of his duties, to him who had strengthened the State 
 by his laborious toil, to him who had boldly and successfully 
 met great calamities, and to him who had warded off great 
 evils. Only men of this character were admitted to the sacrificial 
 canon." Such a sacrificial service has little that is objectionable 
 in it. It is little more than the tribute which a historian pays 
 to the virtues of those whom he commemorates in his writings, 
 and in which his readers cordially join. Nor does this worship 
 
CONFUCIUS AND THE EELIGION OF CHINA, 51 
 
 interfere with the monotheism of the Chinese religion. The 
 men are not deified. I will give you an instance in point from 
 a hymn which was employed in sacrificing to a very ancient 
 worthy styled Hau-chi, who was honoured as the father of 
 agriculture. It says,— 
 
 " thou aocompUBhed, great H4u-chl. 
 
 To whom alone 'twas fjiven 
 To be by what we owe to thee 
 
 The correlate of Heaven, 
 On all who dwell within our land 
 
 Grain food didst thou bestow ; 
 ' Tis to thy wonder-working hand 
 
 This gracious boon we owe. 
 God had the wheat and barley meant 
 
 To nourish all mankind ; 
 None would have fathomed His intent 
 
 But for thy guiding mind." 
 
 Confucius has a distinguished place in this sacrificial service, 
 and I used to think that he received in it religious worship, and 
 denounced it. But I was wrong. What he received was the 
 homage of gratitude, and not the worship of adoration. There 
 is a danger of this worship being productive of evil and leading 
 to superstition and idolatry. The most remarkable instance of 
 this that occurs to me is the exaltation for the last three 
 centuries of Kwan Yii, an upright, likable warrior of our third 
 century, to be really, so far as the title is concerned, " the god 
 Kwan," — the god of war. 
 
 But I return to the worship of ancestors. That is insisted on 
 in the Confucian teaching as the consummating tribute of filial 
 piety, the virtue which occupies the first place in the scale of 
 human excellences. A great virtue it is undoubtedly, but it is 
 exaggerated by the Chinese ; and the exaggeration has been on 
 the whole perhaps injurious to the prosperity and progress of the 
 nation. 
 
 Certain sayings of Confucius have often been pointed out as 
 showing that he was not satisfied in his own mind as to the 
 continued existence of the dead, or that their spirits really had 
 knowledge of the sacrificial services rendered to them ; but I 
 will not enter now on a discussion of them. We are not certain 
 how we should understand them, and he was himself strict in the 
 performance of the services. " He sacrificed to the dead," we are 
 told, " as if they were present, and to the spirits as if they were 
 there." If he were prevented from being present at such a 
 service, and had to employ another to take his place, he considered 
 his absence to be equivalent to his not sacrificing. 
 
 At the sacrifice small tablets of wood with the names of the 
 deceased to whom they were dedicated written on them were set 
 
52 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 np, and called the spirit-tablets, which the spirits were supposed 
 to take possession of for the time. They were ordinarily in an 
 apartment behind the sacrificial hall, and brought out for the 
 occasion. They were returned to their place when the service 
 was over, and the spirits were supposed to have left the temple 
 for their place. But where was their place ? Where and in what 
 condition do the spirits of the departed exist ? 
 
 For one thing, they are believed to be in heaven, and in the 
 presence of God. A very famous name in China was that of 
 king Wan, whose career "led to his son's becoming the first 
 sovereign of the Chau dynasty ; and of him after his death it 
 
 was sung, — 
 
 " The royal WSn now rests on high, 
 In dignity above the sky ; 
 Chau as a state had long been known ; 
 Heaven's choice of it at last was shown. 
 Its lords had gained a famous name ; 
 God kinged them when the season came. 
 King win ruled well when earth he trod ; 
 Now moves his spirit near to God." 
 
 In the same way the emperors of the present Man-ch<i line 
 speak of their departed fathers. The concluding hymn for the 
 worship of them in the ancestral temple in the canon of 1826 
 may be thus rendered : — 
 
 " Now ye confront, now ye pass by. 
 
 Unbound by conditions of place ; 
 Here ye descend, there ye ascend, 
 
 Nor leave of your movements a trace. 
 Still and deep is the chamber behind ; 
 
 .How restful and blessed its space ! 
 Their home have your spirits in heaven. 
 
 The shrines there their tablets embrace. 
 A myriad years their course shall run, 
 
 Nor e'er our filial thoughts efEaoe." 
 
 For another thing, the spirits of the departed become tutelary 
 guardians of their posterity, dispensing blessings on them if 
 they pursue the course of well-doing and punishing them if they 
 do wrong, subject, however, in both cases to the will of God. 
 
 Time will not permit me to adduce instances in confirmation of 
 this statement, which could easily be done from the records of 
 Chinese history. They are all cases, however, of good sovereigns 
 and men, who, because of their virtuous course on earth, attained 
 at death to heaven and the presence of God, and had the charge 
 there of watching over the interests that had occupied them and 
 been dear to them in life. But what does the Confucian religion 
 of China teach concerning the future state of bad sovereigns 
 and bad men generally ? I may almost reply to this question, 
 " Absolutely nothing." Its oracles are dumb on this interesting 
 
CONFTJCIUS AND THE EELIGION OF CHINA. 53 
 
 and important point. There is no purgatory and no hell in the 
 Confucian literature. 
 
 There had grown up even before the time of the Sage a doctrine 
 that the retribution of good and evil takes place in time, and he 
 himself derived no little benefit in his own career from it. The 
 distinction between good and evil is never obscured, nor the 
 different issues of the one and the other. Every moralist writes 
 as if he had been charged, like Isaiah, to " say of the righteous 
 that it shall be well with him, for the reward of his hands shall 
 be given him, and of the wicked, Woe unto the wicked ! it shall 
 be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him." 
 Similar proclamations resound all along the line of Chinese 
 history ; but the good to the righteous, and the ill to the wicked, 
 are only the prosperity of the one class and the overthrow and 
 ruin of the other in their worldly estate. The retribution of 
 both cases takes place, not in the persons of the good or the bad, 
 but in those of their descendants. I have said that this view of 
 providence had arisen in China before the time of Confucius. 
 There is a distinct enunciation of it in one of the appendixes to 
 the Yi-King, the authorship of which is generally, though not, I 
 think, correctly, ascribed to the Sage himself. It is said, " The 
 family that accumulates goodness is sure to have superabundant 
 happiness ; the family that accumulates evil is sure to have 
 superabundant misery." The same teaching appears in the 
 second commandment of our Decalogue. An important and 
 wholesome truth it is that the good-doing and ill-doing of parents 
 are visited on and in their children ; but do the sinning parents 
 themselves escape the curse ? It is in this form that the subject 
 of future retribution appears among the literati of China, the 
 professed followers of Confucius, at the present day. They do 
 not deny the continued existence of the spirit after death, and 
 they present their sacrifices or offerings to their ancestors, but it 
 is with little or no consideration of whether their lives were good 
 or bad. Those offerings have become unmeaning forms. 
 
 One of the most interesting ceremonies conducted at the capital 
 of China is that in which the emperors perform a sacrificial 
 service twice a year to the spirits of the emperors of all the 
 dynasties before their own. In the canon of 1826, the sovereigns 
 sacrificed to, from Fu-hsi in the thirty-fourth century before Christ 
 down to the close of the Ming dynasty in 1643, amount to a hundred 
 and eighty-eight. These are not nearly all the sovereigns that 
 have reigned during the long period of five thousand years or 
 thereabouts. What names are admitted and what are rejected 
 depends on the reigning emperor and on the members of the 
 Board of Rites. Shih Hwang Ti of Ch'in, the great enemy of 
 
54 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Confacianism, does not appear, nor sovereigns who proved the 
 ruin of their dynasties. Success seems to be the chief considera- 
 tion ensuring a place. The second and greatest of the reigning 
 line laid it down as a rule for his canon-makers that the character 
 of the sovereigns whom they admitted was not to be too critically 
 examined. 
 
 Thus the entire silence of the religion of China with regard to 
 the future of the bad is an unsatisfactory feature in it. The only 
 evil issue of an evil course which it intimates, and that not very 
 distinctly, is to be excluded from sharing in the sacrifices to the 
 dead, the force of which as a motive to virtuous conduct I am 
 unable to appreciate. 
 
 I have done, having fulfilled the task which I undertook as 
 well as I am able at present to attain to. I think you will judge 
 of Confucius pretty much as I do. His appearance well deserves 
 to be commemorated as an era in the history of his nation ; and 
 whatever there is of good and strength in it is mainly due to him. 
 That there is no little of both may safely be inferred from the 
 long continuance of its national history and the growth of its 
 population. It is what it is, politically, socially, and morally, 
 through the teachings of its Sage. It would have been better if 
 those had been allowed to have the sole occupancy of it. But 
 T&oism before Confucius and since, and Buddhism since our first 
 century, have been sowing their tares in it. I say so with defer- 
 ence to those who think more highly of those systems than I am 
 able to do. And now in this later time our religion, our 
 commerce, our science and arts, our manners and customs, have 
 all found their way to the empire. Will it be to improve and 
 regenerate it, or to weaken and ruin it ? The former will be the 
 case if we act to it according to the golden rule of Confucius, 
 and do to the Chinese as vie would have them do to us, and 
 according to the still loftier maxim of Lfi,o-tsze, and overcome 
 their evil by our good. I look forward to the future of China 
 with considerable anxiety, but with more of hope. 
 
55 
 
 TAOISM. 
 
 SY FREDERIC B. BALFOUR. 
 
 It is, aB you are no doubt aware, a commonplace of our school 
 geographies that in China there are Three Religions ; or, to speak 
 more accurately, Three Doctrines. In fact, I do not think it can 
 be said that China has ever produced a genuine Religion, in the 
 strictest sense of the term ; unless, indeed, we admit as an 
 historical fact that primitive Monotheism associated with the 
 prehistoric and semi-mythical Emperors who are said to have 
 flourished between one and two thousand years before the birth 
 of Confucius. Of that eminent man, and the system of which he 
 was the founder, you heard last Sunday from the mouth of the 
 greatest living exponent, among Europeans, of Confucianism. 
 It is not, of course, either my intention or my province to trench 
 upon another man's domain ; but it is necessary for my present 
 contention to record the opinion which, erroneous or well-founded, 
 I very strongly hold, that Confucianism is less a religion than a 
 code of social and political morality. Buddhism, on the other 
 hand, is a religion, in a very important sense ; but then it is a 
 foreign importation, like Mohammedanism or Christianity, and 
 has become imbued with no more than a local colouring from its 
 prolonged establishment in China. Taoism, with which we have 
 to deal to-day, bears, it is true, many of the outward and visible 
 signs of a religious system ; but this is a mark of degradation, 
 and is due in a very large measure to the contaminating in- 
 fluences of its contact with those grosser developments of popular 
 Buddhism which flourish so rankly among the lower classes of 
 Chinese. At present Taoism is a base and abject superstition, a 
 religion in the worst and lowest sense, a foolish idolatry supr 
 ported by an ignorant and venal priesthood commanding the 
 respect of no single class in the community; a system of un- 
 reasoning credulity on the one hand, and of hocus-pocus and 
 imposture on the other. This is not the Taoism of which I am 
 going to speak to you to-day. It has its students among 
 European scholars, bat I confess that the subject has little or no 
 
56 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 interest for me. What I am going to tell yon of is not Taoism 
 the degenerate and idolatrous mythology which exists at present, 
 but Taoism the pure and lofty philosophy which arose twa 
 thousand years ago, when a wave of inspiration seems to have 
 swept over the entire civilized world, bringing with it that rest- 
 lessness and vague though earnest expectation of something 
 better yet to come, some epoch-making discovery or revelation of 
 >vhich the previous agitation was a harbinger, that is ever present 
 in periods marked by great intellectual upheavals, and when 
 schools of learning were in process of establishment under 
 Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, destined to exert an influence 
 upon the world, not for that age merely, but for all time. The 
 great movement which took place in Europe five hundred years 
 before Christ was accompanied by a corresponding movement,, 
 .•ilmost as great, almost as far-reaching, in a country whose very 
 existence was a dream to the scholars of Greece and Rome ; and 
 foremost in time, if- not in speculative and metaphysical power, 
 among the leaders of thought in China, was the Old Philosopher 
 who, wearying of official cares, devoted the best portion of his 
 life to the study of abstract ideas, and became the acknowledged 
 founder of Taoism, or the Doctrine of the Tao. 
 
 Now, in order to find out what Taoism really is, we must 
 devote our attention to the word, or character, " Tao " itself. 
 This is composed of two parts, meaning respectively "head " and 
 " to go." I do not think that this analysis will help us very far. 
 As regards its meaning, we find that it is susceptible of several 
 translations, according to the context and the sense in which the 
 word is used. Primarily it means a Boad or Way. It is alsa 
 employed in composition as the verb "to speak." Thirdly, it 
 signifies Principle, or Doctrine. The trifling fact that it is sus- 
 ceptible of at least half-a-dozen other meanings, none of which 
 are cognate to the present inquiry, need not delay us here. It 
 is used in the Classics in the sense of the Bight Path in which 
 one ought to go, while many European scholars have boldly 
 translated it E«ason, thereby identifying it with the Platonic 
 Logos. What is the truth about the matter, and how shall we 
 be best able to find it out? 
 
 Well, the position we take up is a very simple one. To put it 
 algebraically, Tao is the x, or unknown quantity, that we have 
 to find. And the first thing to be done is to see what is pre- 
 dicated of this mysterious Thing ; how it is described ; with 
 what attributes it is credited ; where it is to be found ; whence 
 it sprang, how it exists, and what its functions are. Then we 
 may find ourselves in a position to discover what it is that 
 answers to these particulars, and profanely to give a name to 
 
TAOISM. 57 
 
 that which its preachers themselves declared must be for ever 
 nameless. 
 
 We are told that it has existed from all eternity. Chuang-tzu, 
 the ablest writer of the Taoist school, says that there never was 
 a time when it was not. Lao-tzu, the reputed founder of Taoism, 
 affirms that the image of it existed before God Himself. It is 
 all pervasive ; there is no place where it is not found. It fills 
 the Universe with its grandeur and sublimity ; yet it is so subtle 
 that it exists in all its plenitude in the tip of a thread of 
 gossamer. It causes the sun and moon to revolve in their 
 appointed orbits, and gives life to the most microscopic insect. 
 Formless, it is the source of every form we see ; inaudible, it is 
 the source of every sound we hear ; invisible, it is that which lies 
 behind every external object in the world ; inactive, it yet 
 produces, sustains, and vivifies every phenomenon which exists 
 in all the spheres of being. It is impartial, impersonal, and 
 passionless; working out its ends with the remorselessness of 
 Fate, yet abounding in beneficence to all. " What is Tao ? " 
 asks Huai-nan-tzu, another eminent writer on the Taoist philo- 
 sophy. " It is that which supports heaven and covers earth ; it 
 has no boundaries, no limits ; its heights cannot be measured, nor 
 its depths fathomed; it enfolds the entire universe in its embrace, 
 and confers visibility upon that which of itself is formless. . . . 
 It is so tenuous and subtle that it pervades everything just as 
 water pervades mire. It is by Tao that mountains are high and 
 abysses deep ; that beasts walk and birds fly ; that the sun and 
 moon are bright, and the stars revolve in their courses. . . . 
 When the spring winds blow, the sweet rain falls, and all things 
 live and grow. The feathered ones brood and hatch, the furry 
 ones breed and bear ? plants and trees put forth all their glorious 
 exuberance of foliage, birds lay eggs, and animals produce their 
 young; no action is visible outwardly, and yet the work is 
 completed. Shadowy and indistinct, it has no form. Indistinct 
 and shadowy, its resources have no end. Hidden and obscure, it 
 reinforces all things out of formlessness. Penetrating and 
 permeating everything, it never acts in vain." 
 
 Such are a few of the attributes ascribed to the nameless 
 Principle we are considering. What ideas do they suggest 
 to our mind ? Such, I believe, as can scarcely be expressed in 
 any single word. Lao-tzu and his followers recognized the fact 
 that for this mysterious entity there can be no name, and so, 
 as Lao-tzu himself says, they were forced to speak of it simply 
 as Tao. We in the West have practically arrived at the same 
 conclusion. What is it that makes flowers grow up and water 
 flow down, which causes the showers to fall and the sun to shine. 
 
58 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 which guides the stars in their flaming courses, regulates the 
 seasons, endows the butterfly with its radiant hues, makes heat 
 expand and cold contract, gives one man black hair and another 
 red, and, in a word, is the cause of every phenomenon around ns, 
 the mainspring of the huge machine of which we form a part ? 
 We, too, have failed to find a name for it, and so we call it 
 Nature. Translate Tao, as used in this sense, by our common 
 word Nature — or, if you prefer it, Principle, Course, or Way of 
 Nature — and I think we shall have discovered the key to Taoism ; 
 using the word, of course, not as applied poetically to the visible 
 Universe, the Tvatura naturata, but in the sense of ncUura 
 rmturans, the abstract Cause, the initial Principle of life and 
 order, the hypostatic quiddity which underlies all phenomena, 
 and of which they are a manifestation only. 
 
 Tao, then, is Nature ; Taoism is the philosophy of Nature ; and 
 Taoists are in the fullest sense of the word Naturalistic philoso- 
 phers. Let us proceed now to consider the developments and 
 adaptations of the great Naturalistic theory, in its relation to 
 speculative cosmogony, in the first place, and afterwards to the 
 more practical details of social and political life. 
 
 The Taoists have a good deal to tell us about the Evolution of 
 the visible Universe. "There was a time," says Chuang-tzii, 
 "when all things had a beginning. The time when there was 
 yet no beginning had a beginning itself. There was a beginning 
 to the time when the time that had no beginning had not begun. 
 There is existence, and there is also non-existence. In the time 
 which had no beginning there existed Nothing — or a Vacuum. 
 When the time which had no beginning had not yet begun, then 
 there also existed Nothing. Suddenly, there was Nothing ; but 
 it cannot be known, respecting existence and non-existence, what 
 was certainly existing and what was not." 
 
 Now I dare say that that sounds to you so much empty 
 nonsense. But I will ask you to compare it with the following 
 utterance of no less a writer than the late lamented Mr. Proctor, 
 who traverses the same ground as this old Chinese philosopher 
 of two thousand years ago, though he speaks in rather clearer 
 language: — 
 
 " Those," he says, " who can, may find relief in believing in 
 absolutely void space and absolutely unoccupied time before some 
 very remote but not infinitely remote epoch, which may in such 
 belief be called the beginning of all things ; but the void time 
 before that beginning can have had no beginning, unless it were 
 preceded by time not unoccupied by events, which is inconsistent 
 with the supposition. We find no absolute beginning if we look 
 backwards." 
 
TAOISM. 59 
 
 In the first chapter of the works of Lieh-tzu, another very 
 prominent writer of this school, we find a more definite specu- 
 lation about the origin of life and motion, conveyed in very 
 striking terms : — 
 
 " There is a Life that is uncreated ; 
 There is a Transformer who is changeless. 
 The Uncreated alone can produce l2e ; 
 The Changeless alone can evolve change. 
 That Life cannot but produce ; 
 That Transformer cannot but transform. 
 Wherefore creations and transformations are perpetual, 
 And these perpetual creations and transformations continue through 
 
 all time. 
 They are seen in the Male and Female Principles of Nature 
 They are displayed in the Four Seasons. 
 The Uncreated stands, as it were, alone ; 
 The Changeless comes and goes ; 
 His duration can have no end, 
 Peerless and One — His ways are past finding out" 
 
 In the same book we have a very interesting discussion, 
 between an Emperor and his Minister, about the extent and 
 eternity of matter. The Emperor begins by asking whether 
 matter existed from the beginning of all things ; and the Minister 
 replies by asking how, if it did not, it came to exist at present, 
 and whether their descendants would be justified in denying that 
 matter existed in his Majesty's own day. The Emperor naturally 
 enough rejoins that, by this argument, matter must have existed 
 from all eternity — a remark that his Minister parries by saying 
 that no records remain of the time before matter existed, and 
 that all such knowledge is beyond the scope of humanity. To 
 the question of the Emperor whether there is any limit to the 
 expanse of the Universe, the Minister replies by avowing his 
 entire ignorance ; and when the Emperor presses the matter 
 home by urging that " where nothing exists that is the Infinite, 
 but where there is existence there must be finality," the Minister 
 says plainly that nobody knows anything about the Infinite. 
 But we know this much : Heaven and Earth are simply contained 
 in the great whole of the infinite Universe ; and how can we tell 
 whether there may not be an Unseen Universe, above and beyond 
 that smaller Cosmos that is within the range of our perception ? 
 
 At this point it may be useful to deal very briefly with a 
 question which has, no doubt, occurred to many of you already, 
 namely, Does the Taoist system include a Personal Creator and 
 Moral Governor of the Universe ? Well, the question is one more 
 easily asked than answered. It is true that there are frequent 
 leferences in the Taoist Classics to some Being, Influence, or 
 Power, who is spoken of as the Creator. There are also passages, 
 here and there, in which the word " Ti," or God, occurs. But such 
 
60 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS Of THE WORLD. 
 
 allusions are very obscure, verj' vague, very indefinite ; while the 
 term which is generally used for the verb " to create " impliea 
 less creation, as we understand it, than transformation or meta- 
 morphosis. Nor is there, as far as my own researches teach me, 
 any definite statement as to the relations existing between this 
 very shadowy Creator and the Tao. Some persons have hazarded 
 the theory that Tao and the Taoist Creator are identical; that 
 the Tao, in point of fact, is (xod. But this will not hold water. 
 Tao is impersonal and passionless, and in one sentence of what 
 we may call the Taoist Bible is spoken of in direct antithesis to 
 God. Then, again, the workings of Tao explain everything, so 
 that there is neither the room nor the necessity for a Personal 
 Creator. In fact, the Taoist theory of Creation appears to me to 
 foreshadow in a very remarkable manner the latest conclusions 
 arrived at by scientific men in the present day. The nebulous 
 haze which Professor Tyndall regards as the source of all material 
 things, had a place in the philosophy of the ancient Taoists, who 
 spoke of the primordial aura that eventually underwent conden- 
 sation and concretion, and finally emerged in the form of solid 
 matter, with definite and various shapes. Evolution lay at the 
 root of Taoist cosmical science, and we find passages in Haeckel's 
 History of Creation which might have been written, word for 
 word, by any of the Taoist authors, passages which I would read 
 to you did the time at my disposal permit. The Taoist theory, 
 however, cannot be more ably or concisely summed up than in 
 the words of Lucretius : " Nature is seen to do everything of 
 herself spontaneously, without the meddling of the gods." 
 
 Now according to the Taoist theory, man is to be regarded as 
 simply a part of the Universe, an offshoot of creation, a mani- 
 festation, like everything else, of the universal and inherent Tao. 
 And this, be it remarked, is not a scientific or speculative opinion 
 merely. It is a powerful moral factor, inducing a resignation to 
 destiny and a submission to the laws of Nature which deserve our 
 respectful attention. Listen, for instance, to the following utter- 
 ances on the subject of Death. To the Taoist, Death was no King 
 of Terrors, but rather an inevitable and welcome change, a turn 
 in the wheel of the Universe, an event as natural as the fad- 
 ing of an autumn leaf or the succession of the Four Seasons. 
 "Poverty," says Lieh-tzu, "is the common lot of scholars, and 
 death is the end of us all. What cause for sorrow is there, then, 
 in quietly fulfilling one's destiny and awaiting the close of life ? " 
 " Death," he says, in another place, " is to life as going away is to 
 coming. How can we know that to die here is not to be born 
 elsewhere ? How can we tell whether, in their eager rush for life, 
 men are not under a delusion ? How can I tell whether, if I die 
 
TAOISM. 61 
 
 to-day, my lot may not prove far preferable to what it was when I 
 was originally born?" "Ah! men know the dreadfulness of 
 -death ; but they do not know its rest." " How excellent is it, 
 that from all antiquity Death has been the common lot of men ! 
 It is repose for the good man, and a hiding-away of the bad. 
 Death is just a going home again. The dead are those who have 
 gone home, while we, who are living, are still wanderers." 
 
 So far, I think yon will agree with me that the teachings of 
 Taoism are not devoid of much spiritual force and beauty. What, 
 however, do they mainly inculcate in practical, everyday life ? 
 Spontaneity, simplicity, purity, gentleness, and, in a word, 
 goodness. 
 
 Let me explain what I mean by spontaneity. The original 
 constitution of every man being the direct gift of Nature — or 
 rather, an actual part of Nature itself —it follows that it should 
 be jealously preserved intact, in all its pristine purity. This is 
 the grand and primary object of the true Taoist — the preservation 
 of his Heaven-implanted Nature. And how is this to be accom- 
 plished? By imitating the great Mother. Nature is spontaneous 
 in all her works ; therefore the Sage should be spontaneous too, 
 not acting from design, but following the natural promptings of 
 his heart in accord with his surroundings. Nature never strives ; 
 therefore the Sage should guard against striving too. Nature is 
 ever passive ; therefore the Sage should let things take their course, 
 and be content with following in their wake. Ambition, scheming, 
 passion, desire — any attention to external objects of whatever 
 kind — are all so much disordering, or spoliation, of the original 
 nature of man, and as such should be utterly discarded. Even 
 the active cultivation of virtues, such as benevolence, rectitude, 
 and propriety, is condemned ; Nature requires no effort to stimu- 
 late her growth, and all the Sage has to do is to bring himself 
 into perfect conformity with her. All such passions, accom- 
 plishments, and attributes, being phases of disturbance or strife, 
 are called, in Taoist phrase, the Human nature of man, in con- 
 tradistinction to that Heavenly or Inherent nature with which he 
 is endowed. " Wherefore," says Chuang-tzii, " do not develop 
 this artificial, human, or engrafted nature ; but do develop that 
 Inherent or Natural nature which is the inheritance of you all." 
 Huai-nan-tzu, to whom I have already referred, brings out this 
 point with admirable lucidity. " What is it," he asks, " that we 
 mean when we talk about the Natural or Inherent? It ^' "'nat 
 which is homogeneous, pure, simple, undefiled, ungar.aihed, 
 upright, luminous, and immaculate, and which has never un- 
 dergone any mixture or adulteration from the beginning. And 
 what is the Human or Artificial? It is that which has been 
 
62 EELIGIOTJS SYSTEMS OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 adulterated with shrewdness, crookedness, dexterity, hypocrisy, and 
 deceit ; which bends itself into compliance with the world, and 
 defers to the customs of the age. For instance : the ox has horns 
 and a divided hoof, while the horse has a dishevelled mane and a 
 complete hoof ; this is the Heavenly, or Natural. But if you put 
 a bit into the horse's month, and pierce the nose of the ox, this 
 is the Human, or artificial." In other words, all attempts to 
 improve upon, or interfere with,.things as they are in their natural 
 state, are violations of Nature, and to be condemned accordingly. 
 Nor is this theory difficult of application to many institutions in 
 our own day. We may be sure that if any of these old Taoists 
 were to appear among us now, they would tell us boldly, " If 
 Nature has given you black hair, don't try to dye it yellow ; if 
 you have a sallow or a pale complexion, don't daub it with pink 
 paint ; if your waist measures five-and-twenty inches rounds 
 don't try and squeeze it into eighteen. All such attempts are 
 violations of Nature, and are sure to bring their own punishment 
 along with them." 
 
 But to bring himself into conformity with Nature, it is impera- 
 tive that the Sage should be always and completely passive. 
 This is expressed by a Chinese formula which may be variously 
 rendered " not-doing," " non-exertion," " inertia," " absolute 
 inaction," or, perhaps best of all, "masterly inactivity." In 
 addition to the idea of undisturbed quiescence it embraces also 
 that of spontaneity and designlessness ; so that even the rigid 
 adherence to an inactive policy is robbed of its virtue if it be 
 adopted with intent. The very effort to obtain possession of 
 Nature, says Chuang-tzu, defeats itself, and for the simple reason 
 that it is an effort. A man must be passionless as well as 
 motionless ; he must be content to leave himself to the influences 
 which surround him, and discard all idea of helping on the work ; 
 he must banish all desire from his heart ; he must concert no 
 schemes and form no plans ; he must never anticipate emergencies, 
 but simply mould himself according to any circumstances that 
 may arise. And especially is this of importance in the world of 
 politics. Here the formula I have referred to must be rendered 
 " non-interference," that wise and far-sighted policy the world is 
 so slow to learn. The Taoist condemns over-legislation, and justly 
 points to the peddling, meddling system of a so-called paternal 
 government as the cause of anarchy and ruin. Leave the people 
 alone, is the wise maxim of Taoism ; don't harass them with 
 perpetual interference, and vexatious efforts at protection. Let 
 things take their course and find their level ; let the people 
 develop their resources in a natural and spontaneous way. 
 Charles Kingsley and Herbert Spencer are here anticipated by a 
 
TAOISM. G3 
 
 conple of thonsand years. Never do anything, says the Taoist 
 politician, for the mere sake of doing it ; never do anything that 
 is not absolutely necessary ; never forget that the great end of 
 legislation is to render legislation itself superfluous. Let Nature 
 work unimpeded in social and political life as well as in the 
 sphere of physics or of morals ; then your subjects will be 
 contented with their lot, and your kingdom free from conspiracies, 
 dissensions, and disaster. Above all, do nothing to disturb their 
 primitive simplicity. Do not seek to replace their rough instru- 
 ments of labour by complicated machines. Such refinements 
 lead to luxury, to scheming, to ambition, and to discontent. 
 The very exercise of ingenuity displayed in the production of 
 labour-saving and delicate apparatus implies a scheming mind. 
 Therefore discourage artificial innovations. The secret of happi- 
 ness is to be found in quiescence, simplicity, and content, and 
 the only way to attain these is to bring body, passions, intellect, 
 and will into absolute conformity with Nature. 
 
 It would be strange, indeed, if such teachings as these had not 
 borne fruit in inducing many persons to retire altogether from the 
 world and embrace a life of seclusion. In fact, the list of Taoist 
 hermits is a pretty long one, and many were those who, retiring 
 to some mountain cave, and devoting themselves to abstract 
 contemplation, received urgent appeals from kings and princes to 
 come and assist them with their wisdom in the task of govern- 
 ment, only to reject the petition. They generally chose for their 
 retreat some rocky glen shut in by mountains, sheltered from 
 the burning sun by the thick foliage of trees, and surrounded by 
 every natural feature which makes a landscape lovely. There 
 they passed their lives in that mental abstraction and freedom 
 from interest in mundane affairs which is the nearest approach 
 to the summit of bliss and virtue. Their idea of happiness was, 
 after all, a very pure one. Perfect indifference to love and hate ; 
 the annihilation of all passions, desires, and even preferences ; no 
 striving, or wishing to strive ; nothing but profound apathy and 
 absolute insensibility to those things which, painful or pleasurable, 
 wear out the lives of men : such is the Taoist Ideal. It is a 
 return to the pure, original, self-existent nature of man, which 
 has been despoiled and injured by contact with worldly matters. 
 And there are a few of these Taoists yet to be found, here and 
 there — men who are almost entirely uncontaminated by the 
 follies and impostures of modern popular Taoism, and who 
 may be said to represent the true Apostolic Succession in the 
 Taoist Church. In certain instances, some old worthies, who have 
 been dead and gone for centuries, are believed by the simple 
 mountaineers of China to be still alive. Far away in the 
 
€4 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD, 
 
 mouDtain range which stretches from Peking across the provinces 
 of Chih-h and Shan-tnng, there is one very sacred peak called the 
 Mount of a Hundred Flowers. It is covered with wild flowers, 
 and its hosky dells are said, and with some truth, to he the 
 lurking-places of wolves and panthers. There, according to the 
 legend, live, partly embedded in the soil, certain ancient Taoist 
 hermits. By a long course of absolute conformity with Nature 
 they have attained to immortality, and are now in the enjoyment 
 of unearthly bliss. To use a Taoist phrase, their faces are washed 
 by the rains of heaven, and their hair combed by the wind. Their 
 arms are crossed upon their breasts, and their nails have grown 
 fio long that they cnrl round their necks. Flowers and grass 
 have taken root in their bodies and flourish luxuriantly ; when a 
 man approaches them they turn their eyes upon him, but do not 
 speak. Some of them are over three hundred years old ; some, 
 not much over a century ; but all have attained to immortality, 
 and some day they will find that their bodies, which have been 
 so long in wearing out, will collapse from sheer withdrawal of 
 vitgjity, and their spirits be set free. All this is fanciful and 
 fabulous enough ; and when I ascended this mysterious moun- 
 tain a few years ago I certainly did not come across any of these 
 very interesting old persons. But it is undeniable that that in- 
 difference or aversion to vulgar objects of desire that characterizes 
 the true Taoist has laid China under many a debt of gratitude. 
 The votary of the Naturalistic philosophy does not always become 
 a hermit any more than a Christian always becomes a clergyman. 
 He is often in the world, and occupies high offices of State. But 
 circumstances make no difference in his character. He is always 
 the same, while living in a mean and dirty lane and drinking from 
 a gourd, as he is in the palace itself, the trusted Minister of a 
 monarch. In this position he retains the same incorruptibility, 
 the same indifference to power, that he has when living in obscurity. 
 China has had many such Ministers, and she is rightly proud of 
 them. Emperors and princes are said to have gone in person to 
 solicit the services of some stern recluse whose fame had reached 
 their ears, and to have been unsuccessful in their suit. The 
 delineation of such characters forms a bright page in many a 
 volume of dusty Chinese lore, and they are now held up to the 
 reverence and imitation of the statesmen of to-day. 
 
 I now wish to give you some idea of the moral teachings of 
 Taoism, as exemplified in the classical and popular works of 
 Taoist authors. And the first extract I have to place before you, 
 from the book of Lao-tzu himself, is an aphorism which, I am 
 sure you will agree with me, is on a level with the highest teachings 
 of Christianity. It is short, and to the point : " Recompense 
 
TAOISM. 65 
 
 iDJury with kindness." We say, " Return good for evil." And 
 it is worthy of remark that when this sublime doctrine was 
 submitted to the judgment of Confucius he at once condemned 
 it. " With what, then, will yon recompense kindness ? " he 
 replied. " Recompense kindness with kindness, but injury with 
 justice." Confucius, excellent man as he was, was too narrow 
 and formal in his views to rise to the height of the Taoist Sage. 
 "Tao," says Lao-tzu elsewhere, "is the jewel of the good man, 
 the guardian of the bad." " He who knows others is wise ; he 
 who knows himself is enlightened. He who overcomes others is 
 strong ; he who overcomes himself is mighty. He who knows 
 when he has enough is rich. He whose memory perishes not when 
 he dies lives for ever." "There is no sin greater than giving 
 rein to desire ; there is no misery greater than discontent ; there 
 is no calamity more direful than the greed of gain. Therefore 
 the sufficiency of contentment is an everlasting sufficiency." 
 " There are three things which I regard as precious, which I 
 grasp and prize. The first is Compassion ; the second is Moder- 
 ation ; the third is Modesty." " The weakest things in this 
 world subjugate the strongest." " There is nothing under Heaven 
 weaker or softer than water ; yet it overcomes the hardest and 
 strongest things." "The highest form of goodness resembles 
 water, which is beneficial to everything, and that without 
 struggling." "When there are many prohibitive enactments 
 in the Empire, the people get poorer and poorer. When the 
 people accumulate excess of wealth and goods, both State and 
 families become demoralized. When men are over-skilful, the 
 use of fantastical or curious things arises. When punishments 
 are overdone, malefactors increase in number. Wherefore the 
 Sage says, I do nothing, and the people reform of their own 
 accord ; I love quietude, and the people become spontaneously 
 upright ; I take no measures, and the people enrich themselves ; 
 I have no desires, and the people naturally become simple." 
 " The Sage dwells in the world with a timid reserve ; but his 
 mind blends in sympathy with all. The people turn their eyes 
 and ears up to him, and the Sage thinks of them as his children." 
 " He who bears the reproach of his country shall be called the 
 Lord of the Land ; he who bears the calamities of his country shall 
 be called the King of the Worid." 
 
 I have already referred to Chuang-tzii, a philosopher who lived 
 two hundred years after his great master — the ablest, boldest, 
 and most audacious of the Taoist writers. It is one of his greatest 
 glories that he protested, with all the eloquence and satire at his 
 command, against the exaggerated reverence paid to books, to 
 tradition, and to authority, by the Confucian school ; and that he 
 
 5 
 
66 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 claimed and exercised the fullest and completest liberty of thought 
 and argument. There are some striking sentences scattered up 
 and down his fascinating but most difficult pages. _ " "Wherever 
 one's treasure may be," he says in one place, " thither will the 
 heart of man follow it." I need not remind you of a corresponding 
 passage in the Sermon on the Mount " Those who dream about 
 the pleasures of the wine-cup," he says again, " weep and lament 
 at sunrise. Those who weep in their dreams will go a-hunting 
 when the dawn breaks." A sanguine man who jumps too hastily 
 at conclusions is compared to one who expects to hear an egg 
 crow at daybreak, or thinks he can shoot a bird by looking at a 
 crossbow. "For the Pure Men of old," he tells us elsewhere, 
 "life had no attractions, and death no terrors. Living, they 
 experienced no elation ; dying, they oflfered no resistance. Being 
 born, they accepted the fact ; when the oblivion of death came, 
 they just returned to what they had been before. Thus it was that 
 their hearts were free from care, and they preserved a condition 
 of absolute inactivity." And I must not forget a characteristic 
 story told of Chuang-tzu himself upon his deathbed. His last 
 injunction to his weeping relatives was to leave his corpse unin- 
 terred. " I will have Heaven and Earth for my sarcophagus," 
 he said ; " the Sun and Moon shall be the insignia where I lie in 
 state, and all Creation shall be mourners at my funeral." His 
 friends implored him to forego this strange request, pointing out 
 that the birds would mutilate his corpse ; but he replied, " What 
 matters that ? Above are the birds of the air, below are the 
 worms and ants ; if you rob one to feed the other, what injustice 
 is there done ? " 
 
 Chuang-tzu was nothing if not paradoxical, and one of his 
 favourite theories was the utility of uselessness. A friend of his 
 once complained that he had a tree, the wood of which was so 
 coarse, viscous, and full of knots, as to be perfectly worthless ; 
 its leaves were fetid, and its branches gnarled and crooked, so that 
 no carpenter would cast a glance at it as he passed by. Chuang- 
 tzu replied that it was to its very uselessness that the tree owed 
 its prolonged existence ; for just as the beautifully marked skins 
 of the leopard and the tiger led to their being slain, so do the 
 fine properties of superior wood lead to the destruction of a tree. 
 In fact, a coarse and inferior tree, on account of its unfitness to 
 be used for timber, lives out its natural term of years, while one 
 of the monarchs of the forest falls a speedy prey to the woodman's 
 axe ; wherefore it is better to be an unlearned and ignorant man, 
 left to the enjoyment of a retired and simple existence, than a 
 clever, pushing, ambitions person, liable to be led into the dangers 
 of public life, where his career may be cut short, either by the cares 
 
TAOISM. 67 
 
 and responsibilities of his position, or by the vicissitudes and 
 intrigues that will beset him. " Men understand the use of useful 
 things," says Chuang-tzu, " but they have yet to learn the use 
 of things that are useless." 
 
 Lieh-tzu does not hold so high a place in the Taoist hierarchy 
 as Chuang-tzu, but he is, nevertheless, an author of great merit 
 and no small originality. He is principally remarkable for the 
 ■collection of racy and entertaining stories which his book contains ; 
 and, as my lecture has, I am afraid, been a rather dry one hitherto, 
 I will give yon some specimens. The first one inculcates a lesson 
 akin to Chuang-tzu's theory of uselessness, and may be called 
 ■" Moderation is the Best Policy." An elderly man lay dying, 
 and as he felt his end drawiUg near he called his son to him, and 
 said, " The King has sought to load me with honours, but I have 
 consistently declined them. When I am dead he will seek to 
 bestow honours upon you ; but mind what I say — accept no land 
 from him that is worth anything. Now between the States of 
 ■Ch'u and Yueh there is a bit of ground that is of no use to any- 
 body, and has, moreover, a bad reputation, for many people 
 Tjelieve it to be haunted. This is a kind of property that you 
 may keep for ever." Soon after this the man died, and the King 
 ■ofiered a beautiful piece of land to his son. The youth, however, 
 declined it, and begged for the bad piece. This was granted to 
 him, and he has never lost possession of it to this day. 
 
 At the time when Lieh-tzu wrote, the petty Kings of China 
 were for ever neglecting the welfare of their own States in order 
 to attack their neighbours ; a policy which naturally provoked 
 the indignation of the Taoist Sages. The following anecdote, 
 headed " Guard your own Frontier," conveys the gentle though 
 cutting rebuke of Lieh-tzu. A certain Duke once started to 
 attend a Conference of Feudal Princes, the object of which was to 
 organize an attack upon one of the States of the Empire. He was 
 accompanied by an armed force and by one of his principal 
 Ministers, who was observed, during the journey, to cast up his 
 ^yes and laugh. "What are you laughing at?" demanded the 
 Duke. " I was laughing," replied the Minister, " about a certain 
 neighbour of mine. He was escorting his wife on her way to pay 
 a visit to her parents, when he espied a very pretty girl picking 
 mulberry leaves for silkworms. Delighted at the rencontre, my 
 friend stopped to talk to her, when, happening to turn his head, 
 he saw somebody else paying attention to his wife. That was 
 what I was laughing to myself about." The Duke understood 
 the hint. He did not proceed any farther, but led his soldiers 
 back. It was, however, too late; for they had not arrived 
 in their own country when news reached them that an enemy 
 
68 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 had come during their absence and attacked their northern 
 frontier. 
 
 One more storj', and I have done with Lieh-tzil. The Taoists, 
 as you are aware, despised the Confucianists, and were never 
 tired of poking fun at Confucius. Here is a specimen of their 
 humour. One day, as Confucius was on a journey, he came upon 
 two small boys quarrelling, and asked what was the matter. The 
 first replied, " I contend that when the sun rises it is near to us, 
 and that at the zenith it is a long way off." "And I," said 
 the other, " say that it is farthest when it rises, and nearest in the 
 middle of the day." " It isn't," protested the first. " When the 
 sun rises it looks as big as the tent of a cart, while in the middle 
 of the day it is only the size of a saucer. Isn't it clear that 
 when it is farthest it looks small, and when nearest it looks big ? " 
 Then the second rejoined, " But when the sun rises it is quite 
 chilly and cold, while at midday it is broiling hot ! Doesn't it 
 stand to reason that it is hottest when it is near, and coldest when 
 far off? " Confucius confessed himself unable to decide between 
 them ; whereupon both the urchins mocked him, saying, " Go to j; 
 who says that you are a learned man? " 
 
 I now pass on to the consideration of two more popular works, 
 which embody a development of Taoism almost entirely untainted 
 with that superstitious element which so soon began to corrupt 
 the purity of the primitive philosophy. The first to which I ask 
 your attention is the Sic Shu, or Boo// of Plain Words, a 
 tractate supposed to date from the year 24.5 b.c. or thereabouts. 
 It constitutes an application of the Taoist doctrines to political, 
 social, and individual life, and, making allowance for differences 
 of time and place, presents a remarkable resemblance to the 
 Jewish Book of Proverbs. The writer is addressing, first and 
 foremost, a statesman ; and whatever may be thought of the 
 trustworthiness and incorruptibility of Chinese mandarins at the 
 present day, it is unquestionable that the standard here set before 
 them is a very high one. The public man, we are told, should 
 be one whose conduct is a pattern for others to imitate, whose 
 wisdom enables him to give just judgments, whose personal 
 sincerity causes sincerity in others, who can incur hatred and 
 suspicion without deserting his post, and who never takes advan- 
 tage of his position to secure benefits for himself. " There is 
 nothing," continues our author, " that will enable you to pursue 
 your course in greater peace than the patient bearing of insult^ 
 "There is no deeper source of joy than the love of goodness ;. 
 nothing that will give you a profounder insight into hidden things 
 than perfect sincerity in word and deed ; but nothing more certain 
 to bring ruin upon you than partiality or injustice." 
 
TAOISM. 69 
 
 You must understand that these aphorisms, while applicable 
 to individuals, were primarily intended for the guidance of the 
 governing classes, and that at a time when the disordered con- 
 dition of the country demanded the exercise of special tact and 
 absolute incorruptibility on the part of magistrates and states- 
 men. This point is brought out with even greater clearness in 
 the quotations which follow, the shrewdness and knowledge of 
 human nature displayed in which is very marked. " Those whose 
 <:ommands are at variance with their consciences," says the 
 author, " will meet with failure. If a man is angry without 
 inspiring awe, the delinquency which has irritated him will be 
 repeated. It is dangerous, first to treat a man with contumely, 
 and afterwards entrust him with responsibility. The man who 
 hides an alienated heart behind a friendly face will be shunned. 
 The sovereign who loves flatterers, and holds aloof from the honest 
 and true, will soon see his kingdom fall. To make little of one's 
 own faults, and be severe on those of others, is not the way to 
 govern. He who bestows rewards with a grudging face will 
 receive a grudging service. He who is niggardly in bestowing, 
 and yet. looks for a large return, wiU get no return at all. He 
 who employs people without regard to their peculiar capabilities, 
 will incur the evil results of his carelessnes. He who, in a 
 position of honour, forgets the friends of humbler days, wiU not 
 enjoy his honours long. If yon have no confidence in yourself, 
 you will be distrustful of others ; but if you can trust yourself, 
 you will not suspect the people. If you drive a carriage in the 
 ruts of another carriage that has been overturned, you will 
 meet with the same disaster ; so, if you follow the example set by 
 & State that has been already ruined, yours will be ruined too." 
 
 So much for the Book of Plain Words, a manual of much 
 practical and moral value, intended for the guidance of governors. 
 Let us now turn to a more popular treatise, called the Book 
 of Recompenses, addressed more particularly to the governed. 
 This work, the Chinese name of which is the Kan Ying Pien, is 
 read almost universally in China, and exercises much influence 
 over milUons of lives. In it we are brought face to face with the 
 great doctrine of rewards and retributions ; and the bulk of the 
 book consists of one tremendously long sentence, containing in 
 my translation of it no fewer than one thousand four hundred 
 words, enumerating the various crimes and misdemeanours which 
 bring the judgment of Heaven upon the perpetrators. The exhor- 
 tations with which the book opens are singularly beautiful : — 
 
 " Advance in all that is in harmony with good ; retreat from 
 all that is opposed to it. Walk not in the paths of depravity, nor 
 deceive yourselves by sinning in the dark where none can see you. 
 
70 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Accumtilate virtue and store up merit ; treat all with gentleness 
 and love ; be loyal, be dutiful ; be respectful to your elders and 
 kind to your juniors ; be upright yourselves in order that you 
 may reform others ; compassionate the fatherless and widow ; 
 reverence the aged, cherish the young ; do not injure even little 
 insects, or grass, or trees. Pity the wickedness of others and 
 rejoice at their virtues ; succour them in their distresses, and rescue 
 them when in danger ; when a man gains his desires let it be as 
 though his good fortune were your own ; when one suffers loss, 
 as though you suffered it yourself. Never publish the failings of 
 another, or make a parade of your own merits ; put a stop to 
 evil, and afford every encouragement to goodness ; be not grasp- 
 ing, but learn to content yourself with little. When you are 
 reviled, cherish no resentment ; when you receive favours, do so 
 as deprecating your deserts ; be kind and generous without 
 seeking any return, and never repent of anything you may give 
 to others. This," concludes our author, " is to be a good man ; 
 one whom heaven will guard, whom all will respect, whom 
 blessings and honours will accompany, whom no evil will touch,, 
 and whom all good spirits will defend." It may, indeed, be 
 questioned whether even Christianity itself affords a higher or 
 more touching portraiture of " the good man " than is sketched 
 in these beautiful sentences. Then follows the long catalogue 
 of sins, any one of which is sufficient to evoke calamities of the 
 direst nature. Among them are enumerated the worrying of 
 dumb creatures, accepting bribes, slaughtering enemies who have 
 tendered their submission, attributing other people's misfortunes 
 to their sins, borrowing money and then longing for the lender's 
 death, mocking another's physical deformities, going to law, 
 forsaking old friends for new, making mischief between relations, 
 and returning evil for good. Finally, we are implored to read 
 and study the book with earnestness and singleness of heart. 
 The first requisite for profiting by its admonitions is unquestioning 
 faith ; the second, diligence in self-cultivation ; the third, deter- 
 mination, or perseverance ; the fourth, complete sincerity. " To 
 attempt to put away the vice and depravity of a lifetime when 
 the sun of life is setting, is like trying to extinguish a blazing 
 waggon-load of hay with a cup of water." If faith be small, the 
 blessing will be small ; if great, the blessing will be great ; while 
 if faith be mixed with doubt, self-injury and self-loss will be the 
 inevitable result. In conclusion: — "Honoured reader," says the 
 author, " I urge you to advance swiftly, fearlessly, and with your 
 whole heart in the course I have here laid down. Know that we 
 are surrounded on all sides by a multitude of spiritual beings, 
 who take note of all we do. Therefore, be watchful, and examine 
 
TAOISM. 71 
 
 yourself strictly ; act ia accordance with these admonitions at all 
 times ; then you will never fail to do justice to your real self." 
 " The connection between actions and their consequences is the 
 mysterious law of God — the changeless decree pronounced by 
 the Judge of the unseen world." 
 
 It would seem, from this last remarkable expression, that, at 
 one stage in Taoist development, belief in a Personal Grod or 
 Supreme Judge had grown up. The book I have been quoting 
 from is the most popular religious work in China, and naturally 
 affords a marked contrast to the philosophical and abstract ideas 
 contained in the primitive classics. As I have already told you, 
 pure Taoism knows nothing of what we understand by Q-od, and 
 the theistic conception seems to have been imported into it at a 
 much later date. In all other respects, however, the development 
 of Taoism has been one of hopeless degeneracy. The lofty 
 asceticism inculcated by Lao-tzu became vulgarized into a means 
 by which to achieve the sublimation of the body. Speculative 
 research into the mysteries of Nature was degraded into an 
 attempt to transmute the baser metals into gold ; aspirations 
 after a never-ending life beyond the grave sank into the meaner 
 pursuits of prolonged temporal existence ; and communings with 
 the spiritual intelligences of Nature were resolved into a base 
 belief in witchcraft, by proficiency in which the Taoist priest 
 arrogated to himself the power of exorcism over evil spirits. 
 I happen to be acquainted with the present Pope, High Priest, 
 or Grand Wizard of Taoism. His name is Chang, and he is com- 
 monly spoken of as Chang T'ien Shih, or Chang the Heavenly 
 Teacher. He claims, and is believed, to be the direct lineal 
 descendant by metempsychosis of a celebrated sorcerer named 
 Chang Tao-ling, who lived early in the Christian era. He 
 possesses the secret of immortality, and is regarded with the 
 utmost veneration, by the more uneducated classes in China. He 
 is a great exorcist, and is believed to wield dominion over all the 
 spirits of the Universe and the unseen powers generally, by means 
 of a magic sword. His Palace is situated in the province of 
 Kiang-hsi, where he mimics imperial state, has a large retinue 
 of courtiers, confers ranks and honours among ghosts, spirits, 
 and minor deities with all the dignity of an actual sovereign, 
 and keeps a long row of jars full of captured demons, whom he 
 has disarmed and bottled-up from doing further mischief. When 
 I saw him several years ago he appeared to be about forty years 
 old, of middle height, smooth face, and very oily manners ; and 
 he was good enough to write, and present me with, the remark- 
 able scroll that you are now looking at. It is a charm to ward 
 off evil spirits. 
 
72 EELIGIOTJS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Bnt my time is up, and I do not want your last impressions of 
 Taoism to be connected with any such superstitious folly as is 
 represented by Pope Ch&ug. Let your thoughts revert, rather, 
 to the pure, wise, deep, philosophy of Nature ; to those calm and 
 unworldly sages who are associated with all that is best in 
 Taoism ; to their quietism and passionlessness, their profound 
 insensibility to all those desires, attractions, schemings, pleasures, 
 and ambitions which injure and destroy the pure, original nature 
 of men ; and to the beautiful teachings which those old patri- 
 archs have left behind them. When you think of Taoism, don't 
 think of the Taoist Pope, with his army of ignorant and juggling 
 priests ; think of it rather as a pure and fine philosophy, the 
 moral outcome of which finds its expression in some of the 
 words I have already quoted to you : — 
 
 " Recompense injury with kindness.'' 
 " Resent it not, when you arc reviled," 
 
 " Nothing will give you greater peace than the patient bearing of insult." 
 . " He who overcomes others is strong : he who overcomes himself is mighty. " 
 
THE OEIGIN OF THE SPIEITUAL ACTIVITY 
 DEVELOPED IN BUDDHISM AS IT EXISTS 
 IN CHINA. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR SAMUEL BEAL. 
 
 The spiritual activity of which I am going to speak is evidenced 
 in the literature produced, and the energy displayed, by the 
 Buddhist community in China, through many centuries of neglect 
 and persecution. We wish to iind out the secret of this energy, 
 resulting in the activity alluded to. 
 
 The Chinese people are naturally sluggish in their ways of 
 thought, and tenacious of old customs. Confucius, their national 
 teacher, and the example they hold up for all ages, was strictly 
 speaking a preserver of old thoughts and doctrines ; he originated 
 very little. There was nothing spiritual in his teaching ; he 
 avoided all reference to Religion ; he regarded Life, existing Life, 
 as the right object of study ; he looked on man as a member of 
 society ; and his aim was to show that man by complete sincerity 
 may give full development to his Nature and become the equal 
 of Heaven and earth. It is plain he rather retarded than pro- 
 moted the spiritual activity of which the mind of man is capable, 
 when set free from the trammels of artificial restraints. 
 
 Taouism, the teaching of Laou-tseu, the old philosopher, who was 
 bom perhaps fifty years before Confucius, or about six hundred 
 years B.C., is an obscure system of transcendental philosophy. Its 
 founder no doubt was a great awakener of thought, but the 
 activity which he developed was more of a philosophical or mystic 
 character. His system has been called a purely poUtico-ethical 
 one. Confucius tried to reform the Empire by the imposition of 
 forms and artificial Rules, Laou-tseu tried to go back to the 
 state of primitive society before forms were, and before regu- 
 lations existed. He held fast to three precious things — com- 
 passion, economy, humility; and by these he taught the people 
 that they might return home to Taou ; that is, as it seems, the 
 original and simplest principle of Purity and Wisdom. He was, 
 strictly speaking, a Reformer, not after the type of Confucius, 
 
74 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 who went back to the condition of things in times of Yaou and 
 Shun, and took those times as the model for imitation ; but he 
 boldly recurred to the time when the sovereigns possessed Taou, 
 and ruled over a peaceful and contented empire ; he opposed what 
 has been called educational activity, and settled down to find out, 
 already in himself, the ideal of man's perfection in the unalloyed 
 simplicity of an original perfection. 
 
 There had been a good deal of material activity in China, 
 down to the time of the building of the Great Wall, in the reign 
 of the first Universal Emperor She-hwang-ti, about 209 B.C. The 
 great Yu had drained ofif the waters of the Yellow Eiver, and 
 redeemed a vast area from the condition of a swamp to the 
 richest land of the Empire; the Great Canal, seven hundred 
 miles in length, with its embankments, flood gates, and bridges, 
 is a marvel of engineering skill ; the system of tillage and irriga- 
 tion of their high-level fields exhibited not only the ingenuity of 
 the people but their mechanical skill ; whilst the crowning work 
 — the building of the Great Wall — was a gigantic and successful 
 undertaking, showing us what such a people can do when rightly, 
 or rather doggedly, directed by a mind capable of conceiving 
 such a scheme. 
 
 I need not refer to the intellectual activity of the great mass of 
 the people, in their wonderful development of a native literature. 
 It would occupy too much time even to glance at this feature of 
 their character. I may only say that there is wanting in all this 
 exhibition of material and intellectual progress any sign of 
 spiritual life or aspiration ; the sight is that of a people strug- 
 gling forward on one uniform line of social development, bent only 
 on the happiness of the greater number, careless about the eleva- 
 tion of the race or the cultivation of the latent powers of our 
 spiritual Nature. 
 
 A knowledge of Buddhism and its origin was arrived at by 
 the Chinese iu; the following way : — ^There had been an irruption 
 of some barbarous people, bordering on the north and north- 
 west of China, about the year 200 B.C., on the territories of 
 another people known as the Yue-ti, or Yue-chi, who had by 
 steps and degrees advanced from the mountainous region of 
 Central Asia, towards the borders of China. These latter 
 people were driven back by the Northern barbarians, who now 
 became a terror to the Chinese themselves. Accordingly in 
 the reign of Wu-ti, of the Han dynasty, 140 B.C., a celebrated 
 minister called Chang-ki'en, was sent to the far west as an envoy to 
 the Yue-ti, with a view to arouse them to resist the advance of the 
 victorious Tartars on the West, whilst the Chinese attacked them 
 on the East. His mission was unsuccessful, but after various 
 
BUDDHISM AS IT EXISTS IN CHINA. 75 
 
 adventures he returned to his country, having been the first native 
 of China, eo far as is known, to penetrate to the Caspian Sea, on 
 the West. Shortly after this, viz. B.C. 123, a celebrated general,. 
 Ho-ku-ping, was sent by the same Emperor Wu-ti to operate 
 against the barbarians before alluded to, over whom he gained 
 brilliant victories, and in B.C. 121 he penetrated with his army one 
 thousand li, i.e. some two hundred miles, 'beyond the borders of 
 Turkestan, into probably the Kashgar or Yarkand territory, or 
 perhaps so far as Baktra, from which place he brought back as a 
 trophy a golden image, as it is said, of Buddha. This was the first 
 intimation, as it seems, of the Religion of Buddha in China. 
 
 This golden or gilded image was, however, to lead to great 
 consequences — for, after the lapse of some fifty years, i.e. in the 
 year 65 A.D., a mission was sent to the Western world, to find out 
 more of the subject. The Emperor JNIing Ti had, as related, 
 seen a vision during his sleep, in which he beheld a golden 
 messenger flying through space and entering his palace. There 
 are two versions of this story : the first tells us that the Emperor 
 in his dream saw a golden image about nineteen feet in height, 
 resplendent and with a halo bright as the Sun, enter his palace. 
 This vision the literati interpreted as referring to Buddha, a 
 thought doubtless suggested by the golden image brought back 
 by Ho-ku-ping. A second version says that the golden spirit 
 itself spoke to the Emperor, and said : " Buddha bids you send to 
 the Western countries and search for him, vrith a view to obtain 
 books and images." 
 
 Be this as it may, I observe that this story has a non-Chinese 
 origin ; the idea of an angel or messenger flying from heaven, and 
 revealing itself by a dream, is evidently of Persian extraction. 
 The Chinese at this time had gained a knowledge of Persia ; the 
 astrology and astronomy of that country had already penetrated 
 so far ; and now the intervention of heavenly messengers for the 
 first time is heard of. There was a nascent sense of the super- 
 natural in mundane things beginning to be developed, leading to 
 active results ; and its origin I take to be in the growing inter- 
 course of China with the West, and especially the borders of 
 Media and Persia. In consequence of the vision he had seen, the 
 Emperor immediately sent Ts'ai Yin, Tsing King, and Wang Tsun, 
 with fifteen others, as envoys to India, to search for and bring 
 back books, and, if possible, Buddhist priests from India. 
 They reached the land of the Yue-ti, i.e. the Vajjis, and after 
 some years' absence returned home with books and images or 
 pictures from the frontier of India, accompanied by two teachers 
 or priests, called respectively Saddharma, and Kasyapa Matanga. 
 These foreign teachers took up their residence at Loyang, and 
 
76 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 translated several books, or at any rate compiled them, among 
 ■which were two I will name — i.e. the Sutra of Forty-two Para- 
 graphs and the Life of Bvddha. 
 
 The Suira of Forty-two Paragraphs is an epitome of Buddhist 
 Ethics. It was a compilation, not a translation. Its teaching is 
 purely practical : to avoid evil to do good ; to banish lust and 
 impure desire from the heart ; to progress in the path of righteous 
 doing — these and other duties are named, and the authority of 
 Buddha in each case is quoted ; thus : 
 
 " Buddha said : ' A man who rudely grasps or longs for wealth and 
 pleasure is like a child coveting honey surrounding a knife — 
 scarcely has he had one taste of its sweetness before he perceives 
 the pain of his wounded tongue.' " 
 
 " Again, Buddha said : ' A Keligious person, or a person practising 
 ReHgious duties, should regard himself as an ox carrying a load 
 through the mud — tired out with his exertions he presses onward, 
 not daring to turn either to the right hand or the left, till he 
 escapes from it and finds Rest. So the Religious man regards his 
 passions and bodily desires as worse than the mud, and bends his 
 whole soul to the pursuit of the Path, and so longs to escape from 
 sorrow.' " 
 
 The form of these paragraphs is perhaps borrowed from the 
 usual style of the Confucian books, which generally begin, at least 
 in the Analects, with the phrase : " The Master said " — meaning 
 Confucius. And so here each of the forty-two paragraphs begins 
 with the words : " Buddha said." There is no such method, as far 
 as my reading goes, known in the original works of Buddhism, 
 so that we must presume the style was borrowed from the native 
 literature of China, with a view to commend it to the people. 
 But on the other hand we may notice that this style of composi- 
 tion is the usual one in the edicts of Darius. Thus, in the 
 Behistun inscription we read: — 
 
 " Thus says Darius the King : ' My father was Hystaspis,' " etc. 
 
 " And says Darius the King : ' By the grace of Ormazd I am 
 King,' " etc. 
 
 "And says Darius the King: 'These are the countries which 
 are called mine,' " etc. 
 
 " And says Darius the King : ' Within these countries whoever 
 was pious, to them I afforded protection ; whoever was impious I 
 have punished,' " etc. 
 
 I only quote these clauses to show the general agreement in 
 composition betwixt the paragraphs of the Buddhist Swtra, and 
 the paragraphs of the edicts of Darius. 
 
 But I trace also a parallel between the moral or ethical doctri/nea 
 laid down in this early Buddhist compilation, and the morality 
 
BUDDHISM AS IT EXISTS IN CHINA. 77 
 
 or system of morals which characterizes the Iranian or Persian 
 system derived from the primitive teaching of Zoroaster. 
 " Zoroaster (-we are told by Mr. Mills, the latest exponent of his 
 teaching) was only a link in a far-extended chain of Teachers, 
 who had risen at various times to reform or instruct the Nations. 
 His system, like those of his predecessors and successors, was a 
 growth. His main conceptions had been surmised, though not 
 spoken, before. The world was ripe for them, and when he 
 appeared he had only to utter and develop them. I would not 
 call him a Keformer ; he does not repudiate his predecessors ; the 
 old Aryan Gods retire before the Spiritual Ahura, but I do not 
 think he specially intended to discredit them. But the great 
 Benevolence, Order, and Power, together with their results in 
 the human subject, i.e. Ahura's Piety, incarnate in men, and 
 their weal and immortality in consequence, crowd out all other 
 thoughts." — {Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxxi. Preface.) 
 
 Again, the same writer says, with regard to the Zoroastrian 
 doctrine, that " it includes this fundamental principle : There 
 can be no happiness undefined by Sorrow, and no goodness which 
 does not resist Sin. Accordingly, the evil principle is so necessary 
 that it is represented by an Evil God. His very name, however, 
 is a thought or a passion." — (Ibid.) 
 
 The same truths or principles are distinctly laid down in the 
 Buddhist system, as it is exhibited in Chinese writings ; Buddha 
 was the enlightened one ; " the Wisdom and Piety which may 
 become Incarnate in men " was engendered in him as it was in 
 Zaratushtra. He expressly taught that he was only one in a 
 succession of Enlightened Teachers, he was the Tathagata, i.e. 
 the One who came as his predecessor, the Rightly Gome. He 
 did not reject the old gods of the people, Brahma Sahampati, 
 Indra the Euler of Heaven (or, of Devas), and so on ; but 
 he superseded them by the spiritual conception of a perfect 
 Righteousness incarnate in each Buddha. The great Benevolence, 
 Order, and Power are leading thoughts in his system ; several 
 temples in China are called the Great Benevolence or Loving- 
 kindness Temples.^ The " Order " or " Divine Order " is exhibited 
 in the very name of Dharma, and the regular constitution of the 
 Community ; and the Power of the all-powerful one, the Dasabala, 
 or the tenfold strong one, is constantly attributed as one of the 
 Buddha's attributes. Then again, as to the results in the human 
 
 ' And so in § 7 of the Sutra we are considermg, Buddha says : '■ The man 
 ■who foolishly does me wrong, to him I will return the protection of my ungrudging 
 Love." Where in the original the expression ungrudging Love points to the 
 four elements of Benevolence, i.e. lore, pity, sympathy, and equanimity (or, 
 impartiality). 
 
78 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 subject, their weal and immortality, Buddha's teaching expressly 
 points to an ultimate good or deliverance, and consequent happi- 
 ness — e.g. in § 13: — Buddha said, "Who is the good man? 
 The religious or pious man only is good. And what is goodness ? 
 Tirst and foremost, it is the agreement of the will with the 
 ■conscience, or Eeason. Who is the great man? He who is 
 strongest in the exercise of Patience ; he who patiently endures 
 wrong and leads a blameless life ; he is a man indeed. And who 
 is the truly enlightened ? A man wholly freed from the power 
 of sin, possessed of perfect knowledge, sees and hears all things ; 
 such a man is, indeed, possessed of the highest good." And such 
 a man, Buddha teaches, has obtained already Eternal rest — to 
 use his own phrase, has tasted the " sweet dew " that is the 
 Nectar of immortality. An immortality, however, independent 
 of the trammels of individual existence, but yet real and sub- 
 stantial — the immortality which attaches to the Being of one 
 who having had no birth cannot die. 
 
 Again, the Zoroastrian doctrine asserts that there can be no 
 happiness undefined by Sorrow — that is, that Sorrow is wrapped 
 up with all human sources of happiness, a doctrine fully developed 
 in Buddhism. And in the Sutra before us — e.g. in § 35 — Buddha 
 says : " A Religious man has his griefs and sorrows like the rest 
 of the world, for from birth till old age, and from this through 
 disease to death, the sorrows to be endured are endless ; the 
 world is encompassed with Sorrow." 
 
 This, too, is the first of the four great Truths which lie at the 
 foundation of the system, that Sorrow exists, ever increases, but 
 may be escaped by the Way of the Master's Teaching. 
 
 And once more the Evil Principle, or the Evil or Wicked One, 
 Mara or Pisuna, is common both to the Iranian and the so-called 
 Indian system. We are atl, like Buddha himself, subject to the 
 temptations or fascinations or bewitchments oMhis Evil Principle ; 
 he is represented as " the Lord of this world),'" i.e. this Idka ; and, 
 what is stranger still, in a curious Sutra well known in China, 
 he is represented as coming to Upagupta, one of the early 
 Apostles of Buddhism, as an angel of light, in the shape of 
 Buddha himself, by which Upagupta was so fascinated that he 
 fell down and worshipped him. 
 
 It is also a legend known everywhere that Ananda himself, the 
 bosom companion and attendant of Buddha, was so bewitched by 
 the fascinating influence of this Evil One that he failed to ask 
 his Master to continue in the world for the entire age, and in 
 consequence the Buddha died. 
 
 The name of the Iranian Evil Principle, however, is a thought 
 or a passion — he is called " the Angry Mind ; " and so in the 
 
BUDDHISM AS IT EXISTS IN CHINA. 79 
 
 scene of the Great Temptation of Buddha, the three daughters 
 — i.e. the abstract qualities of the Evil Principle — are : Concu-; 
 piscence, Lust, and Anger ; and the prevailing sentiment in the 
 •entire episode is, that Mara represents the thought of unbridled 
 Eage. He is the passion thought that opposes the good thought. 
 
 I contend, then, that as we find nothing of all this in the pre- 
 Buddhist literature of India, we must seek its origin elsewhere 
 than in that country ; and, from long study, I feel scarcely any 
 doubt that the great outline of the Buddhist system was brought 
 to India by perhaps the very first settlers in the country ; that 
 it was repressed and hidden under the paramount authority of 
 the first Aryan invasion ; and that after a time there was an up- 
 heaval of old beliefs, as the new doctrine was corrupted ; and by 
 the personal influence of the great Master himself, the system he 
 taught superseded the old one, and reigned dominant in India for 
 a thousand years. 
 
 It may be as well to point out some broad and general reasons 
 for disconnecting the origin of Buddhism with any supposed 
 development of Indian doctrine in that direction. 
 
 In the first place, let us take the worship 6f relics. In China 
 this is a common superstition, where the sariras of Buddha, 
 whether a bone or a hair, are religiously preserved. One of the 
 greatest of the literati m the Tang dynasty was banished for 
 protesting against the worship of a decayed bone. This form of 
 worship is coeval with the rise of Buddhism ; but in Brahmanism, 
 though the word etupa is used, yet there is no mention whatever 
 of relic worship. It is of pre-Aryan origin, and may be traced 
 back to the world-wide custom of tombs erected over the in- 
 cinerated remains of €ome famous hero or chieftain in the early, 
 if not earliest, days of the world's historj'. 
 
 Max MiiUer states that Buddhism starts with a denial of the 
 sacred character of the Vedas. — (iTidia, p. 1 80.) Again, Oldenberg 
 has this remark: "In training of nobles in those lands which 
 were but slightly attached to Brahmanism more attention was 
 paid to martial exercises than to the Vedas. Buddhists have not 
 attributed Vedic knowledge to their Master." — (Buddhism, p. 100.) 
 
 Again, the same writer says : " Vedic culture has not had its 
 home, originally at least, amongst these stocks of the East — 
 i.e. the Sakyas and Magadhas." — (Ibid., p. 411.) 
 
 Again, he says the Sakyas and their neighbours were little 
 afi"ected by Brahmanic influences. In fact the whole of the 
 Magadha territory, where Buddha first taught, (although he was 
 bom and trained in Kapilavastu), was never wholly Brahmanized, 
 and Buddha did not speak Sanskrit ; and he questions whether the 
 Magadhas were Aryans. — (Ibid., pp. 400, 403.) 
 
80 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 It is true, Oldenberg remarks that " during Buddha's lifetime, 
 there was a union of Teacher and Master, after the Brahmanical 
 model."— (Ibid., p. 237.) 
 
 But why after the Brahmanical model; there were other 
 Teachers and disciples besides the Brahmans in India; and the 
 model may be sought far afield; there were Schools of the 
 Prophets in Israel; the Magi had their initiated followers in 
 Persia or Media ; the followers of Pythagoras and the early 
 Greek schools might show us a model. In fact it is an elemental 
 arrangement, resulting from the very nature of the thing, that 
 a Teacher must have followers. And we do not wonder then that 
 it was so with the Buddha. Only in his case the disciples were 
 won by the exercise of spiritual control, the activity of the 
 Order was spiritual — i.e. not so much logical or disputative, as 
 authoritative over the conscience. It was a spiritual activity that 
 now began to work in India, and was transferred to China as a 
 part of the System inaugurated by the IVIaster. 
 
 We have a striking example of this spiritual influence in the 
 very first account of Buddha's career. He had gained illumination, 
 and was a Supreme Buddha. Oldenberg would tell us he was 
 " a converted man." He had hesitated for a time whether the 
 world was prepared for his Doctrine, but, at last, was persuaded 
 by Brahma Sahampati to go forth and preach. I say preach, 
 because he had a message to the conscience, and not to the 
 intellect only. He prepared, therefore, to begin his work. His 
 old friends, who were not necessarily Brahmans, were dead, and 
 so he went to Benares to seek for and convert the five men who 
 had been sent by his Father to watch him and track his. steps. 
 These five men had left him, disappointed because, after a six 
 years' fast, the Teacher had discovered that Eight Wisdom did not 
 result from extreme asceticism, as it certainly did not from 
 unrestraint. They had left him partly in anger, but more in 
 distrust, and had gone to Benares. He went on his way thither : 
 on the road he met a young Brahman called Upaka ; the youth 
 was arrested by the strange appearance of the Master, so self- 
 possessed, so noble in his gait, and unaffected in his deep purpose. 
 There was, as Mrs. Jameson says of the expression of Christ's face, 
 in his face a sort of divine sympathy towards the human race ; 
 they spoke together, and the young man, overwhelmed with the 
 feeling that he had been in contact with some one greatly 
 superior to himself, hesitated, halted as he went on, looked 
 back, but finally separated himself from the fascination of this 
 strange Presence. 
 
 The Master went on — came to Benares, and advanced to the 
 Park of Deer, where the five men were practising their religious 
 
BUDDHISM AS IT EXISTS IN CHINA. 81 
 
 duties. When they saw him, strong in his purpose, recovered 
 from his exhausting fast, commanding in his person — they declared 
 they would not move nor greet him as he came. The Master 
 approached still nearer, and then, strange to say — drawn by an 
 irresistible charm, beyond control — the five men rose, saluted 
 him as he advanced, prepared him a seat, bathed his feet, and 
 by the first Sermon he preached were converted. This Sermon, 
 on the four great Truths, is well known. " Sorrow and deliverance 
 from Sorrow " is' the " Text ; " the " Sermon," how to find deliver- 
 ance and arrive at Rest. And the consequence, as the Chinese 
 version of the Mahdkavya charita says, was this : — 
 
 " The great Lord Buddha now has moved the World. 
 He turns the Eeligious Wheel of perfect Purity. 
 The stormy winds are hushed, the clouds dispersed. 
 Down fall from space the heavenly flowers. 
 The Angels revel in celestial joys — filled with unutterable gladness." 
 
 This idea of angels rejoicing in worldly concerns is entirely non- 
 Indian or un-Brahmanic ; it has the ring of other teaching, and of 
 people far removed from any Indian centre. 
 
 But I will pass on to observe proofs of the spiritual activity 
 excited in China by the Introduction of Buddhism. 
 
 Let us allude to the vast body of Buddhist Literature produced 
 in that country. "When the entire copy of the Buddhist Tripitaka 
 in Chinese, was sent to this country a few years ago, I was 
 instructed by the Secretary of State for India to catalogue and 
 report upon it. 
 
 As it came to us in several huge boxes, I calculated that, if 
 one packet were placed on another in an upright position, the 
 whole pillar of books would be something like one hundred and 
 twenty feet in height. 
 
 Now this literature is principally a body of translations — trans- 
 lations from various originals — made by foreign priests or teachers, 
 who were constrained by a desire to propagate their religion, to 
 travel to the East. As I have already noticed, the first Teachers 
 who came to China arrived there about 73 a.d., and brought with 
 them books — -some of which, as they translated them, stiU. survive. 
 Temples were founded for their accommodation — and the Emperor 
 and the court were their Patrons. 
 
 Following them, in rapid succession, other foreign teachers 
 reached the country : some were Parthians, some were Huns, and 
 some Indians. They all brought books and went on translating ; 
 and the Chinese went on building temples and monasteries, 
 till the whole country was covered with them. There were 
 intervals of persecution and reaction, but there was a spiritual 
 activity abroad, which had scarcely ever been equalled before in 
 
 6 
 
82 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the country. Now what was the origin of this ? Partly, no doubt, 
 it resulted from an enthusiasm derived from the foreign teachers 
 themselves, but principally from the System. 
 
 The secret of the power of the Buddhist doctrine lies in this, 
 that it is an utterly unselfish one ; it teaches us from Buddha's 
 example that the greatest good and happiness a man can enjoy is 
 to do good to others. The thought of self is evil. The love of 
 others than ourselves is the end of Religion. Hence the example 
 of Buddha is constantly quoted ; e.g. Fa-hien, the Chinese pilgrim 
 to India, tells us he heard the following announcement made by 
 an eloquent man in Ceylon. This man, mounted on a gaudily 
 caparisoned elephant, and clad in royal apparel, spoke thus : 
 " Our Bodhisattva — i.e. Buddha in a previous condition — during 
 endless ages, underwent every kind of austerity for the sake of 
 delivering all flesh. He spared himself no personal suffering, he 
 left his home and country, he gave up wife and children, he tore 
 out his eyes to heal the blind, he cut his flesh to feed the dove, 
 he gave his head in alms, he sacrificed his body to feed a tiger, 
 he grudged neither his marrow nor his brain. Thus he endured 
 every sort of anguish for the goods of others. After he became 
 a Buddha he lived in the world forty-nine years to teach and 
 convert men. He gave rest to the wretched — he saved the lost ; 
 then he died — the eyes of the world were put out, and all living 
 things were filled with sorrow. Aftei ten days his relics will be 
 brought forth, let all persons come and do them reverence." 
 
 Now here lies much of the power of the Buddhist Teaching — 
 this idea of unselfish thought for others — and it is this which led 
 to the spiritual activity of which I am speaking, and to the 
 diffusion of the vast literature in which these instances of self- 
 denial are recorded. It was all strange to the Chinese, but it 
 commended itself to their consciences. 
 
 Take again the profound doctrine embodied in Buddhism, and 
 developed in China. I mean the vast consequences of rightly or 
 wrongly formed character. This character is formed by conduct. 
 The Buddhists, we are told, do not acknowledge a human " soul." 
 I think Butler in his works does not use this word ; he speaks of a 
 vital principle, but not of the soul. It is diflicult to define the word 
 — ^we might understand the independent existence of spirit, but 
 the word " soul " as a living personal identity is diflicult to define. 
 Anyhow, it was not understood in the way we understand it by 
 the Buddhists. They spoke of the soul in the eye, in the ear, 
 and in the different organs or entrances of the body. Th^ 
 denied that the sight was, or contained, the soul ; or the 
 hearing ; or the smelling ; whatever was apprehended by the 
 senses, even down to " mind," ie. the cognitive faculty — aU these 
 
BUDDHISM AS IT EXISTS IN CHINA. 83 
 
 "were unreal, vanishing, and delusive ; in this way they denied 
 the existence of any monad like our conception of soul. But 
 they affirmed the re-productive power of character, and also what 
 is called Salvation by character. Now I maintain that this word 
 " character " and what is called soul are identical. I will quote 
 from a little tract before me that some one sent me yesterday 
 morning. It is entitled The Theology of the Future, by Dr. 
 James Freeman Clarke. I may say I know nothing of this 
 gentleman, or his Publishers ; but I am bound to say there is 
 much to recommend his tract. The fourth section is headed 
 " Salvation by Character," and he proceeds to say Salvation means 
 the highest peace and joy of which the soul is capable. But here 
 the writer runs counter to the Platonic doctrine, which is taken up 
 by Butler : if the soul has a character it is not a simple entity, simply 
 soul ; it is soul plus character, and being compound it cannot be 
 -eternal. So that it seems soul and character must be identical 
 and simple. And here I cannot but notice the marked agreement 
 between the teaching of Budda and Plato on this point of "simple 
 being ; " the Buddhists say whatever is compounded is temporary — 
 the word is Samkhdra, which jNIr. Rhys Davids translates " confec- 
 tion ; " exactly the same word is used by Plato when he speaks 
 of compounded things being transitory ; he says they are a-vvdera 
 (Phcedo, cap. 25), which is very much like the Buddhist SaTn- 
 .khdra ; but, he argues, the soul — where he does not mean the 
 individual soul, but the part of the universal soul, separated for a 
 time but destined to return — is a simjple essence, and therefore 
 immortal ; so, with the Buddhists, character is immortal — not the 
 same identical character, but the result of conduct in character — 
 good or bad — ever tending to the ultimate character of unalloyed 
 and simple goodness ; or, to use other words, the character of 
 -Grod, besides whom there is none Good. 
 
 Now what I want to say is, that there is a power in this thought 
 ■which must result in activity. We are forming our character; 
 it is in our own hands ; it is a noble work ; we are building up 
 gold, silver, hay, stubble — the fire will try us. Here I repeat 
 is the secret of the power of Buddhist doctrine : whether he was 
 jight or wrong in details the Master laid down in this (as in the 
 former case of \dcarious suffering) a principle that commends 
 itself to the Conscience and the untrammelled Reason. We are 
 building ourselves up, shaping ourselves — i.e. our characters — for 
 the future; the responsibility is great, but the perfect daylight 
 and the freedom in which we bask, the nobility of thought, 
 the high resolve, the steadfast purpose — all these as active or 
 motive powers are the spurs that urge us on to a virtuous Life. 
 I cannot allow myself, although encroaching on your time, to 
 
84 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 pass by the identity of belief, or fancy, if you will, on this point,. 
 between the Greek and Buddhist definition of this all-potent 
 element. The Buddhist says that Karma, which the Chinese 
 translate as "building up" or "structure" (in the sense oi creating), 
 is the supreme Arbiter. Now Karma simply means the formation 
 of character, which is in fact the power that decides our future 
 destiny ; the Greeks have the same word, almost identical in root 
 formation — I mean Krjp or destiny ; and precisely as in the Buddhist 
 stories, which I might read if there were time, the Divine 
 Sdkra asserts that he can do nothing against the consequences 
 of Karma, so the Greek Zeus confesses he is impotent to resist 
 Fate or icqp. 
 
 The two thoughts are identical ; the idea of Karma, so far from 
 being only Indian, lies embedded in the earliest stratum of 
 human speculation ; and, so far, is worthy of our consideration in 
 tracing the origin of these beliefs. 
 
 Thus we may trace the influence of Buddhism in China back 
 to the original conception of Eeward and Punishment. 
 
 I suppose this thought lies at the root of popular Eeligion. 
 We need not try to define the character of the Eeward or 
 Punishment, but simply state that there are consequences 
 accruing from the practice of virtue, or the contrary, which must 
 certainly overtake us. 
 
 I pass on to observe some facts connected with the cosmogony 
 of the Buddhists, as it has been developed in China. The 
 influence of what is called the Lotus School has resulted in some 
 extremely interesting speculations. The great problem before 
 the world had been to account for the origin of things. You 
 remember, I daresay, the remarkable passage in the tenth book of 
 the Rig Veda, in which the originator is spoken of as " breathing," 
 " breathless." 
 
 The search after this first cause ended in the symbolism of the 
 Lotus, which floats in its loveliness on the surface of the Lake, 
 but comes from an unknown source. So the Lotus was used as 
 the emblem of what we should call creation. Whence come these 
 worlds around us ? who is the First ? where His abode ? The answer 
 was : " We cannot tell ; the Lotus floats upon the Water — that is- 
 all we know." 
 
 Now let us trace the active growth of this conception. 
 
 The first and earliest idea was, that all things spring from 
 Water ; hence the world, or the four quarters of the world, are re- 
 presented as floating on the universal Ocean, placed symmetrically, 
 thus.i 
 
 In the centre is the Divine Mountain, the Olympus of the 
 ' Diagrams were here shown. 
 
BUDDHISM AS IT EXISTS IN CHINA. 85 
 
 Greeks, the Zagros of the Iranians, the Meru of the Indians ; 
 around this mountain are the rock girdles which prevent approach 
 by mortal man to the abode of the Gods ; beyond the outer girdle 
 of Rocks, in the salt sea, are the four quarters of the world, denoted 
 by the figures and the accompanying islands. 
 
 Here we have the earliest thought of a central inaccessible 
 mountain, and the four quarters, or the four winds, into which the 
 world is divided as it floats on the Sea. 
 
 At the base of the central mountain are the four guardians, who 
 keep the way and guard the Residence of the Gods. This idea is 
 also a primitive one, denoted in Homer by the Horse or Seasons, 
 who keep the gates of Olympus. 
 
 On the summit of the Divine Mountain are the abodes of the 
 Gods, or the thirty-three Gods, over whom Sakra the Powerful One 
 reigns supreme. These are the OXv/Ltirta Sa/MiTa ; the number 
 thirty-three is known in the Vedas, incorporated therein, doubtless, 
 from the old tradition, which may be traced back to the period 
 when Time or Chronos was the Supreme" Ruler, and when the 
 year, the four seasons, and the twenty-eight days made up the 
 thirty-three. Above this Paradise are the three tiers of higher 
 Heavens : — ^The Kama Heavens, in which there are earthly pleasures ; 
 the Rupa Heavens, in which there are Forms but no earthly 
 pleasures'; and the Arupa Heavens, in which there are neither 
 Forms nor human conceptions. This was the extended idea of the 
 One System of worlds. Buddha taught in agreement with the 
 oldest beliefs that all the denizens of these worlds are subject 
 to decay and death ; just as Homer makes Nectar a condition 
 of prolonged life to the Gods, without which they would perish ; 
 Buddha, therefore, would have nought to say about such a 
 Heavenly State ; he sought after a condition of Being that never 
 began and never will perish. An Eternal state of Existence, and 
 he called this Nirvana, a non-breathing state, like that of Him 
 before His breath went forth upon the Waters. 
 
 Before passing on to notice the extension of this system of 
 worlds, I will notice that underneath the earth, the Buddhists, 
 and especially the Chinese Buddhists, place the various prisons 
 in which the wicked are confined for vast, but not endless, 
 periods of time ; they are called earth prisons, and the sufferings 
 endured in each are supposed to be material. The lowest prison 
 is a burning one, surrounded by an iron wall — it is the Tartarus 
 of Homer (cf. Iliad, viii. 15), with its iron gates and brazen walls, 
 the deepest underneath the earth. The lowest place of punish- 
 ment is called Avichi, which the Chinese translate "without 
 interval ; " there is no cessation of pain here, literally the fire is 
 not quenched, but yet there is Hope of Escape. 
 
86 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 And now, under the persuasion of the infinity of the Universe^ 
 the Buddhists began to multiply their systems of worlds in thi& 
 way : they supposed a repetition of mountains and heavens,, 
 extending through space; over which, however, there was but 
 one Buddha ; they then supposed these extended systems to be 
 multiplied one over the other, the whole springing from a Lotus, 
 denoting their confessed Ignorance of the Originator ; advancing 
 still, they placed this complex system of worlds in the centre, 
 and other similar systems to the number of ten surrounding it. 
 These systems were ruled over by other Buddhas. 
 
 Advancing yet, they place ten such chiliocosms, ruled over by 
 different DhyS,ni Buddhas ; and finally, in sheer despair, they 
 multiply these systems, each one so inconceivably vast, indefi- 
 nitely, till they become as numerous as the sands of countless 
 Eivers Ganges. 
 
 Now the origin of this cosmogony was doubtless, in the first 
 stages of it, inherited from primitive time. The surrounding 
 streams of ocean, the central mountain and the abode of the Gods 
 — these are fables common to all nations; but the expansion of 
 the belief or system is doubtless Buddhistic, and the introduction 
 of the Ix)tus peculiarly so. But whether matured in the valley 
 of the Ganges, or on the high lands of Asia abounding with 
 lakes, or even in Egypt, we can hardly say. This much, however^ 
 appears likely, that the final stage, where the worlds and systems 
 are made as numerous as the Ganges sands, was reached in the 
 dreamy land of Eastern India, and thence carried to China, where 
 it now finds acceptance, and has led to a similar state of dreamy 
 philosophical speculation. 
 
 I must hasten to point out one more feature in the. Buddhist 
 development in China. I mean the belief in a Western Paradise^ 
 with which is connected the worship of AmitAbha, and Kwan-yin. 
 
 The idea of a place of happy Eest in the Western regions of the 
 world is an old and well-known one. The sight of the glorious- 
 region of the setting sun, so peaceful, so lovely, so full of quiet 
 hope, may have given birth to the thought. We cannot tell. But 
 at any rate, so early as 149 a.d., a Parthian prince, who would 
 have been probably Vologases III. of Parthia, if he had not 
 become a Buddhist monk, came to China and translated the 
 . Sutra of boundless years, i.e. of Amit^bha or Amit^yus. This 
 gives us an account of the Western Paradise ; it is a place beautiful 
 to behold, its golden streets and lovely tanks, the flowers and 
 birds and palaces, all so exquisite; and the happy people who 
 dwell there, worshipping the eternal and all-glorious Amita — 
 this was the fable that excited the wonder and drew out the 
 active spiritual powers of the Chinese converts. Let me only 
 
BUDDHISM AS IT EXISTS IN CHpSTA. ST 
 
 give one example. It is that of a poor Chinese Pilgrim, whose 
 brief history is given us by I-Tsing. His name was Shang-tih. 
 
 The narrative is this : " Shang-tih, a contemplative priest, of 
 Ping-chau. He longed for the joys of the Western Paradise, and, 
 with the view of being bom there, he devoted himself to a life 
 of purity and religion (reciting the name of Buddha). He vowed 
 to write out the whole of the Prajna-S'0,tra, occupying 10,000 
 chapters. Desiring to worship the sacred vestiges, and so by this 
 to secure for himself the greater merit, with a view to a birth in 
 that heaven, he travelled through the nine provinces (of China), 
 desiring wherever he went to labour in the conversion of men 
 and to write the sacred books. Coming to the coast, he embarked 
 in a ship for Kalinga. ' Thence he proceeded by sea to the Malaya 
 country, and thence wishing to go to Mid-India, he embarked 
 in a merchant-ship for that purpose. Being taken in a storm, 
 the ship began to founder, and the sailors and merchants were 
 all struggling with one another to get aboard a little boat that 
 was near. The captain of the ship being a believer, and anxious 
 to save the priest, called out to him with a loud voice to come 
 aboard the boat, but Shang-tih replied, ' I will not come ; save 
 the other people.' And so he remained silently absorbed, as if 
 a brief term of life were agreeable to one possessed of the heart 
 of Bodhi. Having refused all help, he clasped his hands in 
 adoration, and looking towards the west, he repeated the sacred 
 name of Amita, and when the ship went down these were his 
 last words. He was about fifty years of age. He had a follower 
 unknown to me, who also perished with his master, also calling 
 on the name of Amita Buddha." 
 
 We cannot doubt that this idea of the Eternal One was, in 
 the first place, borrowed from the boundless Time of the Zoroastrian 
 belief, and became merged in the idea of Mithras, the glorious 
 light ; and so the Amita of the Chinese is both the eternal and 
 the altogether glorious. 
 
 The worship of Kwan-yin or Avalokiteshvara, the looking- 
 down Grod, the personification of Mercy, is equally common in 
 China. This Being is sometimes represented as a Female with a 
 child on her knee, at other times as a youth or a Grod. The 
 Chinese everywhere invoke her aid. There is a Liturgy, as complex 
 as any Western manual of the same sort, used for her worship : 
 and the Eitual itself is very imposing. 
 
 I presume this idea of Kwan-yin was introduced into China 
 with that of Amita Buddha, and that both were derived from the 
 Persian. The worship of INIithras and Anahita, the pure Goddess 
 of the Waters, was a favourite one in the times of Artaxerxes 
 Mnemon ; and, irom his patronage, is said to have extended from 
 
88 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 East to West. The Buddhists, owing to its popularity, incor- 
 porated it in their system ; and in China, now, the invocation of 
 Amita and aspirations for mercy and protection at the hands 
 of Kwan-yin form the staple part of the worship and belief of the 
 majority of the people. 
 
 AH this has created a spiritual activity, the origin of which 
 must first of all be sought in the fundamental thoughts of the 
 system itself. Its unselfishness, its appeal to the conscience, its 
 vast scope, its future hope, its belief in the Mercy of the Merciful 
 One, the Glory and Eternity of the All-Glorious and Eternal One, 
 and the Future Rest in Paradise. 
 
 These thoughts are not Chinese, they are not Indian. They 
 must be looked for in that neighbourhood where in the early 
 beginning there was a knowledge of Truth as it came from the 
 Source of Truth, and which, though dimmed by the accretions of 
 time and perverted by fond inventions, still survived to give some 
 faint light and hope to Nations that sat in darkness and under 
 the Shadow of Death. 
 
89 
 
 shintOism. 
 
 BY ISABELLA BIRD {MRS. BISHOP). 
 
 Of the " spiritual centres " of which these lectures treat, Shintd, 
 which has fallen to my lot, is certainly among the feeblest ; and, 
 never a religion in the highest sense of the word, it has come to 
 be the most frivolous of superstitions, " ready to vanish away," 
 and only deserves our notice as being up till to-day the national 
 religion of the Japanese, one of the most acute, progressive, and 
 materialistic peoples on the face of the earth. 
 
 Scholars hesitate to decide whether Shintd is or is not "a 
 genuine product of Japanese soil." The Japanese call their an- 
 cient; religion Kami no michi (" The way of the gods") ; foreigners 
 adopt the Chinese form of the same, and call it Shint6. By 
 Shint6 is meant the religion which was found spread over Japan 
 when the Buddhist propagandists arrived in the sixth century 
 A.D., and which at the restoration of the Mikado (the so-called 
 Spiritual Emperor) to power in 1868, became the State religion, 
 ■or, to use our own phraseology, the Established Church. By the 
 term 'pure Shintd, as exhibited in the shrines of Isfe and 
 elsewhere, is meant the ancient faith as distinguished from that 
 mixture of it with Buddhism and Confucianism known as Reigobit 
 Shintd, which encounters the traveller everywhere in the shape 
 of gaily decorated lacquer temples, swarming with highly coloured 
 and grotesque divinities carved in wood. 
 
 Japanese Shint6 cosmogony and mythology are one, and in 
 both Japan is the universe. Shintd has three legendary mythical 
 periods, during which the islands of Japan and many gods came 
 into being. In the third period Amaterasu, the sun-goddess, 
 was supreme. This "heaven-lighting" divinity, finding that 
 Japan was disturbed by the unending feuds of the earthly gods, 
 among whom Okuniushi, their ruler, could not keep order, 
 despatched Ninigi, a heavenly god, to Higa in central Japan, and 
 compelled the former incompetent divinity to resign his dis- 
 orderly rule into his hands, permitting him, however, the easier 
 task of ruling the Invisible, while Ninigi and his successors, the 
 Mikados, have continued to rule the Visible. The struggles for 
 
90 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 supremacy between the gods and their offspring continued to 
 afflict the Visible till 660 B.C., when Jimmu Tenno, the fifth in 
 descent from the sun-goddess, overthrew the Kinshiu rebels, 
 subjugated a large portion of the main island, and settled there 
 with his warriors. This legendary event is the dawn of Japanese 
 history, and the starting point of Japanese chronology. The 7th 
 of April is fixed as the anniversary of Jimmu Tenno's accession 
 to the throne, he is deified and worshipped in a thousand shrines, 
 and from him the present Mikado claims direct descent through 
 one hundred and twenty Mikados who have preceded him, the 
 " divine right extending yet farther back through five generations 
 of ten'estnal gods, and seven of celestial to the great sun-goddess, 
 from whom he inherits the Japanese regalia — the Mirror, the 
 Sword, and the Stone. The Mikado is the lineal descendant of 
 the gods — nay, he is himself a god, and his palace is a temple. 
 His heavenly origin has been through all historic days the 
 foundation of Japanese government, and it and the duty of 
 unquestioning obedience to his commands have been the highest 
 of Shint6 dogmas. 
 
 Between 97 and 30 B.C., Sugin, the reigning Mikado, and of 
 course a demi-god, appeared as a reformer, called on the people 
 to worship the gods, performed a symbolic purification for the 
 nation, built special shrines for the worship of some of the 
 divinities, removed the mirror, sword, and stone from the palace 
 to a shrine built for their custody, and appointed his daughter 
 their priestess. This mirror rested, at least till 1871, in the 
 shrines of Is6, of which I shall speak presently. 
 
 In the middle of the sixth century B.C., as is supposed, a great 
 tide of religious change passed over Japan, which has never 
 wholly ebbed, for Buddhist missionaries from Korea proselytized 
 so successfully in hi^h quarters that a decree was issued in the- 
 eighth century ordering the erection of two Buddhist temples, 
 and a seven-storied pagoda in every province. The singular 
 supremacy of Buddhism, however, is due to a master-stroke of 
 religions policy achieved by a Buddhist priest now known as 
 K6b6-daishi, who, in the ninth century, in order to gain and retain 
 a hold for his creed over the mass of the people, taught that the 
 Shinto gods were but Japanese manifestations of Buddha, a 
 dogma which reconciled the foreign and native religions, and 
 gave Buddhism several centuries of ascendency over both Shintd 
 and Confucianism, till it was supplanted about two centuries ago 
 in the intellects of the educated by the Chinese philosophical 
 system of Choo He, which in its turn is being displaced by what 
 is known in Japan as the " English Philosophy," represented by 
 Mill, Herbert Spencer, and others. 
 
SHINTOISM. 91 
 
 The Buddha-izing the old gods, and incorporating the ancient 
 traditions of the divine ancestors and early heroes of the Japanese 
 with the ethical code and dogmas of Buddhism much watered 
 down, produced that jumble before referred to, on which the 
 reigning Mikado bestowed the name of Reigdbu Shinto, or " two- 
 fold religious doctrine." From that time Buddhist and Shinto 
 priests frequently celebrated their ceremonies in the same 
 temples, the distinctive feature of Shintft, the absence of idols, 
 effigies, and other visible objects of worship disappeared, and the 
 temples became crowded with wooden images of the Shinto hero 
 gods, alongside of those of Buddha and his disciples, only a 
 very few shrines retaining the simplicity of the ancient faith. 
 In the eighteenth century an attempt was made by a few 
 learned and able men to revive " pure Shint6," and adapt it to 
 those cravings of humanity which Buddhism had partially met, 
 but it failed, and has resulted mainly in affording materials 
 for the researches of Mr. Sataw, Mr. Kemperman, and other 
 European scholars. 
 
 At the restoration of the Mikado to temporal power in 1868, 
 Buddhism was practically "disestablished," and Shint6 rein- 
 stated as the State religion owing to its value as a political 
 engine, but it was impossible to re-introduce many of its long 
 abandoned nsages alongside of Western civilization, and the 
 number of those who regard its divinities with anything like 
 religious reverence is very small. 
 
 Since that year the images and the gaudy and sensuous 
 paraphernalia of a corrupted Buddhism have been swept out 
 of many of the temples, but the splendour of the lacquer 
 and arabesques remains, as in the temples of Shiba at Yedo 
 and the shrines of Nikko ; and the primitive simplicity of 
 the plain wooden structure with the thatched tent-roof and 
 perfectly bare interior, is only seen in the Is6 shrines and in 
 some other places. 
 
 Three thousand seven hundred gods are known to have shrines. 
 Each hamlet has its special god as well as each shrine, and each 
 god has his annual festival or merry-making, while many have 
 particular days in each month on which people visit their shrines. 
 Every child is taken a month after birth to the shrine of the 
 district in which he is born, and the divinity of the shrine is 
 thenceforward his patron. 
 
 . On certain occasions the priests assemble in the larger temples 
 and chant certain words to an excruciating musical accompani- 
 ment, but this is in no sense " public worship ; " and indeed 
 worshippers are seldom if ever admitted within Shinto temples. 
 The god is supposed to be present in the temple dedicated to him. 
 
92 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 and the worshipper standiag outside attracts his attention by 
 pulling the cord of a metal globe, half bell, half rattle, which 
 hangs at the open entrance. The act of worship usually consists 
 in clapping the hands twice and making one or more hasty 
 genuflexions, and people make pilgrimages of several hundred 
 miles to the most celebrated shrines to do no more than this, to 
 cast a few of the smallest of bronze coins down upon the temple 
 threshold, and to buy a relic or charm. The festival days of the 
 gods of the larger temples are occasions of much gaiety and 
 splendour. They are celebrated by music, dancing, and proces- 
 sions, in which huge and highly decorated cars take part, on 
 and in which are borne certain sacred emblems covered with 
 gorgeous antique embroideries, which at other times are kept in 
 the temple storehouses. Ancient classical dancings or posturings 
 are also given on covered platforms within the temple grounds, 
 and in these a maiden invariably appears, dressed in white, and 
 bearing a wand in her hand. The modern Japanese are ignorant 
 of the meaning and history of nearly all the public Shinto 
 ceremonies. 
 
 In travels extending for several months in the interior of 
 northern Japan, during which time I lived altogether among the 
 people, I had many opportunities for learning what Shinto is as 
 a household religion. Easy and unexacting as it is in public, it 
 is not less so in private. It has no penances, no deprivations, 
 and no frequent and difficult observances. Certain ceremonies, 
 however, are invariably attended to. In every Shintd house, 
 there is a Kami-dana or god shelf, on which is a miniature 
 temple in wood, which contains tablets covered with paper, on 
 which are written the names of the gods in which the household 
 places its trust ; and monumental tablets, with the posthumous 
 names of the ancestors and deceased members of the family. 
 Fresh flowers, and specially the leafy twigs of the deigera 
 japonica are offered there, together with sake (or rice beer) 
 water, and a minute portion of the rice boiled for the good of the 
 household. The glow-worm glimmer of the small lamps which 
 are lit at sunset in front of these shrines, is one of the evening 
 features of the cities of Japan. 
 
 Forms of prayer have been published even as late as 1873, but 
 it is regarded as enough to frame a wish without uttering it, and 
 most Shintdists content themselves with turning to the sun in 
 the early morning, rubbing the hands slowly together, and bow^ 
 ing. The directory for prayer is, " Rising early in the morning, 
 wash your face and hands, rinse out the mouth, and cleanse 
 the body. Then turn to the province of Yamato (which contains 
 the shrines of Is6), strike the palms of the hands together, and 
 
SHINTOISM. 93 
 
 worship," i.e, bow to the ground. It may interest this audience 
 to hear a specimen of one of the most enlightened of the old 
 Shint6 prayers, translated by Mr. Sataw from a book put forward 
 by the Mikado Jimtdku in the thirteenth century, and which is 
 still used on rare occasions by a few more earnest ShintOists. 
 " From a distance I reverently worship with awe before Ameno 
 Mi-hashira, and Kuni no Mi-hashira (the god and goddess of 
 wind), to whom is consecrated the palace built with stout pillars 
 at Tatsuta no Tachina in the department of Heguri, in the 
 province of Yamato. I say with awe. Deign to bless me by 
 correcting the unwilling faults which, heard and seen by you,~ I 
 have committed, by blowing off and clearing away the calamities 
 which evil gods might inflict, by causing me to live long like the 
 hard and lasting rock, and by repeating to the gods of heavenly 
 origin and the gods of earthly origin the petitions which I present 
 every day along with your breath, that they may hear with the 
 sharp-earedness of the forth-galloping colt." It may be remarked 
 that Shintd, unlike most systems, does not inculcate the practice 
 of any form of bribery with the view of securing the good will of 
 the gods. 
 
 Shintd has four distinctive emblems, familiar to every traveller 
 in Japan — the torii, the ffo/iei, the mirror, and the rope. The 
 torii, though sometimes made of stone, properly consists of two 
 barked, but unpainted tree-trunks planted in the ground, on the 
 top of which rests another tree-trunk, with a horizontal beam 
 below. The name means "birds' rest," for on it the fowls 
 ^ered, but not sacrificed, to the gods were accustomed to rest. 
 This emblem stands at the entrance of temple grounds, in front 
 of shrines and sacred trees, and in every place specially associated 
 with the native divinities. In the persecution which was waged 
 against the Bomish Christians some time ago, the token of 
 recantation required was that they should pass under the torii. 
 In some places, as at the great Temple of the Fox at Fushima, 
 there are avenues composed of several hundreds of these, and 
 whether large or small, the torii is a favourite ex voto. 
 
 The ffohei is a slim wand of unpainted wood, with two long 
 pieces of paper notched alternately on opposite sides depending 
 from it. These represent offerings of rough and white cloth, 
 which were supposed to have the effect of attracting the gods to 
 the place . where they were offered, but have come to be popularly 
 regarded as gods themselves. Indeed, they seem to resemble the 
 white wands with dependent shavings, which are worshipped by 
 the Ainos of Yezo, who are by many regarded as the remnant of 
 the aborigines of Japan. 
 
 In many Shint6 temples a circular steel mirror is the only 
 
U RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 object, and even this is only exposed to view where sometime 
 Shintfi has been jumbled up with Buddhism. Much ingenious 
 rubbish has been devised to account for the presence of, this 
 emblem, and a few fanciful "Western writers have chosen to regard 
 it as symbolizing Truth, but the plain fact is that every such 
 mirror is a copy of that which has rested at Is6 for nearly two 
 thousand years, which the sun-goddess presented to Ninigi as an 
 emblem of herself when she sent him down to govern the world. 
 The polished surface is neither a mirror of truth nor of the 
 human soul, but is simply a very intelligible symbol of a 
 rude compound of nature and myth worship, of nature as the 
 sun, deified and personified as the myth Amaterasee, or the 
 " sun-goddess." 
 
 The last emblem, also of legendary origin, is a roj)e of rice 
 straw, varying in thickness from the heavy cable which often 
 hangs across a torii, or temple entrance, to that no thicker than 
 a finger, which is suspended across housedoors or surrounds 
 sacred trees, and which has straw tassels or strips of white paper 
 dangling from it. 
 
 The true Shinto temple, or shrine, is of nnpainted wood, and 
 the tent-like roof is thickly thatched. The floor is covered with 
 thick rice-straw mats, let into wooden frames. There p-re no 
 ornaments, idols, effigies, or ecclesiastical paraphernalia of any 
 kind. Plain gokei and minute offerings of sake, rice, and other 
 vegetable food on unlacquered wooden trays, and some sprigs of 
 the evergreen cleigera japonica alone denote the use of the 
 barren temple of a barren creed. In a receptacle behind there is 
 a case only exposed to view on the day of the annual festival, and 
 this is said to contain the spirit of the deity to whom the temple 
 is dedicated, " the august spirit substitute." 
 
 There are about ninety-eight thousand Shintd shrines in Japan, 
 and twenty thousand priests or shrine-keepers, who may be 
 regarded as paid officials of the government. These are allowed 
 to marry, and do not shave their heads. There is an appropriation 
 of £58,000 annually for the Shint6 religion. In the restored 
 order the department which dealt with the affairs of the earthly 
 and heavenly gods held the highest place in the scale of official 
 precedence ; but in 1877, or in less than ten years, it sank by 
 ■" leaps and bounds " to the indignity of being transferred to a 
 eub-department of the Ministry of the Interior I 
 
 The traveller in Japan meets continually with bands of 
 pilgrims on their way to Is6, the centre of Shint6, in the province 
 of Yamato in Central Japan. Dismiss from your minds the 
 idea of austerity, penance, privation, worship, sanctity, and vows, 
 which the word pilgrimage conjures up. " A pilgrimage " to 
 
SHINTOISM. 95 
 
 ls6 is the greatest frolic and holiday of the year or the lifetime, 
 a prolonged picnic, a vast merry-making. In spring the roads 
 are thronged with bands of girls and companies of men in holiday 
 costume, singing and laughing ; bowing to every high hill and 
 ■every large tree, visiting theatres and shows ; and after throwing 
 their coins on the white cloth in front of the Ise temples, sur- 
 rendering themselves to the pleasures of Jamada, a city abounding 
 in vicious attractions. 
 
 The two temples of Is6, the Gekil and the Naiku, called by a 
 name which signifies " the two great divine palaces," are the cradle 
 and kernel of Shinto ; and are to Shintoists, even in the irreligious 
 present, in a slight degree something of what Mecca is to Mussul- 
 mans, and the Holy Places of Jerusalem to Greeks and Latins. 
 There is no time of the year in which there is an absolute cessation 
 of pilgrims, and though the artizans of T6kiy6 now think it pos- 
 sible to gain a livelihood without beseeching the protection of the 
 Is^ deities, and the shopboys of the trading cities no longer beg 
 their way to Jamada in search of the Ise charms ; the credulous 
 and simple peasant cannot yet feel safe without the paper ticket 
 inscribed with the name Ten-sh6ko-daijin (the principal diety of 
 Is6), which is obtainable only at the Is6 shrines. Relics of Ise 
 are in every house ; the Is6 deities are at the head of the national 
 Pantheon ; the pilgrimage to Is^ is an episode in the life of 
 every Shint6ist ; and from north to south, thousands of heads 
 are daily bowed in the direction of " The Divine Palaces of the 
 most .holy gods of Is6. 
 
 Allusion has been previously made to the fact that in every 
 Japanese household there is a " shelf for gods," on which is a 
 shrine containing paper tickets, on which the names of various gods 
 are written, one of which is always Ten-sh6k6-daijin. This special 
 ticket is supposed to contain between two-thin slips some shavings 
 of the wands used by the priests of Is6 at the two annual festi- 
 vals, and is able to protect its possessor from misfortune for half 
 a year, at the end of which time the o-harai, as it is called, ought 
 to be changed for a new one ; but modern carelessness is content 
 to renew the charm once in two or three years or longer. The old 
 tickets ought to be burned or cast into a river or the sea, but are 
 usually employed to heat the bath used by the maiden priests 
 esses, so-called after their posture dances at the annual festival 
 of the patron god of any locality. The fact of the universal 
 distribution of these o-harai, connects every family in Japan with 
 the Ise shrines and Shinto superstition. Up to 1868, the o-harai 
 were hawked about Japan, but the government subsequently pro- 
 hibited the practice, and now they can only be obtained at the Ise 
 shrines themselves, or at certain -accredited agencies. 
 
96 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 The two groups of shrines are three miles and a half from each 
 other,at Fnrniclii and Jamada, which towns are, for Japan, naarvels 
 of solid and picturesque building, and are made up chiefly of inns, 
 tea-houses, shops for the sale of ex votos and Shint6 toys and 
 relics, and places of vicious attractions. The shrines are exact 
 copies of each other, and both stand in the midst of ancient crypto- 
 meria, each stately tree in Shinto fancy worthy to be a god ; 
 but it is the camphor groves, the finest in Japan, covering the 
 extensive and broken grounds with their dark and unique magni- 
 ficence, which so impress a stranger as to make him forget for a 
 moment the bareness and meanness of the shrines which they 
 overshadow. 
 
 The grand entrance to the Geku shrine is reached from Jamada 
 by crossing a handsome bridge over the river Izuzu, in which 
 the pilgrims wash their hands before going to the temple. On the 
 other side is a wide space enclosed by stone-faced banks. On the 
 right there is a building used by the temple attendants, where 
 fragments of the wood used for the shrines, packets of the rice 
 ofiered to the gods, and other charms are sold. The entrance t» 
 the actual temple grounds is under a massive torii. These grounds 
 are of great extent, and contain hills, ravines, groves, and streams. 
 Broad and finely-gravelled roads with granite margins and massive 
 stone lanterns intersect them, and their torii stone bridges, stone 
 staircases, and stone-faced embankments are all on a grand scale 
 and in perfect repair. Within the entrance are some plain build- 
 ings, one of which is occupied by several temple attendants dressed 
 in white silk, whose business it is to sell the o-harai to all comers. 
 Heavy curtains with the Mikado's crest upon them, draped over 
 the entrance, may be taken as indicating that Shintd is under 
 " State " patronage. 
 
 Passing through stately groves by a stately road, and under 
 another stately torii, the visitor reaches the famous GekH shrin^ 
 but to be stricken by a pang of intense disappointment, for he is 
 suddenly brought up by a great but utterly unimposing oblong 
 enclosure of neatly planed wood — the upright posts, which are 
 nine feet high, being planted at distances of six feet, and the in- 
 tervals filled up with closely fitting and very heavy planking laid 
 horizontally. The enclosure rests on a platform of broken stone 
 raised on a stone embankment three feet high. It measures 
 247 by 339 feet. It has five entrances, four of which are always 
 closed by solid gates, while the fifth is a torii, with a high wooden 
 screen at a distance of seventy-six feet from it in front. Within 
 the torii is a wooden gateway with a thatched roof, but a curtain 
 with the Mikado's crest conceals all view of the interior court. 
 It is in front of this gateway that the pilgrims from every part 
 
SHINTOISM. 97 
 
 of Japan throw down their copper coins upon a white cloth. 
 Then they bow a few times, and depart satisfied. 
 
 Three courts with torii and thatched gateways are coataiaed 
 within this outer enclosure, the central one, an area 134 feet by 
 131, being surrounded by a very stout palisade. It must be 
 observed that there is no access, except on the festival day, even 
 into the first enclosure, but a good view is obtained from a bank 
 on the west side. This ianermost enclosure contains the shoden 
 or shrine of the gods, a building thirty-four feet long by eighteen 
 wide, mounted on a platform raised on posts six feet high. A 
 balcony three feet wide runs round the building, and is covered 
 by the eaves of the roof, which is finely thatched with bark to 
 the depth of a foot. This shoden, like all else, is of planed wood, 
 without ornament. It contains four boxes of unpainted wood, 
 furnished with white handles and covered with what is said to be 
 white silk. In each box is a mirror wrapped in a brocade bag. 
 This is all, the kernel of the Shint6 " Holy of Holies." These 
 mirrors are never seen, and even the boxes which contain them 
 are covered with curtains of coarse silk when the shrines are 
 opened on festival days. Two treasures stand on the right and 
 left of the shoden, and contain silken stuff's, silk fibre, and saddling 
 for the sacred horses, which are usually albinos. The impression 
 produced by a visit to Is6 is akin to that made upon the minds 
 of those who have made the deepest researches into Shinto — that 
 there is nothing ; and all things, even the stately avenues of 
 the GekH shrine, lead to — Nothing! Glorious are the camphor 
 groves of Is6, and bright the skies of Yamato ; but no sunshine 
 can light the awful melancholy of the unutterable emptiness of 
 the holiest places of Shint6. 
 
 Having briefly traced ShintS from remote antiquity to the 
 Isd shrines, its claims to be a religion and a " spiritual centre " 
 remain to be as briefly considered. It must be remembered that 
 Shinto has been for twelve centuries in close contact with 
 Buddhism ; and, corrupt and degenerate as Japanese Buddhism 
 is, the lotus blossom in its temples still symbolizes righteousness; 
 and the pictured torments of its many hells still assert that 
 moral evil perpetuates itself beyond the grave. Christianity 
 also, which promises to be an important element in the religious 
 picture of Japan, has touched Shinto at many points during 
 many years with its lofty teaching that "pure religion before 
 God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows 
 lin their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." 
 It does not appear, however, that either Buddhism or Christi- 
 anity has, in an ethical sense, influenced the native faith. " Sin " 
 is stated on high authority to be " the transgression of the law " 
 
98 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 and " where no law is there is no transgression." Shint6 has no 
 law, and consequently no sin. It has no ethical code. Naotaore, 
 its modern exponent and revivalist, emphatically states that " to 
 have acquired the knowledge that there is no michi (ethics) to he 
 practised and learned is really to have learned to practise the way 
 of the gods." This lack of moral teaching makes it powerless as a 
 religion, even among a people of such easy morals as the Japanese. 
 Mr. Mori, the late enlightened Japanese minister to England, gives 
 it as his opinion that " the leading idea of Shint6 is a reverential 
 feeling towards the dead." Kaempfer, one of the most painstaking 
 and accurate of observers wrote thus, after elaborate investiga- 
 tions : " The whole system of Shint6 iS'SO mean and simple, that 
 besides a heap of fabulous and romantic stories of their gods, 
 demi-gods, and heroes, their divines have nothing wherewithal to 
 satisfy the inquiries of curious persons about the nature and 
 essences of their gods, about their power and government, about 
 the future state of the soul, and such other essential points whereof 
 other heathen systems are not altogether silent." 
 
 There is no teaching concerning a future state, no hell or 
 purgatory for bad men, or heaven for good men. A vague as- 
 sumption of the immortality of the soul arising out of a vague 
 belief in the immortality of the gods, and a rude Yalhalla of 
 victories and feasting in the company of ancestors and heroes of 
 the past, constitute the vague future of the Shint6ist. Shintd has 
 no worship properly so called, no sacrifices, no idol worship, and 
 no priestcraft. The intervention of a priest is not ordinarily 
 needed, for there are no specially merciless deities to propitiate, 
 no terrors of hell to avert, and both sexes are capable of offering 
 prayers. Such is the negative side. Its claim to be a religion 
 rests almost solely on its deification of heroes, emperors, and 
 great men, and of sundry forces and objects in nature; on its 
 inculcating reverence for ancestors and imitation of their worthy 
 deeds; and on its recognition of certain national ceremonial defile- 
 ments and forms of purification. 
 
 The number of its deities is practically unlimited, or " eight 
 millions," and includes heroes, rivers, mountains, waterfalls, and 
 big trees. There are gods of all things — of learning, happiness, 
 protection of human abodes, of harvest, of horse-shoes, of the gate,, 
 the well, the kitchen fireplace, and everything else to which 
 superstitions of unknown origin are attached by the ignorant ; 
 but to none of these gods are high or noble qualities attributed, 
 far less any of those which we regard as the " attributes " of 
 deity. The best which can be said of the Shint6 gods is that 
 their worship has never been associated with bloody sacrifices or 
 cruel or immoral rites. Of the gods of this vast Pantheon, many 
 
SHINTOISM. 99 
 
 are merely local divinities, but the worship of the gods of Is6, 
 the " goddess of Food " and the " sun goddess " of the " Thou- 
 sand-armed Kaanyon," the "goddess of Mercy," whose cultus was 
 brought from China by the Buddhist propagandists; of Daikoka, 
 the god of wealth; and of Binzuru, the medicine god, is universal 
 in the empire. Binznm, the medicine god, is usually a red 
 lacquer figure of a man seated, and much defaced by the rubbings 
 of centuries. To any specially celebrated image of Binzuru the 
 afflicted make pilgrimages, rub the afflicted part of their own 
 persons and the corresponding part of the god, and then rub 
 themselves again. Daikoku is the prince of household gods. 
 No family in Japan is without his image. This god, who leads 
 all men, and possibly fools most, is represented as jolly and 
 roguish-looking. He is short and stout, wears a cap like the cap 
 of Liberty, is seated on rice-bags, holds a mallet in his right 
 hand, and with his left clutches the mouth of a sack which he 
 carries over his shoulder. All who have their living to make 
 incessantly propitiate Daikoku ; he is never without offerings and 
 incense, and if there be a shadow of intensity in Shintd devotion, 
 it is thrown into his worship. 
 
 Infallibility on the part of the head of a State, in virtue of his 
 divine descent, was a convenient doctrine for political purposes in 
 Japan, but cannot stand as an institution of government against 
 the rapidly spreading tide of political ideas from Europe. I am 
 almost inclined to speak of Shintfi as the State religion in the 
 past tense, for to-morrow the hundred and twenty-first Mikado 
 will voluntarily abdicate his absolute sovereignty, the gift of the 
 sun-goddess, and, in promulgating a constitution for the Japanese 
 Empire, descend into the ranks of constitutional rulers. In this 
 descent Shintd will receive its deathblow. As a religion, anyhow, 
 it is nearly extinct. Western science has upset its cosmogony, 
 and Western philosophy its mythology ; it survives as a bundle 
 of harmless superstitions, a fading folk-lore, fondly clung to as 
 such by the unenlightened peasantry. Without a ritual, a moral 
 code, or the rudest elements of a creed ; with its lack of sensuous- 
 ness, as well as of teachings regarding a future state, it never 
 had power as a spiritual centre, and yielded easily to the ascend- 
 ency of Buddhism. It is hollow and empty, it has nothing in it 
 to stir man's deepest nature. It appeals to no instincts of good 
 or evil, and promises no definite destiny, and all attempts to 
 resuscitate it, either as a bulwark against Christianity or as a 
 substitute for Buddhism, must inevitebly fail. In the words of 
 a poet — 
 
 " It shall pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered and gone, 
 From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are level and lone." 
 
100 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 These notes are the merest outline of Shinto, but the most 
 elaborate treatise could do no more than successfully demonstrate 
 its utter emptiness of all that to our ideas constitutes religion, 
 and excite surprise that it should still retain even a nominal' 
 place among a people so quick-witted as the Japanese. 
 
 This easiest and least exacting of religions is vanishing away ; 
 and now — what will satisfy the spiritual cravings which Buddhism 
 and Christianity have awakened, and who will mould the religious 
 future of Japan ? Will it be the ascetic and philosophic Sakya- 
 muni, dead for two thousand years, and serene for ever in his 
 golden shrine, offering a passionless nonentity as the goal of 
 righteousness ? or will it be Jesus the crucified Nazarene, holding 
 in His pierced hands the gift of an immortality of unhindered 
 and consecrated activities, the best hope of the weary ages — to 
 whom, as the Crowned and Risen Christ, through centuries of 
 slow and painful progress, all Christendom has bent the adoring 
 knee, and who shall yet reign in righteousness. King of kings 
 and Lord of lords ? 
 
101 
 
 THE EELIGIONS OF JAPAN. 
 
 BY C. PFOUNDES {late of Japan). 
 
 {Mmtber Sotfil Vnited Service Imfitution ; Hon, Cvrreeponding Member Oeoffraphieal Soeieiy, 
 Japan : Hon. Fell, Soe. Sc, Lit. d: Art, Jjond.) 
 
 The religions of Japan present to the intelligent inquirer and 
 indnstrions student an inexhaustible fund of valuable material, 
 especially so to those engaged in ethical culture ; and of the 
 many interesting phases of Oriental thought, none will better 
 repay the time and labour. 
 
 The lecturer's claim to treat upon this subject, is based on the 
 fact of some years' residence in Japan, mostly in temples, daring 
 the most critical and momentous period of its modern history, 
 and, with knowledge of the vernacular, he discussed such matters 
 with intelligent natives and priests of various sects. 
 
 He was much impressed by the great amiability and innate i 
 courtesy of all classes, their high sense of duty and patriotism,/ 
 and neighbourly good qualities, as well as the broadness audi 
 liberality with which all such subjects were discussed, having! 
 regard to the feelings of others, even when dissenting from them • 
 in opinion. 
 
 The geographical position of the group of islands forming 
 the Japanese Empire is an important factor in its condition 
 of intellectual and religious thought and development, and 
 the unique stability of its chief political institutions is another 
 element of moment. 
 
 Learned persons have been in all times most welcome in 
 Japan ; and the gifted natives who travelled far and wide re- 
 turned with vast stores of knowledge. To understand the religious 
 life of a nation, the alien, not always welcome, must get at the 
 inner life, achieve the entire confidence, learn the language 
 and modes of thought and the sources from which they are 
 derived. The reticence of the natives — not to be surprised 
 at, their confidences having been so often, alas I betrayed — has 
 precluded exhaustive information being afforded to all comers. 
 
 For a lucid and concise exposition, it may be well to deal with 
 the questions chronologically, so far as the annals of Japan, 
 
102 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 confirmed by other sources of knowledge, aid ns for the earlier 
 periods. 
 
 It is perhaps most convenient to divide the sabject into in- 
 digenous and alien cults ; but they are so very closely interwoven 
 that it is not easy to separate so complicated, though not at all 
 homogenous, a whole. 
 
 The most important section will be dealt with by another 
 lecturer, who will speak on Shintdism — so that will not be 
 trespassed lipon further than is absolutely essential. 
 
 The origin of a people, or at least the sources whence they 
 derived their radical religious ideas, and, if possible, also the 
 eras when, such were received, will necessarily have to be entered 
 upon, 
 
 Japan may have been peopled from several widely separated 
 sources, from north to south. It certainly has been visited by 
 ancient scholars from far-distant parts of the continent. 
 
 The survivals of natural religion yet to be found are highly 
 interesting to the more advanced student ; but it is the first 
 development of the ethical ideals, through superstitions, religions, 
 and philosophy, that chiefly concerns ns. 
 
 About the time of the early days of Rome, a highly intellectual 
 race appeared on the arena of Japanese history ; and the first 
 few centuries appear to have been fully occupied in reducing the 
 very barbarous autochenes to something like peaceful order ; and 
 teaching the primitive arts. Since then, in unbroken descent, we 
 have had, unique in history, a long line of rulers, the present 
 being the hundred and twenty-third in the course of the twenty- 
 five and a half centuries ; and Japan's is the oldest imperial 
 dynasty existent, chief of the civil and religions life of the 
 empire : and on this the national cultus is founded. Spiritual 
 activity is therefore very ancient, and is undoubtedly the develop- 
 ment of far earlier teaching. 
 
 Chinese and Indian literature, philosophy, metaphysics, and 
 science were introduced, and are to Japan what Greek and Latin 
 classics are to ourselves. 
 
 The classics, of which Confucius is the best-known collator 
 and editor, the philosophy of the Taoists, and later the Indian, 
 followed by Budhism, entered into Japanese education, and 
 influenced thought and conduct. 
 
 In passing through China, Indian dogma became materially 
 leavened, so that we shall find many sects in Japan, but all quite 
 as harmonious as, and quarrelling no more than do, sectarians 
 nearer home. There are more than a dozen sects of Buddhism 
 now in Japan, several of which have numerous sub-sects. 
 The Chinese and Indians who arrived from time to time in 
 
THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN. 103 
 
 Japan, as well as the Japanese who returned from India, China, 
 etc., founded many distinct sects, and taught much that diverged, 
 sometimes conflicting with the transcendental Budhism of 
 Aryavata. 
 
 Budhism was resisted strenuously for a long time at first by 
 the custodians of the shrines of the indigenous cultus ; and it was 
 not till the fifth century, a thousand years after tlie Budha, 
 Gautama Shaklya Muni, that it obtained a foothold. One of the 
 imperial family took up the cause, like Asoka of India, and 
 became the " Constantine " of Japanese religion. 
 
 Whatever Christianity may or may not owe to earlier Bud- 
 hism, there can be little doubt that later Budhism contains 
 elements of Christianity as of other beliefs. 
 
 From time to time efforts were made, more or less successful, 
 to revive the pure Shinto, or Kami no Michi, divine way, or 
 spiritual doctrine ; and this must have greatly influenced 
 Buddhism, and enforced some reform within itself, and purified 
 it of the demoralizing influences a sacerdotal class always permits 
 to flourish. The growth of power of a theocracy here, as in all 
 time, had its evils ; and Budhism is no exception in history. 
 
 The various sects that arose each based their doctrine on some 
 epecial portions of the great body of teaching as received from 
 India, leavened and modified by Chinese and Japanese philo- 
 sophies and modes of thought. 
 
 The original eight sects, some ofl'shoots from those established 
 in China during the preceding centuries, grew into others. 
 Some flourished ; others declined or were absorbed in newer, 
 stronger movements. 
 
 It must be remembered that Budhism was a successful revolt 
 against Brahmanical domination and monopolizing of sacred 
 offices and high-caste exclusive privileges. 
 
 Some of the sects taught that good works and the acquisition 
 of " merit " were all essential to salvation ; others impressed — 
 and still do so — the efficacy of continued repetition of exclamatory 
 invocation or recitation of some ritual. Some work themselves 
 np to a point of religious ecstacy, just like more or less ignorant 
 and bigoted enthusiastic fanatics much nearer home to-day^ 
 
 The intonation of prayers, with accompaniment of bell, or gong, 
 or drum, was one of the disadvantages of residence in temple 
 buildings ; bat one got used to it, like other matters, in time by 
 the exercise of a little patience and philosophy, until at last 
 the monotonous, yet not always unmusical, certainly generally 
 rhythmical, sounds became positively somniferous. 
 
 Just a few words by way of comparison as to the contrasts be- 
 tween the fandamental points of Christianity and the prevailing 
 
104 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 beliefs of the far East, in all courtesy and respect for the feelings 
 of professing Christians. 
 
 The Redemption, the basis of Christianity, finds no place, no 
 parallel ; indeed, so far from sympathy, it is received with abhor- 
 rence by the great majority of natives, the educated especially, 
 however carefully the feeling may be suppressed in the company 
 of missionaries and foreigners avowedly enthusiastic Christians. 
 The idea of the Deity lampooned by Bobbie Bums, in his satire 
 on the " Elect," finds no place in the religious conception of the 
 natives of the extreme Orient. Sacrifice, much less propitiatory 
 sacrifice of such awful character, and the Sacrament of the 
 Church, was an incredible mystery. Its necessity could not be 
 understood by those who were asked to accept as a Q-od of love 
 a deity that permitted, much less demanded, the perpetuation of 
 such a doctrine. 
 
 The justice, too, of a priesthood being competent to remit sins 
 at the last moment, and place the most wicked on the same level 
 with the most virtuous, is another difficulty. That sin should 
 be forgiven under such conditions, is viewed as a direct incentive 
 to wrong-doing, if it can be finally cancelled whenever it suits 
 the wicked one to become good. 
 
 Budhism is much discussed nowadays ; but it is greatly mis- 
 understood, often, I fear, wilfully misstated. To take any one 
 local or sectarian phase and the less admirable features of this 
 as representing the general and fundamental principles is, inten- 
 tional or not, too often the suggestio falsi as well as the suppressio 
 veri, if not worse even. 
 
 Budhism teaches that mankind should work out each for 
 themselves their own salvation, and rectify the ills caused by 
 fellow-mortals by reasonable human effort. 
 
 Superhuman or supernatural aids for the present or for the 
 hereafter appear necessary in the teachings of certain sects 
 whose dogma is of later development, derived from other than 
 pure Budhistic sources. 
 
 To those who seek a personal salvation, by merit or otherwise, 
 this is not altogether denied ; but to those who attain to the 
 higher ideals something far higher, much less selfish, more noble, 
 is offered. Amongst the educated classes formal prayers and 
 religious observance are less general than amongst the illiterate. 
 
 An illustration, one of a series of caricatures, represents an 
 old woman reckoning upon her abacus, in front of a gilt image, 
 her good and evil deeds from the entries in a book open in the 
 lap of the idol. 
 
 Some of the Japanese with whom I have talked, quite agree 
 with those Roman Catholics who do not deem the Bible, in its 
 
THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN. 105 
 
 entirety quite the most fitting book for general famil}- reading ; 
 especially, for the yonng of either sex to pick out certain passages 
 that in any other book would be deemed most highly objection- 
 able; and think that those who criticize Oriental books, and 
 animadvert on their indecency, should look nearer home first. 
 
 The inexperienced, partially educated, young missionary does 
 not appeal with very great effect (often very much wanting in 
 tact) to the educated and subtle-minded natives. Even all but 
 the most illiterate are astute enough to see the propagandist 
 is not well informed on general subjects, and usually narrow- 
 minded. Besides, the general method of attacking the native 
 faith and ideas, before becoming thoroughly acquainted with what 
 is attacked, displays more than mere want of judgment, and 
 vitiates the efforts. The native knows the missioner is a paid 
 agent, another vital flaw. 
 
 After the visit of Xavier (the pupil of Loyola, the founder of 
 the Jesuits), the propagandists of Eome had a short but not very 
 brilliant period of success. In consequence of the priests meddling 
 in politics, and something more than mere suspicion of a desire 
 to reduce Japan to a dependency of Eome, or some Roman 
 Catholic European state, the priests were given notice to quit ; 
 but they incited the converts to open rebellion, and forced their 
 way secretly amongst the natives. Rigorous and yet more severe 
 edicts were issued, stringent measures taken, and still the priests 
 persevered, till extreme measures appeared to be the only means 
 to preserve authority, peace, and national independence. The 
 country was closed to the turbulent priests and the truculent 
 Spaniard and other European traders and adventurers. Peace was 
 restored, and it appears to have been maintained. Prosperity 
 permitted the arts and letters to flourish for more than two 
 centuries. California became settled, China partially opened to 
 Western commerce. Merchant shipping whalers began to fre- 
 quent the Japan seas, shipwrecks occurred, and in time it was 
 deemed expedient to force Japan to open its ports. The thin 
 edge inserted, subsequent events culminated in treaties being 
 forced upon the Japanese, under the guns of ships of war. 
 
 The country has been subjected to a great political and social 
 revolution, in the thirty years that have elapsed since the revival 
 (enforced), of intercourse with the outer world. Japanese have 
 travelled and been educated ; and now missionary societies, 
 Christian associations, etc., are sending their missionaries to 
 Japan in numbers. The Japanese receive these, doubtless, chiefly 
 on account of the material advantage of numerous instructors 
 chiefly in primary education, submitting to the propaganda 
 tacitly for the sake of the economy. 
 
106 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 Some years ago another sweeping measure resulted in the 
 complete separation of Shint6 shrines and Budhist temples and 
 the sequestration of the revenues, the vested interests of those in 
 office being compounded with for pecuniary considerations. 
 
 Budhism and other faiths are now almost completely at the 
 mercy of the people. The sombreness of our smug self-righteous 
 religionists, Sabbatarians, etc., has little parallel in Japanese 
 religion. Tolerant of the ideas and respecting the feelings of 
 others, the Japanese deny to others the right to dictate to them 
 or force theological dogma upon them unsolicited. In Japan it is 
 ■quite common to find the members of one household professing 
 various creeds, some of the males Shintoists purely, others of 
 either sex professing different sectarian Budhist creeds. Even a 
 priest of some of the sects that permit marriage may have as a 
 partner one of a different sect, though this is not very general. 
 
 Dispassionate inquiry into all phases of religious philosophies 
 and science is a national characteristic, almost a mania. 
 
 The duties of the present, of this life rather than of a future 
 unrevealed, are urged ; and the cruder, coarser ideas of many 
 Western religious sects are entirely absent. 
 
 The observance of Shintd rites, festivals, etc., is almost 
 universal, yet does not clash with the fulfilling of Budhist 
 ceremonials on many occasions during life, whether it is from 
 conviction, or, as is so often the case, "just to make things 
 pleasant all round in the family circle, and in a neighbourly 
 way; " yet the conventionalities and amenities are carried out 
 and respected carefully. 
 
 As several of the lectures in this course treat of Budhism, 
 Taoism, Confucianism, etc., these have only been briefly alluded 
 to on this occasion ; and it is a great advantage that this is so, 
 as it clears the ground for a lucid conception of this very com- 
 plicated subject. The esoteric Budhism of Japan is not at all 
 that of recent exponents and writers. Occultism and charla- 
 tanism generally have been rigorously suppressed by the very 
 sensible rulers of old Japan in all time, out of regard for the 
 highest interests of the people. 
 
 Time does not permit of entering into the general and minute 
 details of observance and dogma ; but for an audience of students 
 of ethical culture, the salient points have been chosen to deal 
 with so far as time permits. 
 
 The ideal of duty in this life was a very high and noble one. 
 The materialism and scepticism of China were leavened by the 
 spirituality of India, and the innate artistic instincts and amiable 
 characteristics of the people led them to work out the national 
 idiosyncrasies. 
 
THE RELIGIONS OE JAPAN. 107 
 
 Right valiantly have the Japanese grappled with great prohlems. 
 Heroic efforts have been made in the present and the past to 
 solve the social and political questions that agitate ourselves. 
 These astute and assthetic people are far more alive to mental 
 culture and its great ethical value than we can claim to be, 
 much though it may cost our self-conceit to admit it. They know 
 more of us than we know of them; and could we but bring our- 
 selves to see our own social condition as these Easterns see it, the 
 lesson would be worth our while. 
 
 In conclusion, these are some of the practical lessons : — 
 
 Toleration ; respect for the feelings of others ; recognition of 
 «very one's right to think for themselves ; outward conformity to 
 that which is held in public veneration. 
 
 Unprejudiced, dispassionate inquirj-^ into all things physical 
 and psychological ; no blind faith, but desire for knowledge as 
 a basis, rather than leaning on the judgment of others probably 
 no more capable of judgment. 
 
 Sturdy independence of thought, within the limits of non-inter- 
 ference with the freedom and rights of others. 
 
 Refraining from forcing dogmatic opinion unwelcome, merely 
 as a personal selfish desire to acquire merit, or from aggressively 
 self-assertive conceit. 
 
 Absence of that over-eager desire of personal salvation, even 
 if gained at the expense of others, so common amongst the 
 smug self-righteous of our own land and age. 
 
 Recognition of responsibilities and duties, and that there 
 is a loyalty due to the inferior by the superior, reciprocal, not 
 one-sided, as with us. 
 
 Refusal to believe in much that is forced upon us by a pro- 
 fessional, mercenary religious class, tainted with suspicion of 
 being put forward to support their otherwise untenable claims. 
 
 Knowledge that much of the observance of religions we know 
 of, is but the survival of ancient rites, some having an origin that 
 would horrify the orthodox if explained. 
 
 A high sense of the dignity of humanity, and that each one 
 should feel this and act accordingly. 
 
 Charity to the deserving ; kindness and gentleness to the feeble ; 
 protection to the oppressed ; justice to all. 
 
 Unselfish purity in all things, — in thought, speech, deed. 
 
 These are some of the lessons to be gleaned from the far 
 East. 
 
 [N.B. — The lectvire was illustrated with native coloured drawings, brought 
 irom Japan by the lecturer ; and by maps kindly lent by R. Bingham, 
 Esq., of Messrs. W. & A. K. Johnson, for this and other lectures at South 
 Place, etc]. 
 
108 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 HINDUISM. 
 
 BY SIR ALFRED C. LYALL, K.C.B. 
 
 The religion of the one hundred and fifty millions of India is a 
 very widespread subject, and one which divides itself into many 
 branches. Speaking more restrictedly, Hinduism is the religion 
 of those who believe in the Brahminic gods, in certain rules of 
 caste and rituals, and who seek the aid of the Brahmins in all 
 essential rites, especially those connected with birth, death, and 
 marriage. The first thing to understand about the religion is,, 
 that it is not a historical religion. 
 
 In Buddhism and Christianity we should find an account of the 
 origin, growth and development of those religions more or less 
 authentically recorded. Hinduism has no founder, no distinct 
 creeds, and no historical order of development. It is indigenous 
 in the country in which it is now found. India is one of those 
 countries where great religions have spread to neighbouring coun- 
 tries ; but it has received no corresponding influx from the rest of 
 the world. The Mohammedan invaders acquired India politically,^ 
 but, unlike the case of other countries, where they converted the 
 conquered, the work of proselytizing was very partially carried out 
 in India. The religion thus stands rooted in the soil in which it 
 found itself. It is the best specimen now surviving of a natural 
 religion. The whole population of the world was, before historic 
 religions began, in the same condition. 
 
 By surveying India we can best see the state of the primitive 
 world. Instead of a religion of creeds they view a religious 
 " chaos " — a religion which is driven to and fro by credulity, and 
 which has the most unvarnished idolatry combined with philosophy. 
 
 The Hindoos, although the name denotes inhabitants of India,, 
 are not necessarily people of Indian birth ; the word now means 
 those who belong to the Hindoo religion, although they have 
 not, as have the Mohammedan and Christian, a uniform creed. 
 They are, however, speaking generally, united, and split up 
 only in regard to minor rites, which are addressed to an immense 
 number of gods. The religion has two meanings — one for the 
 crowd, and another for the initiated. The belief of the latter 
 
HINDUISM. 109 
 
 is founded on Pantheism, viz. the doctrine that all nature is 
 a manifestation of God; and this is accepted by all intelligent 
 Hindoos. Yet these deem the whole material world to be an 
 illusion. 
 
 The laws of caste are settled and expounded by the Brahmins. 
 There are four castes : (1) The Brahmin or priestly ; (2) the 
 warriors ; (3) merchants ; and (4) the Sutras. These four divi- 
 sions are found in their sacred literature ; but in practical life 
 only one of them exists, the Brahmins, whose presence is indis- 
 pensable at marriages and at other religious ceremonies, and 
 who expound the Hindoo Scriptures ; the rest of the population 
 is divided into a multitude of castes, tribes, and sects. Their 
 Vedaa are books of great antiquity. They contain rules of ritual 
 and worship and mystic doctrine. 
 
 The divinities worshipped by the Hindoos include three supreme 
 gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and in connection with them a host 
 of minor deities, amounting, according to some, to three hundred 
 millions. Nothing like this number is, however, worshipped, but 
 still the number is enormous. Of Brahma there is little to say. 
 He is a " self-existent creator," and is supposed to be the original 
 creative intelligence which " brought the universe out of nothing." 
 But his influence is too remote, and his functions are too vague, to 
 impress the popular imagination. Consequently he has very few 
 worshippers, the majority being worshippers of Vishnu and Siva. 
 Vishnu is the supreme preserver. "When in repose he sheds forth 
 the eternal spirit. Unlike Brahma he can be awakened by the 
 earnest prayers of men to set things right on earth at critical 
 times. The most celebrated embodiments of him are Krishna and 
 Bama. He also passed into the bodies of animals. It may seem 
 inconsistent that this great god assumed the form at one time of 
 a tortoise, and at another of a great man. The idea, however, 
 running through all these embodiments is Pantheism ; the divine 
 spirit is all-pervading. The Brahmins have reasons for recognizing 
 the appearance of Vishnu in animal forms. A neighbouring hill 
 tribe worshipped the boar ; on their becoming Hindoos they were' 
 told that they had really been worshipping Vishnu unawares. 
 Siva represents a dififerent principle. He has charge of the whole 
 circle of animated existence, especially births and deaths. He is 
 not known by embodiments like Vishnu, but by " destruction and 
 reproduction," The plagues, the diseases, small-pox, and cholera, 
 are his. The ordinary crowd of worshippers endeavour to propitiate 
 his terrible power. Thousands of animals are sacrificed in his 
 temples, and it is believed human sacrifices would not displease 
 him. 
 
 Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva form the great triad. The deities 
 
no EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 have an inner and an outer meaning, representing the principles 
 connecting the higher intelh'gence with the lower beliefs. The 
 popular fancies are in the foreground, and the philosophy on the 
 subject in the background. The simple people believe there are 
 gods everywhere. There are local gods of fortune, war, etc. ; and 
 there is also the worship of the sun, moon, rain and wind, thinly 
 disguised by the names of divinities. A numerous army of saints 
 and martyrs are also believed in ; these have been deified, and 
 produce a deep impression on the mind of the people. 
 
 The process of deifying famous men has been almost universal 
 amongst ancient nations and superstitious people. Nearly every 
 god has been some man famous in his lifetime on earth, worshipped 
 at death, and at last promoted to the full honours of divinity. The 
 worship of the dead is general among all races of India. The 
 tragedy of a painful life and the mystery of death seem to 
 account for the origin of a g^reat number of these deities. All 
 this religion is constantly undergoing change, and the religion is 
 still spreading. These transitions have been going on for cen- 
 turies, and the primitive beliefs have ever been slipping, like 
 "an everlasting shore," into the vast ocean of Brahminism. The 
 worship of these gods is mostly of a propitiatory kind, to avert 
 their wrath or obtain their help in temporal difficulties. 
 
 There is believed to be a transmigration of the soul through the 
 bodies of animals, till at last it is absorbed into the Supreme Spirit. 
 Freedom of the soul from the body, freedom from sensation, is the 
 highest object of the Hindoo. This can only be accomplished by 
 the soul's passage through a kind of labyrinth of existence. The 
 law of transmigration not only applies to mortals, but to the gods 
 also. Successive births are like awakenings from sleep, the diflfer- 
 ence between them and sleep being that when born into a fresh 
 existence, we have no memory of our former life. 
 
 The higher theology teaches that forms and ceremonies have 
 no potency for spiritual illumination. One characteristic of 
 Hinduism is the vast difference which separates the higher 
 from the lower orders of religious thought ; the lofty speculation 
 on the one hand from the polytheism on the other. Such differ- 
 ence still exists. It is not by any means certain that our men 
 of science of to-day have come to a very different conclusion from 
 that of the Brahmins, though it may be dressed in different 
 terms ; because the secret of Brahminism, as of modem science, 
 is evolution. 
 
 Many of the Hindoo sacred bookR are full of virtuous counsels, 
 extolling justice, self-restraint and morality generally, although 
 there is nothing like such a strict injunction of righteousness 
 as in Christianity ; no holding up the glory of dying for the pro- 
 
HINDUISM. Ill 
 
 pagation of the truth, as in Mohammedanism. Nevertheless, 
 there is some practical morality, as when the Hindoo attributes 
 any disaster that may befall him to some sin committed in a 
 former state of existence. 
 
 There can be little doubt that the whole system of worship of 
 the gods is likely to break up before the influx of knowledge. If 
 we can prove that " life is worth living," it will be done, for the 
 Hindoos at present believe the converse ; and their pessimistic 
 notions — founded upon long experience of bad climates, bad 
 governments, misrule and misfortune — may alter with a change 
 for the better of some of their conditions of existence. Mean- 
 while they are passing through a curious stage of intellectual 
 and religious transition ; and it remains to be seen whether 
 their religious development will be greatly assisted by the 
 exchange of their old lamps for new ones. 
 
112 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 OLD INDIAN POETEY AND EELIGIOUS 
 THOUGHT.^ 
 
 BY MUS. FREDERIKA MACBONALD. 
 
 Sir George Birdwood, in his important work on the Industrial 
 Arts of India, has said that no one can properly nnderstand 
 Indian art who has not learned from the study of old Indian 
 poetry something about the myths, traditions, and beliefs that 
 this art embodies and illustrates. He goes farther than this. 
 He says that people do not understand the customs, and ways 
 of thinking and feeling, of the modem Hindu population unless 
 they have some familiarity with the sacred poetry, that is still 
 the influence lending colour, variety, and animation to the lives 
 of the great mass of the people of India. 
 
 Now I am going to ask you to apply this statement to the 
 study of Indian religion. In my lecture on Buddhism, I said 
 that Students who are pleased to follow the modem method, 
 and who commence their study of Indian religious thought with 
 Buddhism, are actually beginning to read a large volume at 
 the closing chapters. Buddhism is the highest and most perfect 
 development of a system of ideas and beliefs that are different 
 from the ideas and beliefs that form the groundwork of Western 
 religious systems. And, therefore, the Western student cannot 
 easily appreciate these ideas in their latest development, unless he 
 has made himself familiar with them in the earlier and simpler 
 stages of their growth. In other words, he does not understand 
 the philosophy of Indian religion, unless he has penetrated to, 
 and been to some extent penetrated by, the Indian religious 
 sentiment. 
 
 The home of the Indian religious sentiment, and the place 
 where it may be familiarly studied, is in those two Poems, or 
 storehouses of poetry, that may rightly be described as the 
 sources of the imaginative life of India. I am speaking of the 
 Ramayan and the Mahabharat. I need not trouble you now 
 
 ' This lecture, given at South Place Institute, Pinsbury, was published in the 
 Woman's World for June, 1889. — It is reprinted here by kind permission of 
 Messi's. Cassell. 
 
OLD INDIAN POETRY AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 113 
 
 "with the different opinions of various authors upon the actual 
 antiquity and positive historical worth of the Ramayan and 
 Mahabharat; because we are not at present attempting to es- 
 tablish the relation which this sacred poetry has to the early 
 history of India: we are endeavouring to see it as the home 
 of the Indian religious sentiment, and the birthplace of that 
 higher idealism that has its noblest expression in Buddhism. 
 But I may say, in passing, that it is now as difficult to establish 
 the actual date of the Ramayan and Mahabharat, as to give their 
 true authorship. No doubt the original thread of tradition that 
 has supplied the central stories of the Ramayan and Mahabharat 
 may be traced back to a very remote period, to eighteen hundred 
 ■or two thousand years B.C. ; a time when the Aryan settlers in 
 India found themselves brought into frequent conflict with the 
 barbarous indigenous tribes — ^whom we find spoken of in these 
 Poems as " Asuras," or " Rakshasas " — i.e. demons ; or else, with 
 more condescension, but even less respect, as "wild men of 
 the woods " — in other words, a race of intelligent monkeys. 
 But this thread of early tradition has to-day become overladen 
 and over-clustered with later traditions, superstitious fancies, and 
 sentimental romances. And we can readily understand how this 
 has come about, when we remember that these great Poems have 
 been preserved to the people of India, from generation to gene- 
 ration, and from age to age, not by the aid of priests and sages, 
 kept in check by the authority of sacred volumes, but mainly 
 by the free gifts of memory and imagination of the professional 
 Poets and Story-tellers, who, from the most remote times, have 
 wandered about India, as they still wander, from town to town 
 and village to village, reciting and relating these cherished 
 legends and traditions that are a part of the national life. So 
 that the Ramayan and Mahabharat exist to-day, not as the 
 creation of one Poet nor of several poets, nor are they even 
 the poetical record of one age. They are the comprehensive 
 record of the imaginative life of India, expanding under the 
 social, political, and religious influences of ages, whose precise 
 and literal history is lost to us. 
 
 And it is in this record of the imaginative life of India that 
 we find the traditions, convictions, and sentiments that every 
 Indian Philosopher and Prophet had to count with, and, to some 
 ■extent, to adapt and utilize, as the medium for conveying his 
 . spiritual lessons to the multitude. But even this is not all. 
 These Indian Prophets and Philosophers were not themselves 
 independent of the influences amidst which they were reared. 
 It was in this atmosphere, saturated with the sentiments and 
 -traditions of ancient India, that their abstruse speculations and 
 
114 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 profound meditations were carried on. In other words, they too 
 were children of the Eamayan and Mahabharat : and it is quite 
 easy to trace this parentage, and the influence of the old Indian 
 sentimental temper, even in the intellectual religion of Buddha^ 
 or in the mystical pantheism of the Vedanta philosophy. 
 
 But this is just what is lost sight of by the uninitiated student,, 
 who starts off in life with the study of Buddhism and the higher 
 schools of Brahman philosophy. And here we have, I think, 
 the explanation of the astonishing difficulties these students 
 assure us lie in the way of a proper understanding of Indian 
 philosophical and religious thought — difficulties that they declare 
 can only be elucidated by "esoteric" methods; and by the 
 assistance of " psychological telegrams " sent from the Mahatmas 
 in Tibet to the Theosophical Society in Pall Mall. 
 
 But it will be admitted, I think, that there is some inherent 
 probability that a safer clue to the meaning of Indian religious 
 thought may be found through the study of the conditions of 
 sentiment and belief amidst which these higher phases of thought 
 arose. And I shall presently hope to prove to you that even the 
 serious student of the spiritual religions of India will not lose his 
 time, and may possibly derive many advantages, if he will consent 
 to pass a season of preparation in what Heine has called so well 
 the " immense Flowering Forests of old Indian poetry." What 
 is more, I shall hope to show you that the modem idealist may 
 find in this old story-world some strange resemblances to the 
 sentiments and enthusiasms that he is wont to describe as 
 the peculiar characteristics of the " Modem Spirit." 
 
 Now these resemblances do not lie upon the surface. The first 
 impression made upon the Western reader by old Indian poetry is 
 the impression that he has entered upon a strange world ; a world 
 of marvels and miracles, where common sense and common ex- 
 perience are entirely neglected, and where nothing is more 
 unusual than to come upon any incident that lies within the 
 bounds of possibility. But this is only the first impression. 
 Let the explorer penetrate deep enough into these immense 
 " Flowering Forests," and very soon he discovers the charm that 
 puts him in possession of the secret of the place, and enables him 
 to count at its true worth this fantastic play of an imagination 
 that is never enslaved by the dreams of its own creation. The 
 true explanation of the miraculous atmosphere that pervades old 
 Indian poetry is to be found, not in the Indian Poet's superstition, 
 or credulity, but rather in his incredulity — his inability to take 
 very seriously the mere show of things that is made to pass 
 before the Soul for its instruction and entertainment. 
 
 Where all the outer life is regarded as Maya, Illusion, a dream, 
 
OLD INDIAN POETRY AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 115 
 
 and a vision, there can be no objection felt to some incidents of 
 the dream being incredible and extraordinary. And when this 
 discovery is once made, the modern idealist -will find himself far 
 more at home in the spiritual atmosphere of old Indian poetry 
 than he is in the spiritual atmosphere of the Eomance Country, 
 that is so much nearer to him in point of time, but that is 
 haunted by the mediaeval religious sentiment. I think, if the 
 truth is. told, it must be admitted that the modern idealist is not 
 at all at home in the mediaeval Eomance Country. The mystical 
 aspiration after superhuman beauty and supernatural delight that 
 is the animating enthusiasm of mediaeval poetry and art has its 
 other side, in a contempt for Nature, and the natural life of man, 
 that jars upon the modem sentimental temper. You have this 
 disdain, and even disgust, for common Nature expressed in the 
 effort to attain an ideal type of beauty as little natural as possible ; 
 a type where human mind and will, as well as human body and 
 passion, are attenuated, and as far as possible effaced, lost in 
 celestial meekness and self-abandonment. Now to satisfy the 
 modem conception of beauty, will, mind, and a noble self-possessing 
 energy need to be expressed. Then you have this disdain and 
 disgust expressed also in mediaeval comedy; in the choice of 
 natural human love as a favourite theme for gross jesting ; and 
 especially in the mediaeval delight in the grotesque representation 
 of the dominion of Death over the body, in the grim humour of 
 pictures of dancing skeletons and grinning death's heads, in the 
 constant legend of the worm, corruption, crawling over the fair 
 flower of life. 
 
 In old Indian poetry you have nothing of all this, that the 
 modem imagination feels so morbid. Nothing, indeed, is more 
 characteristic of the Indian Poet than his failure when he 
 attempts to deal with supernatural terrors or morbid horrors. 
 He has his demons, as we have seen ; his Asuras, Rakshasas, and 
 others ; but it is amusing to observe his inability to deal with 
 them as bona-fide demons. The demons of Indian poetry gener- 
 ally become praiseworthy characters at the close of their career, 
 and die in the odour of sanctity. Eavana, for instance, the King 
 of the Eakshasas, the Demon of the Eamayan, dies a valorous 
 death ; and the perfect hero, Eama, pronounces a complimentary 
 speech over his funeral pyre. Then, in Indian poetry you have a 
 great love of the grotesque: but the Indian grotesque has nothing 
 morbid about it ; it deals with life, not with death ; and means 
 only an extreme pleasure in the quaint and humorous aspects of 
 Nature. The mysticism of old Indian poetry, too, is the mysticism 
 of pantheism — a mysticism that does not see in Nature the enemy 
 of the Soul, but that sees all visible Nature as the dream of the 
 
116 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD 
 
 universal Soul or Mind that is the one true existence. And the 
 dreamer has no disgust for his dream, but only tenderness and 
 compassion. He takes pleasure in his dream, in its admirable 
 and beautiful features, only the pleasure is tinged with melancholy, 
 because he feels that — even whilst he is watching it— the dream 
 is vanishing away. 
 
 And here you have the first point of resemblance between the 
 Indian and the modem sentimental tempers — in a certain en- 
 thusiasm of compassion, that touches with pathos, and even with 
 sublimity, the common face of Nature and of man — looking at all 
 common things from a visionary's standpoint : a visionary, free 
 from supernatural terror but never entirely free from the world's 
 sorrow ; from the consciousness of age waiting upon youth, of 
 fatigue following after pleasure, of love ending in loss, and life 
 vanishing in death. And then, amidst the mingled reverence 
 and compassion of this sentimental temper, you have the 
 iiwakenings of the higher spiritual temper, that has its finest 
 expression in Buddhism, and its counterpart in what the modem 
 idealist describes as the " cosmic emotion ; " the effort to set life's 
 purposes and hopes beyond the personal state, the endeavour to 
 ■*' make the mind its own state," by training it to take its stand 
 by the facts of thought and intellect ; and the attempt to liberate 
 the Soul from the painful sense of the impermanency and imper- 
 fection of material conditions, not by encouraging it to hope for 
 a change of these external conditions, but by urging it to the 
 conquest of spiritual disinterestedness. 
 
 Now, the only means of proving to you that these are the 
 ■essential qualities of old Indian poetry will be to send you to the 
 Eamayan and Mahabharat ; and all that I can do now is to direct 
 your attention to some stories, here and there, that may illustrate 
 these qualities, and prove to you that they do not exist merely in 
 my own imagination. The stories themselves you will, of course, 
 expect to find Eastern, and of the old world. It is the sentiment 
 these stories express that I am supposing you will find more in 
 harmony with modern feeling than the sentiment that pervades 
 mediaeval Romance. 
 
 The first story I have chosen from the Mahabharat, is a curious 
 example of the exactly opposite sentiments that inspire Indian 
 and mediaeval legends. I need not remind you of the beautiful 
 story of the perfect knight Sir Galahad, and of many other stories 
 ^f sinless knights and holy maidens, who are made indifferent to 
 earthly love by the vision of celestial beauty ? In the Indian story 
 you have the opposite of this — you have the ideal maiden rendered 
 indifferent to celestial beauty by the vision of human sorrow. 
 
 Once upon a time, then — to begin my story in good old orthodox 
 
OLD INDIAN POETRY AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 117 
 
 fashion — there was a young Rajah, named Nala, who was famous 
 throughout all India for his good looks, kind heart, and many 
 accomplishments. In a neighbouring country to Eajah Nala's, 
 reigned another Rajah, who had a daughter of astonishing good- 
 ness and beauty. Now Eajah Nala had heard so much of the 
 beauty of Eajah Ehima's daughter, that he fell deeply in love 
 with her — although, of course, he had never seen her — and so 
 much in love was he that he gave up all his studies and favourite 
 amusements, and spent the leisure that the afifairs of state left 
 him in wandering to and fro in a solitary and shady grove near 
 his palace ; meiditating upon the beautiful young princess, and 
 repeating her name over and over again with all manner of 
 endearing epithets. Now the name of Eajah Bhima's daughter 
 was Damayanti. One day when the young Eajah was wandering 
 thus in his favourite grove, a flock of swans flew by him, and 
 Eajah Nala, stretching forth his hand carelessly, caught one of 
 the beautiful birds. Then the swan said to him : " Eajah Nala, 
 do let me go ; and I will carry a message for you to the maiden 
 whom you love." 
 
 " who is the maiden I love, you foolish swan?" asked the Rajah. 
 
 And the swan replied: "I had need be foolish, indeed, if I 
 did not know that ! My home is in this wood ; and do I not 
 hear you every day murmur over and over, in the most tiresome 
 fashion, the name of the Princess Damayanti?" 
 
 Then Eajah Nala was a little confused. But he was pleased, 
 on the whole, with the swan's proposal, and he began a very 
 long message ; but the swan stopped him in the midst of it 
 saying : " Hush ! I should never remember all that. Better 
 leave the message to me, and be sure I will plead your cause 
 well with the Princess." 
 
 So Eajah Nala consented ; he opened his hand, and the swan 
 flew away, straight ofif in the direction of the country ruled over 
 by Eajah Bhima. 
 
 Next day the Princess Damayanti was playing at ball in the 
 garden of her father's palace, with the young maidens who were 
 her companions. Presently, over the garden wall flew a flock 
 of beautiful swans, and began to flutter about in the garden, 
 as though to tempt the young girls to run after them. And 
 so they all did, with cries of delight ; but nobody caught a swan 
 except Damayanti, who flung her arms round the most beautiful 
 bird of all the flock. 
 
 The swan pretended to be in a great fright, and cried out : 
 " Oh let me go, do let me go. Princess Damayanti ! And I 
 will tell you the name of the handsomest young rajah in the 
 whole world, who is pining away for love of you." 
 
118 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Then the princess said : " What nonsense you talk, you foolish 
 swan ! I have never left my father's palace ; how then should 
 any young rajah be pining for love of me ? " 
 
 " The fame of your beauty, Damayanti, has flown abroad like 
 a messenger of love, and it has so moved the heart of the young 
 Eajah Nala that he does nothing but sigh forth your name day 
 and night." 
 
 The Princess asked : " And what sort of prince is this Rajah 
 Nala ; you foolish swan ? " 
 
 And the swan answered : " No such prince has ever ruled in 
 all India ! He is beloved everywhere, amongst great and small ; 
 and amongst his own subjects he is known by the name of ' The 
 Protector of the Poor.' In fact, so noble a man is Nala, that 
 only the noblest and most beautiful of princesses is worthy to 
 espouse him ; and rny reason for coming here to-day was to see 
 whether the Princess Damayanti was deserving of the love he 
 gives her." 
 
 Then Damayanti asked, anxiously : " And what do you think 
 now, good swan ? Am I worthy of the love of the noble Nala ? " 
 
 " Yes," the swan answered- " You alone of all the maidens 
 in the land of India, are worthy of him." 
 
 " Well, if you think that," said Damayanti, releasing the swan, 
 " do fly back at once to Nala and tell him so." 
 
 Now, after this conversation with the swan, a great change 
 took place in the young Princess Damayanti. She was no longer 
 as merry as she had once been ; she wearied of her favourite 
 games ; she would not even eat the nicest sweetmeats ; and her 
 old nurse reported that she was restless in her sleep. Eajah 
 Bhima, who was devotedly fond of his daughter, grew very 
 anxious. But the Ranee, Damayanti's mother, said that was no 
 cause for uneasiness, only that it was now time enough for the 
 young princess to celebrate her swayamvara. 
 
 The swayamvara was the" festival given by any Indian chief 
 who had a daughter arrived at marriageable age. The young 
 chieftains who felt disposed to aspire to the hand of the princess 
 were invited to attend this festival ; and there were games of skill 
 to show off the suitors' strength and courage ; and then, at the 
 end of the festival, the princess herself was called upon to choose 
 a bridegroom for herself amongst her suitors. You see by this 
 that in the old Hindu world, there were none of those modem 
 arbitrary marriage customs that make the daughter her father's 
 chattel, to be disposed of in childhood without any question as to 
 her own feelings and inclinations ; and you will find too, by the 
 study of the old sacred poetry of India that the position of women 
 was comparatively independent and dignified in these ages, and 
 
OLD INDIA2T POETRY AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 119 
 
 Tip to the period of the Mahommedan conquest of India. A 
 great deal is said, of course, about the absolute devotion and 
 obedience a woman owes her husband ; but I don't think the 
 Indian Poets insist upon this matter any more than St. Paul 
 does. And, in any case, we find that the women in the Ramayan 
 and Mahabharat were rather true and devoted than abjectly 
 submissive wives. There is nothing said about the seclusion of 
 women ; or about their being forbidden to go about unveiled ; or 
 about their being shut out from the business and pleasure of life, 
 by the rule, of Mahommedan origin, that a married woman must 
 never see any man but her husband. 
 
 But this is a digression : the Ramayan and Mahabharat are 
 interesting from a hundred different points of view : but it would 
 take up too much time, and would be turning aside from the 
 point of view we have chosen, if I were to dwell now upon the 
 many interesting disclosures of the prevailing social customs and 
 ideas of ancient India, that are given even in these episodes we 
 are now considering. Those of you, however, who are interested 
 in the matter, might read Sir Monier Williams's valuable work 
 on old Indian Poetry. 
 
 So now let us return to the swayamvara of the Princess 
 Damayanti. Rajah Bhima sent out his heralds far and near, to 
 proclaim the festival, and to invite all the eligible young rajahs 
 to attend. Of course. Rajah Nala heard the news, and ordered 
 his chariot forthwith, and started ofif full of hope and expectation : 
 for the swan had safely brought him back Damayanti's message. 
 The fame of Damayanti's beauty was so great, and also the Rajah 
 Bhima's wealth and power were so well known, that there was a 
 «ound of chariot-wheels throughout all the land of India: so 
 many young rajahs were there, hastening from north, south, east, 
 and west, to the swayamvara of Damayanti. 
 
 Now the noise made by all these chariots, travelling in one 
 direction, mounted up to Swarga, the heavenly mountain, where 
 the Sky God, Indra, dwelt with the other Gods — Agni, lord of 
 fire ; Varun, lord of waters ; and Yama, god of death. 
 
 India's curiosity was excited by all this noise, so he sent the 
 Gods' messenger Naruda, the Indian Mercury, to see what could 
 be happening on the earth. Naruda came back with the news 
 that all this commotion was caused by the fact that the .most 
 beautiful young princess in the world was giving her swayamvara. 
 When Indra heard this he rose from his throne, and calling to 
 Agni, Varun, and Yama, he suggested that they too should go to 
 the swayamvara, and present themselves amongst Damayanti's 
 suitors. So, the other Gods consenting, their cloud chariots were 
 called ; and Indra, Agni, Varun, and Yama^ started for the earth. 
 
120 EELIGIOTJS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Now it happened that just when the Gods dismounted from 
 their cloud chariots, Eajah Nala was passing by. So Indra called 
 to Nala, and Nala approached the gods with due reverence. 
 
 And Indra said to Nala: "Hold, Rajah Nala, we, the Gods, 
 know yon for a religious man, who always pays the Gods the 
 honour due to them. Now, therefore, we have chosen you to be 
 our messenger." 
 
 Then Nala raised his hands to his head in salutation; and 
 asked the Gods what message he was to carry, and to whom. 
 
 " You are to go at once to the Princess Damayanti," Indra said j 
 " and to tell her that we, the four Gods— Indra, Varan, Agni, 
 and Yama — having heard that her great beauty makes her worthy 
 to be the bride of an Immortal, are going to present ourselves at 
 her swaya/mva/ra as suitors for her hand. And you must tell 
 her that we will reveal ourselves to her by indisputable signs, 
 so that she may not make the fatal error of choosing a mortal 
 bridegroom." 
 
 Then Bajah Nala trembled violently; and he fell upon his 
 knees ; and entreated Indra not to send him on this errand. 
 
 " Indra," he said ; " I, too, love Damayanti ; and even when 
 you met me, I was hurrying to her swayam/vara." 
 
 But Indra only laughed scornfully and said : " "Well, Rajah 
 Nala you are a well-looking young prince enough; but I sup- 
 pose you do not set yourself up as a rival to the Immortals ? 
 There was no presijmption in your putting yourself forward 
 as Damayanti's suitor: but now that you know that you have 
 Indra, Agni, Varun, and Yama, to compete with, do you 
 think you have any chance of success? Besides, all that does 
 not matter : mortals have no business to consult their own feeling 
 before obeying the orders of the Gods ; and we order you to take 
 our message to the lovely Princess Damayanti forthwith." 
 
 " But how can I do this, Indra ? " Nala asked. " You know that 
 the Princess Damayanti is safely guarded in her father's palace. 
 Do you think that Rajah Bhima's gatekeepers would admit me, a 
 strange man, to the young maiden's presence ? " 
 
 " That need be no difficulty for you," said Indra ; " by our power 
 we can make you invisible to lUijah Bhima's guards, and can 
 even pass you safely through the palace walls." 
 
 And even whilst Indra spoke, Nala felt himself hurried off 
 swiftly through the air ; and before he had time for reflection, he 
 found himself standing in the women's quarter of Rajah Bhima's 
 palace ; and in the very apartment where Damayanti sat at work 
 amongst her young maidens. 
 
 You will understand how astonished these young ladies all were 
 to see a handsome young rajah, dropped down in the midst of 
 
OLD INDIAN" POETRY AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 121 
 
 them,'a8 it seemed, from the clouds. Nala himself was so bewildered 
 by Damayanti's great beauty — that surpassed anything he had 
 dreamt of — that he could not speak to her. Damayanti, however, 
 soon recovered her presence of mind. She felt convinced that 
 this must be the Rajah Nala : for had not the swan told her that 
 Nala was the handsomest prince in the world ? and who could be 
 handsomer than this young stranger ? So she raised her hands to 
 her forehead in polite salutation, and, approaching Nala, asked 
 him, in a gentle voice, by what means he had come there ; and 
 what it was that he wished to say. 
 
 Then Nala dared not look at the beautiful Damayanti, lest he 
 should be betrayed into falseness to the Gods ; but he answered : 
 '• I have come here, invisible to your father's guards, noble 
 Damayanti ; I have been given power to pass through these thick 
 palace walls, by the commands of the four Gods- Indra, Agni, 
 Varun, and Yama. The fame of your beauty has mounted up t& 
 Swarga ; so that the gods are resolved to come to your sivayamvara 
 They have sent me to warn you that they will make themselves 
 known to you by showing signs of their Immortality ; and these 
 signs will prevent you from confounding them with your merely 
 mortal suitors." 
 
 Then Damayanti smiled, and said : " I have always paid due 
 reverence and worship to the Gods ; but ever since my conversation 
 with the swan I have determined to give my love to none but 
 Eajah Nala." 
 
 But Nala shook his head, sadly : " That was very well, noble 
 Damayanti," he said, "before you had the Gods amongst your 
 wooers. But when your eyes fall on the eternally radiant and 
 happy Gods, how should you keep in your recollection a wretched 
 man like me ? " 
 
 Damayanti, however, assured Nala that she would choose no one 
 else ; and presently the young Rajah felt himself pulled, as it 
 were, by strong cords ; and Damayanti, and the apartment in 
 Rajah Bhima's palace, vanished ; and Nala found himself standing 
 by the roadside, where Indra, Agni, Varun, and Yama, were 
 waiting for him. Rajah Nala told the four Gods precisely what 
 Damayanti had said — that she would give the Gods due worship ; 
 but that her love, and her hand, she would only give to Nala. 
 
 But Indra only smiled, and said: "Well, we shall see how 
 that will be, when the time comes. But, meanwhile, you have 
 earned the favour of the Gods by your faithfulness as their 
 messenger." 
 
 The day of the sivayamvara came at last ; and there was a great 
 camp round Rajah Bhima's palace, made by the retinue of all the 
 rich and mighty rajahs who had come, with elephants and horses 
 
122 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 laden with gifts and treasures ; and any number of retainers and 
 servants, so as to make a display of their magnificence. All the 
 rajahs were assembled in the great Audience Hall, that was 
 made dazzUng by the silken turbans and jewelled raiment of these 
 magnificent suitors. But Damayanti had only eyes for one 
 amongst all this crowd ; and she sought eagerly amongst her 
 suitors for Eajah Nala. Then, to her surprise and dismay, she 
 made a strange discovery ; behold, there were five men in the 
 throng of suitors exactly alike, and all five wore the countenance 
 and outward appearance of Rajah Nala ! 
 
 Then Damayanti understood that Indra, Varun, Agni, and 
 Yama, had taken this form, because she had said that she would 
 choose no other suitor but Nala. So she raised her hands to her 
 forehead, and bowing herself reverently, she said : " I have always 
 paid due worship to the Gods. May the Immortals now be true 
 to their promise, and show me the signs by which I may know 
 them as greater and more gifted than common men." 
 
 And as Damayanti spoke, a greater radiance fell upon four of 
 the five men ; whilst, by contrast, the fifth seemed to stand in a 
 dark shadow. Damayanti knew the Gods, because their eyes that 
 had never shed tears, looked straight, and did not blink ; because 
 their raiment shone without one speck of dust, showing they did 
 not toil ; because their feet, where they stood, did not touch the 
 earth, showing they were not doomed to ever mingle with the 
 dust, or to undergo the doom of death. But Nala, the man Nala, 
 had a certain dimness of the eyes, because he had wept, and had 
 yet to weep ; on his raiment was the dust that told he was con- 
 demned to human toil ; and his feet touched the earth — because, 
 earthbom, he was doomed to die. And Damayanti, looking upon 
 Nala, loved him all the more because of these signs of the common 
 human destiny and fate he shared with her ; and so, stepping 
 down from her throne, and passing by the bright Immortals, she 
 raised the hem of Nala's garment and kissed it, in token that she 
 chose him for her lord. So Nala and Damayanti were married. . . . 
 
 And now I am afraid I must forego the pleasure of telling 
 you their future story, although it is one of the most delightful of 
 stories ; but then it has no direct bearing on the subject of my 
 lecture. You will find the story told by Mr. Talboys Wheeler in 
 the second volume of his Early History of India ; and you may 
 read the literal translation from the Ramayan in the admirable 
 French version of M. Hippolyte Fanche. 
 
 This story of Damayanti's choice is only one amongst many 
 that might be chosen from the Ramayan and Mahabharat, in 
 illustration of the enthusiasm of compassion that belongs to the 
 sentimental temper of old Indian poetry. There is the admirable 
 
OLD INDIAN POETRY AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 123 
 
 ■story of how Valmiki, the supposed narrator of the Kamayan, 
 received the gift of poetry.* Valmiki is a holy hermit, leading a 
 life of meditation in the forest. The constant subject of his 
 meditation is the sorrow of the world. One day the God Brahma 
 tells him the story of Eama. Valmiki feels that if only a Poet 
 -could be found to sing this story of a perfect life, in noble verse, 
 then men would be urged to kinder, purer, nobler lives. But he, 
 Valmiki, is no Poet. What is to be done to find one worthy of 
 so noble a task ? Valmiki ponders the matter over many days. 
 Then, one morning, it chances that he stands on the border of a 
 clear pool near his hermitage, where he is wont to perform those 
 ablutions that form part of a Brahman's religious duties ; and 
 ■opposite him, across the pool, he observes two herons, of lovely 
 plumage, flapping their wings and flying to and fro, full of innocent 
 delight in life. But suddenly one of the birds falls, struck by a 
 hunter's arrow ; and the pure waters of the pool are stained by a 
 track of blood ! Then Valmiki is so moved to compassion and 
 anger, that a cry breaks from his heart — a cry of lamentation for 
 the innocent bird's death, and for the hunter's cruelty. And his 
 words take a rhythmical measure that is full of passionate music ; 
 and having once repeated them, he feels compelled again and 
 ugain to say the words over and over. Then Valmiki, marvelling 
 much at what has befallen him, returns to his hermitage. And 
 on the road he meets Brahma, who asks him if he has found a 
 Poet worthy to tell the story of the perfect man Eama ? Valmiki 
 means to answer that he has not ; but instead of speaking the 
 words he would, the lamentation for the heron's death rushes to 
 his Hps, and he is confused and abashed before Brahma, fearing 
 the God may think he means to mock him. But Brahma smiles, 
 and says — 
 
 " Happy Valmiki ! You have received the grace of Sarasvati, 
 Goddess of Poetry, in recompense for your pity for the heron. Go 
 now, and sing to the listening worlds the story of the perfect man 
 Eama." 
 
 In Valmiki you have the type of the holy and benevolent 
 hermit of Indian story. But there is a hermit of quite another 
 type and character, who is very frequently met vrith in the 
 Eamayan and Mahabharat, and who may even be encountered in 
 the actual India of to-day. Now, if we wish to avoid some fatal 
 -errors in judging Indian poetry, and the Indian religious senti- 
 ment, we must get at clear ideas concerning the different spiritual 
 rank of these two types of hermits. It is from the Eamayan and 
 Mahabharat we shall learn how to distinguish between the different 
 
 • See my Ilmd of the East, opening chapter ; also French Translation of 
 ^ Mainayana, by M. Eippolyte Fanohe. 
 
124 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 sort of respect paid to the holy Recluse ■who abandons the world 
 to lead the religious life, and the more common Ascetic, who 
 inflicts all manner of strange penances upon himself, in order to 
 obtain some material advantages, or to acquire magical powers. 
 You find in old Indian poetry, just as you find in the superstitious 
 fancy of India to-day, a very strong conviction that magical- 
 powers are acquired by self-macerations and penitential exercise. 
 But these magical powers are not regarded as spiritual gifts at 
 all : they are looked upon as material advantages, purchased by 
 material means. If you have read the beautiful Buddhist Suttas 
 contained in the tenth volume of The Sacred Book of the East, 
 you will remember that, in the Tevigga Sutta, Buddha describes 
 the miracle-workers of his day as worldly-minded men, who give 
 themselves up to low arts and lying practices, from which the 
 true Bikshu (or religious man) will abstain. And in old Indian 
 poetry also you find these wonder-working Ascetics described as 
 personages whom it is dangerous to ofi'end, but not at all as men 
 who are admirable for their virtuous lives, or good behaviour. On 
 the contrary, all the most famous Ascetics of the Ramayan and 
 ^lahabharat, and those whose miraculous powers are most remark- 
 able, are represented as ill-natured, vindictive, and licentious. 
 One of these worthies, Vibishana by name, withdraws himself from 
 all the joys of life, and inflicts inhuman torments upon himself 
 for I don't remember how many years, with the sole purpose of 
 obtaining power to wither at a glance any being, man or animal, 
 who may chance to disturb his meditations ! And Ravana, the 
 demon of the Ramayan, has obtained all his magfical power for 
 mischief through years of devotion to penitential exercises. 
 
 These penitential exercises, then, do not suppose a spiritual 
 temper in those who practise them, but rather the reverse. You. 
 will recollect that almost the first step Grotama takes on his path 
 to the Buddhahood is the discovery that the fastings and self-- 
 macerations recommended by the Brahmans are useless as means 
 for obtaining spiritual enlightenment. And in his first sermon — the 
 Sutta entitled " The Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteous- 
 ness " — Buddha declares that self-torture is as harmful as self- 
 indulgence to the spiritual mind. The object of the true Ascetic, 
 Buddha says, is not to afflict his body, but to subdue his body to 
 his spirit, so that the best energy may be throvm into the higher 
 life. You need not expect to find this stated with the same clear 
 eloquence and power in the Ramayan and Mahabharat ; but, at 
 the same time, you do find, amidst the crowd of malignant 
 Ascetics, whose appearance in any story is always a sign of coming 
 mischief, a hermit, here and there, of cabn and beautiful temper, 
 who declares these penitential practices, and the magical powers 
 
OLD INDIAN POETRY AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 125 
 
 •obtained through them, to be unworthy of those who have truly 
 entered upon the religious life. 
 
 I shall hope to make this very important matter plain to you, by 
 the stories of two eminent penitents — "Bulls amongst Penitents," 
 the Indian poet calls them — who tread in the fantastic world of 
 old story something of the same path that is made noble and 
 «amest afterwards by the holy footprints of Buddha. 
 
 The first of these " Bulls amongst Penitents " is by no means 
 a holy man to start with. I am speaking of the mighty Eajah 
 Visvamitra. Those amongst you who are readers of German 
 poetry may have heard his name before ; for Heine has a satirical 
 verse at his expense. Here is an English reading of it — 
 
 " The mighty monarch Visvamitra 
 
 Plagues himself, by solemn vow : 
 He would gain the Priest Vasistha's 
 
 Most esteemed and sacred Cow. 
 O, most mighty Visvamitra 1 
 
 What strange animal art thou ? 
 What, these pains, these macerations, 
 
 Only to obtain a Cow 1 
 
 Heine, however, is a little unjust to Rajah Visvamitra : the 
 cow for whose sake he macerates himself is no ordinary animal ; 
 she is truly, as the Indian poet declares, a "pearl amongst 
 ruminant creatures ; " inasmuch as whosoever milks her obtains 
 the object of his desires. So that, after all, Visvamitra's object 
 was much the same as the objects of the prayers and religious 
 observances of the worldly-minded man, in aU ages, and of all 
 religions. 
 
 Eajah Visvamitra, before the desire for this inestimable cow 
 troubles his peace of mind, is described as a wealthy and powerful 
 monarch, who has become weary of peaceful prosperity, and who 
 starts off with a large army in search of adventures. He finds 
 very few. Everyone is so afraid of him that he cannot possibly 
 contrive to stir up any quarrel. The Rajah's method is to ask 
 all whom he meets if they know of any chief, or living man, so 
 powerful as Visvamitra ? And the answer he generally receives 
 ds, that no such powerful being exists, either on earth, or in 
 Swarga. One day, however, the Rajah and his army fall in with 
 a religious mendicant; and Visvamitra, who is a pious rajah, 
 bestows handsome gifts upon the beggar, after which he asks 
 the mendicant the usual question: "Does he know any one so 
 magnificent and powerful as Visvamitra ? " The religious mendi- 
 cant answers : " Truly, Visvamitra, you are a magnificent and 
 powerful prince ! But I know one man to whom your magnifi- 
 cence is as that of smoke to the solid rock ; and that man is the 
 Priest Vasistha." 
 
126 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " And who, pray, is this Vasistha, whose power is greater than 
 mine ? " asked the astonished Visvamitra. 
 
 " He is a solitary hermit — " said the religious mendicant — 
 " who dwells in the depths of this forest. His garment is of bark, 
 and he lives on roots and berries : yet is his power greater than 
 that of all the rajahs in the world." 
 
 Visvamitra's cariosity is excited, and he resolves to pay this 
 remarkable hermit a visit. So he and his army plunge into the 
 forest ; and, at last they discover the solitary cavern where Vasistha 
 dwells. Vasistha receives the Rajah very well, and they discourse 
 upon spiritual topics ; and Eajah Visvamitra is about to depart 
 on his road highly pleased and edified. But, unluckily for every 
 one concerned, Vasistha has the thought of inviting the Eajah 
 and his army to a feast. 
 
 Visvamitra at first politely refuses Vasistha's ofi'er. He, the 
 Rajah, cannot imagine how this hermit who himself feeds upon roota 
 and berries, can provide a feast for an army of men in the midst 
 of the jungle. Vasistha, however, assures the Rajah there is no 
 difficulty in the matter. And in an astonishingly short space of 
 time, behold a royal feast is spread on the grass — a vegetarian 
 feast, you understand ; but one consisting of all manner of highly 
 prized delicacies such as fried grain, sweetmeats, pastry, refreshed 
 by rivers of curdled milk. The soldiers are highly delighted 
 and fall to feasting with shouts of joy. But Rajah Visvamitra's 
 appetite is spoilt by envy; he cannot conceive how the Priest 
 Vasistha has provided this feast all in a moment, and he begins 
 to think there may be something in the beggar's statement that 
 this hermit has powers greater than his own. Vasistha at length 
 consents to explain the matter. He tells Visvamitra that Maha- 
 deva has given him, as a reward for his self-macerations, a wonder- 
 working cow named Sabala, and that he has only to milk this^ 
 marvellous creature to obtain from her whatever he desires. 
 
 Then Visvamitra's anger increases. " It is not right," he says ^ 
 " that a holy recluse leading a life of penitence should possess 
 a creature who must sorely tempt him to break his vows of 
 fasting and self-mortification. Therefore, Vasistha, it will be for 
 your soul's health to give this miraculous Sabala to me." 
 
 " Not at all ! " answers Vasistha. " Sabala supplies me with 
 the clarified butter I have to pour on the sacrificial fire ; and 
 how otherwise should I obtain it in these wilds ? " 
 
 " I will see to the matter of the sacrificial butter," answers 
 Rajah Visvamitra. " It is a clear waste of the immaculate 
 Sabala's magical gifts to expend them on such a trifle. What 
 is more — as I am ruler over this country, I am the rightful owner 
 of the cattle contained in it." 
 
OLD INDIAN POETRY AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 127 
 
 "Vasistha, however, refused all bribes, entreaties, and threats, 
 And when Visvamitra at length orders his soldiers to seize Sabala, 
 Yasistha hurries off and milks the miraculous cow, and obtains 
 thereby an army twice as large as Visvamitra's. 
 
 In the end the Eajah returns to his palace and city very 
 crestfallen and sorrowful. 
 
 He calls to him at once all the wise men and Brahmans, and 
 consults with them jiow he can humble Vasistha's arrogance, 
 and obtain possession of the miraculous cow. 
 
 The Brahmans make answer : 
 
 " Earthly weapons are of no use against Vasistha, Eajah Visva- 
 mitra. If you wish to conquer him you must fight him with 
 his own weapons. His strength lies in the merits he has acquired 
 by his piety and his many penances. Can you accumulate merits 
 by the same methods ? If not, renounce all hope of Sabala." 
 
 Rajah Visvamitra feels that life has no joy for him whilst Vasistha 
 possesses Sabala. So he puts oflf his royal robes, abandons his 
 palace and city, and goes forth into the jungle — there to lead the 
 Life of self-mortification and hardship that alone can give him 
 powers like Vasistha's. I have not time to tell you of all the 
 ingenious tortures inflicted upon himself by Rajah Visvamitra : 
 nor of his courage and persistency when time after time the 
 merits he has accumulated by virtue of his penances are all 
 scattered to the winds in punishment for some momentary 
 forgetfulness of his vows. It is a proof of the malevolent use 
 to which these Ascetics were supposed to turn the powers they 
 obtained through their penitential exercises, that the Grods, out 
 of pity for mankind, invariably try to thwart them in their 
 attempts ; or at any rate to buy them ofiF by small rewards from 
 laying up too dangerous a store of merits. Visvamitra is thus 
 bribed and tempted by the Gods ; — but although they delude, 
 and lead him astray, he always returns to his purpose with 
 renewed courage. And in the end he triumphs ! He has laid 
 up such a store of merits that no favour he can crave will be 
 denied him. And Indra himself comes humbly to know what 
 is his great request : and, of course, we are prepared to hear him 
 ask for the humiliation of Vasistha and for possession of the- 
 miraculous cow. But Visvamitra has lost all anger against 
 Vasistha, all desire for Sabala — he does not even remember their 
 existence ! All he asks for is spiritual emancipation and a mind 
 set free from earthly desires. 
 
 In Rajah Visvamitra's story you have an example of the freedom,,, 
 and even, one may say, of the scepticism of the Indian Poet, where 
 the mere formalities of religion are concerned. Visvamitra, in his 
 unregenerate days, violates all the convenances of Brahmanism : . 
 
128 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 he chooses to celebrate sacrifices; he curses away at Brahmans 
 ■who offend him, just as though they were ordinary tchandalas ; he 
 insists upon raising his friend Trisanku, bodj' and all, to Swarga ; 
 and when Indra objects, he talks of creating new Gods if the 
 ■established ones show themselves so disobliging. But this scep- 
 ticism affects only the outer forms, and leaves the reverence for 
 spiritual ideas untouched. 
 
 In the story of Eajah Yayati you have, however, a more 
 serious and impressive tone ; and it is in this story especially 
 that the student must feel he :is standing in the land where 
 presently will arise the noble idealism of Buddha. Rajah 
 Yayati has the misfortune of taking to wife the daughter of a 
 powerful Brahman, possessed of extraordinary magical powers. 
 The Eajah quarrels with his wife, and is cursed by his Brahman 
 father-in-law with premature old age. Transformed in the full 
 heyday of his youth into a decrepit, tottering old man, Eajah 
 Yayati entreats for some few years of vigour, in which to bid 
 farewell to the joys of life, that he had taken so leisurely when he 
 had not realized that he was so soon to lose them. The Brahman 
 consents that Eajah Yayati may exchange his old age against any 
 happier man's youth, for a brief period of years, but at the end of 
 the term he must again take up his punishment. After many 
 weary years of wandering, Eajah Yayati at length persuades the 
 youngest of his own sons to take upon his shoulders the punish- 
 ment of premature old age, and to make over to his father his 
 own youth. Then Eajah Yayati, in the short period allowed him, 
 resolves that he will know and taste to the full all earthly joys. 
 He first tries the pleasures of the senses, and of luxurious living ; 
 then he gives himself the excitement and adventurous life of a 
 hunter; afterwards, he tastes all the intellectual delights of 
 philosophy and poetry. But the result in every case is the same. 
 He proves that these joys in themselves have no existence, but 
 that they exist only as objects of desire.. He returns then to his 
 son, and restores to him his youthful vigour and power of enjoy- 
 ment, whilst he himself takes up again his punishment of old age. 
 And this is what he says : — 
 
 "Behold I have found that the desired object never satisfies 
 or quiets desire ; it only feeds the flame like the clarified butter 
 poured on sacrificial fire. 
 
 " Since all the rice, all the barley, all the cattle, all the costly 
 treasures, and all the loveliest women the earth contains, cannot 
 satisfy one man's desire, therefore all that can be done is to kill 
 desire itself, and cast it out. 
 
 "I will then, for my part, put off this consuming thirst of 
 desire. Son, take again your youth ; for me, turning my heart 
 
OLD INDIAN POETRY AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 129 
 
 towards the contemplation of the things of eternity, I will have 
 my habitation in the forest, the home of the gazelles." 
 
 Rajah Yayati then becomes a hermit. But, even so, his 
 spiritual training is not complete. He practises severe penances, 
 and by virtue of them obtains the privilege of mounting up to 
 Swarga still clothed in his bodily garment. One day, however. 
 Rajah Yayati boasts to Indra, the Sky God, of his astounding 
 penances ; but these boastings rob Rajah Yayati of the merits he 
 has obtained, and as he has only reached Swarga because of these 
 merits, the moment they are lost he commences to fall. He 
 enters an intermediate state — between the earthly and celestial 
 ones — and here he is made perfect. For he learns that "not 
 where one is, but ivhat one is, is the important fact." " "Whether 
 here, or in Swarga, or on the earth, or even in the abyss Naraka, 
 the seat of my being is in myself," says Rajah Yayati. " Pain 
 does not belong to me, but grief for pain I can avoid. Better 
 than Swarga is it to possess one's soul in tranquillity ! " And as 
 he speaks thus, there are cries of triumph heard around him. 
 He has reached perfection, and Swarga is his home. Rajah 
 Yayati, however, has no impatient desire left for the celestial 
 abode. He ascends slowly, and as it seems almost reluctantly, 
 repeating as he goes : " Better than Swarga is it to possess one's 
 soul in tranquillity ! " 
 
 In this legend you have, as I have said, a distinct forecast of 
 Buddhism. What is more, I cannot but think that people who 
 read the story of Rajah Yayati with some intelligent attention 
 must have obtained a very clear conception of Buddha's doctrine 
 of Nirvana. At any rate, they will hardly fall into the vulgar 
 error of supposing that Buddha promises annihilation, even as 
 Christianity promises Eternal Life, as a recompense of the perfect 
 life. Buddha makes no promises ; he simply declares that spiritual 
 disinterestedness is the result and crown of spiritual culture. 
 
 And now let me, in conclusion, draw your attention to the close 
 parallel that may be found between Rajah Yayati's triumph and 
 the triumph of the comparatively modem Teufelsdroeck, as this 
 triumph is narrated in that finest chapter of Sartor Reaartus, 
 the " Everlasting No." There is this difference, however : Teufels- 
 droeck's triumph is over the fear of death and hell ; Rajah Yayati's, 
 over the craving for celestial beatitude. It is of Tophet, and the 
 pains of Tophet, that the modem idealist says, taking his stand 
 by himself: " Hast thou not a heart ? Canst thou not bear it, be 
 it what it will ? " It is of Swarga and of etemal bliss that the 
 Indian mystic can declare: " Am I not a spirit ? Shall I be 
 greatly bettered or elated by it, be it what it may ? " 
 
130 KELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM. 
 
 BY MMS. FREDERIKA MACDONALD. 
 
 No sight in India is more familiar, at the entrance of a native 
 bazaar, or out amongst rice and maize fields, or by the dnsty 
 wayside, than the spreading Peepul, or Banyan tree, that marks 
 the place of a temple or shrine. What the building beneath the 
 tree may be, it is not easy to say from a distance. It may be 
 the tomb of a Mussulman saint ; or a Hindti temple worthy of 
 the name ; or merely some canopy of stone above a rough symbol 
 of Siva or Ganesha, The sacred tree affords a shelter to any one 
 of these structures ; and sometimes, even imperils their existence 
 by a too puissant protection ! For yon have the strong boughs 
 forcing their way through the temple roof; or sweeping down, 
 laden with trailing creepers to conceal, and sometimes to efface, 
 delicate carvings, or interesting ancient inscriptions. 
 
 Now I am going to ask you to accept this sacred tree as an 
 appropriate symbol of the over-shadowing imagination of ancient 
 India, deep-rooted in Pantheism, and flowering out into luxurious 
 leafage and blossom of myth and legend. A shadow we must 
 expect to find upon BuddQiism as upon all the Beligions born 
 beneath, or brought within reach of, its influence. 
 
 It is very necessary to keep this fact in remembrance. Bud- 
 dhism is especially interesting amongst Indian Religions, and 
 indeed amongst the Religions of the world, because it is the one 
 great Religion that dispenses with supernatural proofs, and super- 
 human authority ; and that appeals directly to Man himself, 
 bidding him be his own reformer, ruler, and refuge. But whilst 
 these are the essential and peculiar characteristics of Buddhism, 
 they are not the characteristics that will first strike a Western 
 student, who commences his study of Indian religious thought with 
 Buddhism. Unfortunately, this is a method too often followed. 
 People without any knowledge of Oriental philosophy or religious 
 thought, happen to be attracted by some beautiful or touching 
 legend about Gotama Buddha ; or by some impressive text they 
 hear quoted from the Buddhist Scriptures ; or, perhaps, these 
 uninitiated inquirers are started upon the study of an unfamiliar 
 
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM. 131 
 
 subject by some curious resemblances they discover between the 
 personal characters and histories of Buddha and Christ ; or 
 between the organization of early Buddhism and medireval 
 Christianity. And, forthwith, we have these new enthusiasts 
 plunging into the study of the subject, and imagining that they 
 can read up Buddhism in a week, or even in a day or so ; and 
 remaining all the time completely ignorant of the fact that, in 
 attempting to do this, they are beginning to read a long history 
 at the closing chapters. 
 
 Now a great many mistakes, and some disappointments, are 
 the results of this method of reading backwards j or, rather, I 
 should say, of reading one isolated page torn out of a mighty 
 volume. Readers of this sort cannot distinguish what is original 
 and important in this special page from what are mere repetitions 
 of, or improvements upon, old doctrines set forth in the earlier 
 chapters. And what are the very first discoveries made by these 
 adventurous students who run and read ? Why, grotesque fables, 
 monstrous, and sometimes puerile, tales concerning all manner of 
 mythological personages and fantastic legends, where the wild 
 imagination of the East plays lawlessly amidst fine poetic dreams 
 and mere barbarous absurdities ! I do not at all wonder that 
 such readers are tempted to decide off-hand that there must be 
 either wilful disingenuousness or stupid obstinacy in critics who 
 describe Buddhism as an intellectual system independent of 
 supernaturalism. What, for instance, will the practical Western, 
 who has started on this new voyage of discovery without any 
 previous knowledge of the country he is about to explore, think 
 of the future founder of a pure religion of the intellect, who, to 
 start with, enters his mother's side as a fine young white elephant 
 with an abnormal number of tusks ? Or, how will he reconcile 
 the miraculous conceit of the infant Bodhisatva, asserting his 
 claims in the very hour of his birth, to be honoured as Lord of 
 the Universe, with the humble and laborious patience of the 
 Buddha — who proclaims himself "only a Teacher; " and who, 
 having gained enlightenment himself, by no other means than 
 those he urges other men to follow, declares that spiritual 
 emancipation is no divine gift of grace ; but the conquest of 
 man's intellect and will, rightly ruled and directed by himself? 
 It is true that some more enthusiastic than judicious admirers of 
 Buddhism have their own way of explaining away these apparent 
 contradictions. A deep mystical meaning, they assure us, lies 
 hidden beneath these grotesque fables. But then they have stUl 
 to reconcile this statement of theirs with the Buddha's own 
 declaration that he had no esoteric doctrine : and that " his hand 
 was not the closed fist of the teacher who keeps some things 
 
132 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 back." Again we have the explanation that recommends itself 
 to the orthodox mind : the declaration that these childish and 
 foolish superstitions, scattered amongst the noble truths of 
 Buddhism, prove to what freaks and follies the wisest human 
 minds are driven, when they presume to solve the problems of 
 life, unaided by revelation. 
 
 Well, but I do not think that either of these explanations will 
 be deemed necessary by students who approach the study of 
 Buddhism from a right direction. Such students will have 
 learned that they have reached in Buddhism the last and highest 
 development of a system of ideas and beliefs, different to the 
 ideas and beliefs that form the groundwork of Western religions 
 systems. For those who have made themselves familiar with 
 these ideas and beliefs in the simpler stages of their growth, the 
 difficulties and contradictions that Buddhism is supposed to 
 contain will have no existence. The Orientalist who has traced 
 the growth of noble thoughts, and the transformation of rude 
 and barbarous traditions, can easily establish the true relationship 
 the spiritual doctrine of Buddha has to the myths and legends 
 that form a natural and necessary part of its environment. As 
 for white elephants with five tusks, and miraculously precocious 
 infants, who speak as soon as they are born, and sometimes even 
 earlier, he knows perfectly well what to make of these ; he has 
 met them scores of times before, in the course of his wanderings 
 through the "immense flowering forests" of old Indian poetry, the 
 haunted region where he knows full well all Indian philosophy 
 and religious thought were born. Therefore, his attention is not 
 drawn aside when he meets with these familiar figures upon the 
 threshold of Buddhism. He knows that he was in a certain 
 sense bound to find them there. They are the conventional 
 ornaments that adorn the portico of this Indian temple, as of 
 other Indian temples. Outside adornments that reveal the 
 locality where the temple is reared, but that do not in any way 
 express the spirit of the worship that is being carried on inside. 
 Or let me return to my first simile : The initiated traveller 
 recognizes once again the shadow of the Indian sacred tree, and 
 knowing where he stands he is able to see the clear and shining 
 mind of Buddha as a pool of pure deep water, that he can test 
 and taste, and prove to have taken no taint or colour from the 
 fantastic reflections cast upon its surface. 
 
 It is thus necessary that we should know something of the 
 conditions of thought and feeling amidst which Buddhism arose ; 
 because without this knowledge we cannot properly distinguish 
 between the spiritual doctrine and the alloy of old superstitions 
 necessarily bound up with it. But this is not all. We cannot 
 
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM. 133 
 
 properly understand even the spiritaal doctrine, unless we know 
 something of the earlier Religions in which Buddhism has its 
 roots. 
 
 For it is true of Buddha, as it is true of Christ, that he did not 
 come to destroy the earlier Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil 
 them — in other words, Buddha, like Christ, was a spiritual liberator, 
 who did not reject the doctrines he found in existence ; but who 
 laboured to ■ spiritualize and perfect them ; and to make men 
 enslaved by formal dogmas free in their obedience to convictions 
 made vital and inspiring. But, we must not ■ fall into the error 
 of supposing that the "Law" spiritualized by Buddha, was the 
 same as the " Law" of the Hebrew Scriptures made more tender 
 and humane by Christ. There are certain resemblances between 
 Buddhism and Christianity that strike people at once. But 
 a little reflection will show that these resemblances are only the 
 necessary ones that must exist between two spiritual systems ; 
 that both have it for their purpose to lead men to a higher life 
 than that of the lower passions and appetites. Apart from these 
 common qualities, that belong to all the great World-Religions, 
 Buddhism and Christianity have no relationship to each other. 
 So far from being one and the same, in method and goal, they 
 are not even kindred Religions . They are different Religions, and 
 from this cause — they spring from different sources. Christianity 
 has its roots in Semitic Monotheism, and the doctrines it inherits 
 from Judaism make it necessarily a supernatural Religion — 
 because these doctrines put the cause, the direction, and the 
 goal of the Higher Life outside of the sphere where the mind and 
 will of man have power. Buddhism has its roots in Aryan 
 Pantheism ; and the fundamental doctrines it inherits from 
 Brahmanism leave it independent of supernaturalism, because 
 these doctrines make the cause, the direction, and the goal of 
 the Higher Life belong to the spirit that animates and moves the 
 soul in man. 
 
 I am insisting upon this so much because here, too, we are 
 face to face with an amiable blunder that has done a great deal 
 to produce misapprehensions and disappointment ; because it 
 has set people looking for something in Buddhism they cannot 
 find there ; and has turned their eyes away from the spiritual 
 possessions that actually belong to this I'eligion : possessions 
 that belong, as I have said, to no other Religion in the world. 
 The blunder of which I am speaking is, of course, the supposition 
 that in Buddha we have an Indian Christ ; whose history and 
 whose mission may be traced along lines parallel to those of the 
 Founder of Christianity. Now, no more unsatisfactory and 
 unsatisfying view can possibly be taken of the teaching or 
 
134 KELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 Buddha than the one derived by studying this religion from the 
 above standpoint. If you go to Buddhism hoping to find in it 
 what the sincere Christian finds in Christianity, you will, and 
 must, he disappointed. As a counterpart of Christianity 
 Buddhism is distinctly unsatisfactory. It does not give you 
 any authoritative account of the creation of the world ; nor of 
 the means by which sin and death first came to spoil the perfect 
 order of things ; it does not promise you in return for your 
 prayers exemption from pain and evil, nor any support, nor 
 favourable interference on your behalf on the part of the Divine 
 Powers. Buddha does not proclaim himself a Saviour willing 
 and able to take upon his shoulders the sins of the whole world. 
 On the contrary he declares that each man must bear the burthen 
 of his own sins ; in other words, that there is no remission of 
 sins, but only expiation. So far from promising to i save his 
 disciples by his merits from the effects of their misdeeds, he 
 declares that no god, even, can do for any man that work of self- 
 conquest and self-emancipation that, in the Religion of Buddha, 
 stands for " salvation." " By oneself the evil is done" says 
 Buddha ; " by oneself one suffers. By oneself evil is left undone ; 
 by oneself one is purified. Furity and impurity belong to oneself; 
 no one can purify another.^'' — DHAMirAPADA, 163. 
 
 So that those who expect to find in Buddha more than a guide 
 to the right path that they must tread themselves will be dis- 
 appointed. Again, the goal and reward of the Higher Life in 
 Buddhism is not in any external state, but in the attainment of 
 a tranquil and perfect mind. Thus, students who persist in 
 regarding Nirvana as a sort of Buddhist Heaven, are necessarily 
 disappointed. Here is no new Jerusalem, no Holy City with 
 "gates of pearl," and streets of "pure gold as it were trans- 
 parent glass." No wonder the good Bishop Eigandet, after 
 seeking in vain for some such lovely pictures of the Buddhist 
 Paradise, concludes his very favourable report upon the moral 
 aspects of this Religion, with the declaration that " by an in- 
 explicable and a deplorable eccentricity this system merely 
 promises men as a reward for their moral efforts the bottomless 
 gulf of annihilation." 
 
 But if you will not find in Buddhism the promise of miraculous 
 consolations that only a supernatural Religion can venture to hold 
 out, you will find the encouraging and ennobling faith that man 
 has, within himself, a strength and virtue that can render him 
 independent of all such consolations. Buddhism, as I have said, 
 stands out as the one Religion that bids man tru^t himself, that 
 calls upon him to raise himself by his own strength ; to govern 
 and control and form himself; that assures him not only that 
 
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM. i35 
 
 there is no strength outside of himself to help him, but also none 
 that can prevail against him, if he conquer and hold the sovereignty 
 over himself. "Not even a god can change into defeat the victory 
 of a man who has vanquished himself." — Dhammapada, 105. 
 
 Buddhism is the one Religion that has preached this. Philo- 
 sophy, of course, has taught the same lesson ; but then Philosophy 
 is not Religion. Philosophy at best brings resignation, teaching 
 ■men to endure the evils of life. But Religion does more than this. 
 Religion brings spiritual enthusiasm and joy, carrying men 
 through these material pains and evils, and leaving them their 
 conquerors. And Buddhism does this : it has the animating 
 enthusiasm and fervour that belong to a Religion, although the 
 system it kindles (or as Matthew Arnold would have said, 
 "lights up with emotion") is a system founded upon self- 
 reliance, having its method in self-conquest and self-culture, and 
 its goal in self-deliverance, and a refuge for man from the attacks 
 of his own lower passions and from; the evils of the world, in the 
 ■" safe asylum " of an intellectual and spiritual Life. 
 
 But you may ask, " Is this Religion of pure intelligence actually 
 Buddhism as taught by Buddha seven hundred years before 
 Christ ? " Until recently, travellers and commentators were wont 
 to speak of Buddhism as the most mysterious and inexplicable 
 religion in the world. And now when it is shown us as this 
 simple and luminous system, that bears so strange a resemblance 
 to the most enlightened idealism of our own day, can we feel sure 
 that no modern gloss has been put upon this ancient faith, and no 
 spiritual meaning imparted to it, that its first founders never 
 thought or dreamed of? We have these suspicions expressed 
 plainly enough by some critics, who have not hesitated to accuse 
 the accomplished Orientalist, to whom modern students of 
 Buddhism are most indebted — I mean, of course, Dr. Rhys 
 Davids — of holding the insane belief that "Gotama Buddha 
 was the Positivist Auguste Comte, born two thousand years too 
 -soon!" 
 
 Now the best answer to these wild assertions is to state plainly 
 what it is that Dr. Rhys Davids — in conjunction, of course, with 
 Professor Max Muller, Dr. Buhler, Dr. Fausb611, and other 
 eminent scholars — what it is that these men have done to 
 revolutionize the whole study of Buddhism. We should recognize 
 that they have not put forward any new arbitrary personal 
 opinions of their own opposed to the views of earlier scholars. 
 What they have done is to put the Western reader, who is igno- 
 rant of Eastern languages, in a position to judge for himself 
 what Buddhism actually was. The magnificent series of trans- 
 lations i'rom the most ancient Buddhist Scriptures, that we owe to 
 
136 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the patient and disinterested labours of Dr. Ehys Davids especially 
 
 five us an opportunity of studying at first hand, if not the actual 
 octrine as taught by Buddha himself, at any rate the doctrine 
 that early Indian Buddhists believed that he taught at the period 
 when they first compiled and wrote down the reported sayings 
 and doings of their revered Master. 
 
 The Pitakas, or Baskets of the Law, are to Buddhism very 
 much what the Gospels are to Christianity. Because modern 
 commentators point out discrepancies in the Gospels, and declare 
 that on matters of doctrine, and even upon questions of facts, 
 there are differences between the four narratives that make it 
 difficult to suppose they were written by the Apostles whose 
 names they bear — because of all this the fact is not changed that 
 we have in the Gospels the oldest and most authoritative record 
 of the life and teachings of Christ. In the same way, there is 
 great improbability that the Buddhist Pitakas, as we now have 
 them, were compiled by men who had been hearers and eye- 
 witnesses of aU they record ; and yet it is in these Pitakas that 
 we have the earliest and most authoritative account of Buddha's 
 teaching now in existence : and we are therefore bound to accept 
 the evidence of these ancient Scriptures as giving us the nearest 
 approach now possible to a just and adequate knowledge of 
 Buddhism as taught by Buddha. 
 
 And it is in these ancient Scriptures especially that we have 
 this pure intellectual faith shining out distinct and clear, like 
 some brilliant gem in a quaintly beautiful setting of fantastic 
 myths and legends. How noble, high, and tranquil is the mind 
 of the Eastern Sage that speaks through these old discourses I 
 And, strangest of all, how directly his voice speaks to us, men and 
 women of the modern world ! We lose count of the centuries as 
 we read and listen ; it is hard to realize that these familiar 
 thoughts, that almost seem our own, were recited in dim ages and 
 remote climes by yellow-robed Bhikshus, hidden away in caverns 
 in the rocks or forest mountains ; to picture to ourselves how they 
 were first written down by patient scribes on palm leaves ; how 
 savage kings rested from their wars and cruelties to collect these 
 faded manuscripts ; how ignorant priests treasured them as 
 charms, when they had lost the art of deciphering the learned 
 characters, or of applying the noble lessons. And then, at last, 
 how the buried spirit of a vanished world was discovered and 
 released by generous and disinterested Western scholars ! We 
 forget this long winding stream of human lives down which these 
 noble thoughts have journeyed to us. As Emerson says, " They 
 have no antiquity for us." They seem an echo of our own best 
 thoughts. 
 
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM. 137 
 
 And now, before looking more closely into these Baskets of 
 the Law, let us see how and by whom the Baskets were, in 
 the first instance, collected and filled. Here, as I have already 
 told you, we have to trust to the beautiful and touching old 
 legends of Buddhist traditions. According to these legends, a 
 short time after the Master's death, when, in the language of the 
 Tibetan Dulwa the " lamp of wisdom had been blown out by the 
 wind of impermanency," there arose certain disputes amongst 
 the Brethren concerning matters of doctrine. To settle these 
 disputes, the first Council was called together, at Rajagaha, near 
 Magadha. Then, when the whole Order was assembled, Kasyapa 
 (counted the most learned amongst Buddha's disciples) was com- 
 manded to recite the metaphysical or philosophic doctrine, set 
 forth in the Abidharma Pitaka. Afterwards, the oldest disciple, 
 Upali by name, was called upon to repeat the laws and rules of 
 discipline, and the circumstances that led to their establishment ; 
 and these rules of discipline were henceforth known as the 
 Vinaya Pitaka. Then, lastly, the disciple Whom Buddha had 
 most loved, Ananda, the St. John of Buddhism, was charged to 
 repeat the Sutta Pitaka ; or the Parables and Sermons he had 
 heard delivered at various times by the Lord. At first, these 
 sacred texts do not appear to have been written down. They 
 were committed to memory ; and recited constantly by members 
 of the Order; and even when the second Buddhist Council was 
 held, a hundred years after the first Council, there is no evidence 
 to show that any written Scriptures were in existence. The first 
 proof that there were^ such written Scriptures is to be found 
 in the edict of King Asoka, given e.c. 242, commanding that 
 the Sacred Books of the Law of Buddha should be forthwith 
 collected. 
 
 Now you will easily understand that the Sutta basket, the 
 one containing the account of Buddha's Sermons and Parables, 
 will naturally be the one laden with things most precious. It 
 was of the Suttas especially that I was thinking when I said that 
 the modern Western reader finds that Buddhism has " no an- 
 tiquity for him." In the Dhammapada, Buddha's words 
 strike as directly home to the heart of the modern idealist as 
 Emerson's words, or Carlyle's, or Goethe's, or any words 
 uttered by the most essentially "modern" of our prophets. I 
 hope that those of you who have not read tlie Dhammapada, 
 will let me persuade you to study the admirable translation of 
 that noble book given by Professor Max Miiller, in Volume X. 
 of the Sacred Books of the East. I do not understand how 
 any thoughtful or intelligent reader of the Dhammapada, who 
 before starting upon the study of this work, has cleared his 
 
136 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 mind of preconceived notions concerning the resemblances be- 
 tween Buddhism and Christianity, can rise from its perusal 
 without feeling that he has gained a perfectly clear comprehen- 
 sion of the foundations, the method, and the goal of the Higher 
 Life of Buddhism. Indeed, the Dhammapada has clearly been 
 compiled with the intention of giving the weaker brethren, who 
 feel themselves incapable of committing the whole contents of 
 the three Pitakas to memory, a summary of the essential 
 principles of Buddha's doctrine. The Suttas here brought 
 together were preached by Buddha on various occasions, and at 
 different periods of his career ; but they all deal with matters 
 concerning the elements of the faith, and the training of the 
 disciple in holy living ; and are distinguished by the simplicity 
 and directness of a Religion whose concern is with the moral 
 nature and mind of man ; and not with theories that explain the 
 miraculous creation of the physical universe ; or predictions that 
 foretell the conditions of a future state that lies beyond the 
 sphere of human experience. 
 
 It is impossible in a lecture of this sort to attempt to give any 
 idea of the beautiful and remarkable texts enshrined in every 
 one of the twenty Suttas that form the Dhammapada. Here 
 are a few verses, taken almost at random : — 
 
 " All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It 
 is founded on our thoughts ; it is made up of our thoughts. If 
 a man speak or act with an evil thought, pain follows him as the 
 wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage." 
 (Verse L) 
 
 " Well-makers lead the water wherever they like ; fletchers 
 bend the arrow ; carpenters shape the log of wood ; the wise 
 man fashions himself." (Verse 195.) 
 
 " If one man conquer in battle a thousand times ten thousand 
 men, and another man conquer himself, he (the last) is the 
 greatest conqueror." (Verse 103.) 
 
 " Self is the Lord of Self ; who else should be the Lord ? 
 With Self well subdued, a man finds a Lord, such as few can 
 find. 
 
 " Mules are good if tamed, and noble Sindhu horses, and 
 elephants with large tusks ; but he who tames himself is better 
 still. For with those animals does no man reach the untrodden 
 country (Nirvana) where a tamed man goes on a tamed animal, 
 namely, on his well-tamed self." (Verses 322, 323.) 
 
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM. 139 
 
 •" Bhikshu, empty this boat ! If emptied it will go quickly ; 
 liaving cut off passion and hatred, thou wilt go to Nirvana." 
 (Verse 369.) 
 
 " And this is the beginning here for a wise Bhikshu : Watcli- 
 fulness over the senses ; restraint under the law ; keep noble 
 friends whose life is pure and who are not slothful ; dwell 
 constantly upon the highest thoughts. 
 
 " Rouse thyself by thyself; examine thyself by thyself; thus, 
 self-protected and attentive, wilt thou live happly, Bhikshu I 
 
 "For Self is the Lord of Self. Self is the refuge of Self: 
 therefore curb thyself, as the merchant curbs a good horse." 
 (Verses 375-80.) 
 
 In the Dhamraapada we have what may be called essen- 
 tially the moral and religious principles of Buddhism. For 
 the methods of philosophical argument, and the intellectual 
 foundations upon which this Religion of pure Reason is built, 
 we must consult three other very important Suttas, that have 
 all been translated by Dr. Rhys Davids ; and will be found in 
 Volume XI. of the Sacred Books of the East. These three Suttas 
 are : — 1. The Sutta entitled The Foundation of the Kingdom of 
 Righteousness ; 2. The Sutta, On the Knowledge of the Vedas ; 
 3. The Book of the Great Decease. 
 
 The /SM^to entitled The Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteous- 
 3iess may be described as the manifesto of the faith. It was the 
 first sermon preached by Gotama, after his attainment of the 
 Buddha-hood ; and it gained for him his first disciples. Those 
 amongst you who have read Sir Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia 
 will remember who those first disciples were. They were those 
 five Bhikshus who had attached themselves to Gotama, in the 
 •days when he sought enlightenment by practising severe self- 
 macerations in the depths of the savage forest. These were the 
 methods recommended by the Brahmans whom Prince Gotama 
 consulted, when driven by a sense of the vanity and misery of 
 the earthly existence he had abandoned his father's palace and 
 all the affections and enjoyments that bound him to his home ; 
 to seek, if haply he might find it, some remedy for the sickness 
 unto death that he felt weighing upon himself and all around 
 lim. The five Bhikshus had also abandoned the worldly life ; 
 driven into the forest by much the same sonl-sickness ; only 
 the Bhikshus did not hope themselves to attain enlightenment, 
 they were in hopes of meeting some holy recluse, who would 
 become their "Guru," or Spiritual Director. At first, they imagine 
 they have Ibund the Holy Man they are in search of, when they 
 ."behold Gotama's emaciated form, and witness day after day the 
 
140 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 courage and devotion he displays in leading the life of an ascetic. 
 But the five Bhikshus go away offended when, after a time, 
 Gotama, finding that all his fastings and penitential exercises 
 bring him no illumination, abandons his solitary cavern ; and 
 follows again the practice of the other religious mendicants, who- 
 daily visit the villages and beg for food. 
 
 The disappointed disciples who have silently attended upon, 
 the Recluse for six years, say one to another: " It is vain that the 
 Rahan Gotama has during six years of self-maceration and sufier* 
 ing sought for spiritual enlightenment ; he has now joined the 
 other Mendicants and goes forth, as they do, in search of food ! 
 As the man who wants water to refresh his forehead must seek 
 lor the cool stream or the pure, untainted well so must we go 
 elsewhere, in search of the knowledge of the true Path that we 
 can never obtain from him." So they take up their staff's and 
 their alms-bowls, and set off" in the direction of Benares ; and find- 
 ing no help anywhere they make themselves a hermitage in the 
 Deer Forest called Migadaya. And it is here, after he has attained 
 the Buddha-hood, that their old Master finds them. He remem- 
 bers their long and patient waiting for the truth, he is moved 
 to compassion by the recollection of how they went empty away^ 
 and therefore he starts forth in search of them. As he enters^ 
 the Deer Forest the five Bhikshus recognize him, and say one to 
 the other, " Behold ! Here is this Renegade, this Castaway I " and 
 they resolve to receive him with rudeness. But when he stands 
 before them, the beauty of the Buddha's countenance, and the 
 shining calm it wears, fill them with amazement. And as they 
 stand there, not knowing whether to cover him with revilings or 
 to fall at his feet in worship, the Master preaches to them this 
 beautiful sermon. The Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteous- 
 ness, and at its conclusion, the five Bhikshus, with one accord 
 crj- aloud : — " In Benares, at the Hermitage of the Migadaya, 
 the supreme wheel of the Empire of Truth has been set rolling 
 by the Blessed One ; that wheel which not by any Sramana or 
 Brahmana,' not by Brahma with Mara, can ever be turned 
 back." 
 
 What then is this "Foundation" upon which the Kingdom 
 of Righteousness rests? Nothing can be simpler, more intel- 
 ligible, less " mystical," in the sense given to the word " mystical" 
 by certain muddle-headed critics, who are pleased to suppose 
 that this high and noble Religion of the Intellect was the screen 
 for some secret systems of complicated ceremonials, and of the 
 study and practice of magic — and that the Buddha, " the 
 
 ' That is to say, not by any miracle -worker or dogmatic priest ; not by any 
 god or devil. 
 
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM. 141 
 
 Enlightened One," was iu reality a Prophet of Darkness, i.e. of 
 Occultism ; in other words, a powerful Wizard, instead of a Moral 
 Reformer and Philosopher ! The foundations of Buddha's king- 
 dom are upon the recognition of the causes of suffering and evil ; 
 and then upon the recognition of the means of escape from these 
 evils. In Buddhist phraseology we must first of all recognize 
 the Four Noble Truths concerning Suffering ; and then we must 
 resolutely train ourselves to tread, with faultless perseverance, 
 the Noble Eightfold Path that will lead us into a sphere where 
 suffering and evil cannot overtake us. You must remember that 
 Buddha inherited from Brahmanism the doctrine that personal 
 existence, the life of the senses and emotions, is the sphere of 
 " impermanency," the domain of Maya-Illusion. Buddha declares 
 that pain and evil exist only in this sphere ; that men are subject 
 to pain and evil because they are under the dominion of sensual 
 passions and selfish desires, that bind them and hold them as 
 prisoners to the personal state. He declares that men can break 
 these bonds, and open the door of their prison, if they will reso- 
 lutely endeavour to resist selfish desires and passions, and to 
 translate their interests and affections from the troubled sphere 
 of sense and emotion into the tranquil sphere of mind and spirit. 
 The method by which this work of self-emancipation is brought 
 to a successful end is shown in the discourses connected with 
 the Noble Eightfold Path. This Noble Eightfold Path is, as 
 Dr. Rhys Davids says, " the very pith of Buddhism.' ' The eight 
 footsteps in the Path are as follows : — 
 
 1. Right views (free from superstition or delusion). 
 
 2. Right aims (worthy of the intelligent man). 
 
 3. Right speech (kindly, open, truthful). 
 
 4. Right conduct (peaceful, honest, pure). 
 
 0. Right livelihood (bringing hurt and danger to no living 
 thing). 
 
 6. Right effort (self-control). 
 
 7. Right mindfulness (the active watchful mind). 
 
 8. Right contemplation (on the deep mysteries of life). 
 
 Now one has only to read over carefully these eight conditions 
 belonging to the path of spiritual progress, to dismiss once and 
 for all the accusation sometimes made against Buddhism that, 
 by placing the goal of the Higher Life in the attainment of a 
 perfect mind, it tends to make the cultivation of intellectual 
 gifts of more importance than the acquirement of moral virtues. 
 In the Suttas that treat of this doctrine of the Noble Eight- 
 fold Path, it becomes especially clear that under the method 
 of Buddha the conscience and intellect are brought under one 
 
142 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 and the same rule. Nothing can be more absurd in Buddhism 
 than to speak of the higher wisdom as though it were something 
 preferred above morality and virtue, since obedience to the moral 
 law is one of the first conditions that must be fulfilled before 
 the mind is in a fit state to take even the first steps towards 
 this higher wisdom. The religious life is a life suitable to a 
 being who has become purely intelligent ; but this life cannot 
 be entered upon by the undisciplined, who have not trained 
 themselves yet in obedience to the ordinary laws of morality- 
 
 In the Dhammapada, and in the Sutta, The Foundation of the 
 Kingdom of Righteousness, we have the positive side of Buddha's 
 doctrine. In the Sutta, On the Knowledge of the Vedas, we 
 have the negative side ; and this Sutta should serve to show also 
 Buddha's method of dealing with contemporary beliefs, of reject- 
 ing what in them was merely formal and superstitious, and of 
 giving a new spiritual importance to what in them was true and 
 helpful. This Sutta commences with a very pretty picture of the 
 life of the India of Buddha's day. 
 
 Two young Brahmans, who have just performed the sacred 
 ablutions that symbolize the purification of the soul, are walking 
 upon the borders of a forest, inhabited by many holy anchorites 
 and ascetics. The two young men are engaged in religious talk ; 
 and the subject that occupies them is the method by which union 
 with "Brahm" can be most surely attained. The union of the 
 individual soul with Brahm, the Divine Soul of the Universe, 
 is the aim and purpose of the Eeligipus Life in Brahmanism. 
 Now it happens that the two youths have been under the 
 spiritual direction of different " Gurus " or Teachers ; they have 
 therefore difierent views of the penitential exercises and religious 
 observances most efl&cacions in bringing about this mystical 
 " Union " that both regard as the Supreme Good. As they 
 cannot come to any agreement, they decide to submit their 
 quarrel to a Holy Man who has recently come, with a body of 
 his disciples, to sojourn in the forest, a Teacher of whose mar- 
 vellous wisdom and eloquence they both have heard. This 
 Teacher — who wanders about from place to place to " instruct, 
 arouse, incite, and gladden men with religious discourse " — is none 
 other than Gotama Buddha himself. The two young men then 
 come to the Holy Man of whose name they have heard, and the 
 Lord Buddha receives them kindly. When they have laid their 
 difficulty before him he begins, much after the manner of 
 Socrates, to question those who have come to question him. So 
 then these learned Brahmans have both laid down different 
 paths that they say lead to union with Brahm ? But now, do 
 these guides know precisely where this Brahm, to whom they 
 
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM. 143 
 
 will conduct their disciples, actually dwells ? Have these 
 favoured mortals seen Brahm at any time? Have they them- 
 selves found him ? The young men are compelled to acknow- 
 ledge that the Brahmans have not seen or found Brahm. And 
 Gotama has made his first point. "So, then," he says, "the 
 Brahmans versed in the three Vedas have, forsooth I said thus, 
 ' What we know not, what we have not seen, to a state of union 
 with that we can show the way.' " The young men admit the 
 case looks much like that. "Well," but Gotama continues,. 
 " they and all men have seen the sun shining in the sky : can 
 they now teach men to unite themselves to the sun that they see, 
 and whose light and warmth they feel ? " The young Brahmans 
 reply that "the sun is remote from men, and of a different nature 
 from men, and that therefore union between men and that bright 
 luminary is impossible." Here Buddha has hold of the clue 
 he needs. "So, then, only beings that are of one nature can be 
 united? But although men know not the form and dwelling 
 of Brahm, they know something, do they not, of the natnre of 
 Brahm ? Is Brahm, for instance, proud, avaricious, quick to 
 anger, impure ? Has he or has he not self-mastery ? The young 
 Brahmans answer at once that Brahm has self-mastery, that he 
 is free from pride, avarice, anger, impurity. "And how about 
 the Brahmans," Buddha asks, " who profess to show the way to 
 union with Brahm ? " The young men are bound to admit that 
 the Brahmans are avaricious, prone to anger, often impure, 
 deficient in self-mastery. "Very good," Gotama continues, 
 "that these Brahmans, versed in the Vedas, and yet bearing 
 anger and malice in their hearts, sinful and uncontrolled, should 
 after death, when the body is dissolved, become united to 
 Brahm, who is free from anger and malice, sinless and has 
 self-mastery, such a condition of things has no existence. So 
 that thus the Brahmans, versed though they be in the three 
 Vedas, while they sit down in confidence, are sinking down in 
 the mire ; and so sinking, they are arriving only at despair, 
 thinking the while that they are crossing over into some happier 
 land." 
 
 And then Buddha goes on to prove that the true and sure 
 method of preparation for union with Brahm is to make one's 
 mind perfect even as the mind of Brahm. And he proceeds to 
 set forth three sets of rules of conduct — the first for those who 
 will be blameless ; the second binding on those who will be 
 virtuous ; the third necessary for those who choose to be perfect 
 and to lead the Higher Life, whose goal is Nirvana, or the be- 
 coming of one mind and soul with the perfect Brahm. The 
 first set of rules consists of the ordinary moral laws of purity,. 
 
144 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 freedom from cruelty, covetousness, and deeds of violence. The 
 second set of rules are strict enough to satisfy most Western 
 standards of perfection. The virtuous man must renounce worldly 
 ambition, and all luxurious tastes, and unprofitable amusements ; 
 he must refrain from idle, as well as mischievous, words ; 
 indeed the topics of conversation permitted him, must leave him 
 a silent member of any society composed of average human 
 beings. He must not " gossip about great people ; " he must 
 not speak at all about meats, drinks, clothes, couches, perfumes, 
 equipages, women, warriors, demi-gods, fortune-telling, hidden 
 treasures, ghost-stories, nor about empty tales concerning things 
 that are and things that are not." If these are the difSculties 
 that lie in the way of those who desire to be virtuous, how much 
 harder are the counsels of perfection given to those who aspire to 
 lead the Higher Life ! The truly religious man Buddha declares 
 has elected to live for the things of the mind and the spirit alone ; 
 he must not only keep himself unspotted from the world, he 
 must also withdraw himself from all those low arts and lying 
 practices that win reverence from men ; but that form no part of 
 the spiritual vocation. The true Bhikshu, Buddha declares, is no 
 diviner of dreams ; he utters no spells or incantations ; he does 
 not indulge in prophecies ; he must not occupy himself with 
 astrology, he must not lay claim to powers of miraculous heal- 
 ing, he must not profess to discover magical virtue in gems, or 
 weapons, or any material objects : in a word, his work is in the 
 spiritual and intellectual sphere, and not amidst the mere vain 
 show of things that tricks and bewilders men's senses ; but that 
 the true Sage knows has no real existence. Buddha's attitude 
 towards miracles and miracle-workers is so plainly set forth in 
 this, and other Suttas, that one can but marvel at the astonish- 
 ing audacity of the Modern Restorers of worn-out and mischievous 
 superstitions, who attempt to shelter their efforts to revive the 
 belief in magic, in full nineteenth century, behind the name of 
 the Great Wise Man of the East, who most resolutely resisted 
 these "low arts and lying practices" as unworthy of the truly 
 religious man. It is true that Buddha's attitude towards miracles 
 is not precisely the modern attitude. He does not say, with 
 Matthew Arnold, that " the main objection to miracles is that 
 they do not happen." Neither does he hold, with the founders 
 of the Psychical Research Society, that the question whether 
 miracles do, or do not, happen, is one worthy of discussion and 
 investigation. He makes it very plain that he does not consider 
 the question of any consequence at all. Whether miracles do or 
 do not happen is a matter of no importance — from the spiritual 
 point of view, and to the man occupied with spiritual concerns ; 
 
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM. 145 
 
 since phenomena, occult or otherwise, belong to the sphere of 
 Maya Illusion that the truly enlightened man knows to be a 
 mere passing and deceiving dream. 
 
 And again, in The Book of the Great Decease, we find 
 a plain and direct statement that contradicts in language un- 
 mistakably clear and convincing, the assumption that Bud'dha 
 taught anj' secret doctrine to his favourite disciples during his 
 lifetime ; or left any so-called " Esoteric " Faith to be treasured 
 and handed down by a select band, but held back from what the 
 author of "Esoteric Buddhism" delights to describe as the 
 " vulgar herd." When Ananda, the beloved disciple, sees that 
 the Master is brought by old age and sickness near to death, he 
 waits anxiously for his opportunity to entreat that the " Blessed 
 One " will not pass away from existence until he has given some 
 instructions as touching the Order." And the aged Buddha 
 answers the request with much the same gentle reproach that 
 Jesus uses in His, " Have I been so long time with thee, and 
 hast thou not known Me ? " 
 
 " What, then, Ananda; does the Order expect this of me ? I 
 have preached the tnith without making any distinction between 
 exoteric and esoteric doctrine, for in respect of the truth, Ananda, 
 the Tathdgata has no such thing as the closed fist of a teacher 
 who holds some things back. Surely, Ananda, should there be 
 anyone who harbours the thought, ' It is I who will lead the 
 Brotherhood,' or ' The Order is dependent upon me,' it is he who 
 should lay down instructions in any matter concerning the Order. 
 The Tathdgata thinks not, Ananda, that he should lead the 
 Brotherhood ; or that the Brotherhood is dependent upon him. 
 Why then should he leave instructions in any matter concerning 
 the Order ? . . . 
 
 " Therefore, Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a 
 refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Hold 
 fast as a refuge to the truth. Look not for refuge to anyone 
 beside yourselves. . • . 
 
 "... And whosoever, Ananda, either now or after I am dead, 
 shall be a lamp unto themselves, and a refuge unto themselves 
 ... it is they, Ananda, among my Bhikshus who shall reach the 
 very topmost height — but they must be anxious to learn." 
 
 Here, then, in the words that close Buddha's mission to men, 
 we have stated once again the doctrine of self-deliverance by the 
 method of self-culture and self-control. Let me, in conclusion, 
 quote the beautiful verses that recur over and over again, in 
 different Suttas, like a song of triumph celebrating the conquest 
 
 10 
 
146 EELIGIOCJS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of selfish desires ; and proving that the emancipation from 
 selfishness does not mean the extinction of human sympathy : — 
 
 " Verily," the Buddha declares, " this is the sort of goodness 
 thsit the perfect Bhikshu has. He lets his mind pervade one 
 quarter of the world with thoughts of love, pity, sympathy, and 
 equanimity ; and so the second, and so the third, and so the 
 fourth. . . . 
 
 " Just as a mighty trumpeter makes himself heard, and that 
 without difficulty, in all the four directions, so of all things 
 that have shape or life there is not one that he passes by, or 
 leaves aside ; but regards them all with heart of love, pity, and 
 equanimity, far-reaching, grown great, and beyond measure." 
 
147 
 
 BUDDHISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 BT ARTHUR LILLJE. 
 
 In the Revue des Dewx, Mondes, July 15th, 1888, M. Emile 
 Burnouf has an article entitled " Le Bouddhisme en Occident." 
 
 M. Burnouf holds that the Christianity of the Council of Nice 
 was due to a conflict between the Aryan and the Semite, between 
 Buddhism and Mosaism. 
 
 History and comparative mythology are teaching every day 
 more plainly that creeds grow slowly up. None come into the 
 world ready made and as if by magic. The origin of events is 
 lost in the infinite. A great Indian poet has said, "The 
 beginning of things evades us ; their end evades us also. "We 
 fiee only the middle." 
 
 M. Burnouf holds also that the Indian origin of Christianity 
 is now no longer contested. 
 
 " It has been placed in full light by the researches of scholars, 
 «,nd notably English scholars, and by the publication of the 
 original texts. Amongst these astute iaquirers, it is sufiScient to 
 note the names of Sayce, Poole, Beal, Rhys Davids, Spence Hardy, 
 De Bunsen. It would be difficult to exhaust the list. In point of 
 fact, for a long time folks had been struck with the resemblances, 
 ■or rather the identical elements, contained in Christianity and 
 Buddhism. Writers of the firmest faith and most sincere piety 
 bave admitted them. In the last century these analogies were 
 set down to the Nestorians; but since then the science of Oriental 
 •chronology has come into being, and proved that Buddha is many 
 centuries anterior to Nestorius and Jesus. Thus the Nestorian 
 theory had to be given up. But a thing may be posterior to 
 another without proving derivation. So the problem remained 
 unsolved until recently, when the pathway that Buddhism 
 followed was traced step by step from India to Jerusalem." 
 
 But if there are close analogies between Buddhism and Christi- 
 anity, there are also marked antagonisms, the French scholar 
 assures us. It is here that he and I shall difi'er most, for he 
 founds these on a Buddhism that could not have beeu active in 
 
148 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Palestine at the date named. And so as a preliminary we must 
 inquire who Buddha was and what he taught. 
 
 Exactly four hundred and seventy years before Christ there 
 reigned in North Oade, at a city called Kapilavastu, the modern 
 Nagar Khfi.s, a king called Snddhodana. This monarch was 
 Informed by angels that a mighty teacher of men would be born 
 miraculously in the womb of his wife, Queen M&yL 
 
 Attempts have recently been made to prove that the mother 
 of Buddha was not a virgin ; but this goes completely counter 
 both to the northern and southern Scriptures. It is stated in the 
 Laliia Vistara that the mother of a Buddha "must never 
 have had a child." In the southern Scriptures as given by Mr. 
 Turoour, it is announced that a womb in which a Buddha-elect 
 has reposed is like the sanctuary of a chaitya (temple). On that 
 account the mother of Buddha always dies in seven days, that no- 
 human being may again occupy it. The name of the queen 
 is borrowed from Brahminism. She is Mftyft Devi, the Queen of 
 Heaven. The conception was miraculous, and of course entirely 
 independent of the good King Snddhodana. " By the consent 
 of the king," says the Lalita Vistara, "the queen was per- 
 mitted to lead the Hie of a maiden, and not of a wife, for the 
 space of thirty-two months." 
 
 Buddha entered his mother's womb in the form of a white 
 elephant, and it is a curious fact that there is a double annuncia- 
 tion both in the Buddhist and the Christian Scriptures. 
 
 It is recorded that when Queen M&yfi, received the supernal 
 Buddha in her womb, in the form of a beautiful white elephant,, 
 she said to her husband, " Like snow and silver, outshining the 
 sun and the moon, a white elephant of six defences, with un- 
 rivalled trunk and feet, has entered my womb. Listen ; I saw the 
 three regions " (earth, heaven, and hell), "with a great light 
 shining in the darkness ; and myriads of spirits sang my praises 
 in the sky." 
 
 A similar miraculous communication was made to King 
 Snddhodana by the devas immediately after the miraculous 
 conception : — 
 
 " The spirits of the Pure Abode, flying in the air, showed half 
 of their forms, and hymned King Snddhodana thus : — 
 
 " ' Guerdoned with righteousness and gentle pity, 
 Adored on earth and in the shining sky, 
 The coming Buddha quits the glorious spheres, 
 And hies to earth, to gentle M&y&'s womb.' " 
 
 You see that the divine annunciation was to the father as well 
 as the mother. It is a singular fact that in the New Testament 
 there is also a double annunciation. In Luke (i. 28) the angel 
 
BUDDHISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 149 
 
 ■Gabriel is said to have appeared to the Virgin Mary before her 
 conception, and foretold to her the miraculous birth of Christ. 
 In Matthew (i. ] 9) an angel comes to Joseph after his nuptials, 
 and announces that what is conceived in his wife is of the Holy 
 Ghost. Dr. Giles remarks that it is a singular fact that Mary 
 seems never to have told her husband a word about the miracle of 
 which she was a witness, and that " Joseph found out the fact " 
 {of his wife's pregnancy) "for himself." 
 
 This double annunciation in the case of both Buddha and 
 Ghrist is most important. In the New Testament we get it from 
 two distinct writers, whose accounts stultify one another. The 
 Buddhist narrative, on the other hand, is harmonious. If there 
 has been derivation, as some writers assert, the original narrative 
 in this case seems plainly to have been the Eastern one. 
 
 Indeed, all through the lives of Buddha and Christ run in very 
 parallel lines. A large star glittered in the sky at the moment of 
 Buddha's conception, birth, and emancipation from the lower life. 
 This was Pushya, the Prince of Stars, identified by Colebrooke, the 
 best astronomer of the Sanskrit philologists, as the S of Cancer. 
 When this star was rising, I may point out that the celestial 
 •elephant of the Buddhist zodiac (Capricorn) would be sinking 
 into the womb of the mighty mother. When the young child 
 was born, the Four Maharajas, the four great kings who guard 
 each a cardinal point in Hindoo astronomy, held him up. These 
 may throw light on the Magi, or Persian kings, that greeted the 
 young Christ. In the Koran and one version of the Gospel of the 
 Infancy a palm tree bends down to Mary at the moment of 
 parturition, as the asoka tree overshadowed Queen Mfi.ya. Asita, 
 the Indian Simeon, a man of God, full of the Holy Ghost, 
 was moved by the Spirit to come and salute the young infant 
 and forecast his mighty destiny. In the Protevangelion at 
 Christ's birth certain marvels are visible. The clouds are 
 astonished, and the birds of the air stop in their flight. The 
 dispersed sheep of some shepherds near cease to gambol, and the 
 shepherds to beat them. The kids near a river are arrested with 
 their mouths close to the water. All nature seems to pause for 
 a mighty effort. In the Lalita Vistara the birds of the air also 
 pause in their flight when Buddha comes to the womb of Queen 
 Maya, and fires go out, and rivers are suddenly arrested in their 
 flow. The Buddhist books give long genealogies of King 
 Suddhodana, who had nothing to do with the parentage of the 
 young infant. Astrologers try to persuade King Bimbisara to 
 destroy Buddha. The young child is presented at the temple 
 He receives gifts. Idols bow to him, as in the first Gospel of tl: 
 Infancy the great idol bowed to Christ. 
 
150 EELIGIOIJS SYSTEMS OP THE WORLD. 
 
 A little Brahmin was " initiated," girt with the holy thread, 
 etc., at eight, and put under the tuition of a holy man. Buddha's 
 guru was named Visvimitra. But the youthful Buddha soon 
 showed that his lore was far greater than that of his teacher. 
 When Visvamitra proposed to teach him the alphabet, the young- 
 prince went off, " In sounding a, pronounce it as in the sound 
 of the word anitya ; in sounding i, pronounce it as in the word 
 indriya ; in sounding u, pronounce it as in the word upagupta" 
 and so on through the whole Sanskrit alphabet. 
 
 At his writing-lesson he displayed the same miraculous 
 proficiency ; and no possible sum that his teachers, or young 
 companions could set him in arithmetic could baffle him. In 
 poetry, grammar, in music, in singing, he also proved without 
 a rival. In "joining his hands in prayer," in the knowledge of 
 the Rig Veda and the holy books, in rites, in magic, and in the 
 mysteries of the yogi, or adept, his proficiency was proclaimed. 
 
 In the Gospel of the First Infancy, it is recorded that when 
 taken to His schoolmaster, Zacchseus, " the Lord Jesus explained 
 to him the meaning of the letters Aleph and Beth, 
 
 " 8. Also which were the straight figures of the letters, which 
 were the oblique, and what letters had double figures, which had 
 points and which had none, why one lettei* went before another ; 
 and many other things He began to tell him and explain of 
 which the master himself had never heard nor read in any 
 book. 
 
 " 9. The Lord Jesus further said to the master, ' Take notice 
 how I say to thee.' Then He began clearly and distinctly to say,. 
 'Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth,' and so on to the end of the 
 alphabet. 
 
 " 10. At this the master was so surprised that he said, ' I believe 
 this bo^ was born before Noah.' " 
 
 And in the twenty-first chapter Christ disputes at length with 
 a rabbi, a doctor, and philosopher. This is part of the training 
 of a Buddhist monk. Also the close analogies between the 
 Buddhist books and the Apocryphal Gospels show that the two 
 creeds were connected before the canon was fixed. 
 
 When the young prince grew up, the king consulted some 
 soothsayers, who pronounced the following : — 
 
 " The young boy will, without doubt, be either a king of kings 
 or a great Buddha. If he is destined to be a great Buddha, ' four 
 presaging tokens ' will make his mission plain. " He will see— 
 
 " 1. An old man. 
 
 " 2. A sick man. 
 
 " 3. A corpse. 
 
 " 4. A holy recluse. 
 
BUDDHISM IN CHRISTIAJSTITY. 151 
 
 " If he fails to see these four presaging tokens of an avatdra, 
 he will be simply a chakravartin.'" 
 
 King Snddhodaua was very much comforted by the last pre- 
 diction of the soothsayers. He thought in his heart, " It will be 
 an easy thing to keep these four presaging tokens from the young 
 prince." So he gave orders that three magnificent palaces should 
 at once be buUt — the Palace of Spring, the Palace of Summer, 
 the Palace of "Winter. These palaces, as we learn from the 
 Lalita Vistara, were the most beautiful palaces ever conceived 
 on earth. Indeed, they were quite able to cope in splendour with 
 Vaijayanta, the immortal palace of Indra himself. Costly 
 pavilions were built out in all directions, with ornamented 
 porticoes and furbished doors. Turrets and pinnacles soared into 
 the sky. Dainty little windows gave light to the rich apart- 
 ments. Galleries, balustrades, and delicate trellis-work were 
 abundant everywhere. A thousand bells tinkled on each roof. 
 We seem to have the lacquered Chinese edifices of the pattern 
 which architects believe to have flourished in early India. Here 
 beautiful women danced and sang to the young prince. Moreover, 
 the king planted a garden of happiness, and persuaded the prince 
 one day to drive over and see it. 
 
 But, lo and behold ! as the prince was driving along, plump 
 under the wheels of his chariot, and before the very noses of the 
 silken nobles and the warriors with javelins and shields, he saw 
 an unusual sight. This was an old man, very decrepit and very 
 broken. The veins and nerves of his body were swollen and 
 prominent ; his teeth chattered ; he was wrinkled, bald, and his 
 few remaining hairs were of dazzling whiteness ; he was bent 
 very nearly double, and tottered feebly along, supported by a 
 stick. 
 
 " What is this, coachman ? " said the prince. " A man with 
 his blood all dried up, and his muscles glued to his body ! His 
 head is white ; his teeth knock together ; he is scarcely able to 
 move along, even with the aid of that stick ! " 
 
 " Prince," said the coachman, " this is Old Age. This man's 
 senses are dulled ; suffering has destroyed his spirit ; he is con- 
 temned by his neighbours. Unable to help himself, he has been 
 abandoned in this forest." 
 
 "Is this a peculiarity of his family?" demanded the prince, 
 " or is it the law of the world ? Tell me quickly." 
 
 "Prince," said the coachman, "it is neither a law of his family, 
 nor a law of the kingdom. In every being youth is conquered 
 by age. Your own father and mother and all your relations will 
 end in old age. There is no other issue to humanity." 
 
 "Then youth is blind and ignorant," said the prince, "and 
 
162 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 sees not the future. If this body is to be the abode of old age, 
 ■what have I to do with pleasure and its intoxications ? Turn 
 round the chariot, and drive me back to the palace ! " 
 
 Consternation was in the minds of all the courtiers at this 
 untoward occurrence ; but the odd circumstance of all was that 
 no one was ever able to bring to condign punishment the 
 miserable author of the mischief. The old man could never be 
 found. 
 
 King Suddhodana was at first quite beside himself with tribu- 
 lation. Soldiers were summoned from the distant provinces, and 
 a cordon of detachments thrown out to a distance of four miles 
 in each direction, to keep the other presaging tokens frbm the 
 prince. By-and-bye the king became a little more quieted. A 
 ridiculous accident had interfered with his plans. " If my son 
 could see the Grarden of Happiness, he never would become a 
 hermit." The king determined that another attempt should be 
 made. But this time the precautions were doubled. 
 
 On the first occasion the prince left the Palace of Summer 
 by the eastern gate. The second expedition was through the 
 southern gate. 
 
 But another untoward event occurred. As the prince was 
 driving along in his chariot, suddenly he saw close to him a man 
 emaciated, ill, loathsome, burning with fever. Companionless, 
 uncared for, he tottered along, breathing with extreme difficulty. 
 
 " Coachman," said the prince, " what is this man, livid and 
 loathsome in body, whose senses are dulled, and whose limbs are 
 withered ? His stomach is oppressing him ; he is covered with 
 filth. Scarcely can he draw the breath of life I " 
 
 " Prince," said the coachman, " this is Sickness. This poor 
 man is attiicked with a grievous malady. Strength and comfort 
 have shunned him. He is friendless, hopeless, without a country, 
 without an asylum. The fear of death is before his eyes." 
 
 " If the health of man," said Buddha, " is but the sport of a 
 dream, and the fear of coming evils can put on so loathsome a 
 shape, how can the wise man, who has seen what life really 
 means, indulge in its vain delights ? Turn back, coachman, and 
 drive me to the palace I " 
 
 The angry king, when he heard what had occurred, gave orders 
 that the sick man should be seized and punished ; but although a 
 price was placed on his head, and he was searched for far and 
 wide, he could never be caught. A clue to this is furnished by a 
 passage in the Lalita Vistara. The sick man was in reality 
 one of the Spirits of the Pure Abode, masquerading in sores and 
 spasms. These Spirits of the Pure Abode are also called the 
 Buddhas of the past in many passages. 
 
BUDDHISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 153 
 
 And it would almost seem as if some influence, malefic or 
 otherwise, was stirring the good King Suddhodana. Unmoved 
 by failure, he urged the prince to a third effort. The chariot this 
 time was to set out by the western gate. Greater precautions 
 than ever were adopted. The chain of guards was posted at least 
 twelve miles off from the Palace of Summer. But the Buddhas 
 of the Ten Horizons again arrested the prince. His chariot was 
 suddenly crossed by a phantom funeral procession. A phantom 
 corpse, smeared with the orthodox mud and spread with a sheet, 
 was carried on a bier. Phantom women wailed, and phantom 
 musicians played on the drum and the Indian flute. No doubt 
 also phantom Brahmins chanted hymns to Jatavedas, to bear 
 away the immortal part of the dead man to the home of the 
 Pitris. 
 
 " What is this ? " said the prince. " Why do these women 
 beat their breasts and tear their hair ? Why do these good folks 
 cover their heads with the dust of the ground ? And that strange 
 form upon its litter, wherefore is it so rigid ? " 
 
 "Prince," said the charioteei', "this is Death. Yon form, 
 pale and stiffened, can never again walk and move. Its owner 
 ias gone to the unknown caverns of Yama. His father, his 
 mother, his child, his wife, cry out to him ; but he cannot hear." 
 
 Buddha was sad. 
 
 " Woe be to youth, which is the sport of age ! Woe be to health, 
 which is the sport of many maladies ! Woe be to life, which 
 is as a breath ! Woe be to the idle pleasures which debauch 
 iumanity I But for the ' five aggregations ' there would be no 
 age, sickness, nor death. Go back to the city. I must compass 
 the deliverance." 
 
 A fourth time the prince was urged by his father to visit the 
 Oarden of Happiness. The chain of guards this time was sixteen 
 miles away. The exit was by the northern gate. But suddenly 
 a calm man of gentle mien, weariug an ochre-red cowl, was seen 
 in the roadway. 
 
 " Who is this," said the prince, " rapt, gentle, peaceful in 
 mien ? He looks as if his mind were far away elsewhere. He 
 can'ies a bowl in his hand." 
 
 " Prince, this is the New Life," said the charioteer. " That 
 man is of those whose thoughts are fixed on the eternal Brahma " 
 (Brahmacharin). " He seeks the divine voice. He seeks the 
 divine vision. He carries the alms-bowl of the holy beggar " 
 (bhikshu). " His mind is calm, because the gross lures of the 
 lower life can vex it no more." 
 
 " Such a life I covet," said the prince. " The lusts of man are 
 like the sea-water — they mock man's thirst instead of quenching 
 
154 KELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 it. I will seek the divine vision, and give immortality " (amrita) 
 " to man ! " 
 
 Mr. Ehys Davids tries to show that amrita does not mean 
 '•'immortality." The last is the very word pronounced by an 
 Italian : a, privative in Sanskrit ; mrita, " death." In, privative 
 in Latin, mors, mortis. The moral of this beautiful legend is 
 surely that the dead saints proclaim a life where mortal imper- 
 fections vex no more. 
 
 The king was alarmed at all this, and ordered that the attrac- 
 tions of the zenana should be increased tenfold ; but amid the 
 music and the dancing strange sounds now fell on the young 
 man's ear, the gentle whisper of the Buddhas of the past, the 
 Moseses and Eliases of India. They told him of a mighty mission 
 that was to be his, and urged him to fly. One night he rode off; 
 and then he sat for seven years under a Jicus religiosa, or bo 
 tree, at Buddha Gaya, seeking the divine voice by the process 
 of the Indian mystic that is called yoga. Then he received the 
 abiskeka, or baptism. Then he fasted forty-nine days and nights. 
 There Mara, the tempter, visited him, and offered him the king- 
 doms of earth and the glory thereof Under that tree, the most 
 celebrated in the world, came to him a dream as unrivalled aS' 
 the tree under which he dreamt. Religion had hitherto been 
 political, ethnical, tribal. It had consisted of state ceremonial, 
 of money and food offered to God through His representative the 
 priest. Buddha proposed to substitute for religion by body 
 corporate the religion of the heart. He proposed to break up the 
 priesthoods and found a universal religion. 
 
 " Buddha," says M. Emile Burnouf, " opened his Church to all 
 mankind, without distinction of origin, caste, country, colour, sex.. 
 " My law," he said, " is the law of grace for all." It was the 
 first time that a universal religion had been thought of." 
 
 And, to make his dream concrete, the man who is so often 
 represented to us as a crazy visionary, passing his life contem- 
 plating his navel, proceeded to drill an army whose energy and 
 self-abnegation have never been rivalled: the Bhiksu Sangha 
 (Mob of Beggars). Their house was to be the open air, their 
 clothes rags from the charnel-house, their food the refuse of 
 another's meal. East, west, north, and south he commanded 
 them to march, never halting more than one night in one place. 
 The newly discovered Teaching of the Twelve Apostles shows us 
 that Christianity was spread by the same process. The "Apostle" 
 was never to stay more than three days in the same place. He 
 was the wandering Ebionite or Bhikshu. 
 
 Let us complete in this place our sketch of the analogies 
 between the lives of Christ and Buddha. Buddha had " twelve- 
 
BUDDHISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 1.5& 
 
 great disciples." His teachings are condensed into a special 
 " Sermon on the Mount." He had fire as well as water baptism. 
 He was transfigured on a mount. He went to hell or purgatory, 
 and freed the spirits in prison. He converted a penitent thief. 
 Amrapali, the Buddhist Magdalene, figures in the naiTative, 
 and other sinners of the city who washed his dead body with 
 their tears. A Judas at the Last Supper changed Buddha's bowl 
 for a poisoned one. And the graves seem to have given up their 
 dead when Buddha expired, for Ananda and another disciple saw 
 myriads of spirits near the city. 
 
 And now what did Buddha teach ? 
 
 There are two great schools of Buddhism. First of all, let us 
 consider in what they agreed. 
 
 The religions of earth mean strife and partisan watchcries, 
 partisan rites, partisan gestures, partisan costumes. But as the 
 daring climber mounts the cool steep the anathemas of priests 
 fall faintly on the ear ; and the biggest cathedrals grow infini- 
 tesimal, and at last disappear in a pure region, where St. Paul and 
 Buddha, Spinoza and Amiel, Mirza the Sufi and Swedenborg, can 
 shake hands. The word Buddhism means gnosticism, interior 
 knowledge. There is a plane of matter and a plane of spirit, an 
 ego and a non-ego. The ego means earth'^s degrading fevers and 
 ambitions, the temptations of Satanas, to use old symbol, and 
 the tortures of hell , the non-ego is God, happiness, peace. 
 
 " The kingdom of heaven is within you," says Christ. 
 
 " In whom are hid all the treasures of sojihia and gnosis,^'' 
 says St. Paul. 
 
 " The enlightened view both worlds," says Mirza the Sufi; " but 
 the bat flieth about in the darkness without seeing." 
 
 " Who speaks and acts with the inner quickening," said 
 Buddha, " has joy for his accompanying shadow. Who speaks 
 and acts without the inner quickening, him sorrow follows as the 
 chariot-wheel the ox." 
 
 Let us now consider how the two great Buddhist schools diverge. 
 
 1. The earliest school, the Buddhism of Buddha, taught that 
 after Nirvfi,na, or man's emancipation from rebirths, the con- 
 sciousness of the individual survived, and that he dwelt for ever 
 in happiness in the Brahma heavens. 
 
 2. The second, or innovating, school taught that after Nirvana 
 the consciousness of the individual ceased. The god of the first 
 school was Buddha, which can have no other meaning than 
 " intelligent ; " the god of the innovating school was Sunya 
 (unintelligent causation). 
 
 The first serious study of Buddhism took place in one of our 
 colonies, and the first students were missionaries. Great praise 
 
156 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 is due to these missionaries of Ceylon for their early scholarship, 
 but naturally they ransacked the Buddhist books less as scholars 
 than missionaries. Soon they discovered with delight the teaching 
 of the second school, and statements that the Ceylon Scriptures 
 were the earliest authentic Buddhist Scriptures, brought to the 
 island by Mahinda, King Asoka's son (b.c. 306). In consequence 
 of this, the missionaries concluded that Ceylon had preserved 
 untainted the original teaching of Buddha, which plainly was pure 
 nihilism. 
 
 But this can be completely disproved. In the seventh centurj' 
 Anno Domini, a Chinese monk named Hwen Thsang visited 
 India ; and he was appointed president of a great convocation, 
 expressly summoned by King SilS,ditya, to put down the 
 Buddhism of survival after Nirvana, the " Little Vehicle," as 
 it was called. No better witness can be conceived. He has 
 recorded the following facts : — 
 
 1. The council of King Kaniska (summoned about a.d. 10) 
 was the first occasion on which the innovating Buddhism of the 
 '' Great Vehicle " was introduced. 
 
 2. This was done in spite of such strong opposition on the 
 part of the achdrya of the great monastery of Nalanda (the 
 high-priest of Buddhism), that the king was afraid to hold his 
 convocation in the Buddhist Holy Land, as he had at first intended. 
 
 3. That the official representatives of genuine Buddhism at 
 Nalanda asserted in the most positive terms that the innovating 
 Buddhism did not come from Buddha at all, but from a sect of 
 the followers of the Brahmin god 6iva. 
 
 4. On the nature of the innovating teachers the Chinese 
 traveller is equally explicit. They were what is called in India 
 Sunyavadis (proclaimers of nothingness). See Travels, vol. i. 
 pp. 173, 174, 220. 
 
 5. Hwen Thsang also completely demolishes the theory that 
 the literature of Ceylon has preserved untainted the original 
 teaching of Buddha, the "Little Vehicle." 
 
 " In Ceylon," he says, " are about ten thousand monks who 
 follow the doctrines of the ' Great Vehicle."' He says, moreover, 
 the controversy raged fiercely for a long time before the " ' Great 
 Vehicle ' was successful over the ' Little Vehicle.' " He tells us 
 that one of the chief apostles of the " Great Vehicle " was Deva 
 Bodhisatwa, a Cingalese monk. At Kanchipura the Chinese 
 pilgrim came across three hundred monks that had just fled 
 across the water from Ceylon, to escape the anarchy and famine 
 consequent on the death of the king there {Histoire, p. 192). 
 Hwen Thsang was a sort of Lord High Inquisitor at the Con- 
 vocation of Kanonj, that suppressed the " Little Vehicle " a short 
 
BUDDHISM IN CHEISTIANITY. 157 
 
 time afterwards. So lie could make no mistake. Indeed, even 
 Sir Monier Williams, in his new work Buddhism, gives up 
 this the main position of writers like Oldenburg and Ehys 
 Davids that the literature of Ceylon is purely the teaching of the 
 " Little Vehicle." He holds it is true, in spite of this, that it is 
 the " Little Vehicle," and not the " Great Vehicle," that proclaims 
 the nothingness of the ounyavudi. Surely he cannot have read 
 the analysis of the " Great Vehicle " literature by Dr. Eajendra 
 Lala Mitra, the leading Sanskrit scholar of the world. Surely 
 he cannot have dipped into the " Great Vehicle " tractate the 
 Satusdhasrikd, in which the Sunyavitdi maintains his doctrine 
 of nothingness against all comers through one hundred thousand 
 verses. Surely he must be unaware of the existence of the 
 RakshA Bhagavati, where the nihilism of the " Great Vehicle " 
 is also paraded in language, as Dr. Rajendra Lala Mitra tells us, 
 borrowed by the " Great Vehicle " from the Brahmin Sunyavadi 
 {Nepdlese Buddhist Literature, p. 178). Sir Monier Williams 
 has thrown over the premises of the Ceylon missionaries, but still 
 adheres to their conclusions. 
 
 And what is to be said about King Asoka, who within two and 
 a half centuries of the death of Buddha carved the Buddhist credo 
 on the rocks ? — 
 
 " Confess and believe in God, who is the worthy object of 
 obedience. For equal to this belief, I declare unto you, ye shall 
 not find such a means of propitiating Heaven " (First Dhauli 
 Edict, Prinsep). 
 
 "Among whomsoever the name of God resteth, this verily is 
 religion " (Edict No. VII., Prinsep). 
 
 " I have appointed religious observances that mankind, having 
 listened thereto, shall be brought to follow in the right path, and. 
 give glory to God " (Ibid.). 
 
 No cavilling can explain away the word Isdna. To the Brahmin 
 of Asoka'S time it meant the Supreme. And on the subject of 
 the eternal life of the individual the king is equally explicit. 
 
 " I pray with every variety of prayer for those who diifer with 
 me in creed, that they, following my example, may with me 
 attain unto eternal salvation " (Delhi Pillar, Prinsep). 
 
 " May they, my loving subjects, obtain happiness in this world 
 and the next " (Second Separate Edict, Burnouf). 
 
 On the Girnar rock the king tells us that he sent missionaries 
 to Ptolemy in Egypt. This is confirmed by Philo, who says that 
 the Therapeuts and Essenes were similar to the Gymnosophists 
 of India, who opposed the bloody sacrifice. Alexander and his 
 great city Alexandria bridged East and West. 
 
158 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 Let us now travel from India to Palestine. 
 
 Religion owes an immensity to the old Israelite, but in my 
 view more to his stubborn courage than his theological subtlety. 
 We owe much to him also for his commercial activity. He 
 promptly invaded the chief marts of the world, escorting the 
 missionary. The religion of Israel did very well for a small 
 Bedouin tribe, but the merchants of Alexandria must soon have 
 found its three compulsory annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem quite 
 intolerable. In their straits they encountered the Buddhist mis- 
 sionaries, and a curious compromise was brought about. Jahve 
 -and His Bible were retained, but Buddhist rites and Buddhist 
 teachings were read into it. 
 
 The most subtle thinker of the modern English Church, the 
 late Dean Mansel, boldly maintained that the philosophy and 
 rites of the Therapeuts of Alexandria were due to Buddhist 
 missionaries who visited Egypt within two generations of the 
 time of Alexander the Great. In this he has been supported by 
 philosophers of the calibre of Schelling and Schopenhauer, and 
 the great Sanskrit authority Lassen. Renan, in his work Les 
 Lanques Sdmctigues, also sees traces of this Buddhist propa- 
 gandism in Palestine before the Christian era. Hilgenfeld, Mutter, 
 Bohlen, Kins;, all admit the Buddhist influence. Colebrooke saw 
 a striking similarity between the Buddhist philosophy aud that 
 of the Pythagoreans. Dean Jlilman was convinced that the 
 Therapeuts sprang from the " contemplative and indolent frater- 
 nities " of India. 
 
 Until I came across a bird's-eye view of a rude monastery in 
 Siam, I had no very clear idea of a monastery of the Therapeuts 
 in the jungle near Alexandria. It was a drawing by an old 
 traveller, given by Picart. We see the house of assembly in 
 the centre, where the Therapeuts, according to Philo, assembled 
 every Sabbath for religious services. We see the cells of the 
 monks sprinkled round in a rude city "four-square." Modern 
 India gives us a far more accurate picture than we can get 
 elsewhere of ancient Palestine, for it is an ancient Asiatic 
 civilization that has not yet passed away. When I campaigned 
 against a rude tribe called Sonthals in 1855, I saw every- 
 where the " booths of leaves " of the Bible, the pansil of early 
 Buddhist books. Since the days of Job thieves " dig into " the 
 rude mud walls of the East. Visitors to the Indian and Colonial 
 Exhibition may have seen several straw-thatched houses where 
 this would have been feasible. Of such a pattern, with mud 
 or matted walls, were the huts perhaps of the Therapeuts. 
 
 Father La Loub^re, in his Description du Royaume de Siam, 
 ^ives us some very interesting details of Buddhist convent life. 
 
BUDDHISM IN CHRISTIANITY, 159 
 
 In a central quadrangle is the chief building, surrounded by 
 mortuary pyramidal columns, each covering the ashes of some 
 rich man or saint, but dedicated to one of the Buddhas, and 
 suggesting the columns in a Christian graveyard. In a second 
 «nclo8ure are the little mat-built pansils of the monks, sur- 
 rounding the central building. Each holds a sramana and his 
 «ervant-pupils, to the number sometimes of three. Each, too, 
 has two little chambers in which a wandering beggar can obtain 
 food and shelter, as amongst the Essenes. " I was an hungred, 
 and ye gave Me no meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no 
 drink ; I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in ; naked, and 
 ye clothed Me not; sick and in prison, and ye visited Me 
 not " (Matt. XXV.). 
 
 Each monastery is presided over by a sancrat, or bishop, whose 
 insignia is an accurate mitre carved on a stone pedestal, which 
 fact satisfied the good father that the Buddhists had stolen many 
 ideas from the Christians. Matins began when a monk could 
 see the veins of his hand, or see clearly enough to prevent him 
 destroying reptile life in walking to the temple. The chanting 
 went on for two hours; and then the begging friars, two and two, 
 as in the Catholic Church, went round the neighbourhood and 
 collected their scanty food. The meal seems to have been 
 something after the pattern of the Therapeut bloodless oblation, for 
 a portion of the food is always solemnly offered to Buddha. Then 
 come teaching, reading, meditation, and then what the father 
 calls " La M^ridiane " — noonday prayers. His description of a 
 sermon with a text taken from the sayings of Buddha is most 
 interesting. The monks are ranged on one side of the temple, and 
 the nuns on the other. At the close they say solemnly, " This 
 is the word of God I " The Catholic father cites some of their 
 texts : " Judge not thy neighbour. Say not, ' This man is good;' 
 * This man is wicked I ' " This seems specially to have struck him. 
 
 Assisted by Philo, let us draw up some more points of contact 
 between the Therapeut and Buddhist monks : — 
 
 1. Enforced vegetarianism, community of goods, rigid absti- 
 nence from sexual indulgence, also a high standard of purity, 
 were common to both the Buddhists and the Therapeuts. 
 
 2. Neither community allowed the use of wine. 
 
 3. Both were strongly opposed to the blood sacrifice of the 
 old priesthoods. 
 
 4. The monks of both communities devoted their lives 
 exclusively to the acquirement of a knowledge of God. 
 
 5. Long ftistings were common to both. 
 
 6. With both silence was a special spiritual discipline. 
 
 7. The Therapeut left " for ever," says Philo, " brothers, 
 
160 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 children, wife, father, and mother," for the contemplative life. 
 This is Buddhism. 
 
 8. Like the Buddhists, the Therapeuts had nuns vowed to 
 chastity. These were quite distinct, as Philo points out, from the 
 vestals of the Greek temples. With the latter the chastity was 
 enforced, with the former voluntary. 
 
 9. The preacher and the missionary, two original ideas of 
 Buddhism, were conspicuous amongst the Therapeuts. This 
 was in direct antagonism to the spirit of Mosaism. 
 
 10. The Therapent, as his name implies, was a healer (or 
 "curate," as Eusebius calls him) of body and soul. The 
 Buddhist monks are the only physicians in most Buddhist 
 countries. They cure by simples, and by casting out devils. 
 
 11. The Therapeut squatted on a "mat of papyrus" in his 
 sanctuary. The monks " took their seats on mats covered with 
 white calico," says Mr. Dickson, describing a general confession 
 in a Buddhist temple {Pdtimokkha, p. 2). 
 
 12. The Therapeuts were classed as, first, presbyters (elders), 
 an exact equivalent for the word arhat, used in Buddha's day 
 for his fully initiated monks. Under the presbyters were the 
 deacons (BiaKovoi, covered with dust or dirt). These novices- 
 were servant-pupils, the servitor friars (S4man6ros) of Buddhism. 
 An ephemereut, or temporary head, presided at the Therapeut 
 service, as in Buddhism. That the Christians should have taken 
 over this ephemerent and these presbyters or priests and deacons 
 as their three chief officers is perhaps the greatest stumbling- 
 block in the way of those writers, chiefly English and clerical,, 
 who maintain that there was no connection between Christianity 
 and mystic Judaism. 
 
 Did Christianity emerge from Essenism ? Historical questions 
 are sometimes much more clear by being treated broadly. Let us 
 ■first deal with this from the impersonal side, leaving out altogether 
 the alleged words and deeds of Christ, Paul, etc. Fifty years 
 before Christ's birth there was a sect dwelling in the stony waste 
 where John prepared a people for the Lord. Fifty years after 
 Christ's death there was a sect in the same part of Palestine. 
 The sect that existed fifty years before Christ was called Essenes, 
 Therapeuts, Gnostics, Nazarites, the Brethren. The sect that 
 existed fifty years after Christ's death was called "Essenes or 
 Jesseans," Therapeuts, Gnostics, Nazarites, the Brethren, and 
 by-and-by Christians. Each had two prominent rites : baptism 
 and what TertuUian calls the " oblation of bread." Each had 
 for officers deacons, presbyters, ephemereuts. Each sect had 
 monks, nuns, celibacy, community of goods. Each sect had a 
 sanhedrim of justice, quite independent of the historical Jewish 
 
BUDDHISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 161 
 
 Sanhedrim. Each interpreted Scripture in a mystical way, so 
 mystical that it enabled both to discover, as we see in the 
 Clementine Homilies, that the bloody sacrifice of Mosaism was 
 forbidden, not enjoined. The most minute likenesses have been 
 pointed out between these two sects by all Catholic writers, from 
 Eusebius and Origen to the poet Racine, who translated Philo's 
 Contemplative Life for pious court ladies. If no questions ot 
 theology stood in the way, could any writer seriously affirm 
 that the first sect had nothing to do with the rise of the 
 second ? 
 
 The B«formation, says Macaulay, was the struggle of the 
 layman versus the monk. In consequence of this, Protestant 
 divines have ever tried to eliminate the monk from Scripture. 
 But even if they can prove that Christ was not an Esseue, they 
 gain little, for they would then only show that Christ had 
 nothing to do with the Christian movement. 
 
 There are two Christs in the New Testament : an anti-Essene 
 and an Essene. 
 
 The first was a " winebibber." He came eating and drinking. 
 He condemned the Essene asceticism, fasting, mysticism, exces- 
 sive lustrations. He went to Jerusalem for the festivals. He 
 announced that the rawest catechumen of His flock was superior to 
 John the Baptist. He used wine in the great Essene sacra- 
 mentum, and ate animal food. He proclaimed that He was God 
 Almighty come down on earth to prolong the Mosaic institutions 
 till Doomsday. 
 
 But there is a second Christ, who was baptized by the Essene 
 John. That is an awkward fact, for it entailed vows of poverty, 
 chastity, obedience. This Christ, far from abrogating prayer 
 and fasting — that is, the ascetic practices by which the divine 
 voice was obtained — fasted in a cell in the Quarantania, and 
 experienced the demoniac hauntings which all such ascetics tell 
 us of This Christ said that His disciple, like the Esseue, must 
 throw his money into the common stock and become an eunuch, 
 abandoning wife, father, mother, sister, brother — every tie of the 
 home life. This Christ sent forth an army of disciples to pro- 
 claim, instead of combating the " baptism of John," the " Gospel 
 of the kingdom," two phrases for John's teaching ; and tliese 
 disciples were to go into every city and be received at a risk of 
 life to both receiver and missionary by the converts of some 
 previous propagandism, "those who were worthy." This is Philo's 
 term for the Essene initiates. This Christ preached forgiveness 
 instead of the lex talionis, and mercy instead of sacrifice. Indeed, 
 none of His sublime teachings could have been preached if He 
 ■belonged to anti-mystical Israel, for the reformer had no place 
 
 11 
 
162 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 in the old Mosaism. The priests and Levites were the sole jndges 
 in matters of controversy, and reform in laws dictated by Jehovah 
 for all eternity was punished with death. This Christ went 
 up, it is true, to two festivals, but to oppose rather than confirm. 
 On each occasion He was condemned to death by the legitimate 
 tribunals. This Christ a day or two before His death at a 
 critical moment, when His life was already at stake, based His 
 proceedings on the example of John, when a word might have 
 saved many valuable lives. Indeed, one cannot at all see why, if 
 His movement was so completely disconnected from the Essene 
 communists as Bishop Lightfoot holds. He should have mimicked 
 them so much in externals as to have allowed the dominant party 
 to confuse the two. 
 
 " This people which knoweth not the Law is accursed," 
 
 Of these two Christs which is the historical one ? One test 
 we have : the conduct of His flock after His death. 
 
 James, His brother, was His successor at Jerusalem. Of him 
 Hegisippus, the earliest Christian historian, says, — 
 
 " He was consecrated from his mother's womb. He drank 
 neither wine nor strong drink, neither ate he any living thing. 
 A razor never went upon his head. He anointed not himself 
 with oil, nor did he use a bath. He alone was allowed to enter 
 into the holies. For he did not wear woollen garments, but 
 linen. And he alone entered the sanctuary and was found upon 
 his knees praying for the forgiveness of the people, so that his 
 knees became hard like a camel's through his constant bending 
 and supplication before God and asking for forgiveness for the 
 people." 
 
 This shows that Christ's immediate successor was not aware 
 that his Lord had changed the water-drinking Essenism of the 
 Baptist for the gospel of eating and drinking. Epiphanius, in 
 commending the passage, adds the sons of Zebedee to the list of 
 ascetics : — 
 
 " For John and James, together with our own James, embraced 
 that same plan of life. The two first of these were the sons of 
 Zebedee ; and the last, being the son of Joseph, was called the 
 Lord's brother because with Him" (the Lord) "was he" 
 (James) "nurtured and brought up, and by Him" (the Lord) 
 " was he " (James) " always held as a brother, on account, of 
 course, of Joseph's well-known connection with Mary, who was 
 married to him. Moreover, to this latter James only was that 
 honour assigned : once yeariy to enter the holy of holies, because 
 he was both a Nazarene and related by descent to the priest- 
 hood " (Epiphanius, Hcer., Ixxviii., 13, 14). 
 
 The father adds that James ate no animal food, and also wore 
 
BUDDHISM IN OHEISTIANITY. 163 
 
 the bactreum, or metal plate of the high-priest. Let us see also 
 what Clement of Alexandria says of St. Matthew : — 
 
 " It is far better to be happy than to have a demon dwelling 
 with ns. And happiness is found in the practice of virtue. 
 Accordingly the Apostle Matthew partook of seeds, and nuts, 
 and vegetables, without flesh" {Paedag., ii., 1). 
 
 This picture given of himself by St. Peter in the Clementine 
 Homilies is equally Essenic : — 
 
 " However, such a choice has occurred to you, perhaps without 
 your understanding or knowing my manner of life, that I use 
 only bread and olives and rarely pot-herbs ; and this is my only 
 coat and cloak which I wear " (Clem., Horn., xii., 6). 
 
 Here is another passage : — 
 
 " The Prophet of the truth, who appeared on earth, taught us 
 that the Maker and G-od of all gave two kingdoms to two [beings] , 
 good and evil, granting to the evil the sovereignty over the 
 present world. . . . Those men who choose the present have 
 power to be rich, to revel in luxury, to indulge in pleasures, and 
 to do whatever they can. For they will possess none of the 
 future goods. But those who have determiued to accept the 
 blessings of the future reign have no right to regard as their own 
 the things that are here, since they belong to a ibreign king, with 
 the exception only of water and bread and those things procured 
 with sweat to maintain life " (Clem., Ham., xv., 7). 
 
 And if we turn from the shepherds to the flock, we find that 
 this early Church of Jerusalem seemed as ignorant of the sayings 
 of Christ on which Bishop Lightfoot founds his chief arguments 
 as James and Peter. The Bishop admits that this Church was an 
 assembly of " Essenes " and "Ebionites," water-drinking ascetics, 
 who rejected flesh meat ; "mystics," and " Gnostics " {Colossians, 
 p. 98 ; Galatians, p. 313) ; but he holds that they were "heretics." 
 At some period previous to the date of the Epistle to the Colossians 
 a nunless, monldess, anti-G-nostic set of believers flourished, 
 using wine in the Communion and holding ideas about the Trinity 
 which approached the Catholic standard. But unfortunately these 
 prehistoric Anglicans have left no trace behind them. Renan, 
 in Les Apotres, calls the Church of Jerusalem a "monastery 
 without iron gates." 
 
 The disciples lived in groups of houses, with a central house as 
 a place of meeting, making the resemblance to a Therapeut or 
 Buddhist monastery as close as was practicable in a hostile city. 
 "Long hours were passed in prayer. Ecstasies were frequent. 
 Each one believed himself constantly under the influence of 
 divine inspiration." The breaking of bread was mystical and 
 sacramental. " The bread itself became in a certain sense Jesus, 
 
164 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS CF THE WORLD. 
 
 conceived as the sole source of human strength." These repasts, 
 which Renau calls the " soul of Christian mysteries," took place 
 first of all at night, as with the Therapeuts. They were then 
 restricted to evenings of Sunday, and by-and-bye were celebrated 
 in the morning. The temporary chef de table, as Renan calls 
 him, broke the bread and blessed the cup. Here we have the 
 ephemereut of the Therapeuts. Into these poor houses of holy 
 beggars the commonest pauper found admittance. This was, as 
 Renan suggests, the great engine of propagandism. Penury 
 found clothing, and food, and sympathy. The proud exclusiveness 
 of the high-caste Jews was denounced. The doors of heaven were 
 thrown open to the poor man. 
 
 Renan shows, too, that the Church of Rome was an early off- 
 shoot of this Church of Jerusalem ; and we see (Rom. xiv.) 
 that its members abjured wine and meat. Bishop Timothy, too, 
 plainly had never heard of wine in the sacramentum. The liturgy 
 of St. Chrysostom mentions water, and not wine. 
 
 I have left myself little time to talk of the many points of 
 close similarity between the Buddhist and the Roman and Greek 
 Churches. 
 
 The French missionary Hue, in his celebrated travels in Tibet, 
 was much struck with the similarity that exists between Buddhist 
 and Roman Catholic rites and customs. 
 
 " The crozier, the mitre, the dalmatic, the cope or pluvial, 
 which the grand ]fi,mas wear on a journey or when they perform 
 some ceremony outside the temple, the service with a double 
 choir, psalmody, exorcisms, the censer swinging on five chains, 
 and contrived to be opened or shut at will, benediction by the 
 lamas with the right hand extended over the heads of the faith- 
 ful, the chaplet, sacerdotal celibacy, Lenten retirements from the 
 world, the worship of saints, fasts, processions, litanies, holy 
 water — these are the points of contact between the Buddhists and 
 ourselves." The good Abb6 has by no means exhausted the list, 
 and might have added " confessions, tonsure, relic worship, the 
 use of flowers, lights, and images before shrines and altars, the 
 sign of the cross, the Trinity in unity, the worship of the Queen 
 of Heaven, the use of religious books in a tongue unknown to the 
 bulk of the worshippers, the aureole or nimbus, the crown of 
 saints and Buddhas, wings to angels, penance", flagellations, the 
 flabellum or fan, popes, cardinals, bishops, abbots, presbyters, 
 deacons, the various architectural details of the Christian temple," 
 etc. To this list Balfour's Cyclopcedia of India adds " amulets, 
 medicines, illuminated missals," and Mr. Thomson {Illustra- 
 tions of China, vol. ii., p. 18) "baptism, the mass, requiems." 
 
 Mr. Pfoundes, a gentleman who has resided for eight years in 
 
BUDDHISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 165 
 
 a Buddhist monastery, tells me that when the monks enter the 
 temple for the first time of a morning they make the precise 
 gesture which Catholics call the sign of the cross. They mean 
 by this to invoke the four cardinal points as a symbol of Grod. 
 
 Listen also to Father Disderi, who visited Tibet in the 
 year 1714 : — 
 
 " The lamas have a tonsure like our priests, and are bound 
 over to perpetual celibacy. They study their Scriptures in a 
 language and characters that differ from the ordinary characters ; 
 they recite prayers in choir ; they serve the temple, present the 
 offerings, and keep the lamps perpetually alight ; they offer to 
 God corn, and barley, and paste, and water in little vases, which 
 are extremely clean. Food thus offered is considered consecrated, 
 and they eat it. The lamas have local superiors, and a superior 
 general " {Lettres Edijiantes, vol. iii., p. 534). 
 
 The Mmas told the father that their holy books were very 
 like his. When he asked them whether Buddha was God or 
 man, they replied, " God and man." He furthermore describes the 
 high altar of a temple covered with a cloth and containing a little 
 tabernacle, where Buddha was said to reside. Cross-examined 
 by the father, the lamas said that he lived in heaven as well. 
 
 The Catholics use a " tabernacle " for the sacred elements ; 
 and whilst they are there, a lamp is perpetually burning, which, 
 like a similar Buddhist light, represents God's presence. "Adi 
 Buddha is light," say the Buddhists. 
 
 Father Grneber, who, with another priest named Dorville, 
 passed from Pekin through Tibet to Patna in the year 1661, 
 published an interesting narrative of his journey, with excellent 
 illustrations. Henry Prinsep thus sums up the points that 
 chiefly attracted the father : — 
 
 "Father Grueber was much struck with the extraordinary 
 similarity he found, as well in the doctrine as in the rituals of 
 the Buddhists of Lha Sa, to those of his own Romish faith He 
 noticed, first, that the dress of the lamas corresponded with that 
 handed down to us in ancient paintings as the dress of the 
 Apostles ; second, that the discipline of the monasteries and of 
 the different orders of lamas, or priests, bore the same resemblance 
 to that of the Eomish Church ; third, that the notion of an 
 incarnation was common to both, so also the belief in paradise 
 and purgatory ; fourth, he remarked that they made suffrages, 
 alms, prayers, and sacrifices for the dead, like the Koman 
 Catholics ; fifth, that they had convents filled with monks and 
 friars, to the number of thirty thousand, near Lha Sa, who all 
 made the three vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity, like 
 Roman monks, besides other vows ; and sixth, that they had 
 
166 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 confessors licensed by the superior 14mas, or bishops, and so em- 
 powered to receive confessions, impose penances, and give 
 absolution. Besides all this, there was found the practice of using 
 holy water, of singing service in alternation, of praying for the 
 dead, and of perfect similarity in the costumes of the great and 
 superior l^mas to those of the different orders of the Romish 
 hierarchy. These early missionaries further were led to conclude 
 from what they saw and heard that the ancient books of the 
 lamas contained traces of the Christian religion which must, 
 they thought, have been preached in Tibet in the time of the 
 Apostles " (Prinsep, Tibet, Tartary, etc., p. 14). 
 
 I now come to the close analogy between the words of Buddha 
 and Christ. The Buddhists have their Beatitudes, also the subha 
 shita, or glad tidings. Also almost every saying in Christ's 
 sermon on the Mount can be paralleled in the Buddhist books by 
 some saying very like it : — 
 
 " By love alone can we conquer wrath. By good alone can we 
 conquer evil. The whole world dreads violence. All men tremble 
 in the presence of death. Do to others that which ye would have 
 them do to you. Kill not. Cause no death " {Sutra of Forty- 
 two Sections, v., 129). 
 
 " Say no harsh words to thy neighbour. He will reply to thee 
 in the same tone " {Ibid, v., 133). 
 
 '"lam injured.' 'lam provoked.' 'I have been beaten and 
 plundered.' They who speak thus will never cease to hate " {Ibid., 
 v., 4, 5)._ 
 " Religion is nothing but the faculty of love " (Bigandet, p. 223). 
 
 The Sower. 
 
 It is recorded that Buddha once stood beside the ploughman 
 Kasibharadvfija, who reproved him for his idleness. Buddha 
 answered thus : — 
 
 " I, too, plough and sow ; and from my ploughing and sowing 
 I reap immortal fruit. My field is religion. The weeds I pluck 
 up are the passions of cleaving to existence. My plough is 
 wisdom, my seed purity " (Hardy, Maniml, p. 125). 
 
 On another occasion he described almsgiving as being like 
 " good seed sown on a good soil that yields an abundance of 
 fruits. But alms given to those who are yet under the tyrannical 
 yoke of passions are like a seed deposited in a bad soil. The 
 passions of the receiver of the alms choke, as it were, the growth 
 of merits" (Bigandet, p. 211). 
 
 " Not that which goeth into the Mouth defileth a Man." 
 
 In the Sutta Nipdta, chap, ii., is a discourse on the food that 
 
 defiles a man {amagandha). Therein it is explained at some 
 
BUDDHISM IN CHRISTIANITr. 167 
 
 length that the food that is eaten cannot defile a man, but 
 "destroying living beings, killing, catting, binding, stealing, 
 falsehood, adultery, evil thoughts, murder — this defiles a man, 
 not the eating of flesh." 
 
 The One Thing Needful. 
 
 Certain subtle questions were proposed to Buddha, such as — 
 What will best conquer the evil passions of man ? What is the 
 most savoury gift for the alms-bowl of the mendicant ? Where 
 is true happiness to be found ? Buddha replied to them all with 
 one word : "Dharma" (the heavenly life) (Bigandet, p. 225). 
 
 " Let goodwill without measure, impartial, unmixed, without 
 enmity, prevail throughout the world, above, beneath, around." 
 
 "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy Eight Cheek, turn 
 TO him the Other also." 
 
 A merchant from S6naparanta having joined Buddha's society, 
 was desirous of preaching to his relations, and is said to have 
 asked the permission of the master so to do. 
 
 " The people of Sunaparanta," said Buddha, '• are exceedingly 
 violent. If they revile you, what will you do r"' 
 
 " I will make no reply," said the mendicant. 
 
 " And if they strike you ? " 
 
 " I will not strike in return," said the mendicant. 
 
 " And if they try to kill you ? " 
 
 " Death," said the missionary, " is no evil in itself. Many even 
 desire it, to escape from the vanities of life " (Bigandet, p. 216). 
 
 "And if thine Eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast 
 it from thee." 
 
 De Came (p. 113) relates that the Buddhists of Laos are accus- 
 tomed to offer up parts of their bodies to Buddha, to actually cut 
 off a finger, an ear, and so on. 
 
 "I SAY UNTO All, Watch" (Mark xii. 37). 
 
 " Watch thine own self. Of the three watches of the night, 
 the wise man watches at least through one " {Dhamnmpada). 
 
 ^' Ye make clean the Outside of the Cup and the Platter, 
 
 BUT within they ARE FULL OF ExTORTION AND ExCESS " 
 
 (Matt, xxxiii. 25). 
 
 "Why this goat-skin, Brahmin, and thy matted hair? 
 Without is varnish, but within is filth " {Dhammapada). 
 
 " Not matted hair, nor birth, nor gold, make the Brahmin, 
 
168 RELIGIOU.S SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 bnt truth and justice. He who has burst the cord and the 
 strap, who is awakened, . . . who, being innocent, patiently 
 endures abuse, blows, and chains — the awakened man, the 
 divine singer, he who overcometh, him I call the Brahmin " 
 ifihammapadaC). 
 
 "Where toue Treasure is." 
 "A man," says Buddha, "buries a treasure in a deep pit, 
 which, lying concealed therein day after day, profits him 
 nothing ; but there is a treasure of charity, piety, temperance, 
 soberness, a treasure secure, impregnable, that cannot pass 
 away, a treasure that no thief can steal. Let the wise man 
 practise virtue ; this is a treasure that follows him after death " 
 {Khuddalm Patha, p. 13). 
 
 Buddha's Third Commandment. 
 
 "Commit no adultery." Commentary by Buddha: "This 
 law is broken by even looking at the wife of another with a 
 lustful mind " (Rogers, Buddhoghosa' s Parables, p. 153). 
 
 Many other interesting passages may be found in the author's 
 Buddhism in Christendom (Kegan Paul). 
 
 Parables. 
 
 Buddha, like Christ, taught in parables. I give three or 
 four which have been considered more or less like certain 
 parables in the New Testament. For a collection of very 
 beautiful ones, I beg to refer the reader to the Popular Life of 
 Buddha. 
 
 The Prodigal Son. 
 
 A certain man had a son who went away into a far country. 
 There he became miserably poor. The father, however, grew 
 rich, and accumulated much gold and treasure and many store- 
 houses and elephants. But he tenderly loved his lost sou, and 
 secretly lamented that he had no one to whom to leave his 
 palaces and suvernas at his death. 
 
 After many years the poor man, in search of food and clothing, 
 happened to come to the country where his father had great 
 possessions. And when he was afar off, his father saw him, and 
 reflected thus in his mind : " If I at once acknowledge my son 
 and give to him my gold and my treasures, I shall do him 
 a great injury. He is ignorant and undisciplined ; he is poor 
 and brutalized. With one of such miserable inclinations 'twere 
 better to educate the mind little by little. I will make him 
 one of my hired servants." 
 
BUDDHISM IN CHRISTIANIT i'. 169 
 
 Then the son, famished and in rags, arrived at the door of his 
 father's house ; and seeing a great throne upraised and many 
 followers doing homage to him who sat upon it, was awed by 
 the pomp and the wealth around. Instantly he fled once more 
 to the highway. "This," he thought, "is the house of the poor 
 man. If I stay at the palace of the king, perhaps I shall be 
 thrown into prison." 
 
 Theu the father sent messengers after his son, who was 
 caught and brought back in spite of his cries and lamentations. 
 When he reached his father's house, he fell down fainting with 
 fear, not recognising his father, and believing that he was about 
 to suffer some cruel punishment. The father ordered his servants 
 to deal tenderly with the poor man, and sent two labourers of his 
 own rank of life to engage him as a servant on the estate. They 
 gave him a broom and a basket, and engaged him to clean up 
 the dung-heap at a double wage. 
 
 From the window of his palace the rich man watched his 
 son at his work ; and disguising himself one day as a poor 
 man, and covering his limbs with dust and dirt, he approached 
 his son and said, " Stay here, good man, and I will provide you 
 with food and clothing. You are honest ; you are industrious. 
 Look upon me as your father." 
 
 After many years the father felt his end approaching ; and 
 he summoned his son and the officers of the king, and announced 
 to them the secret that he had so long kept. The poor man 
 ■was really his son, who in early days had wandered away from 
 him ; and now that he was conscious of his former debased 
 condition, and was able to appreciate and retain vast wealth, 
 he was determined to hand over to him his entire treasure. 
 The poor man was astonished at this sudden change of fortune, 
 and overjoyed at meeting his father once more. 
 
 The parables of Buddha are reported in the Lotus of the 
 Perfect Law, to be veiled from the ignorant by means of an 
 enigmatic form of language. The rich man of this parable, 
 with his throne adorned by flowers and garlands of jewels, is 
 announced to be Tathfl,gata, who dearly loves all his children, 
 and has prepared for them vast spiritual treasures. But each 
 son of Tath^gata has miserable inclinations. He prefers the 
 dung-heap to the pearl mani. To teach such a man, Tathagata 
 is obliged to employ inferior agents, the monk and the ascetic, 
 and to wean him by degrees from the lower objects of desire. 
 When he speaks himself, he is forced to veil much of his 
 thought, as it would not be understood. His sons feel no joy 
 on hearing spiritual things. Little by little must their minds 
 be trained and disciplined for higher truths. 
 
170 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 The Man who was born blind. 
 
 Once upon a time there was a man born blind ; and he said, 
 " I cannot believe in a world of appearances. Colours bright 
 or sombre exist not. There is no sun, no moon, no stars. None 
 have witnessed such things I " His friends remonstrated with 
 him, but all in vain. He still repeated the same words. 
 
 In those days there was a holy man cunning in roots and 
 herbs, one who had acquired supernatural gifts by a life of purity 
 and abstinence. This man perceived by his spiritual insight 
 that away amongst the clouds on the steeps of the lofty 
 Himalayas were four simples that had power to cure the man 
 who was born blind. He fetched these simples ; and mashing 
 them together with his teeth, he applied them. Immediately 
 the man who was born blind was cured of his infirmity. He 
 saw colours and appearances. He saw the briglit sun in the 
 heavens. He was overjoyed, and pronounced that no one now 
 had any advantage over him in the matter of eyesight. 
 
 Then certain holy men came to the man who had been born 
 blind, and said to him, "You are vain and arrogant, and nearly 
 as blind as you were before. You see the outside of things, 
 but not the inside. One whose supernatural senses are quickened 
 sees the lapis-lazuli fields of the Buddhas and hears conch-shells 
 sounded at a distance of five yoganas. Go off to a desert, a 
 forest, a cavern in the mountains ; and conquer this thirst for 
 earthly things." The man who was born blind did as these 
 holy men enjoined, and by-and-bye acquired the supernatural 
 gifts. 
 
 The interpretation of this parable is that the man who is 
 born blind is one afflicted with the blindness of spiritual 
 ignorance. Tathagata is the great physician who loves him 
 as a father loves a son. The four simples are the four holy 
 trnths. The holy mtn who accosted him are the great fishis, 
 who teach the spiritual life in caves and in deserts, and wean 
 mankind from the love of lower things. 
 
 The Woman at the Well. 
 
 Ananda, the loved disciple of Buddha, was once thirsty, 
 having travelled far. At a well he encountered a girl named 
 Matanga, and asked her to give him some water to drink. 
 But she, being a woman of low caste, was afraid of contaminating 
 a holy Brahmin, and refused humbly. 
 
 " I ask not for caste, but for water," said Ananda. His 
 condescension won the heart of the girl Matanga. It happened 
 that she had a mother cunning in love philtres and weird arts ; 
 
BUDDHISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 171 
 
 and when this woman heard how much her daughter was in 
 love, she threw her magic spells round the disciple, and brought 
 him to her cave. Helpless, he prayed to Buddha, who forthwith 
 appeared and cast out the wicked demons. 
 
 But the girl Matanga was still in wretched plight. At last 
 she determined to appeal to Buddha himself. 
 
 The great physician, reading the poor girl's thought, questioned 
 her gently : — 
 
 " Supposing that you marry my disciple, can you follow him 
 everywhere ? " 
 
 " Everywhere ! " said the girl. 
 
 "Could you wear his clothes, sleep under the same roof?" 
 said Buddha, alluding to the nakedness and beggary of the 
 "houseless one." 
 
 By slow degrees the girl began to take in his meaning, and 
 at last took refuge in the Divine Triad. 
 
172 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 THE PARSI EELIGION. 
 
 BY DADABUAI NAOUOJI. 
 
 I DO not wish in this paper to enter upon controversial religion* 
 matters, but rather to place before the British public a picture 
 of the present actual religious life of the Parsis, so that an idea 
 may be obtained of that religious life and of its development. 
 
 It is generally believed that their prophet, Zoroaster, flourished 
 some four thousand years ago ; but that belief was much disputed, 
 and I prefer to treat of matters less open to doubt. During the- 
 Greek rule, after the conquest of Persia by Alexander, the national 
 religion did not occupy its predominant position, but when the 
 Persian dynasty was re-established by Ardeshir Babezan, a great 
 council of the learned priests was called and the religion was- 
 re-established and proclaimed as the national religion. 
 
 When the ancient rule of the Persian in his own land was 
 at length overthrown by the Mahommadan, the nation as a 
 whole became gradually Mahommadan. But a few of the Parsis 
 emigrated to India, where they were allowed to land only on 
 condition, as tradition goes, of laying down their arms, changing 
 their kind of dress, and abstaining from killing the cow. Here, 
 mingling with a difi'erent race of people, with a different religion, 
 they forgot their own language, very nearly losing at the same 
 time the knowledge of their old religious books. But one thing 
 they did carefully. They took good care of the few religious 
 books they had brought with them, and to a large extent the 
 head priests preserved the understanding of them as they were 
 taught from father to son, though without any critical know- 
 ledge or any right appreciation of the value of each. 
 
 Gradually, by intermarriage and otherwise, they mixed with 
 the Hindus to such an extent that they became almost assimilated 
 with them — " almost as Hindu as the Hindus themselves," making 
 even offerings at the Hindu temples for several objects. 
 
 When I was prime minister of Baroda, a Parsi lady appeared 
 before me on some appeal. I should never have considered 
 her a Parsi, had not my attention being expressly called to the 
 
THE PARSI RELIGION. 173 
 
 fact, she was so completely Hindu in her accent, in her ideas, 
 and dress. The ladies of the house, and the constant and 
 intimate contact -with Hindu neighbours, made customary in 
 Parsi houses most of the Hindu ceremonies, which are observed 
 in cases of birth, marriage, etc., and on holidays. 
 
 Then came the Mahommadan on the scene, when the 
 Parsis, ever pliable, adopted some Mahommadan customs, and 
 even carried offerings to the shrines of some famous Mahommadan 
 saints. They now knew little of their original religion ; but two 
 of its teachings they never forgot — viz., that there was only one 
 God, and that man should marry but one wife. It is true they 
 continued to repeat prayers in the old Zend language, but they 
 did not understand one word of them. With the exception of a 
 few priests, no one knew anything of that language, or of the 
 doctrines inculcated in their scriptures. Their hves were largely 
 taken up with their own and Hindu ceremonials, they had a 
 general vague knowledge of the doctrines and precepts of the 
 religion, and a clear notion of its morality, so far that it required 
 pure thought, pure word, and pure deed. Such was the condi- 
 tion of the Parsis at the beginning of the present century. 
 
 The English rule in India gave the Parsis greater freedom 
 and scope for their energy. They were the lirst to start 
 vernacular literature and newspapers on the Bombay side — 
 and a considerable impetus to the development of these papers, 
 and at the same time towards giving greater attention to the 
 study of their religion, was afforded by a comparatively trivial 
 •controversy about the calendar. A learned priest from Persia 
 found, on his arrival in India, that the Persian and Indian Parsi 
 calendars did not correspond. The Parsis in India had added 
 one month to the year every hundred and twenty years, to make 
 ap the solar or leap year. This, said the Persian priest, was 
 wrong, as there was, he alleged, no sanction for it in the ancient 
 religious books. A bitter controversy arose, members of families 
 •quarrelled, and finally the community was split up into two 
 sects. Troublesome, as this incident proved, it had good results 
 attending it. For it was the means of rousing among the Parsis 
 a desire to know more of their religion, the result being a greater 
 activity of mind and a great deepening of religious feeling. 
 The development and the firmer estabhshment of the Press 
 produced their reflex influence in helping rapid progress. 
 
 Next came the Christian missionaries, who began to attack 
 the Parsi religion ; and it was then open to attack from the 
 double circumstances of the deterioration of the original pure 
 ancient faith by the later priest-made literature and ceremonial, 
 and of the adoption of Hindu and Mahommadan ceremonies. The 
 
174 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Christian Catholic Church, in the suburbs of Bombay, had also 
 come into by no means unfriendly contact with the Parsis, but 
 the missionaries carried on their attack with much vigour, and 
 succeeded in converting two Parsi youths, who were attending 
 their school. This produced great excitement among the Parsis, 
 and they commenced vigorous efforts to check further conversions. 
 Some magazines were started, to defend tlie Parsi religion and 
 to attack and criticize Christianity. But more than that, they 
 felt and were awakened to the necessity of teaching their 
 children their religion more intelligently than by merely 
 making them learn by heart some of the prayers and parts in 
 the old Zend language, without understanding anything of it. 
 The agitation of the missionaries led to the preparation of a 
 catechism of the Parsi religion, as it was then believed to be, 
 some extracts from which will be made, io order to give a fair 
 idea of their theology and morals as then understood. The 
 subject of the dialogue is thus described : — 
 
 " A few Questions and Answers to acquaint the Children of the 
 Holy Zarthosti Community with the subject of the Mazdiashn^ 
 Religion (i.e. of the Worship of God). Dialogue between a 
 Zarthosti Master and Pupil." 
 
 Quei. Whom do we, of the Zarthosti community, believe in ? 
 
 ^Mi. We believe in only one God, and do not believe in any besides Him. 
 
 Quee. Who is that one God ? 
 
 Ans. The God who created the heavens, the earth, the angels, the stars, the sun, 
 the moon, the fire, the water, or all the four elements, and all things of the two 
 worlds ; that God we believe in — Him we worship, Him we invoke, and Him we 
 adore. 
 
 Qucs. Do we not believe in any other God 1 
 
 Ans. Whoever believes in any other God but this is an infidel, and shall suffer 
 the punishment of heU, 
 
 Qites. What is the form of our God ? 
 
 Alls. Our God has neither face nor form, colour nor shape, nor fixed place. 
 There is no other like Him ; He is Himself singly such a glory that we cannot 
 praise or describe Him ; nor our mind comprehend Him. 
 
 Qvfs. Is there any such thing that God even cannot create ? 
 
 Atis. Yes ; there is one thing, which God Himself even cannot create. 
 
 QueK. What that thing is, must be explained to me. 
 
 Ana. God is the creator of all things, but if He wish to create another like 
 Himself, he cannot do it. God cannot create another like Himself. 
 
 (^ucs. How many names are there for God ? 
 
 Ann. It is said there are one thousand and one names; but of these one 
 hundred and one are extant. 
 
 Qiies. Why are there so many names of God ? 
 
 Ans. God's names, expressive of His nature, are two — " Yazdan " (omnipotence), 
 and " Piuk " (holy). He is also named " Hormuzd " (the highest of spirits) 
 "Dddir" (the distributor of justice), " Purvurdegdr '' (provider), " Purvurtar " 
 (protector), by which names we praise Him. There are many other names also, 
 descriptive of His good doings. 
 
 Qves. What is our religion 1 
 
 Ans. Onrreligion is " Worship of God." 
 
 Quel. Whence did we receive our religion ? 
 
THE PARSl EELIGION. 175 
 
 Ans. God's true prophet — the true Zurthost (Zoroaster) Asphantamiin Ano- 
 shirwdn — brought the religion for us from God. 
 
 Ques. Where should I turn my face when worshipping the holy Hormuzd ? 
 
 Ans. We should worship the holy, just Hormuzd, with our face towards some of 
 His creations of light, and glory, and brightness. 
 
 Quei. Which are those things 1 
 
 Aii-1. Such as the sun, the moon, the stars, the fire, water, and other such 
 things of glory. To such things we turn our face, and consider them our " kiblch " 
 (litei-ally, the thing opposite), because God has bestowed upon them a small spark 
 of His pure glory, and they are, therefore, more exalted in the creation, and lit to 
 be our "kiblch " (representing this power and glory). 
 
 Qves. What religion prevailed in Persia before the time of Zurthost ? 
 
 Ans. The kings and the people were worshipjiers of God, but they had, like the 
 Hindus, images of the planets and idols in their temples. 
 
 Quel. What commands has God sent us through his prophet, the exalted 
 Zurthost ? 
 
 Ans. Many arc those commands, but I give you the principal, which must 
 always be remembered, and by which we must guide ourselves ; — 
 
 To know God as one ; to know the prophet, the exalted Zurthost, as His true 
 prophet ; to believe the religion and the Avestil brought by him, as true beyond 
 all manner of doubt ; to believe in the goodness of God ; not to disobey any of 
 the commands of the Mazdiashna religion ; to avoid evil deeds ; to exert for good 
 deeds : to pray five times in the day ; to believe in the reckoning and justice on 
 the fourth morning after death ; to hope for heaven and to fear hell ; to consider 
 doubtless the day of general destruction and jjurification (of all suffering souls) ; 
 to remember always that God has done what He willed, and shall do what He wills ; 
 to face some luminous object while worshipping God. 
 
 Qnc'S. If we commit any sin, will our prophet save us ? 
 
 Ann. Never commit any sin, under that faith, because our prophet, our guide 
 to the right path, has distinctly commanded " you shall receive according to what 
 you do." Your deeds will determine your return in the other world. If you do 
 virtuous and pious actions, your reward shall be heaven. If you sin and do 
 wicked things, you shall be punished in hell. There is none save God that could 
 save you from the consequences of your sins. If any one commit a sin under the 
 belief that he shall be saved by somebody, both the deceiver as well as the deceived 
 shall be damned to the day of " Rasti Khez " (the day of the end of this world). . . 
 
 Ques. What are those things by which man is blessed and benefited ? 
 
 Ans. To do virtuous deeds, to give in charity, to be kind, to be humble, to 
 speak sweet words, to wish good to others, to have a clear heart, to acquire 
 lenrniug, to speak the truth, to suppress anger, to be patient and contented, to be 
 friendly, to feel shame, to pay due respect to the old and young, to be pious, to 
 respect our parents and teachers. All these are the friends of the good men and 
 enemies of the bad men. 
 
 Ques. What are those things by which man is lost and degraded ? 
 
 Ans. To tell untruths, to steal, to gamble, to look with wicked eye upon a 
 woman, to commit treachery, to abuse, to be angry, to wish ill to another, to be 
 proud, to mock, to be idle, to slander, to be avaricious, to be disrespectful, to be 
 shameless, to be hot-tempered, to take what is another's property, to be revengeful, 
 unclean, obstinate, envious, to do harm to any man, to be superstitious, and do 
 any other wicked and iniquitous action. These are all the friends of the wicked, 
 and the enemies of the virtuous. 
 
 Such was the first effort^made by the Parsis to give religious 
 education to their children. 
 
 The old sacred books had also been translated before this time 
 into the vernacular Gujarati language. But the translation was 
 purely literal and baldly mechanical, carried out without any critical 
 intelligence, and with a very unintelligible result. Now came a 
 
17G RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 new force into play. In 1849, I, with other young men, full of 
 enthusiasm and fresh from college, established girls' schools, under 
 the auspices of the " Students' Literary and Scientific Society." 
 Full of enthusiasm, but with emptj' pockets, we had first 
 to begin this work as volunteer teachers during morning and 
 evening hours, having to contend not a little against the opposi- 
 tion of the majority of the people. But we persevered, and 
 fortunately four gentlemen of the richer class, of advanced views, 
 came to our aid, and the schools acquired a firm footing and 
 became regular day schools. 
 
 About the same time we also established " The Dnianprasarak 
 Mandlis " (Societies for the diffusion of knowledge), as branches 
 of " The Students' Society." These branches, by their lectures 
 and essays in the vernacular, helped the general advance in social 
 and educational matters, both among Hindus and Parsis. 
 
 Another advance was the further extension of journalistic 
 Activity. In 1851 I started a weekly paper — " The East Goftar," 
 which I think and hope gave a higher tone and increased useful- 
 ness to journalism among the Parsis. 
 
 In 1851 was started a Society, of which I was chosen the first 
 secretary, called the " Rahanumai Mazdiashnd " (Guide to the 
 Worshippers of one God). The object of this society was, first, to 
 do away with the Hindu and Mahommadan ceremonies which 
 had become incorporated with their religious life ; and, next, to 
 make a thorough, critical investigation of the original ancient 
 faith^ and to clear it of all the grosser growths of subsequent times. 
 This society had to encounter no little opposition. An antagon- 
 istic society was formed, but it soon broke down before the force 
 •of truth and intelligence. But the still more difficult opposition 
 it had to encounter, with reference to the abolition of the extra- 
 neous Hindu and Mahommadan ceremonies, was from the mothers, 
 wives, and sisters, — the home rulers of the family. Where the 
 men failed the girls' schools succeeded, aswas only to be expected. 
 In these schools the girls learned that such and such things were 
 simply prejudice or superstition. They raised the rebellion, in 
 their own innocent and childish emphatic ways, against this or 
 that custom. " No, ma," shrugging their little shoulders, said they, 
 " this is not our religion, this is not right, this is superstition, etc.; 
 no, ma, I won't do this. " The mother listened to the dear little 
 child when she did not listen to the husband or brother. 
 
 Near two generations have arisen since then. The children 
 have grown up, and are now mothers themselves. They are 
 completing the reforms which we young enthusiasts inaugurated, 
 and for a time had been baffled in. 
 
 About the time when these movements were going on, in 1852 
 
THE PAESI RELIGION. 177 
 
 or 1853, another step was taken in the social reform among the 
 Parsis in the position of woman. 
 
 Woman was always held in great honour among the Parsis ; 
 and the only difference between the status of man and woman 
 then was that the latter was not allowed to freely associate with 
 men at the social table of other men or in public assemblies. 
 The Parsis accorded woman an honourable place in society, and 
 placed her on an equality with man. Some of the Parsi heads of 
 families — myself included — arranged to meet together socially 
 with all the members of their families with them, to dine together 
 at the same table and freely converse with each other. The 
 result, after some strong opposition, was the removal of this 
 female disability. One of the reasons why this reform took place 
 was that the teachings of Zoroaster were distinctly in favour of 
 the equality of man and woman. In the words of Zoroaster 
 himself : — " ye brides and bridegrooms, husbands and wives, I 
 say to you these words : Live with one mind ; do together all 
 your religious duties with purity of thought ; live towards each 
 other with truth, and by these [things] with certainty you shall 
 be happy." This was uttered perhaps four thousand years ago. 
 Throughout the religious books, man and woman have been 
 spoken of as humanly and spiritually equal. 
 
 Sir John Malcolm says : — 
 
 " There is every reason to believe that the manners of the ancient inhabitants of 
 Persia were softened and in some degree refined by a spirit of chivalry which per- 
 vaded throughout that country, from the commencement to the end of the Kayanian 
 dynasty. The great respect in which the female sex was held was no doubt the 
 principal cause of the progress they bad made in civilization ; these were at once 
 the cause of generous enterprise and its reward. It would appear that in former 
 days the women of Persia had an assigned and an honourable place in society, and 
 we must conclude that an equal rank with the male creation which is secured 
 to them by the ordinance of Zoroaster existed long before the time of that 
 reformer." 
 
 Though the Parsis have been living for centuries among 
 Mahommadans and Hindus, they did not take to the institution 
 of polygamy. For some time it was a question whether Parsis' 
 social relations were to be judged by the Hindu or English law, 
 as there was no recognized Parsi law for them, with this exception, 
 that the Panchdyat (a Council of the Elders) controlled and 
 decided social questions. As education advanced, and the old 
 views and control of the elders began to be opposed, some persons 
 took advantage to indulge themselves in marrying second wives, 
 casting aside the first ones. The whole community — old and 
 young — rose against this, to them, abominable innovation. An 
 association was at once formed, a law was drafted, and the Legis- 
 lature (the Viceroy's Legislative Council), after several inquiries 
 
 12 
 
178 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 by a Commission and otherwise, passed a law making polygamy 
 among the Parsis as penal as among Englishmen. I myself asked 
 Professor Spiegel to point out any texts in the religious litera- 
 ture of the Parsis for or against polygamy. He replied : " As 
 far as my knowledge goes there is no instance of polygamy in the 
 religious literature of the Parsis. It is said that Zerdu.sht had 
 three wives, but he had them successively. I share with you 
 the conviction that the majority of the Parsis were at all times 
 monogamists; although perhaps indulgences have been granted 
 to kings and other individuals of high station." On further in- 
 quiry, he says that there is not a single text of the Avesta or the 
 later Parsts which alluded to polygamy, and that the indulgences 
 he referred to were upon Greek and Latin authority. 
 
 This Association was also naturally drawn to the question 
 of the custom of early infant betrothals, taken from the Hindus. 
 The older Conservative party were unwilling for several reasons 
 to give way ; and a sort of compromise was come to between 
 the Conservatives and the young Reformers, so as to leave 
 the question so open as to die a natural and gradual death, 
 with the advance of education. Now very few such mamages 
 take place, and the practice is fast dying away. What was 
 forty years ago general is now rare and exceptional, especially in 
 Bombay. The law is so framed and left open, that the first 
 case of repudiation coming before law, at the time of the 
 arrival at the proper age, will give the last legal deathblow 
 to this custom of infant betrothals. Reverting to the religious 
 beliefs and morals of the Parsis of that time, I will give a few 
 extracts from the vernacular translation of one of the books, so 
 far as to give a fair idea of the belief as it was then enter- 
 tained, while the extraneous ceremonies were dying off under 
 the efforts of the Rahanumai. 
 
 I now arrange some of these extracts under different heads, as inferences 
 derived from them. To avoid repetition, I shall not, under each head, give all 
 the texts corroborative of it. 
 
 The Parsis believe in only one God, the creator of all. 
 
 " Ist HA. — The great judge, Hormuzd, of glory and brightness, the highest, the 
 all-virtuous, the greatest, strictest, the all-wise, of the purest nature, the holiest, 
 lover of gladness — invisible to the visible, the increaser — He created our soul — He 
 moulded our body — He gave us existence. Hd 35. — I worship thee, O Hormuzd, 
 above all others, I invoke thee above all others. Hi 36. — All virtuous thoughts, 
 all virtuous words, and all virtuous works, flow from thee. Hormuzd, I invoke 
 thy pure nature above all others. Hi 40. — By my deeds may I exalt and honour 
 thy name. Under the protection of thy great wisdom have I acquired wisdom. 
 May I reach thee. May I always be firm in thy fi-iendship and in holy deeds. 
 
 In Hi 44 several extracts relate to this subject, especially God as the creator of 
 all, ending in " Thou art the Creator of all Creation. 
 
 In a prayer to Hormuzd (Hormuzd Yasht) occurs this — " My name is the Creator 
 of all." 
 
THE PARSI RELIGION. 179 
 
 Zurthost worships God not only in this world, but in the heavens also.— Hd Zi, 
 " O Hormuzd, I worship thee, and in the heavens, also, shall I worship thee 
 much." 
 
 The Parsis believe in the existence of angels, created by God, with powers to aid 
 and benefit mankind in various ways, and to be the superintending spirits of the 
 various parts of creation. The chief among these are the angels of good conscience 
 <Bahaman) and of high piety (Ardebesht) ; the former is also the protecting angel 
 ■of the harmless animals, and the latter the angel of fire. 
 
 " 1st Ha. — I invoke good conscience, high piety, love of excellence, high and 
 perfect thought, Khordad and Amardad ; all other angels that reach us ; the angel 
 * Meher,' the lord and guardian of the forest, of thousand ears and ten thousand 
 eyes of gladness and of comfort." 
 
 Many other extracts can be made to deduce the above inference. 
 
 The various parts of creation are praised, or remembered, or considered 
 holy, etc. 
 
 The first seven Hds contain many texts illustrative of this. 
 
 " The fire created by God, the time of day, the early dawn, the waters created by 
 God, the year that is spent in holiness, the moon and the glorious sun, the ocean 
 of light, the stars, the immeasurable light, the mountains and the trees, the 
 forest, the sheep, and the harmless animals ; " in short. Nature, in her various parts 
 and phenomena, is sometimes praised, sometimes remembered, sometimes described 
 as holy. 
 
 As far as I have seen, there is no text in which any lifeless material object 
 without intelligence or spirituality is invoked for assistance or benefit. Such 
 prayers are always directed to intelligent spirits or angels, and to God above all 
 and as the Creator and Lord of all. 
 
 The Parsi believes in the immortality of the soul, and in rewards and punishments, 
 after death. 
 
 " Ha 7. — great and vrise Lord, the reward that is due to the religious, may I 
 and mine receive ; that reward mayst thou give from thy stores of bounty in such 
 a way, in this and the spiritual world, that I may be exalted, and may I live for 
 ever and ever under thy all-holy leadership, and aU-virtuous protection. 
 
 " Hi 8. — May the aspirations of the holy be fulfilled, may the wicked and evil- 
 doers be disappointed, and be swept away from the creation of the holy creator. 
 The righteous are immortal." 
 
 Extracts from Hi 31 bear on this point. 
 
 Notwithstanding the abhorrence of evil and evil-doers, the Parsi is made to wish 
 that the wicked may be converted to virtue. 
 
 " Hd 33. — The wicked are punished according to their thoughts, and words, and 
 ■deeds. Better it be that they be introduced to a taste of learning. Hormuzd, 
 give them a desire for wisdom, that they may become promoters of holiness. 
 
 "H4 i4. — O Hormuzd, why may not these sinners become virtuous ? " 
 
 The Parsi rests his pardon on the mercy of God, and his reward on the bounty 
 of God. 
 
 " Hi 1. — If I have by thought, word, or deed, intentionally or unintentionally, 
 not kept thy commands, and thereby saddened thee, I invoke thee in this 
 invocation, 1 pray to thee and praise thee, and beseech thee for thy pardon. 
 
 " Ha 7. — May I receive the reward for piety through your bounty." 
 
 The morality of this religion is comprised in the three words, pure-thought, pure- 
 -word, and pure-deed ; and holiness, virtue, prayers, etc., are praised and exalted, 
 and inculcated in many places. 
 
 " Hd 7. — I praise the virtuous, the good, and the prayerful. 
 
 " Hi 19. — The high priest is he who is learned in the religion, and whose whole 
 life is devoted to the promotion of righteousness in the world. 
 
 " Hi 20. — Whoever tastes the pleasure of righteousness, which is above all other 
 pleasures, and walks in righteousness, shall be perfectly holy. He is virtuous who 
 walks in virtue among holy men. and is true to them. 
 
 " Hi 28. — Hormuzd, may I reach thee through good thought (conscience). 
 Give me virtue in the creation of this world, and in the other heavenly world. 
 Thou givest Paradise to every man's soul, through good thought (conscience). 
 
180 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Whatever thou hast created is with good purposes. May I learn the desire for 
 righteousness, as I am able. 
 
 " Hi 31. — He who is holy goes to immortality. 
 
 " Hi 34. — What, Hormuzd, is thy will, what thy worship, and what thy invo- 
 cation ? God replies — See and adorn holiness — learn my ways of holiness with a 
 good conscience. — Tell me, Hormuzd, the ways of good conscience. — To be glad 
 with the religion of the good, with virtuous deeds, and with holiness. 
 
 " Hi 56. — May the virtue of the virtuous endure, and may wickedness vanish. In 
 this house, may obedience prevail over disobedience, peace over quarrel, charity 
 over hard-heartedness, good thoughts over bad thoughts, truth over words of lie, 
 and piety over sin. 
 
 "Hi 59.— I enjoin on earth and in heaven to study the 'Honwar.' I enjoin' 
 holiness on earth and in heaven. That to pray much to Hormuzd is good, I enjoin 
 in heaven and on earth. I enjoin the holy, and the virtuous, and the prayerful, on 
 earth and in heaven, to punish the evil spirit and his works, which are wicked and 
 full of death — to punish the thief and the tyrant — punish the magicians of cruel 
 intentions — to punish the breakers of promise, and those that induce others to 
 break their promise — to punish the harassers of good and holy men— to punish the 
 evil thoughts, words, and deeds of the sinful." 
 
 Truth is particularly inculcated. 
 
 " Hi 7. — I understand truth- telling exalted. 
 
 " Hi 19. — ^All the days of the holy man are with thoughts of truth, words of 
 truth, and deeds of truth. 
 
 " Hi 29. — ^The walker in truth is the obtainer of immortality, is not to perish. 
 
 " Hi 31. — To speak true words is true excellence." 
 
 The Parsi believes in the necessity and eflBcacy of prayer. 
 
 " Hi 56. — I invoke the benefit and success of prayer. To arrive at prayer is to 
 arrive at a perfect conscience ; the good seed of prayer is virtuous conscience, 
 virtuous words, and virtuous deeds. May our prayers be efficacious in thwarting 
 the inflictions of the wicked spirits and wicked men. May I love prayer^ 
 O Hormuzd, for prayer is joy to me. 1 resort to prayer, and I invoke prayer. 
 Prayer to liee, O Hormuzd, is the giver of excellence, holiness, success, and high 
 exaltation ; it is the act of virtue. 
 
 " Hi 59. — To pray much to Hormuzd is good, I enjoin in heaven and on earth." 
 
 The study of the religion is considered most meritorious ; and the holy word (the 
 Zend Avesti) is said to have been created by God before all creation. Extracts 
 from Hi 19 all refer to this subject. 
 
 " Hi 44. — What is the high religion ? That which promotes holiness and truth 
 with good thought, word, and deed." 
 
 " Hi 19 declares " Honwar " (the word of God) to have been created before the 
 heavens, before the waters, before all creation ; and that whoever studies them 
 without wearying shall attain to the paradise of the holy, which is full of 
 glory. 
 
 " Hi 59. — I enjoin on earth and in heaven to study the Honwar." 
 
 The Parsi religion is for all, and not for any particular nation or people. 
 
 "Hi 46. — May all men and women of the world become my followers, and' 
 become acquainted with thy exalted religion. Whoever accepts Znrthost's religion, 
 praises it, and meditates on it, and studies it much, to him God gives a place 
 m the other world ; and in this world Bahaman (good conscience) gives him 
 exaltation." 
 
 The Parsi religion contains no propitiating of the devil. There is not a single 
 reference to the thoughts, or words, or deeds of evil spirits, without wishing 
 destruction or reformation to them. 
 
 " Hi 1. — I learn the Zurthosti religion, the worship of God, which is different to 
 that of the Devs (the evil spirits), and is like the justice of God. 
 
 " Hi 8. — May the wicked and the evil-doers be disappointed, and be swept away- 
 from the creation of the holy Creator. 
 
 " Hi 12. — I am of the religion of the worship of God, I praise that religion and 
 declare it before the wicked, and praise it with good conscience, and virtuous - 
 words, and virtuous deeds. 
 
THE PARSI RELIGION. 181 
 
 " Hi 44. — Hormuzd, why may not these sinners become virtuousl? 
 
 " Hi 32. — The sinners who desire bribery, and court sovereignty and power 
 with lies, and think wickedness, they are the injurers ot the world. They obtain, 
 Hormuzd, lamentation from their desire. 
 
 " H4 33. — The wicked are punished according to their thoughts, words, and deeds. 
 Better it be that they be introduced to a taste of learning. O Hormuzd, give them 
 a desire for wisdom, that they may become promoters of holiness. " 
 
 The Parsis are called by others "Fire Worshippers," and 
 they defend themselves by saying that they do not worship the 
 fire, but regard it and other great natural phenomena and objects 
 as emblems of the divine power. To me it appears that the 
 imputation, on the one hand, is wrong, and the defence, on the 
 other hand, a little overshot. Though the Parsi "remembers, 
 praises, loves, or regards holy," whatever is beautiful, or won- 
 derful, or harmless, or useful in nature, he never asks from an 
 unintelligent material object, assistance or benefit; he is, therefore, 
 no idolater, or worshipper of matter. On the other hand, when 
 the Parsi addresses his prayers to Hormuzd, or God, he never 
 thinks it at all necessary that he should turn his face to any par- 
 ticular object. He would say, and does say, his " Hormuzd yasht" 
 (prayer to Hormuzd) anywhere whatever without the slightest 
 misgiving. Again, when he addresses the angel of water, or 
 any other but that of fire, he does not stand before the fire. 
 It is only when he addresses the angel of fire that he turns 
 his face to the fire. In short, in addressing any particular angel, 
 he turns his face to the object of that angel's guardianship as 
 his emblem. But, in his prayers to Hormuzd, he recognizes, 
 or uses, or turns his face to no emblems whatever. Since fire 
 only could be brought within the limits of a temple — any of 
 the grand objects of nature (as the sea, the sun, etc.) being 
 unavailable for this purpose — the temples naturally became the 
 sanctuaries of fire alone, and hence has arisen the mistake of the 
 Parsis being regarded as " Fire Worahippers." 
 
 This much is clear in H6, 30 — " He who knows God through 
 his works reaches him;" but I do not recollect meeting with any 
 text enjoining a Parsi to turn his face to any particular object 
 as an emblem of God; though he is directed, as in the above 
 text, to rise from Nature to Nature's God. 
 
 The doctrine of any sort or form of " propitiation of the devil " 
 does not find place in their books. To struggle for doing good 
 and destroying evil is an emphatic injunction. 
 
 Such was the state of the religious belief of the Parsis till 
 a generation ago. But the study of the Zend Avesta has been 
 since carried on with increasing zeal, activity, and intelligence 
 by Parsi educated scholars. The "Ruhanumai," of which I have 
 been president for some years, has been, through the means of 
 
182 EELIGIOTJS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 such scholars, carrying on its researches in the ancient litera- 
 ture, and from time to time bringing the results before the 
 communities by public meetings and publications of their pro- 
 ceedings. The views now held by such scholars are that some 
 of those religious books, which the Parsis considered canonical, 
 were not so; that with the exception of a certain portion, 
 called the Gdthds, they were not the words of Zarthusht or his 
 contemporary disciples and coadjutors, — that before Zarthusht's 
 time, the religion was almost a polytheism. Zarthusht made 
 a complete revolution — preached the worship of the one great 
 supreme God, as the beginning and end of the holy religion ; 
 and that God alone was the creator and giver and all-in-all 
 of everything. He threw aside the earlier gods or spirits ; 
 addressing God, — " Thou and thou alone does my mind s eye 
 Bee." 
 
 The monotheism of Zarthusht was complete and unequivocal; 
 and his monogamy was as clear. The present Parsi scholars 
 maintain that the other books are later compilations by priests ; 
 that after the death of Zarthusht the priests rehabilitated, 
 though in subordinate positions, the earlier spirits which were 
 considered as presiding over fire, water, earth, and all the 
 great creations of nature ; and established the ritual and cere- 
 monies as they thought desirable or profitable to themselves, 
 as has happened wiin other religions, — that all the invocations 
 to the various spirits for aid were not a part of the religion 
 as Zarthusht established it ; and that the Parsis should return 
 to the original spirituality, simplicity, and purity of their religion, 
 — that it is clear from Zarthusht's words, that the eternal prin- 
 ciples of the worship of one God, and of purity in thought, word, 
 and deed were alone binding for ever. But all customs, ritual and 
 ceremonies adopted according to the circumstances of time, place 
 and civilisation, can be altered as the good and the physical and 
 spiritual wants of the community may require. These scholars 
 therefore urge that, whatever might have been the justification 
 or reasons of many religious customs and ceremonies at the 
 time when thej were first adopted, they were not binding on 
 the community for ever, and that they must reform their 
 customs and ritual as time and circumstances might demand, 
 after careful consideration by the community. 
 
 One of the books (the Vandi^Jad) which was considered, in 
 ignorance, as most sacred, is a compilation of various times, 
 and Ib mainly directed to the inculcation of cleanliness. It is an 
 elaborate sanitary code, according to the lights, requirements, and 
 influences of the times and conditions of life of the Parsis. 
 
 I may conclude by remarking that, though the Parsis are a 
 
THE PARSI RELIGION. 183 
 
 small number — only about 84,000 in all India, in the midst of 
 a population of 254,000,000 — I think one important reason why 
 they occupy so large a space in the mind of the world is that 
 influence of their religion which imposed upon them love of 
 God, love of truth, of charity in all its senses, and an earnest 
 striving after doing some good as the mission of life, and which 
 embraced their morality of life in pure thought, word and deed. 
 May they always continue to follow in these paths ! 
 
184 RELIGIQUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 SIKHISM. 
 BY FREDERIC PINCOTT, M.R.A.8. 
 
 The task we have before us to-day is to examine the religion of 
 the Sikhs ; and it is an inquiry which will well repay the trouble, 
 for many useful lessons may be deduced from it. It will teach 
 us that some ideas apparently simple are in reality the result 
 of ages of painful thought and investigation ; it will teach us 
 that individual reformers are only conspicuous links in a chain 
 of progress which has gradually brought man to the level at 
 which we find him; and, again, it will also teach us that the 
 best intentions of the most earnest reformers may be rendered 
 nugatory and even totally reversed by the enthusiasm and 
 mistaken zeal of disciples and successors. 
 
 In order to understand Sikhism it is necessary to have some 
 knowledge of the religious ideas current in India before Sikhism 
 appeared on the scene. This will enable us to see that it was 
 not a violent reform due to the stupendous abilities of one man, 
 but that it was rather the natural outcome of previous ages of 
 thought. 
 
 The earliest religious ideas of India which have descended to 
 our time are those of pure Nature-worship — adoration of the sun, 
 moon, wind, rain, clouds, dawn, etc., etc. In the course of 
 centuries these primitive notions were worked up into a com- 
 plicated system of religious belief, expressed in an elaborate 
 ceremonial, with all the extravagance of Oriental pomp and 
 wealth. It is needless to say that along with the upgrowth of 
 such a ceremonial the heavens were peopled with a crowd of 
 imaginary deities, whose favour had to be conciliated by constant 
 offerings to the priests. At length the ceremonial and its 
 associated ideas became too complicated and contradictory for 
 even the priests themselves ; and they felt the necessity for 
 explaining, reconciling, and systematizing the chaotic mass of 
 notions which had sprung up in wild luxuriance. 
 
 A period of philosophical speculation then began which is of 
 the most interesting character ; for, as many of the early books 
 
SIKHISM. 185 
 
 thea composed have been preserved, we are able to trace the first 
 operations of the hnman mind in evolving spiritual ideas from 
 natural facts. To-day we can only concern ourselves with the 
 ultimate result of these speculations ; and this was that the entire 
 universe and all its varied phenomena were held to be manifesta- 
 tions of one, eternal, nnimpassioned Self or Existence. The whole 
 universe, therefore, contained only the eternal, all-pervading Self 
 as the sole reality ; hence it followed that there could be no 
 second. All ideas of duality were rank heresy, arising from 
 delusion ; and the highest knowledge was held to be the recogni- 
 tion of the absolute oneness of God and Nature. This was 
 considered the end or object of all the sacred works, or Vedas, 
 and therefore this system of philosophy ultimately came to be 
 called Veddnta; that is, "the end of the Vedas." As soon as the 
 individual soul recognized the Unity, it was supposed to lose all 
 desire for the fickle delusions of sense ; the bond which attached 
 it to existence was thereby severed, and its round of transmigra- 
 tions was brought to an end. By the attainment of true know- 
 ledge, therefore, the soul was set free or released from the bondage 
 of existence, and thus obtained deliverance. 
 
 The system of philosophy of which we are now speaking was 
 evolved at a very early date, probably long before the invention 
 of the name by which it is now known. It is found in the ancient 
 creed of Persia, and it penetrated into Greece in times beyond 
 historical record. Socrates, Plato, and Pythagoras were essen- 
 tially Vedantists, even believing in the transmigration of souls. 
 The Neo-Platonists were certainly tinged by the same doctrines ; 
 and St Paul also shows himself thoroughly Vedfi,ntic by his 
 expression, "In Him we live, and move, and have our being" 
 (Acts xvii. 28). 
 
 The evolution of this system of philosophy brought with it a 
 great reform in India. The demonstration of the unity of God 
 swept away the necessity for the crowd of subordinate deities ; 
 and as the highest knowledge and final deliverance were to be 
 attained only by the recognition of this unity, it followed that 
 the ceremonial observances of the Brahmans were purposeless 
 labours. This was perceived by Buddha, and he therefore boldly 
 proclaimed all men equal, since all were equally illusory ; and he 
 taught that a life of virtue and benevolence and a heart freed 
 from all desire would secure deliverance from the miseries of 
 transmigration. This simple creed of Buddha spread with 
 rapidity, and remained the dominant creed in India for about a 
 thousand years, until, in its turn, becoming mystical and corrupt, 
 it passed into a degraded form of the old Brahmanical faith which 
 it had formerly superseded. This revival of Brahmanism, or, as 
 
186 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 it is now called, Hindtiism, took place in the ninth century of our 
 era, tinder the leadership of the famous reformer S'ankar&ch&rya. 
 
 We are now approaching the main subject of our lecture. The 
 Panj&b being the earliest home of the Hindfts in India, was 
 necessarily the seat of the most developed forms of Hindil religions 
 thought ; and the Panjab being, furthermore, the connecting link 
 between Persia on the one hand and Central Asia on the other, 
 was unavoidably affected by the ideas of those who passed to and 
 fro for commercial, political, and warlike objects. We know that 
 the religion of the Vedas took its rise in the Panjab, and that in 
 the Panjab Buddhism afterwards held undisputed sway. The 
 deep impression which Buddhism made on the people of the 
 Panjab is attested by the direct evidence of ancient writers, and 
 by the enormous number of Buddhistic remains continually being- 
 dug up there. 
 
 When the revival of Hindiiisra took place in Central India in 
 the ninth century, Buddhism was still a power in the Panjab,. 
 although it had become corrupt, and was ready for a change. 
 The change came, however, from the reverse side, for in the year 
 1001 Malimfid of Ghazni broke into the Panjfi,b through 
 Afghanistan, and, after ravaging the country for twenty or thirty 
 years, ultimately established a governor in Lahore, the capital of 
 the country ; and from that day forward the Panjab was cut off 
 from the rest of India, and became a Muhammadan state. 
 
 It happened, however, that the Muhammadans who conquered 
 the Panjab were of Persian origin ; and they brought with them 
 the form of Muhammadanism which was largely mixed with the 
 notions of the Slifis, which were practically the same as those 
 of the Yedantists, or ancient Indian philosophers. It must not 
 be supposed that this called forth any sympathy between the 
 conquerors and the conquered. The Muhammadans were far too 
 bigoted to listen to, much less to examine, the religious ideas of 
 their Indian subjects. The only result of the presence of the 
 Muhammadans in the Panjab was to partly Muhammadanize the 
 district, and to partly cut it off from the religious movements of 
 the rest of India. 
 
 The religious mind of India began to be exceedingly busy at 
 this time. S'ankar&charya, as I have already stated, overturned 
 Buddhism in the ninth century by preaching belief in a personal 
 god, whom he named S'iva, or Happiness j and he armed him 
 with a trident, the emblem of Buddhism, as though to indicate 
 that by the very law of Buddha he would overturn Buddhism. His 
 was a church militant ; but in the eleventh century B&manuja 
 arose, who preached a milder creed, taking Vishnu as his deity,. 
 Vishnu meaning " the pervader," the one who fills all space. 
 
SIKHISM. 187 
 
 The religion of Eamannja was little else than a re-organization 
 of Buddhism on a Hindtl basis. 
 
 While these sectarial straggles were going on, the Muhamma^ 
 dans were consolidating their power in the Panjab, and were 
 pushing their conquests still further into India. Many desperate 
 fights ensued ; and the patriotic feelings of the country being 
 called forth, a species of hero-worship sprang up, which was 
 brought to a focus by Earafi,nand about the year 1350, who 
 
 {)reached the godship of heroism under the name of an ancient 
 eader : Bama. Krishna, a warlike king of Mathnrft, also received 
 divine honours about the same time ; and to the present hour 
 B&ma and Krishna are the two great deific names which cheer 
 the lives and console the dying moments of orthodox Hindis. 
 
 Notwithstanding the Muhammadan domination, these waves 
 of Hindti thought found their way into the Panjiib, and helped to 
 adulterate and confuse the lingering Buddhism, the reviving 
 Hindmism, and the advancing Muhammadanism. The proof that 
 the Panjab participated in the mental struggle is found in the 
 appearance of Gorakhnith and his sect in the thirteenth century. 
 That still famous teacher and learned enthusiast was a Yogi, the 
 sect of Hindds most in harmony with Buddhistic feeling ; and 
 his object seems to have been to reconcile decaying Buddhism 
 with reviving Hinduism. 
 
 A few more years, however, were sufficient to prove that the 
 fierce hatred of idolatry everywhere shown by the Muhammadans 
 was beginning to tell on the Indian mind. In the year 1450 the 
 large-hearted Kablr flourished. He was a worshipper of Eama, 
 the hero-god ; but he taught a spiritual form of adoration, which 
 should engage the heart and mind and faculties, and not the 
 mere body and purse. He attacked the worship of idols with all 
 the energy of a Muhammadan, but he also assailed the authority 
 of the Quran and the Hindft sacred works alike. He scorned 
 the exclusive use of a learned language for the conveyance of 
 religious truth, and composed his own works in the dialect of 
 his humble fellow-countrymen. It will be seen from this that 
 Kablr was a reformer of the most pronounced type. He broke 
 with the present and the past, rejecting all formality and dog- 
 matism, teaching the penitent and contrite heart to look up to 
 Grod direct and to rest upon His all-sufficing goodness and mercy. 
 But the most remarkable feature in Kablr's teaching was the fact 
 that he did not confine his influence to his Hindii co-religionists ; 
 he addressed Muhammadans also, and was anxious to form a 
 God-loving community on a basis common to both Hindu and 
 Muhammadan. 
 
 Almost contemporaneous with Kablr there arose in the Panj4b 
 
188 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 the great and good man with whose teaching we are to-day 
 immediately concerned. In 1469 the revered Nanak was born, 
 near the town of Lahore ; and he came into the world inheriting 
 the traditions which I have endeavoured to sketch, while the 
 struggle between HindU and Muhammadan thought and power 
 was raging. The previous unsettlement in the minds of men 
 had prepared the way for a devout and enthusiastic teacher to 
 build up a new and living faith. Mnak was just the man for 
 such a task ; for he was thorough and consistent, prudent and yet 
 enthusiastic, inoffensive yet urgent, and as gentle in manner as 
 he was strong in faith. Nanak was one of the great reformers of 
 the world ; for he clearly perceived the errors of his predecessors, 
 and had the boldness to proclaim the truth even against the 
 opposition of the prejudiced and the interested, whether exalted 
 or humble. 
 
 Nanak's principles may be reduced to a single formula — the 
 unity of God and the brotherhood of man. For Nfi.nak there was 
 no such thing as a god for the Hindus, a god for the Muhamma- 
 dans, and a god or gods for the outer heathen ; for him there 
 was but one God ; not in the likeness of man, like E&ma ; not a 
 -creature of attributes and passions, like the Allah of Muhammad ; 
 but one, sole, indivisible, self-existent, incomprehensible, time- 
 less, all-pervading, — to be named, but otherwise indescribable, 
 -adorable and altogether lovely. Such was Ninak's idea of the 
 Creator and Sustainer of the phenomenal world ; and it was a 
 ■conception which at once abrogated all petty distinctions of creed, 
 and sect, and dogma, and ceremony. The realization of such a 
 God shatters the sophistries of the theologian and the quibblings 
 of the dialectician ; it clears the brow from the gloom of abstruse 
 pondering over trifles, and leaves the heart free for the exercise 
 of human sympathies. And if the grand idea of the Incompre- 
 hensible Unity, which could be only named and adored, levelled 
 all distinctions of creed and caste, so did the great truth of the 
 brotherhood of man sweep away the barriers of nation, tribe, and 
 station. Nanak taught that all men are equal before God ; that 
 there is no high, no low, no dark, no fair, no privileged, no out- 
 caste ; all are equal both in race and in creed, in political rights 
 and in religious aspirations. 
 
 These two ideas — the unity of God and the brotherhood of 
 man — while uniting all classes on a common basis, at the same 
 time separated those who accepted them from the rest of their 
 ■countrymen as an association of God-fearing republicans ; for 
 what Nanak claimed was Liberty from prescribed trammels, 
 Equality before God, and the Fraternity of mankind. The prac- 
 tical application of the doctrines thus taught led to the formation 
 
SIKHISM. 189' 
 
 of a new uationality, the disciples of the great teacher becoming 
 a republican fraternity, which gradually consolidated into a sepa- 
 rate nation by the necessity for struggling for the liberty they 
 claimed. 
 
 Having thus touched on the distinguishing feature of Nanak's 
 creed, but little need be said of minor details. As might be 
 expected from the historical sketch I have just given, the sub- 
 ordinate features of Nanak's faith were a mixture of Muhammadan, 
 Buddhistic, and Hindti ideas. Like the Muhammadans, NAnak 
 taught that the great Name of God was an efficacious instrument 
 of saving grace ; like the Buddhists, he held that the attainment 
 of Nirvana, or eternal, passionless repose, was the highest and 
 final reward of virtue j like the Sftfis, he believed that each soul 
 was an immortal ray of light from the Supreme ; and like the 
 Hindfts, he thought that the quintessence of all doctrine rested 
 in a realization of the formula " So ham" ("i am that"). This 
 last expression, it will be seen, is the pure Vedfi,ntic doctrine that 
 God is Nature, and that the individual soul is only a portion of 
 the Universal Soul, in accidental union with cosmical phenomena. 
 As soon as the individual soul realizes the idea that it and that 
 are one — in other words, that it is only a minute atom of that 
 eternal, all-pervading Self — then, by that very recognition, indi- 
 viduality is at once destroyed, and with it all the desires and 
 passions which chain the soul to worldly life. 
 
 Such was the philosophical basis of Sikhism ; and we will now 
 give our attention to the history of the creed, and to the changes 
 which time wrought on this earliest form of the faith. Nanak 
 was born, as I have before said, near Lahore, in the Panjab, in 
 the year 1469 ; and although he was the son of a Hindu village 
 accountant, his first teacher was a Muhammadan. This fact 
 enables us to see how intimately the believers in the two creeds 
 were associated together at the time. He seems to have been a 
 thoughtful boy, with a large share of veneration in his character ; 
 for in his earliest years he sought the society of the religious 
 enthusiasts known as faqirs, who literally infested the Panjab. 
 These wild and semi-naked mendicants and dreamers filled the 
 lad's mind with an insatiable yearning for spiritual perfectibility. 
 From association with those who had renounced all the comforts 
 of life for the love of God, he learnt to despise wealth, except as 
 a means to relieve the wants of others. Accordingly it soon 
 became his practice to give in alms to the poor all the material 
 wealth which came into his possession. However laudable this 
 practice may have been, it soon degenerated into an infatuation -,. 
 and no property was safe if entrusted to young N5,nak. As a 
 climax to many similar acts, when only fifteen years of age- 
 
190 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 Nanak distributed among the poor the money which his father 
 had given him to start with in business. His father then sent 
 him to his sister, who was residing in the town of Sultfi.npur, in 
 order to wean him from his faqlr associates. 
 
 Nanak at once took service in a Muhammadan gentleman's 
 house; but he gave to the poor the whole of his salary, except a 
 bare maintenance for himself. About this time he was induced 
 to marry ; and he had two sons, descendants from whom still 
 «xist. He was evidently faithful in his service, for he rose to the 
 responsible position of steward of the estate, making all payments 
 and managing the property according to his own will. 
 
 At the age of thirty-five the great change took place in his 
 mind which gave to the world a new religion. It is stated, in 
 the traditionary account of his life, that while engaged in his 
 religious ablutions in the river he felt himself suddenly translated 
 to the gates of Paradise ; and that a goblet of the water of life 
 was given to him, of which he drank ; and that he heard the voice 
 of the Lord commanding him, and saying : " NS,nak 1 I am with 
 thee: I have made thee happy: and whoever shall take thy 
 name, they all shall be rendered happy by Me. Go thou, repeat 
 My Name, and cause other people to repeat it. Remain uncon- 
 taminated from the world. Continue steadfast in the Name, 
 in almsgiving, in ablutions, in service, and in remembrance of 
 Me. I have given to thee My own Name ; do thou this work." 
 
 Immediately Nanak had recovered from his trance, he uttered 
 the keynote of his future system in the remarkable phrase, 
 " There is no Hindti ; there is no Musalman." The utterance of 
 such a paradox soon raised a commotion against him ; and his 
 employer, who appears to have been chief man in the village, 
 was urged to interrogate him as to his revolutionary notion. 
 When brought before the concourse, he put his questioners to 
 shame by the unanswerable logic of his replies and the earnest 
 devotion of his manner. Then the people, both Hindft and 
 Musalm&n, began to say that God was speaking in N&nak ; and 
 ihe was forthwith accepted as a religious teacher. This assumption 
 of an instructor's office caused him to be called Guru Nanak ; 
 that is, N&nak the Teacher or instructor. 
 
 Nanak found in his late employer an ardent admirer ; but 
 neither friendship nor family ties could restrain his missionary 
 impulse. He seems at first to have addressed himself exclusively 
 to Muhammadans, and to have effected several conversions j but, 
 after a time, he reached Benares, and proceeded to convert 
 Bjudiis in the Very stronghold of Brahmanism. 
 
 In his travels he was accompanied by a devoted companion 
 named Mardtoa, who had some skill in playing on the rahdh, 
 
SIKHISM. 191 
 
 a kind of violin. The companionship of this musician enabled 
 N^nak to express most of his ideas in a metrical form ; and he 
 composed a large number of poems in various metres, amounting 
 in the whole to nearly three thousand stanzas. They consist of 
 laudations of God under many Hind6 and Muhammadan names, 
 praises of His goodness and mercy, and incitements to purity 
 of life and devotion. These poems, afterwards collected and 
 largely added to, form the famous book called the Adi Granth, 
 which is the Bible of the Sikhs. 
 
 While on one of his missionary tours Guru Nanak was cap- 
 tured by the victorious troops of B&bar, who broke into the 
 Panj&b in 1526, and ultimately seated himself on the throne 
 of India. The Emperor B&bar seems to have been much 
 attracted by the independent spirit and piety of Nanak, and 
 after a short time gave him his liberty. Immediately after his 
 release he recommenced his labours among Muhammadans, and 
 was certainly successful in his operations. Several special con- 
 versions were made, chiefly among members of that faith ; and 
 it is related that he travelled to Kashmir, and even made a 
 pilgrimage to 'Makkah, like an orthodox Musalman. The latter 
 statement must have been an exaggeration, and merely shows 
 how far his followers thought him capable of going in his 
 leaning towards Muhammadanism. 
 
 After thirty-four years of wandering and preaching. Guru 
 Nfi.nak came to the river R4vl to die — in conformity with Hindu 
 custom — by the side of a natural stream of water. He seated 
 himself at the foot of a tree, and his cluster of Hindii and 
 Muhammadan followers stood around to receive his final com- 
 mands. Then the question of burial occurred to the disciples, 
 and they communed among themselves as to whether the final 
 rites should be according to the Hindti or the Muhammadan 
 practice. This is the most remarkable proof that Guru Nanak's 
 life was so free from bias that his most intimate associates could 
 not agree as to which faith might more properly claim him. 
 " We wUl bury him," said the Mnsalmftns ; " we will burn him," 
 said the Hindis. But the tradition relates that, as soon as life 
 was extinct, the body vanished ; the obvious intention of the 
 story being that it was the desire of N&nak to leave the question 
 unsettled. 
 
 The founder of Sikhism died in the year 1538 ; and he left 
 behind him the reputation of being an amiable, modest, prudent, 
 and earnest man. He was thoroughly illiterate, for he could 
 neither read nor write ; but his warm imagination enabled him 
 to compose many spirit-stirring verses in his vernacular Panja.bi, 
 which are still read with fervour, and will long continue to be 
 
192 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 read with devotion and reverence. His theology, as I have 
 before said, consisted of boundless adoration of the great Name 
 of God, and a recognition of the unity of God and the nonentity 
 of all but God. As regards humanity, he held that all men were 
 equal ; he impressed upon all the duty of charity, forbearance, 
 and active beneficence ; and he even extended his sympathies 
 to the lower creation, recommending abstinence from animal 
 food and the avoidance of any infliction of suffering on animal 
 creatures. 
 
 The first three successors of Guru NS,nak were humble and 
 pious men, the third of whom accepted voluntary contributions 
 from the disciples. These were converted into a compulsory tax 
 by the Fifth Guru, Arjun, who was an ambitious man. This 
 change brought with it wealth and power, and excited the alarm 
 of the Muhammadan rulers of the country, who could not view 
 without concern the upgrowth of what seemed to them a Hindtl 
 sovereignty in the very heart of the district they had subdued. 
 Guru Arjun had attained some scholarship, and employed much 
 of his time in collecting the poems of his predecessors. These 
 he arranged in the form of a book, classifying them according 
 to the tunes to which they were sung, and almost doubling their 
 bulk by compositions of his own. The book as he left it is 
 that which I have before spoken of as the Adi Granth. 
 
 The government of the next four Gurus was chiefly charac- 
 terized by conflicts with the Muhammadan s ; and at length the 
 Tenth and last Guru arose, who completely changed the con- 
 stitution of the fraternity. This was Guru Govind Singh, who 
 was born and educated as a thorough Hindtl, being a devotee 
 of the goddess DurgS. He does not seem to have troubled 
 himself with points of doctrine ; his chief care was to re-organize 
 the society on a fighting basis, to enable it better to contend 
 with its Muhammadan antagonists. For this purpose he con- 
 verted the whole body into an army, which he named the 
 Khdlsd, that is, " the pure ; " and conferred upon each member 
 of the body his own name Singh, or "lion." To the present hour 
 the name of every member of the Khaisfi,, or army of the faithful, 
 ends in Singh. Guru Govind Singh also finally abolished caste 
 distinctions among his followers, and admitted members of all 
 castes to his army. In consequence of his mihtary instincts, 
 he was able to fight with determination against the Muham- 
 madans, and also to win their respect for his bravery and success, 
 insomuch that it is reported that Bahadur Shah received him 
 courteously and employed him in important offices. 
 
 Another thing which Guru Govind Singh did for Sikhism 
 was to give it a second sacred work. This book was called the 
 
SIKHISM. 193 
 
 Daswen Pddshdhi, or "The Tenth Royalty," because it gave an 
 account of the life and opinions of the Tenth Gum. This work 
 is now held in equal reverence with the Adi Granth, although it 
 is utterly undeserving of such a rank. For us it serves the useful 
 purpose of showing the change which had passed over Sikhism 
 in the interval between the First and Tenth Gums. lu the Adi 
 Granth we find poems by Hindlis, by Muhammadans, and by 
 the earlier Sikh Gurus, all mingled together with perfect in- 
 difference, but all of them expressing adoration of the Great 
 Incomprehensible Soul of the Universe. In the Daswen P&d- 
 shdh'i, on the contrary, we have nothing but Hindti material, con- 
 taining miraculous and mythological performances of Hindft gods 
 and goddesses, extracts from ancient Hindii books, wonderful 
 stories for the edification of women, laudatory poems on the 
 excellencies of weapons, and a history of Guru Govind Singh 
 and his contests. It is perfectly clear, from a comparison of 
 these two sacred books, that, in the interval between the First 
 and the Tenth Gums, Sikhism had passed from a position of 
 neutrality to one of partiality for Hinduism and of antagonism 
 to Muhammadanism. 
 
 The Adi Granth and Daswen FddshdM have, since the days of 
 the last Guru, been treated with superstitious reverence by the 
 Sikhs. At all of their gatherings these volumes are placed 
 before them, and sainted with the royal greeting, " Wa Guru Jt 
 k& Khaisft ! wfi, Guru Jl kl Fateh ! " just as though the Guru 
 himself were present. A Sikh assembly is an impressive cere- 
 mony from its very simplicity. Mier the volumes have been 
 placed and saluted, a large quantity of kdrd pras'dd (made of 
 flour, sugar, and clarified butter) is placed before them, covered 
 by a cloth. The repast is then saluted, and prayers are offered ; 
 the assembly then sits down, the cloth is removed, and Sikhs of 
 aU classes eat it together without distinction of rank. Enormous 
 quantities of this really delicious kdrd pras'dd are eaten, and 
 not only by the Sikhs, but by the poor outside and by any one in 
 the vicinity. The injunction of N&nak was to eat and to give 
 others to eat ; therefore the Sikhs consider it a favour if any one, 
 no matter what his religion may be, will sit down and eat the 
 kdrd pras'dd which they so bountifully supply. All distinctions 
 of tribe or station are laid aside by the Sikhs on these occasions, 
 in token of complete union in one cause. The leaders in the 
 ceremony then exclaim, " Chieftains ! this is a Gurumata ! " 
 Prayers are then again said, and the chiefs sit closer together and 
 say, " The sacred book is between us ; let us swear by the holy 
 volume to forget all external disputes, and to be united." This 
 solemn bond of union seems to be the chief object of the meeting; 
 
 13 
 
194 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 and it must have originated in the necessity for self-preservation 
 resulting from the persistent efforts of the Muhammadans to 
 root out the sect. 
 
 G-nru Govind Singh's hatred of the Muhammadans was com- 
 plete, notwithstanding the enterprises in which he deemed it 
 prudent to engage along with them. He instituted a fine of a 
 hundred and twenty-five rupees for saluting a Muhammadan 
 tomb, however saintly ; and from him arose the maxim that 
 " a true Sikh should always be engaged in war with the Muham- 
 madans, and slay them, fighting them face to face." 
 
 After a very turbulent reign, this Guru was treacherously 
 murdered by the dagger of a Path&n follower, to whom he had 
 shown special kindness. When dying, he refused to name a 
 successor, informing his followers that after his death the Adi 
 Gravih, or sacred book itself, was to be their guide in every 
 respect ; and since then the book has always been placed at the 
 head of every Sikh gathering, and is saluted with profound 
 reverence ; indeed, the book is never spoken of except as Sri. 
 Adi Granth. Sdhib, which may be rendered as "The revered Adi 
 Granth, Esquire," as though it were a human being. 
 
 The more recait history of the Sikhs, since the death of Guru 
 Govind Singh in 1708, has been very turbulent. The command 
 of the Khals&j or army of the faithful, devolved upon Banda, 
 who fought successfully on many occasions against the Muham- 
 madan emperors of India. At length he was completely routed, 
 and every Sikh who could be caught was killed. After this 
 defeat Sikhism disappeared from sight for about a generation; 
 but in 1738 the Sikhs ventured again to visit their tank at 
 Amritsar, and established a small fort on the banks of the EAvl. 
 They were again dispersed in 1745 ; but they regained possession 
 of Lahore in 1756. A brutal slaughter of the Sikhs in 1762 by 
 Ahmad Sh&h and his Afghans, instead of finally crushing the 
 Sikhs, had the effect of knitting the remainder together inta 
 a compact body. Ahmad Shah's forces were then defeated, 
 and the whole country between the rivers Jhelum and Sutlej 
 passed into the possession of the Sikhs. The fortune of the 
 Sikhs seemed now in the ascendant, and in 1785 the whole 
 Sikh community was united by the marriage of Ranjit Singh 
 with the daughter of Sudh Kunwar. In 1799 the Afghans 
 finally left the district to the undisputed possession of Ranjit 
 Singh, who administered affairs with prudence and energy until 
 just before the English occupation in 1845. 
 
 The Sikhs regard the mission of N&nak and Govind Singh as 
 the consummation of former dispensations, including that of 
 Muhammad. 
 
SIKHISM. 195 
 
 The ceremony of initiation into the fraternity instituted by 
 Guru Govind Singh, and which is still observed, is called the 
 Pdhul ; and the first celebration has been thus described : 
 The Guru caused his five most faithful followers to sit side by 
 side ; and having placed some purified sugar in water, he stirred 
 it with a sword ; and after reciting some verses in praise of God, 
 he caused the disciples to drink some of the liquid : some he 
 placed on their heads, and the remainder he sprinkled over their 
 bodies. Then patting them with his hand, he exclaimed, in a 
 loud voice, " Say, ' Ye are the pure of God ; and the victory is 
 of the supreme God ! ' " This completed the ceremony, and the 
 exclamation became ever after the watchword of Sikhism and 
 the salutation among the Sikh brotherhood. Just as Muham- 
 madans salute each other with " Salam alaikum ! " so do the 
 Sikhs oh all occasions exclaim, " Wfi. Guru Jl ka Khalsfl, ! wa 
 Guru Ji ki Fateh 1 " 
 
 Guru Govind Singh ordained that every Sikh should always 
 retain about him five things each beginning with the letter k ; 
 that is, kes, "hair," kanghd, "a comb," karad, "a dagger," 
 AzVjocim, " a sword," and ^cM, "short drawers." The meaning 
 of these things is this : — A Sikh is to be distinctly different from 
 both Hindti and Muhammadan, both of whom shave the head. 
 A Sikh is never to shave, or even to cut either hair or beard, 
 as long as he lives ; and, on account of the kes, or hair, the 
 kanghd, or comb, is necessary. The sword and dagger are for 
 fighting even " to the knife ; " and the short drawers are to 
 give the body freedom in fighting, by keeping it clear from the 
 entanglement of long garments. Whoever omits to carry about 
 him any one of these five objects cannot be a true Sikh. 
 
 Sikhs are strictly enjoined to reject both the Hindii and the 
 Muhammadan sacred books, to reject the authority of the 
 scholars and expounders of those faiths, to abstain from visiting 
 their sacred places or joining in their ceremonies, and never to 
 wear any of their distinguishing marks. A Sikh is never to 
 salute one who is not a Sikh ; and if he salute a MusalmS,n 
 or shave his head like a Hindtl, he is worthy of hell. A Sikh 
 must never smoke tobacco or drink spirituous liquors ; he may, 
 however, intoxicate himself with bhang as often as he likes. He 
 must never turn his face away from the Guru. All the cere- 
 monies of his life, such as birth, marriage, and death, must be 
 performed with passages from the Adi Granth and the Daswen 
 Pddshdhi, and from no other book. He must be strictly truthful, 
 kind to the poor, and abstain from false dealing, slandering, and 
 fornication. He is never to uncover his head, or to covet the 
 wife or wealth of another man ; and when he dies, it is not good 
 
196 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 to cast his ashes into the Ganges, as is the custom of the 
 Hindus, but to throw them anywhere in the neighbourhood of 
 Amritsar. 
 
 These were the principles of Sikhism at the time of the last 
 of the ten Gums. Since then the disciples of N&nak have 
 approached nearer to Hindtiism, and have repeatedly made 
 pilgrimages to HaridwS,r, and have done other things which 
 would have shocked their ancestors of two hundred years ago. 
 At the present day, although still preserving their dress and 
 separate organization, they are considered almost identifiable 
 in ideas with the Hindii community. 
 
 Such, then, is the philosophy and such is the history of 
 Sikhism. It began in simplicity and large-hearted tolerance, 
 on the one noble principle the unity of God and the brother- 
 hood of man ; it passed into sectarianism and a political organi- 
 zation based on hatred of Muhammadans ; and has ended by 
 sliding almost insensibly back to the superstition and mythology 
 of the Hindtiism it was intended to reform. 
 
 During recent years a desire to revive the fading glories of 
 Sikhism has begun to manifest itself in the PanjS,b ; and the 
 Khalsfi, is now laying the foundation of an organized system 
 of instruction with the object of giving the members of their 
 fraternity a scholarly knowledge of their sacred books, and also 
 enlarging their minds generally. In these praiseworthy efforts 
 the Sikhs will receive the cordial co-operation of every right- 
 thinking Englishman ; for it is much to be hoped that this 
 manly form of faith will regain the simplicity and vitality 
 with which it was endowed by its noble-hearted Founder. 
 
JEWISH ETHICS. 
 
 SY TRE REV. MORRIS JOSEPH. 
 
 The final aim of religion is morality. This is the central 
 truth of Judaism. In this respect Jewish doctrine differs from 
 Hinduism, which makes ritual purity and spiritual ecstasy the 
 summum bonum, from the religion of Islam, whose first and 
 last word is " Allah is God, and Mohammed is His Prophet," 
 from Christianity, which sets faith above works, and declares 
 Taelief to be the condition precedent to salvation. In every stage 
 of its development Judaism has taught that faith and ritual are 
 but the paths to righteousness, and that far higher than obedience 
 to the ceremonial law, higher even than the possession of 
 theological truth, is purity of heart and holiness of life. 
 
 The keynote of this exalted teaching is struck by the 
 Pentateuch itself. " Ye shall be holy," the Israelite is admo- 
 nished in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus ; " for I, the Lord 
 your God, am holy."^ And the typical precept which is used 
 to illustrate this general formula is a purely ethical one : " Ye 
 shall fear every man his mother, and his father." ' Certainly, this 
 specific maxim is immediately followed in its turn by a law 
 relating to sacrifice ; but of the many precepts contained in this 
 one chapter, so large a majority deal with morals, that it is impos- 
 sible to doubt that it is conduct, and not ritual, upon which the 
 Lawgiver would lay the chief stress.' Similarly, the eighteenth 
 chapter of Leviticus contains the injunction : " Ye shall therefore 
 keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man do he shall 
 live by them ; I am the Lord." * And, as the succeeding passage 
 indicates, these statutes, by doing which man is to live, are 
 those which aim at the suppression of sensuality and vice. 
 
 Elsewhere the Pentateuch plainly indicates the value of the 
 sacrificial rite. It is the means, not the end — useful as an 
 expression of inward emotion, useless if it be disjoined from 
 rectitude of life. Before the sin-offering can be brought the 
 sinner must confess his transgression — nay, more, if he has stolen 
 
 ' Lev. xii. 2. ' See Midrash Eabbah on the Passage. 
 
 2 Ibid. 3. * Lev. XTiii. 5 
 
198 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 he must make restitution.^ It is only when he has done this 
 that his sacriiice is accepted and he may count on being forgiven. 
 And the theme is taken up by prophet and psalmist. "The 
 sacrifices of God are a contrite spirit." ^ If sinners would be 
 at one with their Father in Heaven they must rend their hearts 
 and not their garments ; ' if they would have their prayers 
 answered they must " cease to do evil," they must " seek justice, 
 relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow ; " * 
 if their fasting is to be eSective they must loose the bonds of 
 wickedness and let the oppressed go free." No wonder, then, 
 that in their sublime pictures of the Golden Age, the prophets 
 of Israel find no place for ceremonial reUgion. The gracious 
 figures of Peace and Righteousness and Brotherly Love monopo- 
 lize the canvas. In the last days God is to judge between many 
 peoples and reprove strong nations afar off; "and they shall 
 beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning- 
 hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither 
 shall they learn war any more." ^ And in yet another passage 
 describing the universal peace which is to sway men's hearts 
 in the good time that is coming, it is figuratively declared that 
 " the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie 
 down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the 
 fatling together ; and a little child shall lead them. They shall 
 not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain ; for the earth shall 
 be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." ' 
 It is true that one element in this glorious dream is 
 that the knowledge of God will overflow the whole earth with 
 its life-giving waters ; but the manifestations and results of that 
 knowledge are to consist in the perfect peace, the confident 
 trust in each other's goodness, which is to reign among men. 
 According to the prophet Jeremiah, indeed, the knowledge of 
 the Lord is But another name for acts of righteousness and love. 
 "Did not thy father," he reminds the wicked king of Judah, 
 " do judgment and justice ? He judged the cause of the poor 
 and needy. Was not this to know Me ? saith the Lord." * Let 
 him who would boast, elsewhere exclaims the same prophet in 
 the name of God, glory not in his power or his riches, but 
 "in understanding and knowing Me, that I am the Lord that 
 exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the 
 earth ; for in these things I delight, saith the Lord." * 
 
 ' Lev. vi. 4. ° Micah iv. 3, 4 ; compare Isa ii. 4. 
 
 ' Psalm li. 17. ' Isa. xi. 6-9. 
 
 ' Joel ii. 13. ' Jer. xxii. 15, 16. 
 
 « Isa. i. 17. ' Jbid. ix. 23, 24. 
 
 ' Ibid. Iviii. 6. 
 
JEWISH ETHICS. 199 
 
 So, too, the Talmud declares in its turn that " humility 
 supersedes all the sacrifices." ^ " He who devotes himself to the 
 mere study of religion," it continues, " without engaging in works 
 of mercy and love, is like one who has no God." * Religious 
 contemplation, it teaches further, is only commendable when 
 it goes hand in hand with active morality. " Only the union 
 of the two can make sin forgotten." ' " The aim of wisdom," 
 it says again, " is amendment and good deeds." * Bachya, a 
 famous Jewish teacher of the eleventh century, in his " Duties 
 of the Heart," * compares the Scriptures to a ball of silk composed 
 of threads of three different qualities. The historical passages 
 are lowest iu the scale of value ; next comes the ceremonial 
 law ; last and highest of all are the spiritual and moral truths. 
 Even Maimonides,* though, under the influence of Aristotle, he 
 makes the philosophic life the highest good, yet joins vrith it, 
 as part of the ideal, that knowledge of God which is, in effect, 
 but a synonym for all the virtues.' 
 
 Nor is it only obedience to the ceremonial law or the 
 attainment of spiritual calm which, according to Judaism, is 
 surpassed by moral excellence. The right conduct of everyday 
 life transcends in importance even right belief. Theology must 
 yield the first place to morals. More than once the Biblical 
 writers epitomize the whole duty of man, and the summary in 
 every case is either mainly or exclusively ethical Need I remind 
 you of Psalm xv., where the ideal man — he who is worthy to 
 dwell in God's holy hill — is described as he that walketh up- 
 rightly, that speaketh the truth in his heart, that slandereth 
 not virith his tongue, that despiseth the vile, that sweareth to 
 his own hurt and changeth not ? Or need I quote the fine 
 saying of Micah ? * — ." He hath shewed thee, man, what is 
 good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, 
 and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " HiUel, 
 the great Talmudic sage, who preceded Jesus by some seventy 
 years, also gives a summary of the Israelite's duty. To the 
 heathen who asks to be taught Judaism while he stands on one 
 foot, he replies, " What is displeasing to thee do not to thy 
 fellow-man ; this is the whole law, the rest is but commentary." * 
 " Thou shzilt love thy neighbour as thyself " — this, another 
 Sabbin — ^Akiba — in a similar spirit, declares to be the very 
 
 > Sotah 5b. ' For a masterly analysis of Maimon- 
 
 ' Abodah Zarah 16b. ides' ethical system see " Die Ethik 
 
 • Aboth ji. 2. des Maimonides," by Dr. David Kosin 
 
 • Berachot 17a. (Brealau : 1876). 
 » At the end of the Introduction. ° Micah vi. 8. 
 
 • 12th century. : ' Sabbath 31a. 
 
200 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD, 
 
 quintessence of Jewish teaching.^ Yet a third sage finds the 
 vital principle of Judaism in the words, " This is the book of 
 the generations of Adam"- — a passage which, aflftrming the 
 common brotherhood of all mankind, teaches that the moral 
 law should be as wide as humanity.^ And finally, as though 
 to express in the most striking manner the extent to which 
 rectitude of life towers above mere belief, the Talmud affirms 
 that the heathen who observes the moral law is the equal of 
 the high priest,"* and that every good man, no matter what 
 his creed may be, is sure of Heaven.* The old, much misunder- 
 stood Kabbins, then, were clearly at one with Pope : 
 
 " For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight ; 
 His can't be wrong whose life is in the right."" 
 
 You will not conclude, of course, that Judaism is nothing but a 
 collection of moral axioms, or that the Jews are simply a society 
 for ethical culture. Judaism without a creed would obviously be 
 a contradiction in terms— an impossibility. It is superfluous to 
 insist upon this point when the Bible, which, from beginning 
 to end, is one long sermon about God, lies open before you all. 
 Every teacher in Israel has necessarily emphasized the importance 
 of belief both as an embodiment of the truth and as a powerful 
 stimulus and support to moral effort. But, while Judaism de- 
 clares that faith is the essential basis of ethics, it makes ethics 
 and not faith the ultimate goal The Psalmist ' sets the Lord con- 
 tinually before him, but only because he knows that when God is 
 at his right hand he will not be moved — his moral stability will 
 be assured. " Acknowledge Him," cries the wise man in Proverbs, 
 " in all thy ways, and He will make thy paths straight." * But 
 the straightening of the path, the life that is " in the right," is 
 the chief thing to be desired. The whole truth is pithily summed 
 up by the Talmud : " Without religion there can be no true 
 morality ; without morality there can be no true religion." ' 
 
 Let us now attempt to catch a glimpse — though, owing to the 
 vast extent of the subject it must necessarily be a very imperfect 
 glimpse — of the nature of that moral teaching which occupies 
 so large a place in the Jewish system. The very highest standard 
 of conduct is laid down — the very noblest motive is appealed to. 
 *' Ye shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy." In 
 striving after righteousness the Israelite is to set before his eyes 
 a Divine ideal. The ways of God to man are to be the type of 
 
 ' Siphiah, Kedoahim iv. 12. ' Essay on Man, iii. 305, 
 
 ' Gen. V. 1. ' Psalm xvi. 8. 
 
 ' Siphrah, Xedoshim, iv. 12. " Prov. iii. 6. 
 
 * Baba Kama 38a. " Aboth iii. 21. 
 
 * Bynhedrin 105a. Compare Maimonides : Hilc. Teshubah, iii 5. 
 
JEWISH ETHICS. ' 201 
 
 what the ways of men to each other should be. Gfod " doth 
 execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth 
 the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye, therefore, 
 the stranger." ^ Nor is this imitation of God the sole incentive 
 held out. The command to be holy for God is holy, includes also 
 a warning against a moral degradation which snaps the links that 
 bind man, who is created in the Divine image, to his Maker. 
 Through moral impurity, as well as through physical uncleanness, 
 the Divine Presence, which is in the midst of the camp, is 
 banished, and God turns away from the transgressor. No more 
 powerful expression for the disturbance of the relations between 
 man and his Creator can be found than that which declares that 
 God hides His face from the sinner.^ And just as transgression 
 estranges the guilty one from his heavenly Father, so to repent 
 is to go back to Him — to be united with Him again — to mend 
 the links that iniquity has broken. " Return, Israel, unto the 
 Lord thy God, for thou h&st fallen by thine iniquity." ' It would 
 be impossible to conceive a more forcible or more beautiful de- 
 scription of the debasement wrought by sin, or of the ennoblement 
 which penitence is to achieve. 
 
 God, then, is to be the pattern by which men are to shape 
 their lives, estrangement from Him — a falling away from the 
 high standard of purity He is ever setting them — the one great 
 consequence of wrongdoing which is to act as their chief deterrent. 
 And thus we are face to face with the motives to which Judaism 
 appeals in its exhortations to virtue. John Stuart Mill charges 
 EeUgion with pandering to men's self-interest, to the neglect 
 of those nobler aspirations which it should be its aim to arouse 
 and develop.* It is not a fair accusation. The Pentateuch 
 promises worldly recompense to the worldly-minded — to the 
 spiritually youthful, whom the picture of comparatively sordid 
 delights alone can influence. But it does not forget the nobler 
 spirits whom the admonition to love God with all their heart and 
 with all their soul and with all their might suflSces to kindle with 
 an enthusiasm for duty.** This love of God, which is at once the 
 inspiration and the exceeding great reward of the good man, 
 becomes, notably in the case of the Psalmist, an all-absorbing 
 passion. It manifests itself in the rapture with which he ponders 
 the Divine commands. " Oh how I love thy law," he cries ; " it 
 is my meditation all the day long."* The same single-hearted 
 
 ' Deut. X. 18, 19. Compare Siphre * See his Essay on the " Utility of 
 
 on Deut. xi. 22. Eeligion." 
 
 2 Ibid. xxxi. 18, xxxii. 20 ; Zsa. i. 15. = Deut. vi. 5. 
 
 ' Hosea xiv. 1. Compare Deut. iv. 30, ' Psalm cxix. 97. 
 XXX. 2. 
 
202 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 devotion is expressed again in that rejoicing in the Lord, of which 
 the Psalms are full. " Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto 
 Crod, my exceeding joy." ^ It is a joy, too, which the storms of 
 life cannot quench, which, because it is independent of worldly 
 recompense, survives the most searching trials and disasters. 
 "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit 
 be in the vines ; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields 
 stall yield no meat ; the flock shall be cut oflf from the fold, and 
 there shall be no herd in the stalls : Yet I will rejoice in the 
 Lord, I will joy in the Grod of my salvation." ^ In like manner 
 the Talmud, despite its frequent references to the bliss of Eternal 
 Life, does not omit to warn us that the highest form of duty is 
 that which is performed for its own sake, without thought of 
 recompense. " Be not like servants that serve the master for 
 wages ; let your motive be only reverence for heaven.'" The 
 good man, the Eabbins further teach, finds his supreme delight 
 in the Divine commands themselves, not in thinking of the reward 
 that obedience will bring.* 
 
 A distinguishing characteristic of Jewish ethical teaching is its 
 reasonableness and moderation. It is marked by no excess, no 
 extravagance. It demands nothing that is impossible for the 
 individual, nothing that is inconsistent with the well-being, nay, 
 the existence, of society. Something more than mere almsgiving, 
 which is too often self-pity masquerading in the garb of mercy, 
 is recommended by the Pentateuch. Careful study of the con- 
 dition and real needs of the poor — a rarer and more difficult task 
 — this is expressly enjoined. The rich, according to Deuteronomy,* 
 are to open their hand, not for the purpose of giving mere doles, 
 but of lending the poor man " sufficient for his need." And 
 notice that lending rather than giving is here recommended. 
 The self-respect of the deserving poor is not to be wounded in 
 the attempt to rob poverty of its sting. Similarly the Talmud 
 declares that loans are preferable to almsgiving,* and Maimonides, 
 in distinguishing the merits of various benevolent deeds, assigns 
 highest place to those considerate acts which aim at destroying the 
 pauperism, and restoring to the poor their lost independence.' 
 
 But, while there is no virtue more highly appraised or more 
 frequently commended than benevolence, it is the benevolence 
 that is not exercised at the expense of any other virtue. If mercy 
 ought to season justice, justice ought equally to season mercy. 
 The cry of the oppressed, we are warned, sounds loudest in God's 
 
 ' Psalm xliii. 4. ' Deut. xt. 8. 
 
 ' Hab. iii. 17, 18. » Sabbath 63a. 
 
 ' Aboth i. n. ' Hilc. Mat. Aniyim x. 7-14. 
 
 ' Abodah Zarali 19b. 
 
JEWISH ETHICS. 203 
 
 «ar ; * but the judge is cautioned not to favour the poor man out 
 of regard for his poverty.^ " Justice, justice, shalt thou pursue ; " ' 
 — and the command is the keystone of the entire fabric of the 
 social ethics taught by the Bible.* 
 
 In short, Jewish ethical teaching is singularly free from mere 
 sentimentalism." The virtues that are praised are commended, 
 not because they are intrinsically beautiful, but because they 
 either ennoble the character or add to the common stock of human 
 happiness. ^stheticism as the basis of morals is a notion 
 which the Jew left to the ancient philosophers; a maudlin, 
 hysterical morality he leaves to some more modern folks. His 
 is a healthy, a robust, a practical ethic. Meekness that takes the 
 form of useless self-abasement, the "pride that apes humility," 
 is out of the range of his sympathies. Idleness, though it has the 
 -odour of sanctity — self-imposed sufifering endured for no reason in 
 particular — he abhors. He has no benediction for misery. His 
 a,im is to banish it from every heart, not to revel in it as a luxury 
 if it has invaded his ovra. And so there is a cheerfulness running 
 through all the ethical teaching of Judaism which is as far 
 removed from the austerity of the cloister as it is from latter-day 
 pessimism. It is brought to a focus in the Talmudic saying that 
 the Spirit of God rests not on the idle or the woebegone, but on 
 those who do their duty and are glad.' 
 
 The whole Bible is one great picture of activity. It has no 
 place for monks or nuns ; its men and women seek amid the 
 struggles and trials of the world for the discipline that leads to 
 moral perfection. Think only of that exquisite description of the 
 virtuous woman at the end of Proverbs. The beauty of the picture 
 lies not in any abstract loveliness, but in its reasonableness, in 
 its telling a tale that every heart, every common-sense mind, 
 applauds. It is a picture, not of a saint, but of what is equally 
 noble and far more useful — a true woman. " She spreadeth 
 out her hand to the poor;" "the law of kindness is on her 
 tongue ; " but " strength and dignity are her clothing," and " she 
 looketh well to the ways of her household." She scorns to eat 
 the " bread of idleness." And it is she that is deemed worthy to 
 be called a " Grod-fearing woman " — one whose " works shall praise 
 her in the gates." 
 
 ' Exod. xxii. 23. = Ihid. xxiii. 3. " Deut. xvi. 20. 
 
 'A warning against excess, even in ethics, is to be discerned in the ■striking 
 Talmudic passage (Jer. Chagigah ii. 1) : " The Law may be likened to two roads, 
 •one of fire, the other of snow. To follow the one is to perish by the fire ; to follow 
 the other is to die of the cold. The middle path alone is safe." Compare Aristotle's 
 Doctrine of the Mean. 
 
 ' Maimonides cautions us against false pity. Compassion for the evildoer is 
 cruelty to Society. " Mor6 Nebuchim," iii. 39. 
 
 « Sabbath 30b. 
 
204 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " Seest thou a man diligent in his work ? he shall stand before 
 Kings."' The dignity of honest labour could not be more forcibly 
 expressed. The wise man in Proverbs reserves his fiercest indig- 
 nation, his most biting sarcasm, for the sluggard, with his plea for 
 a little more slumber,^ his excuses about the lion in the street.' 
 And the Talmud once more is the echo of Holy Writ. The 
 Eabbins insist upon the glory of studying the Law, with almost 
 wearisome iteration. And yet these very men were the most 
 enthusiastic preachers of the Gospel of Work that the world 
 has ever seen. " The study of the Law," they said, " that does 
 not go hand-in-hand with active industry is doomed to failure." * 
 "Grreat is labour," they also taught, " for it honours the labourer."* 
 The saying recalls Mrs. Browning's admonition : 
 
 "... Get work, get work, 
 Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get." ' 
 
 " Flay a carcase in the streets," continues the Talmud, '• and take 
 thy wage, and say not I am a great man, and the occupation is 
 beneath me." ' " Greater even than the God-fearing man is he 
 who lives by his toil." * " He who does not teach his son a 
 handicraft-trade virtually teaches him to steal"" — the Talmud 
 clearly anticipated the modem agitation in favour of technical 
 teaching. The Eabbins preached, but practised too. In the 
 schools they were the greatest of the great ; in the world many 
 of them followed the humblest callings. They were wood-cutters, 
 shoemakers, masons, mere day-labourers — everything but idlers.'" 
 
 Manliness — this is the dominant note of the Jewish ethic. " It 
 is a good sign," the Talmud characteristically remarks, "when a 
 man walks with head erect." " One is reminded of Longfellow's 
 " Village Blacksmith," who " looks the whole world in the face." 
 The same idea is discernible in the old Levitical law which 
 warns us against hating our brother in our heart.'^ If we have 
 a grievance against him we are to go to him in a straightforward 
 way and tell him so to his face. " Thou shalt surely rebuke thy 
 neighbour." " What a host of fatal misunderstandings would be 
 prevented if this salutary command were generally obeyed ! 
 
 But while so much emphasis is laid on a robust morality, it 
 must not be supposed that the gentler virtues are overlooked. 
 The crowning excellence of Moses, Israel's Lawgiver and greatest 
 prophet, in his meekness." Similarly, Hillel — perhaps the most 
 
 ' ProT. xxii. 29. 'Abothii. 2. 'Baba Bathra 110a. 
 
 ' Ibid. Ti. 10. ' Nedarim 49b. ' Berachot 8a. 
 
 ' Ilrid.s3.vi. 13. ^ " Aurora Leigh," Book iii. " Kiddnshin 29a. 
 
 "The passages in the Tahuud relating to Work have been collected by Dr. 
 Seligman Meyer : " Arbeit und Handwerk im Talmud," Berlin, 1878. 
 . " Aboth d' K. Nathan. "Ibid. 
 
 '-Lev. xix. 17. "Num. xii. 3. 
 
JEWISH ETHICS 205 
 
 eminent of the Rabbins — is chiefly praised because of his patience 
 and humility. Centuries before the Sermon on the Mount was 
 preached, the Psalmist declared that " the meek shall inherit the 
 earth." ^ Be the oppressed, says the Talmud, rather than the 
 oppressor.^ He that is reviled, yet answereth not, attains to a 
 glory like that of the sun at the zenith.^ And so, too, with 
 the virtue of forgiveness. " Thou shalt not avenge nor bear a 
 grudge," * is one of the oldest precepts of the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 The Israelite is expressly warned against refusing to help his 
 enemy in his hour of need — when, for example, he seeks his ass 
 that has gone astray, or when his ox has fallen under its burden.* 
 " Rejoice not," cries the wise man, " when thy enemy falleth." * 
 " If," he adds elsewhere, " thine enemy be hungry, give him 
 bread to eat ; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink." ' As 
 for the Talmud — to give one typical instance — it tells* how, stung 
 by the incessant persecution of his neighbours, a famous Rabbi 
 hurls an execration at his tormentors. His wife rebukes him. 
 The Psalmist, she points out, prays not for the destruction of the 
 sinner, but for the extinction of sin. "Let iniquity," it is 
 written, " cease from the earth, and then the wicked will be 
 no more."* 
 
 And this story serves also to illustrate the attitude of Judaism 
 to Woman. The Talmudic sages who could imagine and describe 
 a Eabbi being taught his duty by his wife, could not, in spite of 
 some of their maxims on the subject being racy of the Eastern 
 soil, and redolent of the spirit of the age, have had a low idea of 
 female worth.^" Akiba, too, the master of a legion of disciples, the 
 martyr for the cause of Judaism, owed his eminence and his fame 
 to his wife." She first inspired him with the enthusiasm which 
 made him a teacher in Israel. She has her Biblical counterparts 
 in a Miriam, a Deborah, a Huldah, an Esther — in the typical 
 virtuous woman I spoke of just now. The Rabbins would not have 
 understood the expression " single blessedness." " He who has no 
 wife," they taught, " Kves without happiness, without religion, 
 without blessing." " In their opinion, clearly, marriage was not 
 a failure ; but then they were old-fashioned people who were not 
 fortunate enough to live in the nineteenth century. " The 
 unmarried man," they declared, " is not a complete man," " an idea 
 which Shakespeare has expressed more fully : — 
 
 ' Psalm xxxvii. 11. * Lev. lix. 18. ' Ibid. xkv. 21. 
 
 ^ Sabbath 88b. ' Gen. xxiii. i, 5. ' Berachot 10a. 
 
 s Jiid. ' Pror. ixiv. 17. " Psalm civ. 35. 
 
 " The harsh sayings about the sex, which are occasionally to be found in the 
 
 Talmud, are matched by the "fierce invectives" of the Church Fathers. See 
 Lecky :'"Hist. of European Morals," vol. ii., cap. 5. 
 
 " Nedarim 50a. " Bereshith Eabbah xvi "Ibid. 
 
206 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 " He is the half-part of a blessed man, 
 Left to be finished by such as she ; 
 And she a fair divided excellence, 
 Whose fulness of perfection lies in him." ' 
 
 The utmost tenderness and consideration is enjoined on the 
 husband. " The tears of the injured wife are counted in 
 heaven." "^ 
 
 I trust the sex will not think me uncomplimentary in passing 
 direct from Woman to animals. There is a connecting link 
 between the two in the tendency of vile men to take advantage of 
 their comparative defencelessness. The claims of the lower animals 
 on human pity and consideration have been strangely overlooked 
 by most ethical systems, not excluding Christianity. " In the 
 range and circle of duties," remarks Mr. Lecky, " inculcated by 
 the early Fathers those to animals had no place. This is indeed," 
 he continues, " the one form of humanity which appears more 
 prominently in the Old Testament than in the New. The many 
 beautiful traces of it in the former . . . gave way before an 
 ardent philanthropy which regarded human interests as the one 
 end, and the relations of man to his Creator as the one question, 
 of life, and dismissed somewhat contemptuously as an idle senti- 
 mentalism, notions of duty to animals."^ The only religious 
 system, I believe, besides Judaism, which has given a prominent 
 place to this duty, is that which is attributed to Zoroaster.* I need 
 hardly cite the passages in the Hebrew Bible which insist upon a 
 humane treatment of the brute. The precepts forbidding the 
 muzzling of the ox when threshing,* the slaughter of the dam and 
 the young on the same day,* and the taking of the mother-bird with 
 the nestlings ;' the command which insists upon domesticated 
 animals sharing with their master the rest of the Sabbath day ; * 
 the saying in Proverbs that the righteous man regardeth the life 
 of his beast * — these are familiar to you all. The Rabbins enforced 
 the duty with equal emphasis. Kindness to animals becomes, in 
 the Talmud, the basis of a whole code of laws. The Rabbinical 
 prescriptions regulating the mode of slaughtering animals intended 
 for food are in part due to a desire to prevent the slightest 
 unnecessary suffering.^" A great Rabbi is said to have been 
 punished with long and continued physical pain because when a 
 calf which was about to be killed, ran to him bleating for 
 protection, he roughly repulsed the animal, exclaiming, " Go, that 
 is thy destiny." " On the other hand, in a beautiful legend which 
 
 ' King John, Act ii., scene 1. * The Vendidad. ' Deut. xxii. 6. 
 
 ^ See Yebamoth 62b. '' Deut. xxv. 4. » Exod. xx. 10. 
 
 ' "Hist, of Burop. Morals," vol. ii. cap. 4. " Lev. xxii. 28. ' Prov. xii 10. 
 
 '° The Israelite is enjoined to feed his animals before sitting down to his own 
 meaL See Gittin 62a. 
 
 " Baba Metzia 85a. 
 
JEWISH ETHICS. 207 
 
 the poet Coleridge has paraphrased, the Rabbins tell hovr Moses, 
 while he is still Jethro's shepherd, seeks out a stray lamb and 
 tenderly carries the tired creature in his arms back to the fold, and 
 how a voice from Heaven cries, " Thou art worthy to be My 
 people's pastor."^ This sympathy for the dumb animals is all the 
 more remarkable because the Eabbins lived in an age when cruelty 
 to both man and beast was commonly condoned. The terrible 
 scenes in the Roman arena are only too clear an indication of the 
 inhumanity which prevailed in the civilized world during the 
 Talmudic period. It is true that philosophers like Plutarch con- 
 demned the cruelties of the amphitheatre, and even taught the 
 positive duty of kindness to animals. But a doctrine tardily 
 preached by a handful of theorists whom men generally agreed to 
 ignore, was taught and practically enforced by the Jewish Sages, 
 inspired by the ancient law of the Bible. The gladiatorial shows 
 they declared to be an abomination, they went even further, and 
 forbade the chase.^ Had they lived to-day they might have founded 
 the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ; but 
 they would not have sanctioned coursing or tolerated a fox-hunt. 
 
 This prohibition of cruelty to animals originates as much in the 
 desire to prevent the moral debasement of the man as in the 
 anxiety to save his possible victim from suffering. Judaism, 
 indeed, is as strong in its subjective as in its objective morality. 
 It condemns evil thoughts and evil desires, because of their 
 degrading effects upon the mind and the soul, as severely as it 
 stigmatises evil acts. " Give me thy heart, my son,"^ is the con- 
 stant cry of Jewish ethics. Full of significance is the warning 
 against the mere feeling of covetousness which is embodied in the 
 Decalogue side by side with denunciations of the most deadly sins. 
 A Lord Amberley,* could contemptuously question the utility of 
 the warning ; but a keener and a juster critic like Ewald clearly 
 discerned its necessity .° " Look," says Ruskin, too, " look into the 
 history of any civilized nations ; analyze the lives and thoughts 
 of their nobles, priests, merchants, and men of luxurious life. 
 Every other temptation is at last concentrated in this ; pride, and 
 lust, and envy, and anger, all give up their strength to avarice." " 
 In the same way the Israelite is cautioned against nourishing 
 hatred, even though it be unaccompanied by any overt act.' And 
 the man who, according to the Psalmist, is worthy of standing in 
 Grod's holy place, is he whose hands are clean but whose heart 
 
 1 Shemoth Eabbah, Cap. II. '' Abodah Zarah, ISb. ' Ptot. xxiii. 26. 
 
 * " Analysis of Religious Belief," vol. ii. 246. 
 
 » " Geschichte des VoUces Israel," vol. ii., p. 153. 
 
 » " Ethics of the Dust," p. 15. 
 
 ' Lev. xii. 17. See Siphrah on the passage. Compare Zech. vii. 10 ; viii. 17. 
 
208 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 also is pure.i "What the Almighty chiefly desires," says the 
 Talmud in its turn, " is the heart." ^ " As soon," it teaches else- 
 where, " as the thought of sin has entered the mind, the guilt has 
 already commenced." ^ With evil desire, it further points out, a 
 fierce battle must be fought until the victory is gained."^ And, 
 finally, to quote one of those paradoxes in which the Rabbins 
 delighted : " Sinful thoughts are worse than sin itself." " Nor is 
 the rectitude to be aimed at simply negative ; it is not to consist 
 in the mere defeat of evil longings — in a moral vacuum. A 
 positive striving after goodness and nobility of life is praised as the 
 highest effort. In the ascending scale of virtue the Talmud 
 places above the avoidance of sin and above humility that absolute 
 purity of character which, it declares, alone merits to have the gift 
 of the Holy Spirit.* Professor Sidgwick, then, is less fair or less 
 acute than usual when he affirms, to the disparagement of Judaism, 
 that " the contrast with the ' righteousness of the Scribes and 
 Pharisees ' has always served to mark the requirements of 
 ' inwardness ' as a distintive feature of the Christian code — an in- 
 wardness not merely negative, tending to the repression of vicious 
 desires as well as vicious acts, but also involving a positive 
 rectitude of the inner state of the soul." ' 
 
 One other characteristic of Jewish ethics remains to be noticed. 
 The notion that Judaism teaches a narrow morality, to be practised 
 for the exclusive benefit of the Jew, is as erroneous as the cognate 
 idea that the God of the Hebrew Bible is a mere tribal Grod. It 
 is impossible to explain away the stubborn fact that the old 
 Mosaic Code contains the maxim, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
 as thyself;" and that, as though to prevent any misunderstanding 
 of the words, it almost immediately repeats the command in 
 reference to the stranger.* Similarly, the poor man is to be 
 hberally and considerately helped, even though he be a stranger 
 or a sojourner ; he is the Israelite's " brother." ' Even the 
 Egyptian, Israel's original enemy, his taskmaster, his enslaver, 
 is not to be oppressed. '° He is a stranger — isolated, helpless; 
 and "ye know," adds the Law, "the heart of a stranger, seeing 
 ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." " The ancient wrong 
 is to be forgotten ; all that is to be remembered is the Egjrptian's 
 need, his possible suffering. But let us turn to the Rabbins. 
 To rob a Gentile is declared to be even worse than robbing a 
 Jew, for besides being immoral it disgraces Judaism.'^ Nor is 
 it only positive dishonesty, but deception, too, which is denounced, 
 
 ' Psalm xxiii. 3, 4. 'Yoina29a. " Lev. xxv. 35, 86. 
 
 ' Synhed. 106b. ■ Abodah Zarah, 20b. '" Dent, xxiii. 7. 
 
 » Midraeh on Num. v. 6. ' " History of Ethics," p. U2. " Exod. xxiii, 9. 
 
 « Berachot 5a. ' Lev. xix. 34. '» Tosefta B. Kama, cap. 10. 
 
JEWISH ETHICS. 209 
 
 ■whoever its victim may be.^ The duty of kindness is mside 
 equally universal. We are bound, the Talmud teaches, to relieve 
 the poor, to visit the sick, to bury the dead, without distinction 
 of race or religion.'' When, according to the Rabbinical legend, 
 the Egyptians were engulfed in the waters of the Red Sea the 
 angels desired to sing praises to Grod. The Almighty rebuked 
 them. " My children, the work of My Hands, are perishing ; 
 this is not the time for psalmody."^ A Talmudic Rabbi was 
 accustomed after his public devotions to offer up this prayer : — 
 " May it be Thy will, God, that no man may be my enemy, 
 and that no enmity towards any man may take root in my heart." 
 Similarly, a modem Jewish Catechism teaches that it is our duty 
 to say every day when we rise, and before we lie down, and before 
 we commence our prayers : " Behold I am about to obey the 
 ■command, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' Forgive, 
 O Lord, him that injures me." * As for the Rabbins of the Middle 
 Ages, I might quote a long string of specific injunctions of the 
 most precise and emphatic character, in order still further to 
 illustrate the catholicity of Jewish ethics." I prefer, however, 
 to cite some maxims of these teachers on other subjects as well, 
 because they will give you an idea of what Jewish ethical doctrine 
 generally was at a time when morality was not the world's strong 
 point, when, moreover, persecution was doing its best to crush out 
 every noble aspiration from the Jewish soul. 
 
 The following is from a work of the eleventh century.* " Speak 
 the truth ; be modest ; live on the coarsest fare rather than be 
 •dependent on others. Shun evil companions ; be not like the flies 
 wMch swarm in foul places. Rejoice not when thine enemy falls ; 
 be not both witness and judge ; avoid anger, the heritage of fools." 
 The following maxims are two centuries later.' "No crown 
 ■surpasses humility, no monument a good name, no gain the 
 performance of duty. The good man leads others in the right 
 path, loves his neighbour, gives his charity in secret, does right 
 irom pure motives and for God's sake; he indulges in no idle 
 talk, he is free from the lust of the eye ; he is reviled yet answers 
 -not. He shuts his heart against all envy save that excited by 
 another's virtues ; he makes the righteous his example ; he deceives 
 no one by word or deed." A book" belonging to nearly the same 
 age contains these aphorisms. "Serve not thy Maker because thou 
 hopest for Paradise, but from pure love of Him and His commands. 
 
 1 Chnlin Sla. " Gittin 61a. ' Meohilta on Exod, xv. 
 
 < Johlson's " Mosaic Beligion," translated by Isaac Leeaer, p. 106. 
 ' The whole question of the attitude of Judaism to the Gentile is ably discussed 
 hy Dr. Griinebaum : " Die Sittenlehre des Judenthums," Mannheim, 1867. 
 • " Orcbot Chayim," by E. Elieser b. Isaac. 
 
 ' " Eokeach " by R. Elasar of Worms. ' " Sepher Chassidim.'" 
 
 U 
 
210 RELIGIOUS 'SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Crive thy life for His service, like a soldier in battle. Deceive na 
 one, neither Jew nor Gentile ; quarrel with no one, whatever his 
 creed. If one would borrow of thee, and thou hast doubts of being 
 repaid, do not lie, saying thou hast no money. On him that 
 oppresses the poor or buys stolen goods, no blessing rests. If a 
 murderer would take refuge with thee, consent not to hide him, 
 yea, though he be a Jew. Honour the virtuous Gentile, not the 
 irreligious Israelite. In morals Jew and Christian, as a rule, are 
 alike. On those that clip the coin, on usurers, on such as have 
 false weights and measures, or who are in any wise dishonest in 
 business, there is no blessing. The worst failing is ingratitude ;. 
 it must not be shown even to the brute. More guilty even than 
 those who are cruel to animals are the employers that ill-treat 
 their servants. Pay thy debts before thou givest alms. If one 
 has cheated or injured thee in any way, let. not revenge tempt 
 thee to do the same to him." Here again are a few sayings 
 chosen almost at random from various writers : " The alms given 
 in health are gold; in illness, silver; left by vrill, copper." "Put 
 no one to the blush in public ; misuse thy power against no man." 
 " Beware of drunkenness, and thou wilt not have to repent of 
 shameful behaviour." "A man's virtues are pearls, and the 
 thread on which they are strung is the fear of God ; break the 
 thread, and the pearls are lost one by one. But without morality 
 there can be no real performance of religious duty." * 
 
 And thus we come back to our starting-point : Moral excellence 
 is the essence of religion. 
 
 That Judaism should so persistently have taught this grand 
 truth becomes all the more remarkable when it is remembered 
 that the history of the Jew is an almost unbroken record of 
 suffering. The world seems to have conspired to thrust him back 
 by relentless persecution into the arms of formalism, to restrict 
 the field for the play of his higher instincts to the external rites 
 of religion. Shut out for many a weary century from intercourse 
 with ^ men save the members of his own race, imprisoned in 
 Ghettos, hunted down, hated, and reviled, it would have been no 
 marvel if he had fixed his thoughts exclusively on the cere- 
 monialism of the " Scribes and the Pharisees," if he had shown 
 no feeling whatever for a lofty ethical ideal, nay, if he had nursed 
 in his heart and practised in his life, sentiments of positive 
 malevolence towards the world that so deeply wronged him. 
 Well, indeed, might he have pleaded human nature as his 
 justification. "Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, 
 organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions ? . Fed with the 
 
 ' All the foregoing extracts are translated from Znnz ; " Zur Geschichte und 
 Literatur." 
 
JEWISH ETHICS. 211 
 
 same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same 
 diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the 
 same winter and summer, as a Christian is ? If you prick us, do 
 we not bleed ? If you tickle us, do we not laugh ? If you poison 
 us, do we not die ? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? "^ 
 But Shylock is " the Jew that Shakespeare drew." He is not 
 the Jew of real life, even in the Middle Ages, stained as their 
 story is with the hot tears, nay, the very heart's blood, of the 
 martyred race. The mediaeval Jew did not take vengeance on his 
 cruel foes. Nay, more than this, with a sublime magnanimity 
 which rivals in grandeur, and far surpasses in duration, the 
 noble patience ascribed to Jesus on the Cross, he could actually 
 preach and practise the widest benevolence towards his oppressors. 
 Throughout the Middle Ages, when Jews were daily plundered 
 and tortured and done to death " for the glory of God," not a 
 word was breathed against the morality of the victims. They 
 suffered because they were heretics, because they would not 
 juggle with their conscience, and profess a belief that did not 
 live in their souls. The venerable Dr. DoUinger, a critic whose 
 fairness is beyond cavil, has pointed this out.* But Jewish ethics 
 soared to still nobler heights. The Jew preserved his integrity 
 in spite of his suffering; but more than this, he forgave — aye, 
 even blessed — its authors. The Jews hunted out of Spain in 1492, 
 were in turn cruelly expelled from Portugal. Some took refuge 
 on the African coast. Eighty years later the descendants of the 
 men who had committed or allowed these enormities were defeated 
 in Africa, whither they had been led by their King, Don Sebastian. 
 Those who were not slain were offered as slaves at Fez to the 
 descendants of the Jewish exiles from Portugal. " The humbled 
 Portuguese nobles," the historian narrates, " were comforted when 
 their purchasers proved to, be Jews, for they knew that they had 
 humane hearts."^ It is in such incidents that the climax of 
 Jewish morality is reached. If the lifelong anguish of Israel 
 excites the most profound pity, only admiration can be yielded 
 to that greatness of soul, which is the fairest gem in his crown 
 of martyrdom. 
 
 ' Shakespeare : Merchant of Venice, act. iii., scene 1. 
 
 ' " The Jews in Europe," an Address delivered before the Academy of Sciences in 
 Munich, July, 1881. 
 'Graetz : "Geschichte der Juden," vol. viii.. p. 379. 
 
212 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 THE JEWS IN MODEEN TIMES. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR B. W. HARKS 
 
 {.Chief UinitUr, Wat London Synagogue of Britith Jem). 
 
 In the lecture I am to deliver, on " The Jews in Modem Times," 
 I start from the period of the Reformation. This important 
 event, with its outburst of intellectual life and its dififusion of new 
 ideas, failed to accomplish in any appreciable degree the allevia- 
 tion of the status of the Jews of Continental Europe. Their social 
 condition continued intolerable in Protestant, no less than in Roman 
 Catholic, countries — despite the liberal professions of the former, 
 and their loud blast of the right of private judgment. The shedding 
 of their blood had ceased, but they continued still objects of scorn 
 and contempt, and their persecution became even more systematic 
 than in past ages. Nothing was offered them but baptism, and 
 none but the baptized were considered to be within the pale of 
 humanity. In Germany, Austria and Poland, where they wer^ 
 located in large numbers they were excluded from all social inter- 
 course, as well as from scientific and industrial pursuits. The 
 darkness of the fourteenth century rest«d on them long after the 
 first half of the eighteenth century had passed away. Their 
 schools had fallen into decay, their synagogues were hung with the 
 drapery of mourning and despair, and their pulpits were well nigh 
 mute. To them Europe's science was alien, and Europe's 
 Christianity an abomination. They had imbibed a positive aver- 
 sion for the language and the alphabets of their tyrants and 
 oppressors, and their ordinary language was a miserable jargon 
 known by the name of Judish Deutsch. 
 
 At last, however, came relief, and the spirit of modem civiliza- 
 tion began to breathe on their petrified forms of social and 
 spiritual life, and to awaken the dormant powers of their mind. 
 When the hour struck for Germany to throw off the dust of 
 barbarism and to proclaim a more human age, Israel aroused 
 himself from his lethargy ; and his national civilization, which had 
 never become extinct, revived under the genial influence of the 
 times. Amongst those of Christian sympathizers may be men- 
 tioned Councillor von Dohm and the renowned Lessing ; but all 
 
THE JEWS IN MODERN TIMES. 213 
 
 the phenomena of that stirring period centred in one man, Moses 
 Mendelssohn, one of the messengers sent by Providence into the 
 world when the time has come " to divide the light from the 
 darkness." He had already attained to eminence as a philosopher 
 and had even successfully disputed the prize with Kant. He now 
 resolved to devote his life to the absorbing object of lifting his 
 brethren in faith out of their social decrepitude and of putting an 
 end to their isolation in thought and feeling from the rest of man- 
 kind. He appealed to them by the voice of their cherished 
 Scriptures — a voice to which in all their tribulations they had never 
 been dull — ^and the lever on which he relied was that of educa- 
 tion. As the Jews were then ignorant of the German alphabet he 
 was driven to adopt in his classical German translation of the Bible 
 the square Hebrew character. He opened at Berlin an academy 
 which soon became famous and attracted to its benches many 
 Christian pupils of the highest families for secular instruction. 
 The promiscuous education of Jews and Christians was a bold 
 step in that age of prejudice, but it gave no offence. By degrees 
 the brazen wall, which the antipathies of more than a thousand 
 years had built up, was thrown down, and the hand of mutual 
 fellowship was held out by Christian and Jew. In the presence 
 of the new life mediaeval predilections and systems have vanished 
 away, and the Jews have created for themselves new worlds in 
 the realms of civilization, science, and letters. At the present 
 time Jews are to be found in considerable numbers amongst the 
 savans, and a large portion of the daily and periodical Press is 
 under their direction. 
 
 Now an intellectual change like this could hardly have been 
 brought about without exerting a telling influence on the religious 
 thought and the outward ritual practices of the Jews. The modem 
 cultured Israelite could not mould his mind to the type into 
 which Talmudism had been cast in times when persecution forced 
 the Hebrew race into a state of isolation. Important changes 
 have therefore taken place in the Synagogal economy, as well as 
 in the composition of the prayer book, which once reflected all the 
 painful reminiscences of a martyred people. 
 
 Meanwhile the civil emancipation of the Jews in Germany 
 advanced. In 1812 they obtained the right to engage in industrial 
 pursuits, and with this concession the last of the long list of 
 restrictions which had driven them to follow the most humble 
 callings was removed. Later on they were declared citizens and 
 Ldndeskinder ; and at the Congress of Vienna in 1814, a public 
 recognition was made of their patriotic efforts during the War of 
 Independence ; and, by an especial article, the Congress pledged 
 itself to secure for them a perfect equality of rights in all the Allif d 
 
214 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 States. It was long, however, before the pledge was redeemed by 
 Germany and Austria. In Eussia it remains still unfulfilled. 
 
 There is a very large Jewish population in the Austrian 
 dominions, and until very recently their position was a sad one. 
 No one was considered to have a claim to nationality that 
 remained without the pale of the Eoman Catholic Church, and 
 numbers of Jews have been forced into an outward profession 
 of the creed of Eome as the only means of being recognized as 
 citizens and of securing industrial employment. But the battle 
 of Sadowa wrought a great change in the government and accom- 
 plished wonders for the rights of conscience. Eeligious opinion is 
 now perfectly free, and no stain attaches to dissent from the 
 Established Church. Most of the Jews who had gone over to it 
 have come back to the Synagogue, bringing with them occasionally 
 persons of Christian birth, with whom they had formed marriage 
 connections. 
 
 The spiritual condition of the Jews in Austria and in Germany is 
 nearly on a par with that of other denominations in those empires. 
 The scepticism of Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Schapenhauer, Fichte, 
 Strauss, and others, has not left the Synagogue, any more than 
 the Church, unscathed. The Jews of the Continent (Eussia and 
 Poland excepted) may be divided into two classes, those that do, 
 and those that do not, observe the ceremonies of their religion ; 
 very few of the richer classes belong to the former, most of the 
 poorer classes belong to the latter. 
 
 Of all European countries where the Jews sought a shelter 
 from their persecutors, Spain was the one where they especially 
 made their mark. Driven out of Palestine soon after the con- 
 version of Constantine, some of them fled to Arabia, some to the 
 Crimea, and most of them to Spain. In South Arabia, and in 
 the opposite coast of Ethiopia, Christians and Jews strove for 
 supremacy. The Himyar Jewish state eventually succumbed, 
 but some of its chieftains continued independent, and were in 
 possession of their castles at the advent of Mohammed who, at 
 the beginning of his career, desired to make friends with them. 
 The agency of Judaism in the formation of Mohammedanism was 
 quite as important as in the production of Christianity. The 
 views of the world as set forth in the Koran are entirely taken 
 from the Hebrew Scriptures and from the oral traditions. 
 
 About the same time a movement began among the Jews in 
 Babylonia, which culminated in a schism. A rabbi, named Anau, 
 imparted form to it, and hence arose what is known as the school 
 of the Karaites, which completely rejected the traditions of the 
 Talmud. The Karaites employed the Arabic language in their 
 polemical treatises, and the Eabbinical Jews soon adopted the 
 
THE JEWS IN MODEEN TIMES. 215 
 
 ■same language for controversy and for general theological purposes. 
 It is indeed remarkable that the Jews should never have become 
 familiar with the Persian language, although they lived side by 
 side with the Zoroastrians more than twelve hundred years. The 
 Jews received many religious notions from the Persians, to whom 
 they communicated few, if any, of their own. 
 
 About the time of the origin of Karaism, the kingdom of the 
 Chazars was founded on the Caspian, by the fragments of the 
 army of Attila, then on its march back from Europe to Turkistan.^ 
 The influence of the Chazars whose kings professed the Jewish 
 religion must have been considerable on the surrounding tribes. 
 The Jewish kingdom collapsed in the beginning of the eleventh 
 century. By that time the Jews in Spain had attained a high 
 degree of literary and scientific importance. They stood as 
 mediators between Moslem and Christian, and without them 
 the benefit of Mohammedan literature would never have come 
 within the reach of Christians. They translated works from the 
 Hebrew and Arabic, and these were further translated into Latin. 
 At the head of these literary labours stands Jehudah ibn Tibbon 
 of Granada, who was followed in the same path by his children 
 and grandchildren, Montpelier, Beziers, Aries, Bagnoles, and the 
 neighbouring cities of Spain and Italy furnished able Jewish 
 scholars. Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas studied 
 Aristotle in Latin versions, made from the Hebrew." They also 
 produced independent works of their own. The celebrated philo- 
 sophical work, Fons Vitae, had been for centuries attributed to 
 A Mohammedan author under the name of Avicebron, but by a 
 literary discovery made by the late erudite Dr. Munk, it turned 
 out to be the production of the gifted Solomon ibn Gabirol. It 
 may here be mentioned that the reformation of the Church wan 
 influenced by the Jews in two ways : First, by the Kahbala, which 
 laid a stronghold on the imagination of Christians aspiring to 
 independence of thought. Jews were naturally the interpreters 
 of the Kabbalistic books, but the most efi'ective propagators of 
 the mystic science were Christians. Raymond SuUi, Pico dflla 
 Mirandola, Reuchlin, Knorr von Rosenroth, and many other 
 minor capacities, wrote for and against the Kahbala. Secondly, 
 by the revival of Biblical studies which had been almost neglected 
 in the Church since the days of Jerome. For this service the aid 
 of the Jews was indispensable, not only- for the purpose of teaching 
 the language, but for opening to the Christian world the stores of 
 Rabbinical literature. 
 
 But the sun of prosperity for the Jews in Spain lasted only for 
 a, few centuries, from the defeat of the last Gothic king, until the 
 ' See Graeti Oeschiehte, vol. t. " See Mmik Milanger, p. 335. 
 
216 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD, 
 
 time when the Moorish power was uprooted by the triumph of 
 Ferdinand at Granada. A rigorous persecution followed close on 
 this victory, the Inquisition was established, the axe and the faggot 
 were the doom of aU so-called unbelievers, and the Jews who 
 refused to apostatize from their ancestral faith could only escape 
 these penalties by exile. About the same time when Columbus 
 was hoisting sail in search of a new world, upwards of half a 
 miUion of Jews were cast forth from the land of their birth to 
 encounter all the horrors of banishment and destitution. By far 
 the larger number of them perished — some by shipwreck, some 
 through starvation and fatigue, and not a few fell into the hands 
 of the pirates of Algeria, and closed their lives in the rigour of 
 slavery. 
 
 Of those who escaped such perils, many found a shelter in 
 hospitable Holland, where they were suffered to live in compara- 
 tive ease and to profess outwardly their faith. The gratitude 
 inspired by this humane treatment was singularly displayed by 
 the Jews of Holland when William of Orange was in need of fands 
 to fit out his expedition to England. One of their community 
 placed at the disposal of William two milUons of guilders, saying 
 to him : " If you succeed you will no doubt repay the loan ; if you 
 fail I am weU content to lose it in the cause of religious liberty." 
 The interest evinced by the Jewish refugees in the welfare of the 
 country, and their generous support to all its charitable institu- 
 tions, secured for them the national good will, and prepared the 
 vsray for their complete emancipation. They are very numerous 
 in the Dutch provinces, and amongst them are found at the 
 present day, men of European celebrity in every liberal profession 
 and branch of science and literature. They have over sixty 
 schools, authorized by the government, and admirable theological 
 colleges for the training of ministers. Their benevolent institu- 
 tions are so manifold as to have proved absolutely injurious to self- 
 help and industrial activity. Indiscriminate almsgiving has 
 tended to demoralize the poor, until the irrepressible mendicant 
 of Amsterdam has sunk into the lowest type of the Jewish race. 
 It is not surprising that in the country which gave birth to the 
 renowned Spinoza there should be found amongst the cultured 
 Hebrews, men whose religious opinions do not square with the 
 standard of Eabbinism ; but the majority of the Dutch Jews are 
 ultra-Talmudical, and their aversion to modify the Synagogue 
 ritual from the stamp it took during the persecution of the middle 
 ages, and to adapt it to the requirements of the time being, has 
 up to the present proved invincible. 
 
 France contains upwards of a hundred thousand/ Jews, and they 
 are remarkable for their staunch patriotism. 1'hey differ from 
 
THE JEWS IN MODERN TIMES. 217 
 
 their ancestors of a bygone age, in so far as they have lost 
 all feeling for the land of the Patriarchs, and they exult in the 
 exclamation,." Notre Zion c'est la France," ignoring completely the 
 old doctrine of a restoration to Palestine. Nor in this respect do 
 they diflfer much from modem Jews in general, who live at ease 
 and are in the enjoyment of equal rights of citizenship. Just as 
 the Church in the times of its tribulation consoled itself in the 
 belief of the doctrine of the Millennium, so the Synagogue during 
 its dreary centuries of persecution, found comfort in the hope of a 
 restoration to the Holy Land, which was to become a great and 
 glorious kingdom. But just as the majority of Christians suffered 
 the doctrine of the Millennium to recede into the background, when 
 the Church became dominant, so Jews, for the most part, have 
 dealt in modem times with the old teaching of a restoration to 
 Zion. 
 
 France may well take credit to itself for having been the 
 first Christian State of Europe that fully carried into effect the 
 principle of liberty of conscience. In 1789 it proclaimed complete 
 emancipation to all its Jewish subjects, and they have repaid the 
 debt by a passionate devotion to all its national interests. The 
 French Jews have won a foremost place in the Senate, at the Bar, 
 as well as in literature, science, and art, and some of them have 
 attained to eminence as members of the government. 
 
 Out of the nine millions of Jews spread over the surface of the 
 globe, more than four and half nullions are to be found in Eussia, 
 Kussian Poland, the States of Barbary, Morocco, and Eoumania, 
 where their treatment is a scandal to the civilization of the age. 
 They have no political rights, and they are not even considered 
 within the protection of the law. They are subjected to an 
 exceptional system of government, which grinds them down to 
 heartless and galling exactions. 
 
 In all other Continental States, as well as in America and the 
 British Colonies, Jews follow the same pursuits and exhibit the 
 same national character, for good or evil, as their fellows of other 
 creeds. Despite the tenacity of habit, superinduced by centuries 
 of persecution, the effects of which are not thrown off in a few 
 generations, the Jews are powerfully represented in art, in pure 
 and applied science, in Belles Lettrea and polite literature, in each 
 of which branches every European country derives a portion of 
 its renown from their activity and labour. A peasantry cannot 
 be improvised out of a race which ever since the overthrow of their 
 political nationality have rarely been permitted to handle a plough 
 or to plant a vine. There is nothing, however, incompatible with 
 the qualifications needful for husbandry in the character of a people 
 who in the paliny days of their political existence, were almost 
 
21S RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 exclusively devoted to agriculture. In Jafa, Hebron, and other 
 parts of Palestine they are at the present time establishing agri- 
 cultural colonies, and the hills are beginning to assume something 
 like the appearance of the gardens of olden times, so vividly de- 
 scribed in the Songs of Zion. This beneficial movement amongst 
 the Palestinian Hebrews is to be ascribed chiefly to the French 
 Jews, the originators of the " Alliance Israelite," one of the most 
 useful institutions amongst our community in modern times. 
 The Jews of England have heartily participated in the movement, 
 and its spirit has radiated through the primary and industrial 
 schools of Jerusalem, Safet, and other places, into the whole of 
 the social relations of the Palestine Hebrews. Ignorance and 
 pauperism are fast disappearing from amongst them, and they 
 are acquiring modern culture and realizing the first pulsations of 
 active and self-supporting industry. 
 
 The modern history of British Jews dates from the year 1655. 
 Banished from the soil of England by the heartless edict of 1279, 
 the Jews had often turned a longing eye to this country, where 
 the laws offered a protection for the oppressed not to be found 
 during the sixteenth century in any other European State. Still, 
 the new spirit breathed into England by the Reformation gave 
 little hope of the repeal of the cruel edict against the disciples 
 of Moses. From Oliver Cromwell, whose memory should be dear 
 to all lovers of religious freedom, came the first faint expression 
 of sympathy for the persecuted race. In 1655 he suffered it to 
 be made known, to a few eminent merchants of Amsterdam, that 
 he entertained no personal objection to the re-admission of the 
 Jews into England, and that, in as far as related to himself, they 
 would find in him an advocate rather than an opponent. This 
 was enough to induce some of the Jews of the Netherlands to 
 depute the famous Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel to proceed to 
 London and to plead before the Privy Council for the revocation 
 of Edward I.'s decree of banishment. Cromwell advocated it in a 
 speech of remarkable power, but he failed to overcome the ran- 
 conrous prejudices of his Council, and Manasseh returned home 
 after what appeared to have been a fruitless expedition. Relying, 
 however, on the personal good will of Cromwell, a few families fi:om 
 Amsterdam and The Hague made their way to London, and were 
 soon joined by other emigrants, until they found themselves in 
 1656 in numbers sufficient to establish a synagogue. They en- 
 countered a fierce opposition, especially from the merchants of the 
 City, and, as they had no legal sanction for their settlement in 
 England, many petitions were presented to Parliament for their 
 expulsion. The death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658 deprived them 
 of a warm friend and sympathizer, but the conflict which arose 
 
THE JEWS IN MODERN TIMES. 219 
 
 under Richard Cromwell amongst the democratic leaders so com- 
 pletely engrossed the public mind that little heed was paid to the 
 return of the Jews. In 1664 the old spirit of fanaticism revived 
 with accelerated force, and the Jews were so maltreated by the 
 mob that they had to petition the Government for the protection 
 of their persons and their property. Their religious creed was 
 regarded as a misdemeanour by the bulk of the population, and 
 the Protestant clergy consigned them to a moral and social quar- 
 antine. They were made to feel that if England gave them for 
 the time being an abiding place, it was far from afibrding them a 
 home. It was no uncommon thing to arrest their merchants in 
 the Royal Exchange, under the Statute of the 23rd Elixabeth, as 
 " Relapsed Popish Recusants." 
 
 In 1723 they were for the first time formally recognized by 
 Parliament by an Act enabling them to take the oath of abjm-a- 
 tion without the words, "On the true faith of a Christian," a 
 concession that seemed to indicate a softening of prejudice. In 
 1755 the Government carried through Parliament a Bill for 
 the naturalization of British-bom Jews, in recognition of their 
 patriotic efiforts to save the country from bankruptcy during the 
 perilous rebellion in 1745. But scarcely had the session closed 
 when a wild agitation arose throughout the land for the repeal 
 of the Act, and the Government, yielding to the popular clamor, 
 carried its repeal in the following session of Parliament. The 
 late Sir Robert Peel, in a speech in the repeal of the Acts which 
 excluded the Jews from sitting as members of the Legislature, 
 described the repeal of the Bill of 1755, as the most shameful 
 deed ever perpetrated by Parliament. This strong manifestation 
 indicated the rough husk of bigotry that still adhered to the 
 bulk of the English people, and that the bent of its spirit was 
 evidently towards intolerance. The Jews were so completely 
 cowed by the event of 1 756, that for more than three generations 
 they confined themselves to their " Goshen " in the east of 
 London, without mixing with any but the members of their own 
 faith except for the purpose of business transactions. They were 
 timid about committing themselves again to a movement for the 
 amelioration of their condition, which might produce sectarian 
 strife and arouse a spirit of rancour like that of which they had 
 heard their fathers tell and lament. 
 
 The first quarter of the present century had nearly run its 
 course when the London merchants gave evidence of the dawn 
 of a more humane feeling towards Jews, by enabling them to 
 become Freemen of the City. Still they laboured under many 
 exceptional disabilities, and to remove these, Mr., afterwards Sir, 
 Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, devoted all the energies of his capacious 
 
220 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 mind, and the most invincible perseverance. But it was hopeless 
 to attempt to abrogate the penal laws against the Jews so long 
 as the more powerful bodies of Dissenters and Eoman Catholics 
 were labouring under similar exclusions. Still the grievance of 
 which the Jews had so long complained of, being deprived of the 
 benefit of a University education, was felt to be so intolerable as 
 to demand an immediate remedy. The poet, Thomas Campbell, 
 had suggested tlie idea of starting a university apart from theo- 
 logy and every kind of religious test, and Mr. Goldsmid seized 
 with delight the suggestion. He devoted to the project a con- 
 siderable sum, and engaged in the undertaking the powerful 
 support of Brougham, Hume, Warburton, and other advanced 
 Liberals. Hence the establishment of University College, which 
 has exercised an appreciable influence on the progress of educa- 
 tian; and to it may be traced the larger views and the wider 
 sympathies that have since found their way into the chartered 
 Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Before the foundation of 
 University College no career was open to the aspiring Israelite 
 but that of conmierce ; and the mental superiority which that race 
 has displayed ever since a field has been afibrded it excites a 
 feeling of regret that many a powerful intellect amongst the Jews 
 should have been sufiered to stagnate during ages of exclusive- 
 ness, for lack of opportunity for cultivation. 
 
 Jewish hope revived in 1828, when Lord John Enssell carried 
 through the House .of Commons the repeal of the Test and 
 Corporations Acts, but the Episcopal Bench in the House of 
 Lords would pass the Bill only on the condition of the insertion 
 of the words, " On the true faith of a Christian," as a part of the 
 declaration on acceptance of office. The passing of the Eoman 
 Catholic Relief Bill in .1829, renewed the hope of the Jews 
 that their complete emancipation was at hand. But preliminary 
 measures had to precede its realization. 
 
 In 1847 the election of David Salomons as Alderman of the 
 City led to the passing of an Act enabling him and others of 
 his faith elected to muncipal office to omit from the required 
 declaration words which they could not conscientiously subscribe. 
 Soon followed the election of Baron Lionel de Eothschild a» 
 member for the City of London, and then the question of the 
 complete emancipation of the Jews was brought within the range 
 of practical politics. For eleven long years a contest was main- 
 tained on tlus question between the two Houses of Parliament ;. 
 but in 1858 it was settled by a proposal of compromise made by 
 the Earl of Lucan, and the last of the civil disabilities which had 
 so long stained the statute book was removed. 
 
 During the last quarter of a century the Anglo-Jewish 
 
THE JEWS IN MODERN TIMES. 221 
 
 •community has advanced with rapid strides. Many things have 
 ■combined for their improvement, but no factor has been so potent 
 as that of education. "VMiilst University College has conferred 
 priceless benefits on the upper classes, and sent forth men who have 
 «hed lustre on their Ama Mater, the renowned school in Bell Lane, 
 Spitalfields, continues to instruct three thousand poor children at 
 an annual cost of £12,000. Other schools of less magnitude exist 
 in different parts of the Metropolis. The improvement of the 
 lower classes wrought by these institutions is very remarkable. 
 The educational reports, furnished from time to time by the 
 Kxovemment inspectors show that of all religious denominations in 
 England the Jews have proportionally the smallest number who 
 3ie destitute of the common franchise of reading and writing. 
 The troops of Hebrew boys which, a quarter of a century ago, 
 infested the public thoroughfares as vendors of articles of small 
 value, and the young men that assailed the public ear with the 
 incessant cry of " Old Clo'," have quite disappeared from the scene ; 
 and they are succeeded by a generation that takes to more ele- 
 vating and productive callings at home, or in the colonies, where 
 they have become prosperous. Mendicity still prevails to a con- 
 siderable extent in the community, owing to foreign emigrants 
 expatriated from Bussia and Germany, and they resort for the 
 most part to London as a fancied El Dorado. Much interesting 
 information bearing on this hard social problem is supplied in 
 "the periodical reports of the Jewish Board of Guardians. 
 
 T^oughout Great Britain and Ireland there are more than ninety 
 thousand Jews, by far the larger portion of whom are located in 
 London and its suburbs, whilst the city of New York alone is said 
 to contain one hundred thousand of the Hebrew community. 
 They are remarkably free from predatory acts and deeds of violence, 
 and they are strictly law-abiding. Intemperance is a failing 
 rarely found amongst them, but the lower classes are much given 
 to gambling. Until recently the prevailing feature amongst the 
 poorest Jewesses was chastity, but it is less strictly maintained 
 at present, the mania for fine attire is the cause of the fall of 
 not a few. 
 
 In matters of religious faith and practice the British Jews cling 
 to the code of Moses, unshaken amidst the changes and the 
 turmoil of ages, and they recognize in the Synagogue a living 
 organism. Some of their ritual observances have naturally yielded 
 to modifications, motivated by time, locality, and circumstance. 
 They draw a line of distinction between the matter and the 
 manner, the essence and the accident, the spirit and the form, 
 or in other words, between outward and inward religion. They 
 regard Judaism from its practical, and not from its speculative, 
 
222 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 standpoint. It is to them what the Germans call a Religion 
 der That, and it resolves itself into what Scripture charges them 
 to do and to refrain from doing. Indeed, Judaism is remarkably 
 free from dogmatism, and is essentially a religion of action. It 
 emphatically repudiates the doctrine of exclusive salvation, a 
 doctrine that has produced so much persecution and bloodshed in 
 the world. It likewise discountenances every attempt to suppress 
 the critical spirit and to paralyze the intellect, to stigmatize 
 honest doubt or error as guilt, and to elevate dogma above the 
 moral element of religion. Influenced by the endless variety of 
 human opinions, and maintained by all with equal honesty, con- 
 fidence, and hope, Judaism holds and teaches that no one can be 
 distant from God "whose life is in the right." This is not a 
 sudden outcome of Jewish sentiment prompted by modern 
 liberalism, but is as old as the Bible itself. The same Voice that 
 promulgated the Decalogue at Sinai proclaimed that, " on every 
 place where the Divine name should be recorded, a blessing from 
 above would descend." Again, at the inauguration of the Temple 
 at Jerusalem, Solomon placed the non-Israelite on precisely the 
 same level as the Hebrew with respect to the acceptance of 
 prayer. Even in times of sore persecution from the Crescent and 
 the Cross, when the bitterness of the hour might have called forth 
 a hostile or anti-social utterance, the Rabbins openly taught that 
 " salvation is the heritage of the virtues of all peoples." Religious 
 teachers there have been, and are still, who profess their in- 
 capability to conceive how any but one measure of belief and 
 one stereotyped form of worship can be acceptable to the Almighty. 
 But here the Jew finds no perplexity, since he recognizes in the 
 very variety of prevailing opinions and forms a telfing evidence 
 of the righteousness of God, who judges between the errors of 
 the head, if errors they be, and the errors of the heart. 
 
 The Jew, therefore, does not classify men by the principle of 
 theology. He regards the severity practised towards the Canaanites 
 of old not as a consequence of erroneous religious belief, but as a 
 retribution for their revolting and unnatural crimes, which were 
 inseparable from their religious practice. The Egyptians and the 
 Edomites were also idolaters ; but as they did not associate thefr 
 worship with the abominations of Canaan, the Jews were charged 
 to regard them as brotliers, and to promote their welfare. Though 
 Judaism is a missionary religion yet, paradoxical as it may seem, 
 it is very adverse to prosely tism. Conversion was practised by 
 them so long as the Bible existed in the Hebrew version only, 
 and was inaccessible to the outer world ; but in our times, when 
 the Scriptures are rendered into every language and dialect of 
 the globe, and each individual can read and interpret them for 
 
' THE JEWS IN MODEEN TIMES. 223 
 
 himself, Jews do not hold it incumbent to organize a propaganda, 
 nor to intrude their views on the consciences of others. The 
 mission of the Jews, as imposed by their legislator, lay through 
 their personal conduct and example. 
 
 It is an error to suppose that Jews regard Christianity with any- 
 thing like a hostile sentiment. They naturally distinguish between 
 Christianity in its infancy, which rested altogether on a moral 
 basis, and the Christianity of a later period, when its moral con- 
 ceptions became materialized by the influence of metaphysical 
 dogma. Still, inasmuch as in its present qualified phase it con- 
 tinues to embody and teach the fundamental ethics of the code 
 of Sinai, Jews esteem it as one of the means for disseminating in 
 the world the essential principles of morality and civilization. On 
 this account the Jew has no conscientious scruple in granting plots 
 of land on his estate, or in contributing in other ways for the 
 building of churches and chapels of all denominations. A sense 
 of social duty, no less than the feeling that property has its obli- 
 gations as well as its rights, prompts him to make some provision 
 for the spiritual needs of his tenantry. 
 
 I venture, in conclusion, to offer a bald remark or two on a 
 subject with respect to which the Synagogue differs very widely 
 in its teaching from that of the Church, and that is on the doctrine 
 of Messianism, or what is called in Evangelical phrase " the coming 
 of the kingdom of heaven." In the cheering and elevating homilies 
 of the prophets of Judah a touching picture is drawn of an ideal 
 human happiness and of a state of social perfection made manifest 
 by a higher life in every child of God. It exhibits humanity as no 
 longer restricted by the limitations of covmtry, race, or tribe, and 
 all contention, social no less than sectarian, giving place to gentle- 
 ness and concord. The differences of religious belief, and the 
 varying forms of its outward expression, are to be consigned to the 
 past, and there is to be one common house of prayer, where all 
 axe to meet and join in praise to the Universal Father. Many are 
 the vicissitudes through which the Jewish race has passed, but 
 never has this grand, prophetic ideal been extinguished from their 
 hopes nor ceased to be rehearsed in the liturgy of the Synagogue. 
 The more troublous the age, the' more hostile the fanaticism 
 waxed, the closer the Jews clung to the hope that persecution 
 would gradually wear itself out, although its spirit might flicker 
 at intervals, and that the crowning scene of the Messianic drama 
 would realize the Psalmist's prediction of " Mercy and truth 
 meeting together, and righteousness and peace being locked in 
 fond embrace." 
 
 The idea finds its most intense expression in the Apocalyptic 
 books of Daniel, Enoch, Sirack, and the Sybelline leaves, all of 
 
224 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD, 
 
 which date upwards from about the year 170 before the Christian 
 era. Now the Church, as it seems to us Jews, holds this Messianic 
 era to have come, and to have found its realization, in part at least, 
 in the advent of the renowned Teacher whom it recognizes as the 
 predicted Messiah of the Hebrew Scriptures. From such a con- 
 clusion Jewish sentiment totally dissents. It seems to the disciples 
 of the Synagogue something like a moral paradox to assimi- 
 late the condition which the world has continued to exhibit with 
 the glorious epoch prophesied by the seers of Judah, and it must 
 be borne in mind that the Hebrew Bible speaks of one Messianic 
 advent only, and not of two advents. It should not, therefore, 
 excite surprise that Jews cannot persuade themselves that the 
 promised total cessation of strife and war, the perfection of human 
 happiness, and the union of all hearts and minds has already been 
 realized, and that the glorious Messianic epoch has found its ideal 
 in the form of " a man of sorrows." 
 
 Jews, therefore, look to the future for the realization of the 
 Messianic promises, and, committing their accomplishment to 
 the time-working providence of the Eternal One, they feel it a duty 
 to respect the different systems of denominations of religion, 
 whilst they remain true to their own, giving practical effect to the 
 words of the seer Micah : " Let all others adhere to their creed 
 and worship, and let us walk in the name of our Grod for ever and 
 ever." 
 
 We feel that He whose mandate all nature obeys, He whose 
 providence over the destinies of Israel is as manifest to-day as it 
 has been in every phase of our exceptional history, may well enlist 
 our confidence to accomplish, through the Abrahamic race, the 
 Messianic regeneration, and to make Israel the instrument for 
 advancing spiritual truth and moral development, until they 
 attain the climax of healing all sectarian and social differences, 
 and in bringing all men to worship at one common altar, when 
 all that is base shall give place to what is exalted in thought and 
 sublime in action. The Greek poets taught that a golden age 
 such as this had come and gone. The Jewish prophets assigned 
 it to a distant future, and in the future alone can Jews find any 
 appreciable meaning of " Messiah's Advent " and " the coming of 
 the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 
225 
 
 MITHEAISM.^ 
 
 BY JOHN M. ROBERTSON. 
 
 In the current edition of the Eyicyclopcedia Britannica, the 
 completion of which was recently celebrated, you will find 
 devoted to the subject of the ancient deity Mithra or Mithras, 
 and his cultus, one half-page. It might seem, then, that I am 
 asking your attention to a subject of very small importance — to 
 a religion of very little account among the religions of antiquity. 
 I venture to assert, however, that though I should now fail to 
 awaken in you any interest in the matter proportionate to its 
 moment, Mithraism is and will remain a subject with a very 
 close and serious bearing upon the history of religious evolution, 
 and upon the concrete religion prevailing in our own day in 
 Christendom. A very little inquiry serves to discover that this 
 ancient cult, of which so little is known in our own time, was 
 during some centuries of the Roman empire the most widespread 
 of the religious systems which that empire embraced ; that is to 
 say, that Mithraism was the most nearly universal religion of the 
 western world in those early centuries which we commonly call 
 Christian — the two or three centuries before the fall of imperial 
 Rome. As to this, students seem agreed.'' To the early Fathers 
 -we shall see Mithraism was a most serious thorn in the flesh ; 
 and the monumental remains of the Roman period, in almost all 
 parts of the empire, show its extraordinary popularity. In our 
 own country, held by the Romans for three hundred years at a 
 time when Christianity is supposed to have penetrated the whole 
 imperial world, there have been found no monumental signs 
 whatever of any Roman profession of the Christian faith ; while 
 
 ' A Lecture delivered to the South Place Ethical Society. Eeferences and notes 
 have been added for readers. 
 
 ^ Cy. Tiele, "Outlines of the Hist, of the Anc. Relig.," Eng., p. 170 ; Gaston 
 Boissier, " Za Religion Romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins" i. 395, ii. 417; 
 H. Seel, " Bie Mithrageheivmisse," Aarau, 1823, p. 214 ; Sainte-Croix, " Reoherches 
 sur les Mystires du Paganisme," 2e. ed., ii. 123 ; Smith and Cheetham's " Diet, of 
 Christ. Antiq.," Art. Paganism ; Beugnot, " Ifist. de la Bestruotion du Paganisme," 
 1835, ii. 225; Windischmann, ^'Mithra, ein Beitrag zur MythengescMclUe de? 
 Orients," in " AbJtdnldvngen/Ur die Kunde dcs Morgenlands," Bd. i., S. 62. 
 
 15 
 
22G RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 monuments in honour of Mithra abound.^ There has been found, 
 for instance, a Mithraic cave at Housesteads, in Northumberland, 
 containing sculptures of Mithra- worship, and an inscription : " To 
 the god, best and greatest, invincible Mithra, lord of ages ; " and 
 another at Kichester, with an inscription : " To the god the sun, 
 the invincible Mithra, the lord of ages." Other monuments have 
 been found at Chester, on the line of the Roman wall, at 
 Cambeck-fort in Cumberland, at Oxford, and at York.^ And 
 " Mithraic bas-reliefs, cut upon the smoothed faces of rocks, or 
 upon tablets of stone, still abound throughout the former western 
 provinces of the Roman Empire ; many exist in Germany ; still 
 more in France." ^ According to Mr. King, again, " the famous 
 ' Arthur's Oon ' (destroyed in the last century) upon the Carron, 
 a hemispherical vaulted building of immense blocks of stone, 
 was unmistakably a Specus Mitkrceum, the same in design as 
 Chosroes' magnificent fire temple at Gazaca." * 
 
 And yet, with all this testimony to the vogue of Mithraism in the 
 early Christian centuries, there ensues for a whole era an absolute 
 blank in the knowledge of the matter in Christendom — a thousand 
 years in which the ancient cultus seems a forgotten name in 
 Europe. One modem investigator, M. Lajard,* thinks that since 
 the time of the Fathers, as the phrase goes, the first in European 
 literature to mention Mithra was Pietro Riccio (Petrus Crinitus),* 
 "bom about 1465, a disciple of Politian; and no other mention 
 occurs till about the middle of the sixteenth century.' And such 
 was the ignorance of most scholars, that of three now well-known 
 Mithraic monuments discovered about that period, not one is 
 attributed to Mithra either by the great antiquarian of the time, 
 Rossi, or by his pupil Flaminius Vacca. You all know the 
 sculptured group of Mithras slaying the bull, so often engraved, 
 of which we have a good example in the British Museum. Rossi 
 declared one of these monuments to represent Jupiter, as the 
 bull, carrying off Europa ; and Vacca tells how a lion-headed 
 image, now known to represent Mithra, but then held to represent 
 the devil, was (probably) burned in a limekiln. A century 
 later, Leibnitz demonstrated that Ormazd and Ahriman were 
 simply deified heroes; and later still the historian Mosheim, a 
 
 ' See Wright's " The Celt, the Eoman, and the Saxon," 3rd. ed., pp. 327, 353. 
 
 ^ Jd. p. 327. WellbeloTed, " Muraoum," 1842, pp. 75, 84. Stukeley, " Palav- 
 yraphica Britannica," No. 3, London, 1752. See also the inscriptions to Sol and 
 Mithra in HUbner, " Inscr. Brit. Lat." 
 
 " C. W. King, " The Gnostics and their Remains," 2nd ed., p. 136 : see the 
 modem writers on Mithraism generally. 
 
 ' Id. ib. 
 
 • " Introduction a VMude du Oulte de Mithra," 1847, pp. 2, 3. 
 " De Honesta Diiciplina," y. 14, cited by Lajard. 
 
 ' By Smet and Pighi. 
 
MITHRAISM. 227 
 
 man not devoid of judgment, elaborately and fatuously proved 
 that Mithra had simply been at one time like Nimrod, a famous 
 hunter,^ before the lord or otherwise. And even in our own day, 
 when all the extant notices and monuments of Mithra have been 
 carefully collected and studied, a vigilant scholar ^ confesses that 
 we are profoundly ignorant as to the Mithraic religion. It is 
 somewhat remarkable that this should be so ; and though in the 
 terms of the case we cannot look to find much direct knowledge, 
 we may hope at least to find out why the once popular cultus has 
 fallen into such obscurity. To that end we must see what really 
 is known about it. 
 
 If we were to trace completely the history of Mithraism, how- 
 -ever, we should have to make an examination not merely of 
 Mithraism proper, but of at least three older systems. One 
 principle must have been impressed on many of you by the 
 present course of lectures — namely, that all religions run into and 
 derive from some other religions, the creeds of all mankind being 
 simply phases of a continuous evolution. So, when we say that 
 Mithraism derives from Persia, we are alreadj'- implying that it 
 affiliates more distantly to India and to AssjTia — to the earliest 
 of those masses of confused fancies which represent in somewhat 
 «ollected form man's endless guesses at the riddle of the universe. 
 Here it must suffice, therefore, to give only the briefest sketch of 
 origins. 
 
 We trace the cult specifically in the earliest Aryan documents 
 — in the Vedas, in which the deity Mithra is one of the most 
 prominent figures. 
 
 " In the Indo-Iranian religion," M. Darmesteter writes,' " the Asura of Heaven 
 was often invoked in company with Mithra, the god of the heavenly light ; 
 -and he let him share with himself the universal sovereignty. In the Veda 
 they are invoked as a pair (Mitrft-Varu^fl,) which enjoys the same powers and 
 rights as Varu5& alone, as there is nothing more in Mitr&-Varun4 than in 
 Taronft alone, Mitra being the light of Heaven, that is, the light of Vara9&. 
 But Ahura-Mazda [Ormazd] could no longer bear an equal, and Mithra [in the 
 Zend-Avesta] became one of his creatures ; ' This Mithra, the lord of wide pastures, 
 I have created as worthy of sacrifice, as worthy of glorification, as I, Ahura-Mazda, 
 am myself.' * But old formulse, no longer understood, in which Mithra and Ahura, 
 •or rather Mithra-Ahura, are invoked in an indivisible unity, dimly remind one 
 that the Creator was formerly a brother to his creature." 
 
 " He preserved, however, a high situation, both in the concrete and in the 
 *b8tract mythology. As the god of the heavenly light, the lord of vast luminous 
 space, of the wide pastures above, he became later the god of the Sun, Deo invicto 
 JSoli Mitkrce ; (in Persian Mihr is the Sun). As light and truth were one and the 
 
 ' Mosheim's notes on Cndworth, " Intel. Syst.," Harrison's £d., i. 476. 
 
 ' Havet, " Le ChrUtianisme et set Origines," iii. 402. 
 
 ■ The Zend-Avesta, i., Introd., pp. Ix., Ixi., " Sacred Books of the East" series, 
 ■vol. iv. 
 
 * "Mihr Yast," i., in vol. ii. of M. Darmesteter's translation of the Zend-Avesta 
 <vol. 23 of " Sacred Books" series). Cf. the Khorshed Nyftyis in same vol., p. 351. 
 
228 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 same thing, viewed with the eyes of the body and of the mind, he becomes the gOd-' 
 of truth and faith. He punishes the Mithra-Drug, ' him who lies to Mithra ' (or 
 ' who lies to the contract, since Mithra as a neuter noun means friendship, agree- 
 ment, contract'); he is a judge in hell, in company with Rashnu, 'the true one,' 
 the god of truth, a mere offshoot of Mithra in his moral character." ' 
 
 The ritual of the Avesta is perfectly clear on the subject. " We 
 sacrifice unto Mithra and Ahura, the two great, imperishable, holy 
 gods ; and unto the stars, and the moon, and the sun, with the 
 trees that yield up baresma " [burned on the altar]. " We 
 sacrifice unto Mithra, the lord of all countries, whom Ahura-Mazda 
 made the most glorious of all the gods in the world unseen." "So 
 may Mithra and Ahura, the two great gods, come to us for help. 
 We sacrifice unto the bright, undjdng, shining, swift-horsed sun." "^ 
 And connected with the teaching of Zoroaster we find Mithra 
 extolled by Ahura-Mazda as a beneficent and comforting spirit. 
 "Happy that man, I think," — said Ahura-Mazda, — '0 holy 
 Zarathustra ! for whom a holy priest, . . . who is the word 
 incarnate, offers up a sacrifice unto Mithra. . . . Straight to 
 that man, I think, will Mithra come, to visit his dwelling. Then 
 Mithra's boons will come to him, as he foUows God's teaching, and 
 thinks according to God's teaching." * This was doubtless a 
 relatively late and high form of the cultus in Persia, since in the 
 Avesta we find Mithra repeatedly invoked as a warlike and for- 
 midable deity, a god of battles, swift to assail and slay the enemies 
 of truth and justice — which would normally mean, the enemies of 
 his worshippers. 
 
 Thus, then, we have the cultus of Mithra as the sun-god, the 
 deity of light and truth, created by, and yet co-equal with, the 
 Supreme Deity, and fighting on the side of the good against the 
 evil power Angra-Mainyu (Ahriman), — this at a period long 
 before the Christian era. So much is certain, whatever we may 
 decide as to the actual period of the writing of the Avesta, as it 
 has come down to us. Of the literature of Mazdeism, of course, 
 a great deal has perished ; this appearing, says M. Darmesteter, 
 not only from internal evidence, but from history. 
 
 " The Arab conquest proved fatal to the religious literature of the Saesanian 
 ages, a great part of which was either destroyed by the fanaticism of the con- 
 querors and the new converts, or lost during the long exodus of the Parsis. . . . 
 The cause that preserved the Avesta is obvious ; tsiken as a whole, it does not 
 profess to be a religious encyclopsedia, but only a liturgical collection ; and it 
 bears more likeness to a prayer book than to the Bible." * 
 
 ' On the bearing of early Mithraism on conduct see in particular the "Mihr 
 Tast," xxix., pronounced by M. Darmesteter "one of the most important in the 
 Avesta, as a short account of the social constitution and morals of Zoroastrian 
 Iran " (ii. 149, n.). 
 
 2 Darmesteter's "Zend-Avesta," ii., 158, 351. 
 
 ' Ibid. ii. 155. 
 
 * Ihid. Introd., pp. xxxi., xxxii. 
 
MITHRA.ISM. 229 
 
 Thus we can only infer the nature of the system. But what we 
 do know is, that as time went on, the cultus of Mithra became 
 more and more considerable. It is hardly accurate to say, as 
 does Canon Rawlinson, that " Mithra was originally not held in 
 very high esteem ; " but it is the historic fact that — 
 
 "he ultimately came to occupy a place only a little inferior to that assigned, 
 from the first, to the Ahiira- Mazda. Darius, the eon of Hystaspes, placed the 
 «mblemB of Ahura- Mazda and of Mithra in equally conspicuous positions on the 
 sculptured tablet above his tomb [B.C. 485] ; and his example was followed by all 
 the later monarche of his race whose sepulchres are still in existence. Artaxerxes 
 Mnemon [d. B.C. 358] placed an image of Mithra in the temple attached to the 
 royal palace of Suza. He also in his inscriptions unites Mithra with Ahura- Mazda, 
 and prays for their conjoint protection. Artaxerxes Oohus [d. B.C. 337] does the 
 same a little later ; and the practice is also observed in portions of the Zendavesta 
 composed about this period." ' 
 
 Artaxerxes Mnemon, too, swore by " the light of Mithras," 
 ■as our William the Conqu,eror swore by "the splendour of 
 <iod." 2 
 
 But of the importance and range of the Mithraic worship at a 
 ■distant period, we have suflScient evidence in the mere vogue of 
 the name Mithridates, " given by Mithra," which we find in use 
 -at least six hundred years before the Christian era. 
 
 This deity, then, is from remote antiquity, one of high moral 
 •attributes, at times worshipped, no doubt, licentiously,' as deities 
 have been in all ages, but expressly associated with moral qualities. 
 Theologically, he exists both in abstract and in symbol : originally 
 he is simply the sun ; later, according to the universal law of 
 religious evolution, he becomes a spirit apart from the sun, but 
 symbolised by it, the sun being worshipped in his name, he being 
 the god who sustains it; nay, an actual subordinate sun-god 
 takes his place, even in the Kig Veda.* But since in Persian 
 his name (Mihr) actually means the sun,® he can never be dis- 
 sociated from it ; and as the same word also means " the friend," 
 the light being the friend of man,* and seems to connote love or 
 amity, a moral distinction inevitably attaches to him in a stage 
 
 ' '• The Eeligions of the Ancient World," p. 105, citing the author's " Ancient 
 Monarchies," iv. 834 ; Flandin, " Voyage en Perie," pis. 1646m., 166, 173-6 ; Loftus, 
 ■" Chaldaea and Susiana," p. 572 ; and Sir H. EawUuson's " Cuneiform Inscriptions," 
 i. 342. See also Windischmann, " Mithra, ein Beitrag zur Mythengeschiolite des 
 Orients" in " Abhdndlwagenfiir die Kunde det MorgenUmds," Bd. i., S. 56. 
 
 ' Eiug, " The Gnostics and their Eemains," p. 116. 
 
 ' Athenseus (x. 45), citing Ctesias and Doris, tells that among the Persians 
 the king was permitted to get drunk and dance on one day in the year only, the 
 festival of Mithras (probably Christmas-day) ; no one else being allowed to get 
 ■drunk or dance on that day. 
 
 * Bawlinson, " Eelig. of Anc. World," p. 130. 
 
 * Darmesteter, Introd. to " Zend-Avesta," p. liv. ; Sainte-Croix, " Reeherches* 
 ii. 122, n. 
 
 ' Ihid. 
 
230 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of human thought in which names have an incalculable signifi- 
 cance. And at length, the dualist theory holding its ground as 
 a theological system, as it always will while men personify the 
 energies of the universe, Mithra comes to occupy a singular 
 position as between the two great powers of good and evil, 
 Ormazd and Ahriman (the Ahura-Mazda, and Angra-Mainyu of 
 Mazdeism), being actually named the Mediator,' and figuring to 
 the devout eye as a humane and-beneficent God, nearer to man 
 than the Great Spirit of Good, a Saviour, a Redeemer, eternally 
 young, son of the Most High, and preserver of mankind from the 
 Evil One. In brief, he is a pagan Christ. 
 
 Much has been written as to whether Mithra was worshipped 
 as the sun, or as the creator and sustainer of the sun. There can 
 be little doubt that the two ideas existed, and were often blended. 
 We may depend upon it, that for the weak and ignorant minds,^ 
 which could only conceive a pergonal god under the form of a 
 man or animal, or both combined, the perpetual pageant of the 
 sun was a help and not a hindrance to elevation of thought ; and 
 that even to the thinkers, who sought to distinguish between 
 matter and essence, and reckoned tibe sun only a part of the 
 material universe, the great orb would yet be the very symbol of 
 life and splendour and immortality ; that it should be the chosen 
 seat of the deity who ruled manlond ; and that it should be the 
 viewless spirit of the sun who, in their thought, proclaimed to 
 man the oracle of the Soul of the Universe : — " / am the Alpha- 
 and the Omega, the first and the last, which is, and which was, 
 and which is to come, the Almighty." 
 
 But in the great polytheistic era, the habit of personifying all 
 the forces of nature led first to a universal admission of the actual 
 existence of the deities of foreign peoples — an admission which 
 we find repeatedly made in the sacred books of the Jews— and 
 later on, to the idea that all the deities of the nations are but 
 names of phases of one central and omnipotent power. Even 
 among the philosophers and theologians, of course, this conception 
 never really destroyed the habit of thinking of the alleged phases 
 or manifestations of the deity as being really minor deities ; and 
 much more a matter of course was it that among the multitude 
 the deity or deities should always be conceived in a quite concrete 
 form. But the synthesizing tendency early resulted in this, that 
 diSerent cults were combined ; difiierent god-names identified as- 
 pointing to the same god ; and difierent gods combined into 
 unities of two, three, four, or more members. Egypt is the great 
 theological factory for such combinations ; but the law necessarily 
 operated everywhere. The conception of a Divine Trinity is of 
 ' Plutarch, " On Isis and Osiris," 46. 
 
MITHRAISM. 231 
 
 unknown antiquity; it flourishes in Hindostan, in the Platonic 
 philosophy, in Egypt, long before Christianity. But the com- 
 bining process, among other variations, had to take account of 
 the worship of goddesses as well as of gods ; and in regions where 
 goddess-worship was deeply rooted, it was inevitable that there 
 should occur combinations of sex. This actually took place in 
 the worship of Mithra. From Herodotus,* writing in the fifth 
 century B.C., we leam that in some way the god Mithra was 
 identified with a goddess. The whole passage, though familiar 
 to students, is worth quoting: — 
 
 " The PersiaiiB, according to my own knowledge, observe the following customs. 
 It is not their practice to erect statues, or temples, or altars, but they charge those 
 with folly who do so ; because, as I conjecture, they do not think the gods have 
 human forms, as the Greeks do. They are accustomed to ascend the highest parts 
 of the mountains, and offer sacrifice to Jupiter, and they call the whole circle of 
 the heavens by the name of Jupiter. They sacrifice to the sun and moon, to the 
 earth, fire, water, and the winds. To these alone they have sacrificed from the 
 earliest times : but they have since learnt from the Arabians and Assyrians to 
 sacrifice to Venus Drania, whom the Assyrians call Venus Mylitta, the Arabians 
 Alitta, and the Persians Mitra." 
 
 This is one of the many seemingly improbable statements in 
 Herodotus which late research has confirmed. He is accused,^ 
 indeed, of blundering in combining Mithra with Mylitta, it being 
 shown -from monuments that the goddess identified with Mithra 
 was Anaitis or Tanat.^ I do not see how we can be so sure that 
 Anaitis and Mylitta were never regarded as the same goddess ; 
 but in any case the point as to combination is certain. It is made 
 good, not only by the statement of the Christian controversialist 
 Julius Firmicus, in the fourth century, and later writers, that 
 the Persians make Mithras both two-sexed and threefold or 
 three-formed,^ but by innumerable Mithraic monuments on which 
 appear the symbols of two deities, male and female, the sun and 
 the moon, or, it may be male and female principles of the sun. 
 And this epicene or double-sexed character is singularly preserved 
 to us in that Mithraic monument of the Grseco-Roman period 
 which we possess in our own British Museum, in which the 
 divine slayer of the bull presents a face of perfect and sexless 
 beauty, feminine in its delicate loveliness of feature, masculine in 
 its association with the male form. 
 
 But to refer to these Mithraic monuments, of which there 
 
 ' i. 131. 
 
 - Eawlinson's " Herodotus," i. 257. Cp. Lenormant, " Manual of Auc. Hist." Eng. 
 tr., ii. 46. 
 
 " Tbid. p. 416. On the names of this goddess, see G. Diercks, " Entuiickelungs- 
 gescliiohte des Geistes der MenscUkeit ." Berlin, 1881, i. 242. 
 
 ' "Be Errors Profanarum Jteligionum," v. Compare Dionysius the pseudo- 
 Areopagite, Epist. vii. ad Polyoarp., cited in Selden, "DeJDiis Syris," Proleg. c. 3 ; 
 and in Cudworth, " Intel. Syst., ' Harrison's ed., i. 482. 
 
232 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 are so many examples, is to point out that the old Persian 
 aversion to images of deity had disappeared with the extension 
 of the Mithraic cultus. There is, of course, no doubt as to the 
 original forbiddal of images, despite the common delusion that 
 the Jews were the first to lay down such a veto. The Jews, 
 of course, got the idea from their conquerors, who taught and 
 civilized them. But it was inevitable that in the artistic coun- 
 tries,^ the adoption of Mithraism should involve the representing 
 Mithra by images, like other deities. Nor was this all. One 
 reason for regarding the Zend-Avesta as essentially ancient is 
 the comparative simplicity of the Mithra cultus it sets forth. 
 Just as happened with Christianity later, the spreading faith 
 assimilated all sorts of ancient symbolisms, and new complications 
 of ritual ; and Mithra later figures for us in the strange symbolic 
 figures of the lion-headed serpentine god, but above all in that 
 of the slayer of the bull. Whence came that conception ? There 
 are many explanations. It has been variously decided that the 
 bull slain by Mithra is the symbol of the earth, the symbol of the 
 moon, the bull of the zodiac, and the cosmogonic bull of the 
 Magian system.^ Now, anyone who has studied such a work of 
 ancient theosophy as Plutarch's treatise on Isis and Osiris — a 
 singularly interesting document, by the way — will be perfectly 
 prepared to believe that for the ancients the bull of Mithra 
 could represent all four of these things. In that famous treatise, 
 Isis and Oiisis and Typhon successively represent a number of 
 diflferent principles in nature — sun, moon, moisture, the Nile, 
 generative warmth, injurious heat, wind, and so on — shifting and 
 exchanging their places, till it becomes plain that the old theo- 
 sophy was but a ceaseless flux of more or less congnaous fancies. 
 We may depend upon it that Mithraism was as hospitable to 
 mystic meanings as Osirianism. It is perfectly intelligible and 
 probable that Mithra slaying the bull should have meant the 
 rays of the sun penetrating the earth, and so creating life for 
 mundane creatures, as the dog' feeds on the blood of the slain 
 bull. But those who adopt this as the whole explanation,* 
 overlook a principle bound up with the very origin of Mithraism 
 — the significance of the bull as one of those signs-of-the-zodiac 
 
 ' I do not quite follow Canon Eawlinson's meaning in the statement (" Seventh 
 Oriental Monarchy," p. 632), that " the Pertian system was further tainted with 
 idolatry in respect of the worship of Mithra." For that matter, however, the 
 " idolatry " of antiquity is on all fours with the reverence of images under Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 ^ Hammer- Purgstall, " Mithriaca^ Caen and Paris, 1833, p. 31. 
 
 " For another signification of the dog here, see Mr. King's " Gnostics and their 
 Eemnins," 2nd ed., p. 137. Compare the Osirian theory in Plutaich, "Isis and 
 Osiris," 44. 
 
 ' King, pp. 135, 136. 
 
MITHEAISM. 233 
 
 through which the sun passed in his annual course. It is certain 
 that the zodiac was the source of very much of the symbolism 
 ^nd mysticism of those ancient cults which their priesthoods 
 associated with the sun, not to speak of those whose priesthoods 
 professedly repudiated sun worship. And one of the most 
 important facts established by the collection and comparison of 
 ■ancient monuments^ is that the Mithraic cultus connects sym- 
 bolically with an Assjoian cultus far older. You have all seen 
 copies of that common Assyrian monument, in which a divine 
 or kingly personage slays a lion, thrusting a sword through him. 
 There can, I think, be no reasonable doubt that these successive 
 religious representations of the slaying of the lion and the 
 slaying of the bull, rest on a zodiacal system of sacred symbolism, 
 in which the slaying of a given animal means either the passing 
 of the sun into a particular sign of the zodiac at a particular 
 season of the year, or the slaying of the animal represented as a 
 special sacrifice. The zodiac, which is of immense antiquity, has 
 come to be conventionalized — that is to say, it is fixed, so that 
 the signs have long ceased to coincide with the actual constella- 
 tions whose names they bear. But originally the students of the 
 stars must needs have had regard to the actual constellations. 
 -And this carries us very far back indeed. If it be right to 
 decide that the slaying of the bull originally pointed to the sun's 
 ■entering the sign of the Bull at the vernal equinox (and this 
 is strongly suggested by the hostile function assigned in the 
 monuments to the scorpion, which is the opposing sign, and 
 would represent the autumnal equinox), then this symbol dates 
 back, probably, more than 3,000 years before the Christian 
 -era ; while the symbol of the slaying of the lion would derive 
 -from a period indefinitely earlier still. In point of fact, astro- 
 nomy tells us that, by the precession of the equinoxes, the 
 -constellation of the Bull had ceased to be the sun's place at 
 the vernal equinox for about 2,400 years before the reign of 
 Augustus ; the constellation of the Ram taking its place. But, 
 just as the symbol of the slaying of the lion had, on this theory, 
 held its ground in religion after the bull played a similar part, 
 80 did the sign of the Bull play its part in symbol and ceremony 
 long after the sun had begun to enter the constellation Aries 
 at the sacred season. But what gives the zodiacal theory its 
 crowning vindication is the remarkable fact that while the bull 
 holds its place on the monuments at the Christian era — that 
 teing an age of immense diffusion of cults and mysteries among 
 the general population of the civilized world — we find at this 
 -very period, in connection with the worship of Mithra, as with 
 ' See the series in Lajard's "Atlas." 
 
234 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD, 
 
 that of Dionysos ^ or Bacchus, an actual ceremony of slayino; a, 
 ram in honour of the sun-god. In Persia, the sign Aries, the 
 ram, was known as the lamb ; and in the Mithraic mysteries at 
 the Christian era, it was a lamb that was slain. That fact, as we 
 shall see, has further bearings ; but thus far it surely counts for 
 much as a proof of the zodiacal element in the symbolism of the 
 ancient sophisticated sun worships. And though the notion of a 
 fish god is deeply rooted in several of the older Eastern religions,. 
 I know of no more plausible explanation than the zodiacal one 
 of the early Christian habit of calling Jesus Christ the fish. The 
 sign of the Fishes comes next the Ram in the zodiac ; and that 
 constellation was actually taking the place of the Bam, at the 
 spring equinox, about the time this symbol came into use. We 
 know with certainty, too, from Origen, that the Mithraic mys- 
 teries included an elaborate representation of the movements of 
 the stars and planets, and the movements of the disembodied 
 human soul among these.' 
 
 Every widespread religion, however, is necessarily a complex 
 of many ideas, and in the cult of Mithra this is abundantly seen. 
 The image of the slaying of the bull, whatever its original 
 bearing, came to be associated specially with the idea of sacrifice 
 and purification ; and the great vogue of the Phrygian institutions 
 of the Taurobolia and Criobolia,' or purification by the blood of 
 buUs and rams, must have reacted on Mithraism. In connection 
 with these we have the literal and original meaning of the 
 phrase " washed in the blood of the lamb ; " the doctrine being 
 that resurrection and eternal life were secured by drenching or 
 sprinkling with the actual blood of a sacrificial bull or ram (often, 
 doubtless a lamb, that being a common sacrifice from time 
 immemorial). Thus we have such mortuary inscriptions as 
 " Taurobolio criobolioque in ceternum renatus." * But whereas 
 there was a constant tendency in the mystical systems to substitute 
 symbolism for concrete usages, the Mithraists may be surmised 
 to have ultimately performed their sacrificial rites in a less crude 
 form than that described by Prudentius.* 
 
 ' The Tam " supplied the favourite Dionysiak sacrifice." E. Brown, " The Great 
 Dionysiak Myth," ii. 65. In one version of the Dionysian myth, Zeus changes 
 Dionysos into a ram to save him from Hera. Smith's Diet., art. Bionynis, citing 
 Hyginus and Theon. 
 
 " " Against Celsus," vi. 22. 
 
 ' Referred to by Firmicus, xxviii. 
 
 ■• Given in note on Firmicus in ed. Hackiana, 1672, p. 56. See it also in Orelli, 
 No. 2352. See further No. 1899, 1900, 2130, 2199, 2322, 2326, 2328, 2330, 2331, 
 2351, 2353, 2361. Compare Boeokh, 6012, J, c. Here the tauroboUum and 
 crioboUum are directly connected with Mithraism. On the " blood shed for all " 
 see Pieller, " Bomuche Mythologie," 1865, p. 761, n. 
 
 " X. 1009, 1050. Concerning the tauroboUum at Athens, see Dittenberger,. 
 " Inscr. Attica mt. Roman." 172, 173. Cp. King, " Gnostics," p. 154. 
 
MITHEAISM. 235 
 
 Resembling other cults at some points, the Mithraic was 
 markedly peculiar in others. The great specialty of this 
 worship, as we learn from several writers, is that it was carried 
 on in caves — so far at least as its special mysteries were con- 
 cerned — the cave being considered so all-important that where 
 natural caves did not exist, the devotees made artificial ones/ 
 Porphyry puts it on record- that the "Persians, mystically 
 signifying the descent of the soul into the sublunary regions, 
 and its regression thence, initiate the mystic in a place which 
 they caU a cavern. For, as Eubulus says, Zoroaster was the first 
 who consecrated in the neighbouring mountains of Persia, an orbi- 
 cular cave, in which there were flowers and fountains, in honour 
 of Mithra, the maker and father of all things — a cave, accord- 
 ing to Zoroaster, bearing a resemblance to the world, which was 
 fabricated by Mithra. But the things contained in the cavern . . . 
 were symbols of the mundane elements and climates." 
 
 This explanation of the cave was not improbably suggested by 
 a well-known passage in Plato ; and it is obvious that the custom 
 must have had some simpler origin. It is easy to understand 
 how to half-civilized man caves would have a hundred mysterious 
 significances, as places for dwelling or meeting made by the 
 Deity himself; and fire- or sun -worshippers would have the 
 special motives supplied by finding in caves the remains of 
 the fires made by the earlier men ; and by the not unnatural 
 theory that the sun himself went into some cave when he went 
 below the horizon at night. Indeed Porphyry admits that 
 caves in the most remote periods of antiquity were consecrated 
 to the gods, before temples were consecrated to them. Hence 
 the Curetes in Crete dedicated a cavern to Jupiter ; in Arcadia, 
 a cave was sacred to the moon, and to Lycean Pan; and in 
 Naxos, to Bacchus. "But," he adds, "wherever Mithra was 
 known, they propitiated the god in a cavern."' 
 
 It appears that the greatest sanctity attached to caves in the 
 living rock ; and there are many remains of Mithraic altars cut 
 in rocks;* nay more, the rock came to be specially associated 
 with Mithra, who was named "rock-bom;" and the phrase, 
 " &e6i eK Trerpo?, God out of the rock," or " Mithras out of the 
 rock," became one of the commonest formulas of the cultus.^ 
 
 ' Caves were, therefore, made in honour of Mithra, as temples in honour or 
 other gods. See OreUi, 2340, 2341. 
 
 ' " On the Cave of the Nymphs," ii. Cf. Firmicus, v. 
 
 » Ibid. c. 8. 
 
 * See the engravings in Jacob Bryant's "Analysis of Ancient Mythology," ed. 
 1774, 4to, vol. i., pp. 232, 234, 294. 
 
 ' Firmicus, " jDe Errore" xxi. j Justin Martyr, " Dialogue with Trypho," c. 70 ; 
 Jerome, " Adwrsus Jovinianum," i. 7 (Migne, xxiii., col. 219) ; Windischmann 
 pp. 61, 62, citing Commodianus and Johannes Lydus. 
 
236 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OP THE WORLD. 
 
 In these rock-caves, then, or in artificial caves, the priests of 
 Mithras celebrated the habitual rites and the special mysteries 
 of their religion. How far they practised daily or weekly 
 devotions is one of the matters as to which we have no positive 
 information ; but there are many reasons for believing that the 
 worship was habitual.' The rising sun would be daily hailed 
 with joy, as among the Jewish Essenes, and sun- worshippers 
 everywhere ; and during the night, when the sun was hidden, 
 special prayers would be offered up. The first day of the week, 
 Sunday, was of course from time immemorial consecrated to 
 Mithra by Mithraists ; and as the sun-god was pre-eminently 
 "the Lord," Sunday was "the Lord's day" long before the 
 Christian era. On that day there must have been special Mithraic 
 worship. But we have some exact information as to the two 
 chief Mithraic ceremonies or festivals, those of Christmas and 
 Easter, the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, the birthday 
 of the sun-god, and the period of his sacrifice and his triumph. 
 That Christmas is a solar festival of unknown .intiquity, which 
 the early Christians appropriated to Christ in total ignorance of 
 the real time of his birth, is no longer denied by competent 
 Christian scholars — when they happen to allude to the subject. 
 That Easter is also a solar* festival is perhaps not so freely 
 recognized. But we know not only that Mithras and Osiris (and 
 Horus), like so many other solar deities, were especially adored at 
 the vernal equinox,^ but that in these worships there were special 
 formulas representing, apparently at this date,* the symbolical 
 death of the deity, the search for his body, and the finding of it. 
 The Christian Firmicus wrathfuUy tells how the priests of Osiris, 
 who have a representation of the god in the most secret part of 
 their temples, mourn for a certain number of days (presumptively 
 forty,* = Lent), while professedly searching for the scattered 
 members of his mangled body, till at length they feign to have 
 found it, when they finish their mourning and rejoice, sajnng, 
 " We have found him : rejoice we." * And we learn from Ter- 
 tullian that Osiris in the mysteries was buried and cam,e to life 
 again.' But as to Mithraism the details are still more precise. 
 
 ' Under the Mazdeau system, prayer won offered to Mithra thrice daily | at 
 dawn, at noon, and at sunset. (BawHnson, " Seventh Oriental Monarchy," p. 628, 
 citing Spiegel, " Tradit. Sclirift. d. Pars." p. 136.) 
 
 = Or rather a luui-solar. It is singular that this movable feast should be 
 celebrated as an anniversary of an event with apparently no orthodox misgivings. 
 
 = MacrobiuB, "Saturnalia" i. 18. Cp. Preller, " Romische Mythologie," 1865. 
 p. 760. 
 
 * But see Plutarch, " On Iris and Osiris," 39, which creates a difficulty. 
 
 * Compare the forty nights mourning of the mysteries of Proserpine, " Be Errare," 
 c. xiviii. 
 
 « " De Errore," ii. ' " Against Maroion," i. 13. 
 
MITHEAISM. 237 
 
 The worshippers, Firmicus tells us,^ lay a stone image by night 
 on a bier and liturgically mourn for it, this image representing 
 the dead god. This symbolical coi-pse is then placed in the 
 tomb, and after a time is withdrawn from the tomb, whereupon 
 the worshippers rejoice, exhorting one another to be of good 
 hope ; lights are brought in ; and the priest anoints the throats 
 of the devotees, murmuring slowly: "Be of good courage, you 
 have been instructed in the mysteries, and you shall have 
 salvation from your sorrows." The parallel to a central epi- 
 sode in the Christian legend is sufficiently striking; but there 
 is every reason to conclude that a similar liturgy was gone 
 through in connection with the burial and resurrection of 
 Osiris. 
 
 This, however, was only one of the Mithraic mysteries, pre- 
 sumably celebrated once a year. We have further records of 
 another enacted at the initiation of every new devotee, and 
 probably repeated in some form frequently. Justin Martyr, in 
 his first Apology,' after describing the institution of the Christian 
 Lord's Supper, as narrated in the Gospels, goes on to say : 
 " Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of 
 Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that 
 bread and a cup of water ' are placed with certain incantations 
 in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know 
 or can learn." And this is borne out by Tertullian, who intimates* 
 that "the devil undertakes to imitate in the mysteries of false 
 gods the holy ceremonies of the Christian religion. He also 
 plunges his worshippers in water, and makes them believe that 
 this purifies them of their crimes. He puts a mark on the 
 forehead of the soldiers of Mithra when they are initiated ; he 
 celebrates the oblation of bread ; he offers an image of the 
 resurrection, and presents at once the crown and the sword ; 
 he forbids to the sovereign pontiff to marry a second time ; he 
 even has his virgins and his ascetics (continentes)." Again' the 
 devil " has gone about to apply to the worship of idols all that 
 we practise in the celebration of our mysteries." 
 
 Reference is here made to a certain ceremony of initiation. 
 The complete initiation of a worshipper, we know, was an 
 elaborate and even a painful process, involving many austerities, 
 
 ' " i)» Err ere," zxiii. 
 
 ' 0. 66. 
 
 ' The Ebionite Christians (the earliest), it will be remembered, celebrated the 
 communion rite with bread and water (Epiphanius, " Hcer." 30). And water was 
 mixed with wine in later usage ; see Bingham, "Christian Antiquities," ed. 1855,. 
 
 T. 242, 
 
 < " Prater." c. 40. 
 <■ Ibid. 
 
238 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 trial by water, trial by fire, by cold, by hunger, by thirst, by 
 scourging, by branding or bleeding,' and the mock menace 
 of death. Of these austerities different but vague and scanty 
 accounts are given. According to some accounts they lasted 
 fifteen days ; according to others, for forty-eight : ^ one old 
 writer^ alleges eighty different kinds of trials. It is more 
 likely that they numbered twelve, seeing that on the Mithraic 
 monuments we find representations of twelve episodes, doubtless 
 corresponding to the twelve labours which we find in the stories 
 of Hercules, Samson, and other sun- heroes; but, probably, also 
 connected with the trials of the initiated.* More explicitly we 
 know from Porphyry and from Jerome that the devotees were 
 divided into a number of different degrees, symbolically marked 
 by the names of birds and animals, and apparently by wearing, 
 during some of the rites, the skins or heads of these animals. 
 Porphyry* mentions grades of lions, lionesses, and crows, and 
 higher grades of eagles and hawks ; Jerome* speaks of crow, 
 gryphon, soldier, lion, Persian (or Perses), sun, Bromios = roarer, 
 (or, the bull), and father. Out of the various notices, partly by 
 hypothesis, M. Lajard has constructed a not quite trustworthy 
 scheme,' representing twelve Mithraic degrees : three terrestrial, 
 the soldier, the lion,* and the bull ; three aerial, the vulture, the 
 ostrich, and the raven; three igneous, the gryphon, the horse, 
 and the sun ; and three divine, the grade of fathers, named 
 eagle, sparrow-hawk, and father of fathers. It makes a suffi- 
 ciently grotesque list, in this or any other form ; but it is the 
 old story, all religions are absurd to those who do not believe 
 
 ' On this Bee Mr. King's " Gnostics," p. 139, citing Aug. in Johann. i. 7 ; Mem. 
 Bevelation, xiiL 17. 
 
 ' Sainte-Croii, " Rfcherclies" ii. 126, n. 
 
 ° Nonnus, cited by Seldeu, " Be Diis Syrig," Syntag. i., c 5 ; and by Windisohmann, 
 p. 69. See there also the important citation from Elias of Crete. Compare 
 Suidas, as cited on p. 68. As to the origin of the trials, see Darmesteter on Mihr 
 Yast, XXX. 122. 
 
 * On the twelve episodes, cp. Sainte-Croix, as cited, with King, "Gnostics," 
 p. 128. Compare the " twelve stoles," in the mysteries of Isis, mentionai by Apuleius, 
 ("Metavi." B. xi.). There is a remarkable correspondence between the twelve 
 Mithraic trials and twelve forms of Hindoo penance (especially as regards the 
 last), as described by Maurice, " Indian Antiquities," 1794, v. 981. These twelve 
 orders of fast include trials lasting fifteen days ; and the whole would cover more 
 than eighty days. 
 
 ' " On Abstinence from Animal Food," iv. 16. 
 
 " Epistola cvii. (vii.) ad Zeetam. 
 
 ' " Secherohes mr U Culte Puhlic et Mytteret de Mithra," ed. 1867, p. 132, 
 et seq. The main authority for twelve degrees is Porphyry's citation from Pallas 
 as to the signs of the zodiac ; but M. Lajard's Hst is not zodiacal. The grade of 
 the ostrich is particularly ill made-out (p. 338). 
 
 " Every animal's name used must have had a symbolical meaning. Thus we 
 have it through Tertullian ("Against Marcion," i. 13), that " the lions of Mithra are 
 mysteries of arid and scorched nature." 
 
MITHKAISM. 239 
 
 them ; ^ and it is not well for those who keep a private conserva- 
 tory, however small, to throw stones. 
 
 We have thus far briefly examined what may be termed the 
 skeleton or dry bones of the Mithraic religion, so far as we can 
 trace them, at the period when it seemed to be successfully 
 competing with Christianity. What of the inner life, the spiritual 
 message and attraction which there must have been to give the 
 cult its hold over the Roman Empire ? Here it is that our 
 ignorance becomes most sharply felt. So far as Christian zeal 
 could suppress all good report of Mithraism, this was done, when 
 Christianity — I will not say overthrew, but absorbed — the 
 Mithraic movement. To this day you find Christian scholars 
 either saying or hinting that Mithraism was signalized in the 
 Roman period by human sacrifices. I know no more dis- 
 ingenuous suggestion in the orthodox presentment of Paganism, 
 profoundly prejudiced and unjust as that generally is. We do 
 know that during the whole of the first three or four centuries 
 it was charged against the Christians, by Jews or Pagans, that 
 they were wont to sacrifice a child at their mysteries.'^ That 
 charge was doubtless false, but it was constantly asserted. Now, 
 the only kind of record founded on for the charge against 
 Mithraism is one which utterly destroys that charge. Sainte- 
 Croix, following a plainly worthless suggestion of the ecclesiastical 
 historian Socrates,' was reckless enough to refer* to a passage 
 in the life of Commodus by Lampridius, in the Augustan history, 
 in support of his insinuation that Mithraism involved human 
 sacrifice. But this passage^ explicitly says that Commodus 
 "polluted the rites of Mithras by a real homicide, where it is 
 usual for something to be said, or feigned to be done for the 
 purpose of causing terror" (quum illic aliquid ad epeciemtimoris 
 vet ddci vel fingi sclent). The same scholar makes another 
 reference which equally serves to confute him ; * yet an English 
 writer later speaks of "the dark and fearful mysteries" of 
 Mithra, repeating the old insinuation.' The Mithraic mysteries, 
 save for the fact that they involved real austerities and a scenic 
 
 ' There is a curious correspondence between M. Lajard's four grades and the 
 emblems of the four evangelists given by Augustine : Matthew = lion, Mark = man 
 (this order often reversed), Luke » ox, John — eagle. See "Variorum Teachers' 
 Bible," Aidi to Student/, p. 10. 
 
 ' See Origen, " Against Celsus," vi. 27 ; Cf. Minucius Felix, " Octavius," c. 9. 
 
 ' B. iii., c. 2 ; B. v., c. 16. 
 
 ' " Rechcrolies," ii. 136. 
 
 ' Cap. 9.. Sainte- Croix offers an extraordinary mistranslation of the passage, 
 
 ' So Porphyry, "De Abstin." ii. 56 ; a passage which only says that down till the 
 time of Hadrian it was the custom to sacrifice a virgin to Minerva at Laodicea. 
 
 " Wright, " The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon," 3rd ed., p. 328. The insinua- 
 tion is found also in the encyclopaedias. 
 
240 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 representation of death, were no more dark and fearful than th& 
 Christian mysteries are known to have been, not to speak of what 
 these are said to have been. There lies against them no such 
 imputation of licence as was constantly brought against the 
 midnight meetings of the Christians, or as is specifically brought 
 by St. Paul against his own converts at Corinth. Their purpose 
 was unquestionably moral.' In the words of Suidas, the wor- 
 shipper went through his trials in order that he should become 
 holy and passionless. In the course of the initiation, as we 
 know from the unwiUing admiration of Tertullian,^ the devotee, 
 called the soldier of Mithras, was offered a crown, which it was 
 liis part to refuse, saying that Mithra was his crown. And 
 everything points to the enunciation of a theory of expiation of 
 and purification from sin, in which Mithras figured as mediator 
 and saviour, actually undergoing a symbolic sacrifice, and cer- 
 tainly securing to his worshippers eternal life,^ As to the 
 doctrine of immortality being pre-Christian, it is now quite 
 unnecessary to speak ; and the whole Mithraic symbolism implies 
 such a teaching. On most of the bull monuments, you may 
 remember, there stand beside Mithra two figures, one holding 
 a raised and one a lowered torch. These signified primarily 
 sunrise and sunset, or rising spring sun and sinking autumn sun ; 
 but, as Lessing long ago showed, they were also the ancient 
 symbols for life and death. Now we can understand how such 
 a cultus, with an elaborate ceremonial and an impressive initia- 
 tion, with the attractions of august and solemn mysteries and 
 the promise of immortal life, could spread throughout the Eoman 
 Empire in the age in which the primitive Roman religion 
 crumbled away before the advance of far more highly specialized 
 and complicated cults. Above all was it popular in the army, 
 which really seems to have been to some extent a school of 
 moral strength and order at a time when an appalling abjection 
 was overtaking the Roman world, men reverencing rank as dogs 
 reverence men. One of the first stages in the initiation, for men, 
 consisted in the devotee receiving a sword, and being called a 
 soldier of Mithra.* Thus Mithraism was specially the faith of 
 the soldiery;* and in doing honour to the invincible sun-god 
 Mithra — Deo Soli Invictce Mithrce, as the monuments have it — 
 the Emperor Constantino vied with the most loyal Mithraists 
 
 ' See Origen, " Against Celsus," iii. 59. 
 ' " 2Je Corona" c. 15. 
 
 • See Garncci, "Les Myiterei du Synoritirme Phrygian" passim. Cf, Windisch- 
 maim (p. 63) as to the older cultuB 
 
 * TertiilUaa, " De Corona" xv. ; Garucci, " Mysteres du Synerititme Phrygien," 
 1851, p. 34. 
 
 ' Of old, as we haye seen, Mithia was a war-god. 
 
MITHEAISM. 241 
 
 long after his so-called conversion to Christianity.^ But there 
 were also women worshippers, as we know from at least the 
 grade of lionesses — sometimes oddly named that of hyaenas, from 
 a slight blunder in the Greek text.^ And I think we may infer 
 that this cultus, with its austerities and its solemnities, attracted, 
 on the whole, men and women of the better type. There can be 
 little doubt that the practice of lavish charity among the early 
 Christians attracted to the churches worthless characters, and 
 so promoted demoralization. Mutual help there probably was 
 among Mithraists ; but we find no organized almsgiving. 
 
 But now comes the great question, How came such a cultus to 
 die out of the Roman and Byzantine Empires after making its 
 way so far and holding its ground so long ? The answer to that 
 question has never, I think, been fully given, and is for the most 
 part utterly evaded, though part of it has been suggested often 
 enough. The truth is that Mithraism was not overthrown ; it was 
 merely transformed. 
 
 Of course we are told that the Mithraic rites and mysteries 
 were borrowed and imitated from Christianity.' But the plainest 
 refutation of this notion, as has been pointed out by M. Havet,* 
 lies in the language of those Christian fathers who spoke of 
 Mithraism. Three of them, as we have seen, speak of the Mith- 
 raic resemblances to Christian rites as being the work of devils. 
 Now, if the Mithraists had simply imitated the historic Christians, 
 the obvious course for the latter would be simply to say so. In 
 that case there would be no need to talk of demons ; it would be 
 far more effective to charge human plagiarism. Justin Martyr 
 expressly argues that the demons anticipated the Christian 
 mysteries and prepared parodies of them befoi'cband. " When I 
 hear," he says in his Dialogue with Trypho,' "when I hear, 
 Trypho, that Perseus was begotten of a virgin, I understand that 
 the deceiving serpent counterfeited also this." Nobody pretends 
 that the Perseus myth, or the Pagan virgin myth in general, is 
 later than Christianity. Justin Martyr, indeed, is perhaps the 
 most foolish of all the Christian fathers ; but what he says about 
 the anticipatory action of the demon or demons plainly underlies 
 the argumentation also of TertuUian and Julius Firmicus.* The 
 
 ' See his coins. Compare Gibbon, ch. 20, 28. 
 
 ' See De Sacy's note on Sainte-Croix, ii. 128. 
 
 ' So Sainte-Croix, " Jlecherohes," ii. 147; and Beugnot, "But. de la Deitr. du 
 Pag.," i. 157, 158. 
 
 ♦ " Le ChrUtianifine et tes Origines," iv. 133. 
 
 ' o. 70. 
 
 ' Plntarch states ("Life of Pompey," c. 24) that Mithraism was first introduced 
 to Borne through the Cilician pirates, whom Pompey put down. Paul, as M. Havet 
 remarks, would be in the way of knowing the cults of CiUcia. Tarsus, indeed, was 
 a Mithraic centre. See Preller, " Momische Mytlwlogie," p. 758. 
 
 16 
 
242 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Mithraic mysteries, then, of the burial and resurrection of the 
 Lord, the Mediator and Saviour, — burial in a rock tomb and 
 resurrection from that tomb — the sacrament of bread and water, 
 and the marking on the forehead with a mystic mark, — all these 
 were in practice, like the Egyptian search for the lost corpse of 
 Osiris, and the representation of his entombment and resurrection, 
 before the publication of the Christian Gospel of a Lord who was 
 buried in a rock tomb, and rose from that tomb on the day of the 
 sun, or of the Christian mystery of Divine communion, with bread 
 and water or bread and wine, which last were before employed 
 also in the mysteries of Bacchus, sun-god and wine-god, doubtless 
 as representing his body and blood. Nor was this all. Firmicus ^ 
 informs us that the devil, in order to leave nothing undone for the 
 destruction of souls, had beforehand resorted to deceptive imita- 
 tions of the cross of Christ. Not only did they in Phrygia fix a 
 young man to a tree in the worship of the Mother of the Gods, 
 and in other cults imitate the crucifixion' in similar ways, but in 
 one mystery in particular the Pagans were wont to consecrate a 
 tree and, towards midnight, to slay a ram at the foot of it. This 
 cult may or may not have been the Mithraic ; there is a very 
 strong presumption that it was. You have all seen a strange 
 Christian symbol in which Christ is represented as a lamb or ram, 
 carrying by one forefoot a cross. Now, we know from Porphyry' 
 that in the mysteries "a place near the equinoctial circle was 
 assigned to Mithra as an appropriate seat. And on this account 
 he bears the sword of the Bam [Aries], which is a sign of Mars 
 [Ares]." The sword of the Ram, we may take it, was simply 
 figured as the cross, since a sword is a cross.* Again, Porphyry 
 explains '^ that " Mithra, as well as the bull, is the demiurgos and 
 lord of generation." Here then would be a symbolical slaying, 
 in which the deity is sacrificed by the deity;* and we may safely 
 infer that the symbolic ram in turn would be sacrificed by the 
 Mithraists on the same principle ; since we actually know that a 
 slain lamb figured in their mysteries.' Now, it is the historic 
 
 ' •• J)e Errore," zxviii, 
 
 ' Suggestions of the crucifix appear in the Mithraic monuments. See the 
 development from the winged figure, in Lajard's " Atlas ; " and compare the plate in 
 Bryant, i. 294. That the " crown of thorns " is a variation on a nimbus has long 
 been surmised. Mithra of course had a nimbus (Windischmaun, p. 60). And the 
 early Persian sun-god rode " with his hands lifted up towards immortality " (or 
 heaven), " Mihr Tast," 31 ; in Darmesteter, ii. 152. 
 
 » " On the Cave of the Nymphs," c. 11. 
 
 * Note, on this, the astronomical " crossing " of lines at the " first point of Aries " 
 <see English or Chambers' Encyc, art. Zodiac) ; and see it imaged mthe old figure 
 in Brown's ed. of Aratos. ' Ibid. 
 
 ' The peo{)le of Crete destroyed a bull to represent the destruction of Bacchus 
 (Firmicus, vi). 
 
 ' Garucci, " Let Mytitiret du Syncrit.Ume Phrygien,'' p. H4. 
 
MITHRAISM. 243 
 
 iiact that among the early Christians a ram or lamb was sacrificed 
 in the Paschal mystery. It is disputed between Greeks and 
 Latins whether at one time the slain lamb was oflFered on the 
 -altar, together with the mystical body of Christ; but it is admitted 
 by Catholic writers — and this, by the way, is the origin of a 
 certain dispute about singing the Agnus Dei in church — that in 
 the old Ordo Romanus a lamb was consecrated, slain, and eaten, 
 -on Easter Day, by way of a religious rite.^ Of this lamb, too, the 
 blood was received in a cup.^ Take again the curious circum- 
 stance that whereas in the Gospels Jesus is said to have been bom 
 in an inn stable, early Christian writers, as Justin Martyr^ and 
 ■Origen,* explicitly say he was born in a cave. Now, in the 
 Miuira myth, Mithra is both rock-born and born in a cave ; and 
 a later saying represents him as also supernaturally born of a 
 virgin.* And it is remarkable that whereas a cave was (and I 
 Tjelieve is) shown as the birthplace of Jesus at Bethlehem, Saint 
 Jerome actually complained * that in his day the Pagans celebrated 
 the worship of Thammuz (= Adonis), and presumably therefore 
 the festival of the birth of the sun — Christmas Day — at that very 
 cave.' 
 
 Other correspondences might easily be traced ; as, the building 
 of churches looking towards the east,* and the number of the 
 Apostles ;* but these are enough, I think, to prove the point. 
 Of course those who loyally accept the Christian records as 
 unquestionably true will not be influenced by such considerations; 
 -whatever method they may adopt to explain away those parallels 
 
 ' See Bingham's " (3hristian Antiquities," ed. 1865, iii. 244, 245. 
 
 ' Casalins, " De Veterib. Chi-ist. Bitib." ii. 4, cited by Dupuis. 
 
 » " Dialogue with Trypho," c. 78. 
 
 * " Against Celsus," i. 51. Compare the Apocryphal gospels, Protev., xii. 14 ; 
 Infancy, i. 6, xii. 14. Note, too, that Dionysos was said to have been nurtured in 
 -a cave (Pausanias, iii. 24; Diodorus Sicalus, iii. 67). 
 
 » Elisseus the Armenian historian {d. 480), cited by Windischmann, pp. 61, 62. 
 
 ' Epist. 58, ad Paulinum (Migne, " Patrologia Ourius Completv^,' ser. i., vol. 
 xzii., col. 581). 
 
 ' Dionysos, too, it should be noted, was worshipped in caves. Pausanias, ii. 23 ; 
 iPorphyiy, cited above. 
 
 ' This, of course, is a usage of almost all religions. Only we know that the 
 Mithraic worship followed it. See TVellbeloved's " Ebwraovrni," p. 86. 
 
 ' Apart from the more pressing question whether the Christian legend does not 
 rest on the probable fact of an institution of twelve strictly JervUh Apostles 
 .(the true " Twelve Apostles " of the Didaehi so much discussed in recent years), it 
 has to be noted that Mithra was represented as surrounded by the twelve signs of 
 the zodiac in a particular order, beginning on the right with Aquarius and ending 
 ■on the left with Capricorn, and that this usage was imitated by the Christians. 
 See the admissions of Wellbeloved (p. 86), as to the lodiacal arch of the Church of 
 :St. Margaret's in Walmgate, York. Aquarius to the Christian sense would doubt- 
 less represent Peter, especially as the old zodiacs connected this sign with fishing. 
 Note that the old festival of Peter at Home (Jan. 18th) coincided with the sun's 
 ■ entering Aquarius in the calendar. 
 
244 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 which the fathers simply set down to the account of the demon. 
 But those of you who, like myseK, cannot see your way to- 
 accept as historic truth the central incidents of the Gospel 
 story, — those of you may see in the mystic rites of Mithraism 
 and other old solar religions — rites which symbolized abstract 
 ideas and not concrete facts — the scientific explanation of the 
 Christian phases of supematuralism. In this way the sacrosanct 
 episodes of the holy supper and the resurrection from the rock 
 tomb, as well as the legend of the birth at Yuletide in a cave,* 
 the Sunday worship, and the Easter tragedy, all become finally 
 intelligible to the eye of science. And when we find, in the 
 First Epistle of Peter (ii. 4, 5), a phrase about Jesus being a " living 
 stone," and read in the gospels how the Lord said, " Thou art 
 Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church," we turn from 
 such an obviously unhistoric utterance back to the Mithraic 
 rites, and see in the sacred rock of Mithra, the rock from which 
 the god comes, the source of the Roman legend.' 
 
 Of course it was not merely Mithraism that was assimilated' 
 by Christianity. The new faith absorbed matter from many 
 sides. Take, for instance, the Fourth Gospel, which, written 
 under Alexandrian influences, represents some of the later 
 accretions ; and turn to such a story as that of the seamless robe 
 of Jesus. Here is a new myth-motive : whence did it come ? 
 Turn to Osirianism, and you find that of Osiris it was 
 taught' that his robe, unlike that of Isis, was one, whole,, 
 indivisible, that robe being the universal light — the ideal robe 
 of the sun — whereas the light of the moon is variable and 
 chequered, and the robe of Isis accordingly is so ; both robes being 
 actually so represented in the mysteries. In the Egyptian 
 teaching, however, we have a poetic idea ; in the Christian 
 legend it becomes a meaningless concrete myth, tied to a trivial 
 prophecy. Take again the late miracle story of the turning of 
 
 ' Bven the " stable " story has a cniious connection with Mithraism. See the 
 Greek formnla in Finnicus (v. passage corrupt) ; " The sacred heifers have lowed ; 
 hold we the solemn feast of the most august father." M. Darmesteter holds 
 {"Ormazd ct Ahrimtan" p. 152, ».) that "the legends of gods bom or reared in 
 stables ; among shepherds (Krishna) ; even that of Mithra as irerpoyei/ijt, in virtue 
 of the synonymy of stone, mountain, stable — adri-gotra" — all derive from the wide- 
 spread bull or cow myth. But for an interesting astronomical signification of the 
 stable (— the Augean), see Dnpuis, " Originede tou» lea Oultes," ed. 1835-6, vii. 104. 
 
 ' The stone myth has very wide bearings. Note the passage in Daniel ii. 34 ; 
 also the Mazdean element in Zechariah iii. 9. The " seven eyes " are certainly 
 connected vrith the seven Amshaspands or planetary gods — of whom Mithra was 
 chief (Windischmann, p. 62 ; Seel, p. 215), as was also Ormazd, according to 
 other texts (Darmesteter, " Ormazd et Ahriman," p. 38). The " fair mitre " raises 
 the difScult question as to the origin of that name. 
 
 ' Plutarch, " On Isis and Osiris," c. 78. Compare JambUchus, " On the Egyptian 
 Mysteries," c ix. 
 
MITHRAISM. 245 
 
 ■water into wine. Here is an episode without spiritual dignity — 
 •one of the least noble of all the miracle stories. Whence came 
 it ? Ask yourself what it is that in actual Nature may be said 
 to turn water into wine, and you soon get the answer. It is the 
 sun, which drives the sap through branch and leaf, and ripens it 
 into fruit and exquisite juice. And when we find that in con- 
 nection with the worship of Bacchus, sun-god and wine-god, 
 there was in the island of Andros a fountain which was said to 
 yield wine, during the yearly festival of the god, at the nones 
 of January,^ we need hardly go farther. The fact that the 
 KDatholic Church actually celebrates the miracle of Cana at the 
 date at which the Pagans celebrated the Dionysian wine miracle 
 is only a slight additional proof In the same way we may 
 reasonably surmise that the story of the scourging of the dealers 
 in the temple is a Judaic application of the idea in the figures of 
 the scourge- bearing god, found alike in Egyptian, in Assyrian, 
 And in Gnostic monuments. 
 
 Now, these developments of mystical doctrine and symbolism 
 into concrete myth, point to another part of the explanation of 
 the supersedence of Mithraism by Christianity. Religions, we say, 
 like organisms and opinions, struggle for survival, and the fittest 
 survive. That is to say, that one survives which is fittest for the 
 •environment^not fittest from the point of view of another and 
 higher environment. Now, what was the religion that was fittest, 
 that was best adapted, for the populations of the decaying 
 Roman Empire, in which ignorance and mean subjection were 
 slowly corroding alike intelligence and character, leaving the 
 ■civilized provinces unable to hold their ground against the 
 barbarians ? Well, an unwarlike population, for one thing, wants 
 ■a sympathetic and emotional religion ; and here, though Mithraism 
 had many attractions, Christianity had more. The beautiful 
 .and immortal youth of the older sun-worships, Apollo, Mithras, 
 Dionysos, was always soluble into a mysterious abstraction : in 
 the Christian legend the god was humanized in the most literal 
 way ; and for the multitude the concrete deity must needs replace 
 the abstract. The Gospels gave a literal story : the divine man 
 was a carpenter, and ate and drank with the poorest of the poor 
 So with the miracles. The priesthoods of the older religions 
 Always explained to the initiated, in the mysteries, the mystical 
 meaning which was symbolized by the concrete myths; and in 
 some early Christian writers, as notably Origen, you find a 
 ■constant attempt so to explain away concrete miracle and other 
 
 ' Pliny, " Nat. Hist.," ii. 106 (103), xxxi. 13. Pausanias, vi. 26. Note, too, tha 
 «toiy in Pausanias of the placing of empty jars in a looked room in the temple, and 
 findin them full of wine next day. 
 
246 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 stories as aJlegories. But gradually the very idea of allegory 
 died out of the Christian intelligence; and priests as well as 
 people came to take everything HteraUy and concretely, till 
 miracles became everyday occurrences. This was the religion 
 for the dark ages, for the new northern peoples which had not 
 gone through the Pagan evolution of cults, and symbolisms, and 
 mysticisms, but whose own traditional faith was too vague and 
 primitive to hold its ground against the elaborate Christian 
 theology and ritual. But that was not all. The fatal weakness 
 of Mithraism, as pitted against Christianity, was that its very 
 organization was esoteric. Now, an esoteric institution can never 
 take hold of the ignorant masses. Mithraism was always a sort 
 of freemasonry, never a public organization. What the Christians 
 did was to start, like Rome herself, from a republican basis — 
 for, as Dean Milman has put it,^ the first churches were> 
 ecclesiastically speaking, Greek republican groups — and then 
 to build up a great organization on the model of that of 
 republican and imperial Rome — an organization so august that 
 the very tradition of it -could serve the later world to live 
 by for a thousand years. The Christian Church renewed 
 the spell of imperial Rome, and brought actual force to make 
 good intellectual weakness. And so we read that the Mithraic 
 worship was by Christian physical force suppressed in Rome and 
 Alexandria, about the end of the fourth century.^ Complete 
 suppression, of course, could not be so accomplished ; and Mithraic 
 usages long survived. Even in the eighth century we find 
 Church councils commanding proselytes no more to pay worship 
 to fanes and rocks ; ' and there were other survivals.* But that 
 was a trifle compared to the actual survival of Mithraic symbols 
 and rites in the very worship of Christ. As to the sacrifice of the 
 lamb we have seen; and though, at the end of the seventh century 
 a general council ventured to resist the general usage of picturing 
 Christ as a lamb, the veto was useless ; the symbol survived. 
 Some Mithraic items went, but more remained. The Christian 
 bishop went through a ceremony of espousing the Churchy 
 following the old mystery in which occurred the formula, "' Hail to 
 thee, new spouse ; hail, new light." " His mitre was called a crown, 
 or tiara, which answered to the headdress of Mithra and the 
 
 ' " History of Latin Christianity," 3rd ed., i. 36. 
 
 « Jerome, EpiH. cvii. ad Lcetam (Migne, ixii., col. 869) ; Socrates, " Ec. Hut." 
 B. v., 0. 16. 
 
 ' " Nullus Christianujs ad fana, vel ad Petras votas reddere prsesumat," " Iiidic. 
 Pagamiarumm Consilio Leptinensi," adajm. Christ. 743 ; cited by Bryant, " Analysis,"^ 
 i. 294. 
 
 • See note by Mosheim on Cudworth, Harrison's ed., i. 478. 
 
 " Finnicus, xx. 
 
MITHRAISM. 24T 
 
 Mithraic priests, as to those of the priests of Egypt ; he -wore red 
 military boots, now said to be " emblematical of that spiritual 
 warfare on which he had entered ; " in reality, doubtless borrowed 
 from the military worship of Mithra, dear to the first Christian 
 emperor. And the higher mysteries of communion, divine sacrifice, 
 and resurrection, as we have seen, were as much Mithraic as 
 Christian ; so that a Mithraist could turn to the Christian worship 
 and find his main rites unimpaired, lightened only of the burden 
 of initiative austerities, stripped of the old obscure mysticism, 
 and with all things turned to the literal and the concrete, in 
 sympathy with the waning of knowledge and philosophy 
 throughout the world. The Mithraic Christians actually con- 
 tinued to celebrate Christmas Day as the birthday of the sun, 
 despite the censures of the Pope.' When they listened to the 
 Roman litany of the holy name of Jesus, they knew they were 
 listening to the very epithets of the sun-god — god of the skies, 
 purity of the eternal light, king of glory, sun of justice, strong 
 god, father of the ages to come, angel of great counsel. Their 
 priests had been wont to say that " he of the cap " was " himself 
 a Christian." ^ They knew that the good shepherd was a name 
 of Apollo ; ' that Mithra, like Jesus, carried the lamb * on his 
 shoulders ; that both were mediators, both creators, both judges 
 of the dead ; that the chief mysteries of the two cults were the same. 
 Their mystic rock, Petra, was presented to them in the concrete 
 as the rock Peter, the foundation of the Church. Their solar 
 midnight worship was preserved in midnight services, which 
 carried on the purpose of the midnight meetings of the early 
 Christians, who had simply followed Essenian, Egyptian, and 
 Mithraic usage ; there being no basis for the orthodox notion that 
 these secret meetings were due to fear of persecution. Their 
 mizd, or sacred cake, was copied in the Tnass, which probably 
 copied the very name.* And whereas the religion of Mithra had 
 only indirectly and mystically provided for that human instinct 
 which made the great goddess- worships* of antiquity, Christianity 
 
 ' See the Sermons of Saint Leo, xxii. 6, cited by Dupuis and Havet. Others 
 than Mithraists, of course, would offend, Chjistmas being an Osirian and Adonisian 
 festival also. Macrobius, " Sat," i. 18. 
 
 ^ Augustine in Joh. i., Dis. 7 ; cited in King, " Gnostics," p. 119. 
 
 ' Macrobius, " Sativrnalia" i. 17. 
 
 * Or the bull. See Lajard's " Atlas," PI. xcii. ; and Garuoci, as cited. 
 
 " King, "Gnostics," p. 121, following Seel. 
 
 ° Yet there are signs of combination of Mithraism with the goddess cults of 
 the Empire. Eunapius (cited in edit, note on Hammer- Purgstall, " Mithriaca," 
 p. 22) represents the same priest as hierophant of the Eleusinia, and father of the 
 initiation of Mithra : and Apuleius (" Metamorphoses," B. xi. — Bohn. ed., pp. 238, 
 241) speaks of "the priest Mithras," in the mysteries of Isis. Again we find 
 Mithra identified with Sebazius, son of the Phrygian Cybele (Garucci, " Mysteres," 
 pp. 14, 18 ; Preller, " MmiscJie Mythologie," p. 761). 
 
248 KELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 appealed to it directly and concretely, taking from an older faith 
 the very image of Isis the virgin, carrying her babe in her arms, 
 as Alitta, the Syrian goddess, had done ; ' taking from the temples 
 of Paganism the very statues of black basalt which represented 
 Isis, and calling them by the name of Maria ;^ just as, by the 
 same law of assimilation, the Pagan faith in multitudinous local 
 deities was conciliated and re-established by the institution of a 
 multitude of miracle-working and prayer-hearing saints, as well 
 as of locally miraculous shrines of the virgin. We are taught 
 that at that era the world entered on a new way of life and of 
 philosophy, breaking wholly with the past. Eodtiabilis super- 
 stitio ! This, too, is folly. 
 
 It has chanced, indeed, that those Christian sects which most 
 fully adopted the theosophies of Paganism have disappeared 
 under the controlling power of the main organization, which, as I 
 have said, held by a necessity of its .existence to a concrete and literal 
 system, and for the same reason to a rigidly fixed set of dogmas. 
 We know that the Gnostics adopted Mithra, making his name 
 into a mystic charm, from which (spelling it Meidpa^) they got 
 the number 365, as from the mystic name Abraxas.^ The more 
 reason why Mithras should be tabooed by the organized Church. 
 Thus, then, you can understand why the very name seemed at 
 length to be blotted out. There were in antiquity, we know,* 
 quite a number of elaborate treatises setting forth the religion of 
 Mithra ; and every one of these has been destroyed by the care 
 of the Church. * And yet, despite aJl forcible suppression, not 
 only do the monuments of the faith remain to tell how for cen- 
 turies it distanced its rival ; not only do its rites and ceremonies 
 remain as part of the very kernel of the Christian worship ; but 
 its record remains unknowingly graven in the very legend on the 
 lintel of the great Christian temple of Rome, destined to teach 
 to later times a lesson of human history, and of the unity 
 of human rehgion, more enduring than the sectarian faith that is 
 proclaimed within. 
 
 ' See the figure in Layard, " Disc, in the Ruins of Nin. and Bab.," 1853, p. 477 ; 
 copied ip Rawlinson's " Herodotus," i. 257. 
 
 ■^ King, " Gnostics," p. 173. 
 
 ' Windischmann, p. 59, citing Jerome, in Amos, c. 3. 
 
 ' Porphyry, " On Abstinence from Animal Food," iv. 16. 
 
 = It is remarkable that even the treatise of Firmicus is mutilated at a passage 
 (v.) where he seems to be accusing Christians of following Mithraio usages ; and at 
 the beginning, where he may have made a similar proposition. 
 
249 
 
 MUHAM MA DANISM. 
 
 BY G. W. LEITNEIl, LL.D., 
 M.A., Ph.D., D.O.L., etc. 
 
 My special knowledge of Muhammadanism began in a mosque- 
 school at Constantinople in 1854, where I learnt considerable 
 portions of the Koran by heart. I have associated with Muham- 
 madans of different sects in Turkey, India, and elsewhere, 
 and have studied Arabic, the language in which their sacred 
 literature is written. I may at once point out that without a 
 knowledge of Arabic it is impossible to exercise any influence on 
 the Muhammadan mind; but I would add that there is something 
 better than mere knowledge, and that is sympathy: sympathy 
 is the key to the meaning of knowledge — that which breathes 
 life into what otherwise would be dead bones. 
 
 There are instances of eminent scholars who, for want of 
 sympathy, have greatly misjudged Muhammadanism. Sir 
 William Muir, e.g., has been led into very serious mistakes in 
 dealing with this religion. 
 
 Let us hope that the present occasion may help, in however 
 humble a degree, to cement that " fellow-feeling " which ought 
 to exist between all religions. 
 
 " In proportion as we love truth more and victory less," says 
 Herbert Spencer, " we shall become anxious to know what it is 
 which leads our opponents to think as they do." 
 
 More profound is the Tibetan Buddhist Lama's vow never 
 to think, much less to say, that his own religion is better than 
 that of others. The edicts of Asoka, carved on rocks, and more 
 than monumental brass, also recommend his subjects to praise 
 the faith of others. 
 
 As regards the great religion with which we are dealing 
 to-day, I have adopted the term " Muhammadanism " in order to 
 limit this address to the creed as notv professed by Muhammad ans. 
 If I had used the better heading "Isl^m," which means the creed of 
 ^' resignation to the Divine will," a mo^e extensive treatment would 
 tiave been necessary than can be afforded in the course of aji hour. 
 
 Muhammadanism is not the religion of the Prophet Muhammad, 
 because he only professed to preach the religion of his pre- 
 decessors, the Jews and the Christians ; both these faiths being 
 
250 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 stages in the faith of " Isldm," of which the form preached by 
 Muhammad is the perfection and seal. 
 
 " To walk with God," to have God with us in our daily life 
 with the object of obtaining the " peace that passeth all under- 
 standing," " to submit to the Divine will " — this we too profesa 
 to seek; but in Muhammadanism this profession is translated 
 into practice, and is the corner-stone of the edifice of that faith. 
 
 In one sense Muhammadanism is like, and in another sense 
 unlike, both Judaism and Christianity. To walk with God, to 
 have God ever present in all our acts, is no doubt what the 
 prophets of both these religions taught ; and in that sense they 
 were aU Muhammadans, or rather " Muslims," namely, professors 
 ofthefaithof'Isldm." 
 
 But so far as I know anything either of Judaism or of 
 Christianity, the system preached by Muhammad was not merely 
 imitative or eclectic ; it was also " inspired," — if there be such a 
 process as inspiration from the Source of aU goodness. Indeed, I 
 venture to state in aU humility, that if self-sacrifice, honesty of 
 purpose, unswerving belief in one's mission, a marvellous insight 
 into existing wrong or error, and the perception and use of the 
 best means for its removal, are among the outward and visible 
 signs of inspiration, the mission of Muhammad was " inspired." 
 
 The Judaism known to Muhammad was chiefly the traditional 
 " Mas&ra " as distinguished from the " Markslba ; " indeed, pure 
 Judaism as distinct from Buddhistic or Alexandrinian importa- 
 tions into it. 
 
 The Christianity also which Muhammad desired to restore to- 
 its purity was the preaching of Christ, as distinguished on the 
 one part from the mystic creed of St. Paul, and the outrageous, 
 errors of certain Christian sects known to the Arabs. 
 
 Muhammad thought the Jews would accept him as their 
 Messiah, but the " exclusiveness " of the Jews prevented this. 
 He, however, insisted on the Arabs and on " believers " generally 
 participating in the blessings of their common ancestor, Abraham ; 
 and his creed, therefore, became Judaism plus proseljrtism, and 
 Christianity minus the teaching of St. Paul. 
 
 The idea of Muhammad not to limit the benefits of Abraham's 
 religion to his own people, but to extend them to the world, has 
 thus become the means of converting to a high form of culture 
 and of civilization millions of the human race, who would either 
 otherwise have remained sunk in barbarism, or would not have 
 been raised to that brotherhood which " Islam " not only preaches 
 but also practises. 
 
 The founder of Muhammadanism has been talked of by 
 Christians in the most unworthy manner. Still, at first, he 
 
MUHAMMADANISM. 251 
 
 was regarded as a quasi-Christian Sectarian. Dante refers to 
 Muhammad as a heretic in his " Inferno ; " and, indeed, in another 
 sense, he was only a dissenter from one of the many forms which 
 have adopted the appellation of " Christian." Some authors 
 alleged that his religion was taken from the Talmud; but it 
 seems to me that the question of what Muhammadanism really 
 is cannot be summed up better than in stating it to be pure 
 Judaism plus proselytism, and original Christianity minus the 
 teaching of St. Paul This as regards its theory ; in practice 
 it is far more than modern Christianity in its artificial European 
 aspect — the " Sermon on the Mount " translated into daily life. 
 
 Every Muhammadan is a church in himself; every one is 
 allowed to give an opinion on a religious matter, on the basis of 
 the belief common to his correligionists. They are not slaves to 
 priests; they pray to God without an intermediary, and their 
 place of worship is wherever they, happen to be at the appointed 
 hours of prayer. 
 
 Their preachers can also follow other vocations ; some of them 
 are shoemakers, etc. But, of course, the bulk of their ministers 
 of religion are so by profession in regulated communities. 
 
 There is no such thing as a Pope among them. 
 
 Any ordinary Muhammadan may say, " By resigning myself 
 to the Divine will I am myself the representative of the faith 
 of which the Prophet Muhammad was the exponent." Indeed, 
 the bulk of Muhammadans throughout the world are guided 
 by the consensus fidelium. These are the Sunnis or Ahl 
 Jemda't, in contradistinction to the second most important sect 
 the Shiahs, which considers Muhammad and his lineal successors 
 to be practically infallible. The Shiahs venerate the hereditary 
 principle, and their religious profession is regulated bj' the inter- 
 pretation of the Koran and of their traditions by their leading 
 priests or learned men, the Mujtahids. (See Appendix III., on 
 "The Mahdi and the Khalifa." 
 
 Muhammad himself did not make any claim to infallibility. 
 . On one occasion he had a revelation censuring himself severely 
 for having turned away from a beggar in order to speak to 
 an illustrious man of the commonwealth, and he published this 
 revelation, the very last thing which he would have done had he 
 been an impostor, as ignorant Christians call the great Arab 
 1 prophet. Allow me now to read to you the letter of an eminent 
 religious Muhammadan functionary, the present Sheikh-ul-Islam 
 of Constantinople, to a convert, Mr. Schumann, which I humbly 
 venture to endorse, except the following passage : " On the day 
 when you were converted to Isl£m your sins were taken into 
 account." This sentence cannot be taken literally ; for, according 
 
252 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 to the Muhammadan faith, the sins of all are taken into account. 
 There is a revered saying that the objection of one who is learned 
 is " better than the consent of a thousand who are ignorant ; " 
 and, without in the least professing to be learned, I can, from 
 a Muhammadan standpoint, claim the privilege of a believer in 
 objecting to a ruling which has probably been rendered incorrectly 
 in translation, and which contradicts the injunction addressed to 
 all to "avoid sin and apply yourselves to righteousness," whether 
 Jew, Christian, or Muhammadan. (See annexed letter of the 
 Sheikh-ul-Islam, extracted from the Diplomatic Flysheets of 
 the 16th October, 1888, on which Dr. Leitner's Lecture was, to 
 some extent, a running commentary.) 
 
 With regard to the outward signs of a Muhammadan, such as 
 prayer, alms, fasting, and pilgrimage, the religious books contain the 
 necessary instructions. As for prayer, they practically enforce that 
 "cleanliness is next to godliness," for ablutions precede prayer. 
 The regulations regarding both acts are minute, and as to their 
 ritual it is not of every Christian that a priest could say what 
 the Sheikh-ul-Islam says of every Muhammadan: " These things, 
 however, may be learnt from the first Mussulman that you meet." 
 
 Their alms, which are rightly called only a pecuniary prayer, 
 consist in giving up a portion, not less than a fortieth part, or 
 2^ per cent., of their goods to the poor. These alms go into 
 the public treasury, and are applied, among other things, to the 
 redemption of slaves, another subject regarding which Christians 
 ignorantly accuse Muhammadans of a state of things which 
 Muhammad did his best successfully to mitigate by a practical 
 legislation towards its eventual abolition. (See Appendix II. at 
 the end of this address.) 
 
 But, reverting to alms, in order that these be acceptable to 
 God, the givers must show that they are in lawful possession 
 of the gift (which, it is needless to add, can be increased beyond 
 the legal minimum). It would not do "to rob a till in order to 
 build a chapel," but those who voluntarily give more than the 
 fortieth part will be rewarded by God. 
 
 . The pilgrimage to Mecca is of great importance, as Muhamma- 
 dans meet there from all parts of the world ; it is a bond of 
 union, and creates a real visible Muhammadan Church, such 
 as the Christian world, with its innumerable subdivisions, does 
 not yet possess for the assembly of an entire Christianity ; it is, 
 moreover, a great stimulus for the difiiision of culture by means 
 of a common sacred language, the Arabic, in the same way 
 as was the case in Europe when Latin was the one language 
 spoken by all learned persons in addition to their native tongue. 
 Thus by knowing Arabic one has a key not only to the 
 
MUHAMMADAlSriSM. 253 
 
 Muhammadan religion, but also to the heart of the whole 
 Muhammadan world. In Asia, and even Africa, in spite of the 
 so-called semi-barbarism, any abstract Arabic word can become 
 the common property of all the Arabic-speaking or Arabic- 
 revering nations, and Muhammadanism thus possesses an agency 
 of civilization and culture which is denied to other faiths. 
 
 Fasting is, of course, a mere discipline, but it is also of great 
 hygienic value, and, as stated by the Sheikh-ul-Islam, "The fulfil- 
 ment of the duties of purity and cleanliness, which are rational, 
 also fulfil the hygienic requirements of the physician." 
 
 Indeed, as regards Muhammadan rules generally regarding- 
 abstention from wine, pork, improperly slaughtered flesh, the dis- 
 posal of what would be injurious if not quickly made away with, etc., 
 it may safely be asserted that they were not laid down to worry 
 those who fulfil them, but to benefit them in body and mind. 
 
 With regard to social gradations the rich man is considered to 
 be the natural protector of the poor, and the poor man takes 
 his place at the table of the rich. Nowhere in Muhammadan 
 society is there any invidious distinction between rich and poor ; 
 and even a Muhammadan slave is not only a member of the 
 household, but has also far greater chances of rising to a position 
 in the Government or in Society than an English pauper. 
 
 Food is given to any one who needs it, and charity is ad- 
 ministered direct, and not by the circuitous means of a Poor Law 
 system. Indeed, from a Muhammadan, as also from the Budd- 
 histic, point of view, the giving of charity puts the giver into 
 a state of obligation to the receiver, since it enables the former 
 to cultivate his sense of benevolence. 
 
 In the same way, among the Hindu Brahmins, when even a 
 " sweeper " comes to ask for alms at a Brahmin's door, the latter 
 worships him for having afibrded him the opportunity for the 
 exercise of charity. Such a view, in my humble opinion, includes 
 aU the " graces " of the truest and widest Christian charity, and, 
 from that standpoint, I can only say that the best " Christians " 
 I ever knew were a Brahmin who had never heard the name of 
 Christ, an old Muhammadan who revered Him as a prophet, and 
 a poor Jew who nursed through a long illness the Christian who 
 had deprived him of his little all. 
 
 Servants, although they partake of meals after, fare exactly the 
 same as, their masters. 
 
 In a Mosque there is perfect equality among worshippers ; there 
 are no pews ; the " Imdm " of the place or any other worshipper 
 may lead the prayers, and nothing can be a more devotional sight 
 than a crowd of Muslim worshippers going through their various- 
 genuflexions with perfect regularity and silence. 
 
254 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Englishmen object to formalism, but they often worship routine 
 and the letter, rather than the spirit, of rules. Indeed, it may be 
 said that English precision is at the root of a great deal of evil ; and 
 if charity in its widest sense is the greatest of virtues, the formalities 
 that accompany its collection and distribution in this country 
 destroy its very grace. 
 
 We do not seem to recognize that laws are laid down for general 
 guidance, and that the letter of such laws is not to be the lord but 
 the servant of our interpretation of them. Above all, our abstract 
 charity, our abstract religion, our hard-and-fast rules are in con- 
 trast to the personal, individual, concrete, dramatic, allegorical, 
 and imaginative which characterize the Eastern faiths and forms 
 that have been adapted by us. There would be no Nihilists and 
 no Socialists in Europe were Western society constituted on the 
 basis of Muhammadanism; for in it a man is not taught to be dis-y 
 satisfied, as is the great effort, aim, and result of our civilization. / 
 
 I would now draw your attention to what the Sheikh-ul- Islam 
 .says regarding marriage. The marriage contract requires the 
 attestation of two witnesses, and constitutes a religious act ; but 
 it is not sacramental, as with Christians and Hindus. 
 
 The husband is to enjoy his wife's company, but he cannot 
 force her to accompany him to another country ; he is, however, 
 in the latter case, bound to continue to maintain her. 
 
 When a connubial quarrel takes place arbitrators may be 
 chosen, and divorce is allowed if the parties cannot remain 
 together otherwise than in a state of enmity. You will admit 
 that Muhammadan legislation on the subject of marriage does 
 not deserve the opprobrium that has been cast on it by Christian 
 writers. 
 
 The statement that among Muhammadans there exists the 
 power of unlimited marriage along with unlimited power of 
 divorce is not true. Divorce is not such an easy matter, as you 
 may have perceived from the letter of the Sheikh-ul-Islam, for it 
 cannot be obtained without the judgment of arbitrators. 
 
 Besides, at marriage a certain dowry is named, which has to be 
 paid to the wife in the event of divorce ; and many women fix 
 the amount in a sum far larger than the husband would ever be 
 able to pay, in order to secure themselves against the danger of 
 a divorce. 
 
 The Christian, or rather Hindu, view of marriage, that it is 
 spiritual, is no doubt higher than the Muhammadan ; but the 
 practice of Christian countries generally shows less observance of 
 the sacredness of the marriage-tie than that of Muhammadans. 
 
 Among the Hindus marriage, being spiritual, cannot be 
 dissolved, and among the Roman Catholics it can only be 
 
MUHAMMADANISM. 255 
 
 -dissolved with the greatest difficulty; but whether the sacra- 
 mental or the contract view of marriage be taken, the union is, 
 ss a matter of fact, in the vast majority of cases, of a permanent 
 nature in all countries and among all religions, though I grieve 
 tb have to admit that, having lived among Muhammadans from 
 1848 to within two years, in spite of their " unlimited opportunity 
 for divorce," I have known of more cases of divorce among 
 Christians than among them. I have also no hesitation in 
 affirming that in kindness to their family, to the learned or aged, 
 to strangers, and to the brute creation, the bulk of Muham- 
 madans are a pattern to so-called Christians. 
 
 A few words may be said regarding the much-abused subject 
 of Muhammadan polygamy. Apart from the fact that polygamy 
 tends to provide for the surplus female population in the few 
 places where there is such surplus, and that polygamy is a check 
 on prostitution and its attendant evils, as also a protection against 
 illegitimacy of birth, it cannot be denied that the vast majority 
 of Muhammadans have only one wife. This is largely due to the 
 teaching of Muhammadanism. 
 
 Muhammad came into a state of society where to have a 
 daughter was considered to be a misfortune, and where female 
 iiiildren were sometimes buried alive. There was no limit to the 
 number of women that a man could marry, and they were a part 
 of the property divided among the heirs of a deceased person. 
 
 On the unlimited polygamy which produced this state of things 
 Muhammad put a check ; he directed that a man could only enter 
 into the marriage contract with two, three, or four wives, if he 
 •could behave with equal justice and equal love to them alL 
 
 Unless he could do that he was only permitted to marry one 
 wife. Now as, practically, no one can be, as a rule, equally fair 
 And loving to two or more wives, the spirit of Muhammad's 
 legislation is clearly in favour of monogamy. 
 
 He also raised woman from the condition of being a property 
 to that of a proprietor, and he constituted her as the first "legal" 
 sharer whose interests the Muhammadan law has to consult. 
 
 The allegation has been made against Muhammad that by his 
 own example he justified profligacy. 
 
 Let this statement be examined Fortunately, we are not 
 •dealing with a legendary individual, but with an historical person, 
 whose almost everj' act and saying is recorded in the Hadis or 
 •collections of traditions, which, next to the Koran, form a^rule 
 of Muhammadan conduct. . These " Acts of the Apostles " are 
 subjected to the most stringent rules of criticism as to their 
 .authenticity, and unless the story of an act or saying of the 
 Prophet can be traced to one of his own companions, it is thrown 
 
256 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 out of the order of traditions, which form the subject of critical 
 investigation as to their actual occurrence adopted by Muham- 
 madan commentators. We have certainly far less authority of a 
 secular character for the sayings and doings of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Well, then, on what authorities, good, bad, or doubtful, 
 do the allegations of Muhammad's profligacy rest ? I have no 
 hesitation in affirming that, following every such story to its- 
 source, it will be found to be entirely unsubstantiated, and that, 
 on the contrary, to the very great credit of Muhammad, in spite 
 of many temptations, he preserved the utmost chastity in a state 
 of socifety which did not practise that virtue. 
 
 Living among heathen Arabs, he remained perfectly chaste tiU, 
 at the age of twenty-five, he married a woman of forty (equivalent 
 to one of fifty in Europe) ; and he married her because she was 
 his benefactor and believed in his sacred mission. As he stated 
 years after her death to a young and beautiful wife, who was 
 " only jealous of the old and dead Khadija," in answer to her 
 question " Am I not so good as she ? " " No, you are not so good ; 
 for she believed in me when no one else did, she was my first 
 disciple, and she honoured and protected me when I "was poor and 
 forsaken." 
 
 During the whole period of his marriage with her, twenty years, 
 he remained absolutely faithful to her. 
 
 It is true that, at the age of fifty-five, we find him taking wife 
 after wife ; but is it not fair to assume that in the case of a man 
 who had shown such self-control till that age, there may be reasons 
 other than those assigned by Christian writers for his many mar- 
 riages ? What are these reasons ? 
 
 I believe that the real cause of his many marriages at an old 
 age was charity, and in order to protect the widows of his 
 persecuted followers. 
 
 Persecution was great against his followers, " the believers in 
 one God." At one time no one was allowed to give them food,^ 
 and some of them were obliged to escape to Abyssinia in order to 
 seek a refuge with the Christian king of that land. The king did 
 not give them up to their persecutors. Some of them died in 
 Abyssinia; and their widows, who would otherwise have perished, 
 Muhammad took into his household. The idea that the Prophet 
 had any improper intention in so doing is without foundation ; 
 especially if we consider that he had given abundant proof during 
 his youth of continence. The story of the marriage of the Prophet 
 with Zainab, the divorced wife of his freedman and adopted son, 
 Zeid, has also given rise to misconception. It may be premised that 
 the heathen Arabs considered it wrong to marry the divorced wife 
 of an adopted son, although they had no objection to marry the 
 
MUHAMMADANISM. 257 
 
 wives (excluding their own mother) of a deceased father, just as 
 some people nowadays might not mind breaking the Decalogue 
 who would on no account " whistle on a Sunday." 
 
 Muhammad excluded all this "nonsense" by saying that an 
 adopted child was not a real child; and this being so, it could not 
 be supposed to be within the prohibited degrees. To affirm this 
 truth and not to justify a new marriage the Prophet received 
 a revelation, which has been misconstrued as a sanction to a 
 wrongful act. 
 
 It really seems to me that if men cultivated something like true 
 charity they would have a different view of other religions than 
 they now hold, and that they would endeavour to learn about 
 them from their original sources, instead of from the prejudiced 
 second-hand reports of the opponents of these religions. 
 
 Celibacy is rare among Mussulmans, and there are very few, if 
 any, marriageable women that are not married. 
 
 Adultery is punished equally both in man and woman. The 
 culprit is flogged with a hundred stripes publicly. 
 
 with regard to concubine slaves, the Muhammadan law will not 
 allow their offspring to be branded with infamy ; and the child of 
 a slave inherits with the children of her master. Among us an 
 illegitimate child has little protection, and even our highest ideal 
 of marriage falls far short of, e.g., the Hindu marriage in a good 
 caste, in which the wife prays for the salvation of her husband, 
 as without her prayers his salvation could not be accomplished. 
 
 The Muhammadans have no taverns, gaming-houses, or brothels, 
 nor have they any idea of legalizing prostitution ; and as regards 
 their general conversation it is infinitely more decent, as a rule, 
 than that of most Europeans. I have seen young Muhammadan 
 fellows at school and college, and their conduct and talk are far 
 better than is the case among English yoimg men. (See my 
 letter on "IsMm and Muhammadan Schools," published in the 
 Daily Telegraph of the 2nd February, 1888, Appendix IV.) 
 
 Indeed, the talk of the latter is often such as would incur 
 punishment in a Muhammadan land. 
 
 The married woman is in a better legal position than the 
 married Englishwoman, and she can give evidence in attestation 
 of a birth, maixiage, or death, which is still denied to a woman 
 in republican France. 
 
 As regards the assumed immutability of the Muhammadan 
 religion, there is a liberty of interpretation of the Koran which 
 enables " Islam " to be adapted to every sect and country : e.g., the 
 law laid down for its interpretation that a conditional sentence 
 has to take precedence of an absolute one, is one that secures 
 ■every reasonable liberty of conscience : e.g. " fight the infidels " is 
 
 17 
 
258 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 an absolute sentence ; " fight the infidels if they attack you first " 
 is a conditional sentence, and has therefore first to be taken 
 into account in determining the much misunderstood question 
 of the '■' holy war," or rather " Jih^d," against infidels. Indeed, no 
 such war is legitimate except in self-defence against those wha 
 persecute Muhammadans because they believe in one God and 
 who turn them out from their homes ; in other words, as in the- 
 case of the Muslim refugees to Abyssinia (see Appendix V., article 
 on Jihdd). As for religious toleration, there is much more 
 of it in practice among Muhammadans than has been the case ai 
 any rate, in Christian countries ; and had this not been the fact, 
 the Armenian, Greek, and Jewish communities would not havfr 
 preserved their autonomy, religion, and language under, say, 
 Turkish rule, — a rule, I may add from personal knowledge, which 
 offers many lessons of forbearance and humanitj' to Christian 
 lemslation. 
 
 Muhammad included Jews and Christians among Muslims ;^ 
 or those who believe in God and the last day " shall have no 
 fear upon them, neither shall they grieve." 
 
 In the chapter on " Pilgrimage " in the Koran, the object of 
 a religious war is declared to be the protection of " mosques, 
 synagogues, and churches," for in them alike " the name of God is 
 frequently commemorated." 
 
 Is not this as tolerant a position as we have only reached after 
 centuries (if, indeed, judging from the present foolish crusade 
 against Muhammadanism, which we are confounding with slavery, 
 we have reached such a position) ? 
 
 I know many Muhammadans who have subscribed to churches ; 
 Qow many Christians subscribe to mosques ? Yet in them " the 
 name of God " is, indeed, commemorated. 
 
 As for Muhammadan persecutions of Christians, they do not 
 compare with the massacres of Muhammadans by Christians. 
 Ab VMO dAsce omnea. When Omar, in order to avenge a former 
 massacre of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, swore to put the 
 defenders of the city to death he refrained from doing so after 
 taking it ; for, as he said, " I will rather incur the sin of breaking, 
 my oath than put to death a single creature of Gk>d>" 
 
 I cannot conclude this address better than by insisting on the- 
 fact that the Jewish, Christian, and Muhammadan religions are 
 sister-laiths, having a common origin ; and by expressing a hope 
 that the day will come when Christians will honour Christ more 
 by also honouring Muhammad. 
 
 There is a common ground between Muhammadanism and 
 Chriatianity, and he is a better Christian who reveres the truths- 
 enunciated by the Prophet Muhammad. 
 
MUHAMMADANISM. 259 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. LBTTEK FBOM the SHEIKH-tTL-ISLAM, OP CONSTANTINOPLE, TO ME. 
 
 Schumann, op Hanovke, a Convebt to Muhammadanism, in 
 IHplamatio Flysheets, and Bemabks thebeon by De. Ioeitneb. 
 
 II, De. Leitneb's Lbttee in the Athenceum on " Mtjhammadanism and 
 Slateet." 
 
 IIL De. Leitneb's Le'tteb in the Times on the '• Mahdi and the 
 KhalIpa." 
 
 IV. De. Leitneb's Lettee in the Daily Telegraph on "Islam and 
 
 MUHAMMADAN SCHOOLS." 
 
 V. Db. Leitneb's Aeticlb in the Atiatic Quarterly Remen on " Jihad," 
 
 OB THE MUHAMMADAN BO-CALLED " HoLT WAE." 
 
 VL Lettee to De. Leitnee feom Nawab luko NawIz Janq, a 
 
 MtTHAMMADAN NOBLBMAN, ON " ThE REVIVAL OP MUHAMMADAN 
 
 Leaening," and Reply op Db. Leitnee, quoted in the Bomhay 
 Gazette. 
 
 Appendix I. 
 
 THE SHEIKH-UL-ISLAM ON THE DUTIES OF THE 
 MUHAMMADAN RELIGION. 
 
 (See Diplvmatw FlyiheeU, October IGth, 1888.) 
 
 The foUowing extracts from a long letter by Ahmed Esaad, Sheikh-ul-lslam at 
 ConBtantmople, are translated from La Revue de I'OrieiU, 2nd September, which 
 piefaces the letter by the following statement. We give only parts of the letter, 
 which, it will be observed, is purely ethical, and entirely free from polemical 
 theology. We append to these extracts some remarks by I^. Leitner. 
 
 " In the month of January last we published a letter from His Highness the 
 Sheikh-nl-Islam in reply to a demand made to him by M. Schumann, a man of 
 letters residing at Hanover, to authorise him to embrace Isl&m. In this letter, it 
 win be recollected, His Highness showed M. Schumann that his conversion to 
 I^lam was not subordinate to his consent, and that to be converted it was sufficient 
 to believe and to proclaim his belief. After receiving this letter M. Schumann 
 became a convert to Islim, and announced the fact to the Sheikh-ul-Islam. His 
 
260 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Highness has just replied to the neophyte by the following letter, which we find in 
 the Levant Herald :— 
 
 Extracts. 
 
 After compliments. 
 
 " As I have already told you in my previons letter, on the day when yon were 
 conTerted to IsUm your sins were annulled, and it is only from that day that any 
 account of your good or evil actions will be taken. Henceforth you must fulfil 
 your religious obligations and duties, avoid all which is forbidden and considered 
 as sin, and apply yourself to righteousness." 
 
 The four duties are then stated ; Prayer (which includes ablution). Alms, 
 Fasting, and Pilgrimage. 
 
 "Religious books contain detailed indications of the manner of making ablutions 
 and of praying. But you may learn from the first Mussulman whom you meet the 
 rules which regulate ablutions and prayer. 
 
 " Alms, which are really only a pecuniary prayer, are the act of a person who, in 
 order to please God, gives up the portion legally determined of his goods to the use 
 of the poor. He, for instance, who has 200 grammes of silver money, the possession 
 of which goes back at least for a year, ought to give, when the year is ended, the 
 fortieth part of this money, say five grammes, to poor Mussulmans, but beyond this 
 he is not bound. Only, he who, voluntarily, gives greater alms, will be recom- 
 pensed by God." 
 
 Fasting and the Pilgrimage to Mecca are then explained. 
 
 " We fulfil this kind of religious duties in order to conform ourselves to the 
 Commandments of God and to merit eternal felicity. But if we enter, in this 
 respect, on a circumstantial examination, we arrive at the conviction that the 
 fulfilment of these duties also secures the happiness of this life. The purity and 
 cleanliness, necessary for prayer, are absolutely conformable to the hygienic 
 prescriptions of physicians. Similar ordinances in their useful- results are worthy 
 to be considered as apostolic miracles. 
 
 " As to the question of alms, it would be necessary to enter into great detail to 
 demonstrate their great importance to the welfare of human society. Thanks to 
 this rule the poor man recognises the rich man as his natural protector. Besides, 
 assistance to the poor being for the Mussulman a natural thing and a daily action, 
 there are many persons who, as regards alms, go beyond the legal proportion. 
 The poor man takes his place at the table of the rich ; the guests who arrive, at 
 the moment of placing themselves at table, are welcomed and loaded with at- 
 tentions. To whatever condition he belongs we give a morsel of bread to the poor 
 man who is hungry and asks for it ; this is why, among Mussulmans, it has become 
 proverbial to say that no one dies of hunger. The servants are fed on the same 
 dishes as their masters, only they are served after the masters. With regard to 
 the manner of living, there is similarity and proximity between the poor and the 
 rich. In the Mosque there reigns a complete equality and a perfect liberty. 
 For these reasons we do not remark in the Mussulman social organization a very 
 great distance between the two classes ; and the boundary which separates the 
 rich from the poor not having, as in Christian States, a violent and precise 
 character, we see' among them no trace of disagreement and enmity ; conse- 
 quently among Mussulmans there exist no factions such as the Communists, the 
 Socialists, and the Nihilists, and there is no probability that a similar danger 
 should arise in the future. The extension and the rapid progress of the Mussul- 
 man religion in all parts of the world, the fidelity to their religion of which the 
 Mussulman people have given proof, and the constancy in their convictions which 
 they have displayed in the midst of so many crises and of immense difficulties, 
 are a natural consequence of these truths." 
 
 " Marriage is a contract between the husband and the wife, and they alone are 
 the contracting parties ; only, this contract must be formulated in the presence 
 of two witnesses. If, under this aspect, marriage must be considered as a matter 
 of business, from a different point of view it constitutes a religious act." 
 
 " By marriage the husband acquires the right to enjoy, in a legal manner, his 
 wife's company, but by this her liberty is in no way infringed. A married woman 
 
MUHAMMADANISM. 261 
 
 disposes of her goods as she thinks proper ; she buys and sells without her 
 husband having the right to interfere. As to the husband, ho must provide for 
 the dwelling, the subsistence and the clothing of his wife. If the husband 
 repairs to another country, he cannot force his wife to follow him, and, at the 
 same time, he cannot cease to maintain her." 
 
 If married people quarrel, arbitrators are chosen from the relations on both 
 sides. 
 
 " If these arbitrators succeed in reconciling thom, well and good, but if they do 
 not, what must be done ? Since, in consequence of their misunderstanding, the 
 respect for conjugal rights and the accomplishment of the divine orders are 
 rendered impossible, what remedy is there but divorce ? Would it be logical 
 and reasonable to say that they should continue to dispute, tied as they are by 
 the marriage contract? Admitting that the principal object of marriage is to 
 protect from sin, can it serve as a reason for the continuance of a state of enmity." 
 
 The reasons for permitting polygamy are entered into, and the difficulties in the 
 way of treating more than one wife with justice. " Thus among Mussulmans there 
 are few who have more than one wife." The Sheikh-ul-Islam concludes : 
 
 " Let us pass from the theory of these questions to their practical result. We 
 say, then, that many Christian men and women remain celibate, while celibacy is 
 rare among Mussulmans. A Mussulman girl, even though ugly and poor, often 
 succeeds in finding a husband, 
 
 " In towns where the inhabitants are all Mussulmans, there are no taverns, 
 gaming houses, or brothels, nor is there evsn an idea of organising prostitution, as 
 if it were a natural necessity of social conditions. The contagious diseases en- 
 gendered by prostitution are unknown, thanks to the Mussulman religion. 
 
 " If we examine attentively the political conditions and system approved by 
 Isldm concerning governmental institutions and public administration, we see 
 that the State which should conform itself strictly to this system and to these 
 conditions, would secure to itself, on the one side, the principles of liberty most in 
 conformity with justice and equity, and, on the other, the discipline and power 
 proper to absolute governments. And, thus, this State would have a power and a 
 strength of which no politician has conceived. 
 
 " The serious examination of the preceding questions demonstrates that the 
 Mussulman religion secures not only eternal felicity, but perhaps also happiness 
 in this world." 
 
 REMARKS ON THE ABOVE BY DR. LEITNER. 
 
 I return with many thanks the paper containing the excellent letter of the 
 Sheikh-ul-Islam, of Constantinople, to M. Schumann. It places the question of 
 physical purity as preliminary to prayer, of alms as a pecuniary prayer, of fasting 
 as a religious exercise, of the pilgrimage to Mecca as a link of brotherhood among 
 Muhammadans of all countries, and of the Muslim form of marriage as a pre- 
 ventive of immorality, on a clear footing, justified alike by piety and the laws of 
 health and of social order. The only point on which I venture to differ from His 
 Eminence (" Altesse " is surely too worldly a title for a spiritual Dignitary in a 
 Republic of religious equals) is where he is alleged to state, perhaps owing to the 
 fault of a translator, that it is only from the day of the conversion of Ji. Schumann 
 to IslAm that " an account will be kept of his actions whether good or evil." 
 This view, however natural and excusable in a Muhammadan religious teacher 
 Tinder the special circumstances of the case, is, I submit, not at all borne out by 
 the spirit of the Koran, which clearly acknowledges as spiritual brethren the 
 '■ Bhl-Kitib " or " possessors of a religious book," namely, the Old Testament, the 
 Psalms, and the New Testament. I respectfully maintain that the actions, 
 whether good or evil, of all men, are accountable from a Muhammadan stand- 
 point, even if they are not Muhammadans, and that Christians and Jews, who 
 possess a religious " book," are specially on that responsible footing, even when not 
 converted to Muhammadanlsm. 
 
 In quoting a few of the most striking passages of the Koran on Non-Muhamma- 
 dans, I do not wish to enter into a controversy which, perhaps, it was not very 
 
262 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 expedient to raise, as to whether Non-Muhammadans are " accountable," but the 
 following paBsages show the brotherhood among all wno nave a sacred "book," 
 the Old or the New Testament, or the Koran, and their publication may be 
 productive of good feeling among Muhammadans, Christians, and Jews : 
 
 Cliapter ii,, verse 59, 
 
 " Verily those who have believed (in the prophets) and those who have become 
 Jews, and the Christians and the Sabeans, whosoever hath believed in God and the 
 Last Day, and Jiath done that nhioh is right, they shall have their rervard mth 
 their Lord and no fear upon them, neither shall they grieve." 
 
 Some, no doubt, suppose that this verse has been abrogated by a subsequent 
 revelation (in Chapter. III., 79th verse), but this has a special meaning, and is 
 contradicted by the whole history and tenor of Muhammadan relations with others, 
 as, indeed, no such relations could exist, if there were no difEerence between the 
 good and evil actions of Non-Muhammadans. We find the following in 
 
 Chapter xxix., verse 45. 
 
 " Dispute not with the people of the Scripture (Christians and Jews) unless in 
 the kindliest manner, except against such of them as deal evUly, and say ye, " We 
 believe in that which has been sent down unto us (the Koran) and also in that 
 which has been sent down unto you (the Old and New Testaments), and our God 
 and yow Ood is one, and to Him are we self-surrendered (resigned or Muslims)." 
 
 Even the object of a religious war, the much-misrepresented " JihAd," is stated 
 in the chapter on " Pilgrimage " to be " the protection of mosques, synagogues, and 
 churches, in which the name of the one Ood is preached, " 
 
 ■ No doubt, as the Christians, especially of Spain, began to persecute the Muham- 
 madans, the more hostile verses of the Koran and of tradition (Hadls) began to 
 fall in with the circumstances, but let us hope that these will again change to the 
 originally intended kindly feeling among the sister-faiths of Isldm ; Christianity 
 and Judaism. 
 
 G. W. Leitnbb. 
 
 Obizottal Institttte, Woking, Octoher 9th, 1888. 
 
 Appendix II. 
 
 PROFESSOR LEITNER'S LETTER ON MUHAMMADANISM 
 AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Eiits'b OoLLxez, Loirsoir, March ISth, 1881. 
 In a letter from Dr. Kohlfs to the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, the great 
 traveller asserts that " at present Isldm has triumphed, and slavery, the inevitable 
 consequence of Muhammadan government, is re-established." Other eminent 
 authorities, writing on the subject of General Gordon's " slavery " proclamation, 
 have similarly assumed that Muhammadanism is in favour of that hateful institu- 
 tion. 
 
 This is as great a libel on that religion as the assertion would be on Christianity, 
 that it was in favour of slavery because Christ, although confronted by one of its 
 cruellest forms in the Soman Empire, did not attempt to legislate, as Muhammad 
 did, for its eventual abolition in this world, but merely promised spiritual freedom 
 to the repentant servants of sin, whether bond or free ; whilst St. Paul sends the 
 runaway slave Onesimus back to his Christian master Philemon, even after con- 
 verting him (a process which would ipso facto have set him free among very pious 
 Kuhammadans), and, in numerous places, evidently refuses to enter into the 
 
MUHAMMADANISM, 263 
 
 question of the emancipation of slaves, except in a spiritual sense. Even the 
 reference to " man stealere " in 1 Tim. i. 10 is simply part of a statement of 
 various classes of evildoers with which " the Law " had to deal : " The law is good 
 if a man use it lawfully ; knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous 
 man, but for the lawless and disobedient . . . for ' men-stealeis,' for liars, for 
 perjured persons, and if there be anything that is contrary to sound doctrine." 
 The allusion is referred to the Jewish Law, according to which " He that siealeth a 
 mHii and seUeth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death " 
 '(Bxod. xxi. 16). In the New Dispensation, however, which modified the severity 
 cf that law, there is '• neither bond nor free, but Christ is all." Every one was to 
 abide in his own calling, the converted slave being the Lord's freeman and the con- 
 verted freeman the slave of Christ (1 Cor. vii. 20-22). 
 
 A.8 one who has taken a part, however humble and small, in the exposure of 
 •certain forms of slavery and the slave trade, I would beg leave to point out the 
 injustice and impolicy of identifying Muhammadanism vrith the conduct of its 
 unworthy professors, the slave dealers, instead of merely advocating principles 
 which are deeply implanted in both Christian and Muhammadan human nature, 
 are sanctified by both religions, and give England a hold not only oa the Liberal 
 sentiment of Europe and the United States, but also on that of the whole Muham- 
 madan world. Indeed, it would be well if as regards Muhammadanism generally 
 our statesmen, scholars, and missionaries sought for points of agreement rather 
 than for those of difierenoe, and appealed less to the preconceptions of their public 
 than to their desire for correct information. 
 
 According to the Koran no person can be made a slave except after the conclusion 
 of a sanguinary battle fought in the conduct of a religious vrar (Jihid) in the 
 country of infidels who try to suppress the true religion. Indeed, wherever the 
 word "slave" occurs in the Koran it is "he whom your right hands have con- 
 quered," or a special equivalent for neck = he whose neck has been spared, thus 
 clearly indicating " a prisoner of war " made by the action not of one man only, 
 but of many. The idea is similar to that conveyed by the Greek 'AyipiroSov, 
 which implied that the victor placed his foot on the neck of the conquered, who 
 became Ms future slave. Limited, however, as the legal supply of slaves is ac- 
 cording to the Koran (which would alone suffice to justify the abolition of slavery 
 among all pious Muhammadans),the Arabian prophet further recommends, " When 
 the war has ended restore them [the slaves or prisoners] to liberty or give them 
 up for a ransom " (Sura xlvii. 5). Again, in the 16th Sura of the Koran, Mu- 
 hammad, in his very novitiate, boldly confronts a state of society in which even the 
 female belongings of a deceased were sold or distributed as part of his property (a 
 position from which he raised women by constituting them " legal sharers, or the 
 first care of Muhammadan law, and conferred on them rights similar to those lately 
 conceded in this country by the Married Women's Property Act). Surrounded by 
 powerful and hostile relatives and tribesmen, the owners of slaves, who sought an 
 excuse for his destruction, he invites them to divide their income or provision {rizq) 
 with their slaves in equal shares : " God has made some superior to others in 
 income, and yet those who have been so benefited do not divide their income with 
 those whom their right hands have conquered, so that each [master and slave] 
 may have an equal share. How dare they thus to gainsay the goodness of God ? " 
 
 And elsewhere, " Alms (which procure righteousness) are destined ... to the 
 Tedemption of slaves" (as the ruling Begum of Bhopal professed to have done 
 not long ago, when she had bought and imported slaves for the ostensible object 
 •of setting them free). Further (Sura xxiv. .S3), " If any of your slaves asks for his 
 manmnission in writing give it to him, if you think him worthy of it, and give him 
 Also some of the wealth which God has given you." This passage enables slaves, 
 who thus acquire the disposal of their time, to redeem themselves by a certain 
 amount of labour or on payment of a sum not exceeding their market value, and 
 often paid for, in part or whole, especially among Shiahs, out of the public tax 
 zekit. The reconciliation of a separated married couple should be preceded by the 
 ransom of a slave, and, if none can be found, the husband should feed sixty poor, 
 or else fast for two months (Sura Iviii. 4, 5). Whenever the sense of happiness, 
 including that of conjugal felicity, predisposes the heart to gratitude towards the 
 
264 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Creator, or whenever the fear of God or of a punishment, or the desire of a blessing,, 
 affects, as such motives can affect, the daily life of a Muhammadan, the emancipa- 
 tion of a slave, as a most proper act of charity, is recommended. In short, the 
 " cliff," or narrow path to salvation, is charity. " What is the cliff ? It is to free 
 the captive [or slave] " (Sura xo. 10-15). 
 
 Descending to the second source of Muhammadan law, the authenticated tra- 
 dition or Sadis, we find Muhammad stating that " the worst of men is he who 
 sells men ; " slaves who displeased their master were to be forgiven " seventy times 
 a day ; " no believer could be made a slave, and " in proportion to the number of 
 redeemed slaves will members of the body of the releasing person be rescued from 
 the [eternal] fire " (Sadis, accepted by Sunnisand Shiahs alike, and communicated 
 by Jibir Ibn Abdullah). 
 
 The history of Muhammadanism has since shovm not only the admission of the 
 converted slave on equal terms into Muhammadan society (a circumstance which 
 does not exist to the same extent among Christian negroes), but also his rise in 
 several Muhammadan countries, including Egypt, to the highest positions in the 
 state, whether as an individual or as a member of a whole class of slaves, and 
 irrenpectixe of colour. • The brotherhood of Muhammadanism is no mere word. 
 All believers are equal and their own high-priests. Zeid, the ex-slave, led Mu- 
 hammad's troops, whilst the often blind " Hdfiz," or reciters of the Korin of the 
 present day, hive, as it were, their prototype in the blind negro Bilil, the first 
 *' muezzin," or caller to prayers, perhaps the most famous name in Muhammadan 
 Asia and Africa. The Ghaznavide dynasty was founded by the slave Sabaktagin ; 
 the first king of Delhi, Kutbuddin, was a slave, etc. 
 
 In India, the authoritative declaration of the Mnhammadan law officers of the 
 Sadr Diwani and Nizamat AdAlat laid dovra that only capture in a holy war, or 
 descent from such a captive, constitutes the slave legal to a Muhammadan master. 
 The Sadr Diwini Addlat, in 1830, in an appeal, adopted the opinion of its Muftis 
 just noticed, and imposed on the claiming master the burden of proving that the 
 slavery of his claimed slaves was derived from the narrow legal origin defined by 
 the Muftis. The effect of this decision is that no Muslim can ever make good his 
 title to the services of a recusant slave. The Muftis further laid down that " the 
 master can only inflict moderate correction on his slave, and that any ci-uelty or 
 Ul usage inflicted on his slave legally exposes him to a discretionary punishment 
 (a'qflbat or tazlr) by the ruling power, and siuih diacretionary power extends to 
 death " (I quote from Hamilton's preface to the " Hidiya "). Since the abolition 
 of these officers we have not the sanie touch with the conservative elements of 
 Muhammadan society, whilst the decisions of our courts are often away from the 
 real point, owing to ignorance of Arabic, without a knowledge of which language 
 it is difficult to have any influence with Muhammadans, and impossible to decide 
 with accuracy any question connected with their law. In 1839, however, the true 
 nature of Muhammadanism was better known by the Indian Government than it 
 is now even by European writers on Muhammadan law. Lord Auckland's Minute 
 on the Indian Law Commission, which reported that " all slavery is excluded from 
 amongst the Muhammadans by the strict letter of their own law," shows that 
 " the abhorrence to slavery entertained by the English functionary " was then, as 
 now, welcome to the respectable native community. Even among those who 
 benefited by the trade, " a degree of moral turpitude attached " to the purchase of 
 prisoners of war, " which, if insisted on, would tend considerably to diminish the 
 evil," although " slaves are not only extremely well treated by their Arab masters, 
 but enjoy a very considerable degree of power and influence. . . . They were every- 
 where the best fed men, and seemed happy and comfortable. . . . The cruel treat- 
 ment of slaves has been the reproach of European rather than of Eastern nations " 
 (I quote from Reports to the Kesident of the Persian Gulf in 1838). 
 
 Persons who confess the unity of the Godhead cannot be made slaves, and there- 
 fore there has practically been a constant struggle between the Muhammadan 
 slave dealer, who, being devoid of any religion himself, sought to save appearances 
 by forcing his captives to declare themselves, rightly or wrongly, to be idolaters 
 (as in Africa), or at least (as in Chitral and Bukhara) to be Shiah heretics — and 
 the Muhammadan missionaries, who, as in Africa, have been steadily and success- 
 
MUHAMMADANISM. 265 
 
 fully endeavouring to reduce the area from which slaves could be drawn by 
 converting the neijroes to IslAm. Dr. Eohlfs, in his condemnation of that faith, 
 must have had the Muhammadan slave dealers rather than the Muhammadan 
 missionaries or religion in his mind. Mr. Eassam has already stated that "the 
 slave dealers are looked upon everywhere by the respectable class with disgust, 
 especially when they are known to encourage kidnapping even Moslem and 
 Christian children." And again : " Nor did 1 find in all my intercourse with 
 African or Arabian tribes in the suppression of the slave traffic any difficulty or 
 danger, but, on the contrary, the different chiefs with whom we negotiated con- 
 sented most willingly and cheerfully to put down the slave trade ; and the most 
 wonderful thing was they all kept their pledges faithfully." 
 
 In Turkey I have been acquainted with more than one family in which the 
 newly-purchased slave was taught a trade and set up in business after an apprentice- 
 ship of seven years — a common practice : and I knew a pious boatman who, as 
 soon as he had saved enough money, devoted it to the purchase and' manumission 
 of a slave. Of similar instances I often heard during the time preceding the legal 
 abolition of the slave trade in Turkey — that deserted true friend of England, and 
 once her lever on the Muhammadan world — and I have met many pious Muslims 
 in various Muhammadan countries whose ambition it was to ransom slaves. Indeed, 
 words of piety, chivalry, truth, and compassion have not lost their power to stir 
 the adherents of that creed, and I therefore regret that it should be deemed to be 
 expedient to withdraw, for the purpose of what can only be a temporary deception, 
 from the commanding position of advocating the abolition of slavery in every one 
 of its forms. It may have the effect of conciliating Zebehr Pasha, but it will 
 alienate from England most honest Mussulmans. To abuse Muhammadanism for 
 the maintenance of an institution which it had to tolerate and for which it had to 
 legislate is one thing, but to adopt indigenous methods of appeal to Muhammadan 
 humanity, based on their own revered associations, is quite another. Indeed, even 
 if slavery were an integral part of the Muhammadan religion, as it most certainly 
 is not, " Moslem lawgivers may ameliorate the condition of slaves, close slave 
 markets, and check the diabolical traffic in the south," to quote Sir William Mutr. 
 
 I go, perhaps, further, and assert that the Muhammadan religion can adapt, and has 
 adapted, itself to circumstances and to the needs of the various races that profess 
 it in accordance with " the spirit of the age." I have ever found Muhammadans, 
 of whatever country, eager to welcome any appeal in favour of humanity or 
 progress, if urged in a sympathetic and intelligible manner. Perhaps the times are 
 past when to ensure the eventual triumph of principles that have made a country 
 great a patriot may prefer to perish rather than snatch an evanescent success, but 
 the time has, fortunately, not yet arrived in which to support slavery is not alike 
 a blunder and a crime. 
 
 G. W. Leitnee. 
 
 ATHEN.a!UM, 16-3-84. 
 
 Appendix III. 
 DE. LEITNEE ON THE MAHDI AND THE KHALIFA. 
 
 To THE Editor of the "Diplomatic Fltsheets." 
 
 OEiEifiAi. Ihstituxb, Woking, December 17th, 1888. 
 
 SiK, — By all means republish my letter on "The Mahdi and the Khalifa.'' 
 Unfortunately, the object for which it was %vritten at the end of 1883 has not been 
 achieved, and the authority of the Sultan of Turkey, which would have been all- 
 powerful then as the Khalifa of the Sunni Muhammadan world, has been much 
 shaken by our intervention. Even now, however, it is not too late to invoke his 
 
26G RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 co-operation in restoring " true iBldmism " to the Soudan and in efEectually leading 
 a " Crescentade " (if the term may be permitted) against slavery, which, by a most 
 authentic tradition, accepted by both Shiahs and Sunnis, the prophet Muhammad 
 condemned in the statement, that, "the morst of men is he mho sells men" At 
 the same time, it need not be supposed that the Soudan Mahdi's ''successor" or 
 " Khalifa " uses the title to designate that he is " the successor " of the 
 Peophet in his secular sovereignty over the faithful. With him it may merely 
 mean that he has succeeded the late Mahdi, just as the title Mahdi or "guided" 
 was assumed, not to arrogate the powers of the Imdm Mahdi who is "the 
 expected" of the Shiaha, "the chief of the age," but merely to indicate that 
 he was " guided " by God to be a guide to other Muhammadans. This any Sunni 
 teacher could be under the Sunni Khalifa or Commander of the faithful, and both 
 the Soudan Mahdi and his present Khalifa or " successor " would acknowledge the 
 8ultan as tlie Khalifa in the political sense of the term. If Mahdiism has become 
 heretical, and, therefore, dangerous to British interests, it is because ive have 
 disseminated the Shiah view of Mahdiism by crippling the authority of the Sultan 
 as Khalifa. 
 
 The mere fact that the Soudan Mahdi has a Khalifa or successor, at once 
 destroys any attempt to invest him with the prestige of the Bhiab Mahdi, who 
 is to reappear on the last day of judgment, and who, therefore, obviously could 
 have no successor, not to speak of the title " Khalifa " being scarcely attractive to 
 Shiah ears. In other words, whatever the Soudan Khalifa may say of his hostility 
 to the Turks, he is stUl a Sunni, and as such cannot refuse to recognize the Sultan 
 of Turkey as tli£ Khalifa of the Sunni Muhammadan world. 
 
 G. W. Leitneb. 
 
 The Lettbb Repbkred to. 
 
 (From the Times of 2nd January, 1884.) 
 
 To the Editor op the " Times." 
 
 Sib, — " The Mahdi is the Devil." This information was imparted at Suez to 
 Professor Monier Williams, whose letter you publish in the Tirnies of to-day, by an 
 Egyptian boatman, apparently a Muhammadan of the Sunni persuasion. Before, 
 however, assuming, with the learned Professor of Sanscrit, that the above remark 
 shows the " intense odium tlisologiowm between the two opposing religious parties 
 of Mussulmans" (Sunnis and Shiahs), "the Egyptians" being "mostly Sunnis," 
 it would be interesting to ascertain whether the startling statement at the com- 
 mencement of this letter was made in " pigeon English " or in Arabic. If the 
 former, it may have been a sarcastic insinuation that the Mahdi was a clever 
 fellow, or that he would give us trouble ; if the latter, it might have indicated a 
 vague religious notion, but then the word " Satan " (certainly not " Iblis ") would 
 have been used ; and this would also have been the case if the boatman had been 
 a good English scholar. The "man at the helm " evidently knew his business,- 
 for in reply to the somewhat incautious inquiry by a chance "fare," as to 
 " whether he preferred Arabi or the Khedive," he said, " We want neither the 
 one nor the other ; we want bread," thus indicating by the use of the word 
 •' want," whether in Arabic or Suez-English, that men in his position had nothing 
 to do with politics, either as a matter of necessity or of propriety, but were only 
 concerned with getting their daily bread, if not a bakhshish from the English 
 traveller. The boatman certainly never meant to imply, as is suggested, an equal 
 'tislike to Arabi and the Khedive ; at the utmost, 6 he indeed uttered the vox 
 populi, his was a modem squeak for the old cry that went up to Joseph from 
 unhappy Egypt when it sold itself into slavery to Pharaoh for bread'; " buy us 
 and our land for bread, and we and our land wiU be servants unto Pharaoh." 
 Finally, the Egyptians are not " mostly " Sunnis, or the Mahdi and his followers 
 Shiahs, which would give a point to the Professor's quotation, but they are all 
 Sunnis. 
 
 It is to be regretted that the scholars, statesmen, and generals who have written 
 fo the Times on the subject of the Mahdi had not the opportunity of consulting 
 
MUHAMMADANISM. 267 
 
 Professor Williams, for he evidently knows the direction which the consideration 
 -of the question ought to take, though, perhaps, not the question itself. You, how- 
 ■ever, are aware that, from either an academical or the Muhammadan standpoint — 
 both of which must now be taken into account by practical politicians dealing with 
 the present or any future Mahdl — whether the still de facto Khilafat of the Sultan 
 of Turkey is to be supported by England, or whether its downfall is to be accelerated 
 in order to evoke aspirations in the Muhammadan world for another powerful head 
 of Islim, if not for the advent of a Messiah (the second coming of Jesus being 
 expected by Muhammadans) or Mahdi, or whatever the sighed-f or curer of admitted 
 ills may be called, there is a deeply distressed and discontented community, ignorant 
 ■ of the history and true application of these terms in their own religion. 
 
 There was a time when the co-operation of the Sultan of Turkey and of his 
 spiritual adviser, the Sheikh-ul-Islam, would have been welcomed in a rebgious 
 war against Bns&ia.in Central Asia;* there was another time when attempts were 
 made to lower the prestige of the Sultan among the faithful in India and else- 
 where by contesting his claim to the Khalifat (or more correctly Khildfat), on the 
 ground that he was not a descendant of the " Prophet Mahomed," and did not 
 even belong to his tribe of the Koreish. Both advocates and opponents, whether 
 BuTopean or Muhammadan scholars, did their cause an infinity of harm by unsettling 
 the historical basis of the question, and by encouraging, in consequence, the growth 
 of all sorts of heterodox notions in the Muhammadan world, which was before so 
 'Susceptible to the influence of England. 
 
 Dull, therefore, as any treatment of the subject away from current politics may 
 be, I must beg for the indulgent consideration of the following aspect of a question 
 which has been much obscured by both European and Muhammadan writers. 
 
 In the domain of practical politics connected with " the Eastern question " it 
 -does not matter whether the head or heads of Isldm (fo- there have been, and can 
 be, several at a time) can prove Koreish descent or inves iture by a real Khalifa in 
 past history, in order to claim the obedience of the Suunis, who form the great 
 imajority of Muhammadans, so long as he carries out, in their opinion, the Divine 
 law. The doctrine is distinctly laid down, though I have never seen it quoted by 
 any of the writers on the subject, that a Khalifa may be a " perfect KhalUa " or an 
 " imperfect Khalifa," a difEerence which applies to other conditions of men or 
 imonarchs, and which is certainly established in Muhammadan history. " A perfect 
 Khalifa " is merely the ideal of a viceregent of the prophet. He must be, in spite of 
 bis titular feminine termination, a man, of age, free from bodily and mental infir- 
 mities, learned, pious, just, a free man (not a slave, as in the case of some dynas- 
 ties), and, of course, of Koreish descent ; in fact, an Admirable Crichton and a 
 •" Defender of the Faith," and yet he would not be a Khalifa at all unless he 
 •possessed the supreme qualification, that of having the power to enforce his 
 commands, just as a man might be a good Christian without being a monarch, or 
 imight even be a Christian monarch without being a good Christian. 
 
 Traditions are conflicting on the point of Koreish descent being essential to the 
 Khilifat. As long as the Khalifas happened to be Koreishs, it was convenient to 
 .point out that the prophet had made them the ruling tribe " even if only two 
 .persons remained in it. Others alleged that he had predicted that there would be 
 no perfect Khalifa thirty years after his death, and yet Koreishs ruled long alter 
 -that period. He, at all events, nominated no successor or viceregent, and left his 
 -election to the assembly of the Faithful, with the inevitable result that one party 
 wanted both the prophet's mantle and the secular power to remain in the family, 
 .and the other party- wished to get the power, at least, into the hands of " the best 
 •man" to be appointed by themselves. 
 
 The confusion between the infallible Im4m or spiritual amtutei of the Faithful 
 and the fallible Khalifa or viceregent of the Moslems began with the earliest 
 -times of Isl^jn, and led to the main division of Muhammadanism into the sects 
 -of Sunnis and Shiahs. The former are so-called because they are guided by 
 •"rules and the consensus of the Faithful (ahl-Sunnatwa Jamaa't)." It follows 
 .from this that Sunniism is essentially a democratic theocracy, while Shiah belief 
 
 • By England !— Ed. D.F.S. 
 
268 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 '■ follows " the hereditary descent of its spiritual chief from Mahomet, by Fatima 
 and Ali as the very reason of its existence. In most Muhammadan authorities^ 
 where the Khilitat is spoken of, the word " Imim " is used, and in others it is 
 implied. The confusion was welcome to the writers, because it saved their con- 
 science and occasionally their necks, and because it slurred over a diflaculty which, 
 in my humble opinion, with every deference to the venerable commentators, the 
 Koran and the practical attitude of Muhammadan States and nations, both now and 
 in the past, towards the question of the Khil^at, amply explain. 
 
 All Suniiis are equal. They possess a continually living Muhammadan Church in 
 the concensus of the assembly of the Faithful. The Khalifa, if there be any, for 
 which there is no absolute need, is the first among peers, so far as he possesses most 
 power to carry out the Muhammadan law. Had the Sultans of Turkey not conmiitted 
 the mistake of subordinating the priesthood or judiciary (to which any Sunni may 
 aspire) to the secular power, the presumed free opinion of his spiritual advisers 
 would, indeed, have canied weight throughout the Sunni Muhammadan world, and 
 would have made the Sultan an uncontested Khalifa. Even then, however, had 
 he tried, beyond complimentary f aasi-investitures of rulers of Yarkand, Bokhara,. 
 Afghanistan, and other Muhammadan countries, to interfere in the slightest degree 
 «-ith their internal affairs, he would, with all respect to him as Khalifa, have been 
 rightly confronted by the lawful opposition of the Sunni subjects of those " Umri,- 
 ul-mu'menln," or " Kulers of the Faithful," unless, indeed, he had the power of 
 enforcing his decree. If he has not that power coupled vrith the consensus of the 
 Faithful, he is not the perfect Khalifa, at all events where it is so contested. 
 
 The Grand Sharif of Mecca, with whom most regrettable, and once unnecessary, 
 negotiations are, and have been, carried on, not only by the Sultan, is not a 
 Khalifa, although this sacred personage is of the purest Koreish descent and has all 
 the qualifications of a " pfrfect Khalifa," except the essential one of having an 
 army under his command " An imperfect Khalifa," however, is he who stands at 
 the head of theSunni woild as a Muhammadan ruler, however deficient he may be in 
 all the desirable qualifications, except the all important one to which I have re- 
 ferred. Indeed, he may be a very wicked man, as may be gathered from the 
 following passage in the Koran, when the angels expostulate with God for creating 
 man as his Khalifa — " Wilt thou create one as thy Khalifa who will do iniquity on 
 earth and unjustly shed blood ? " (I quote from memory, as it is very many years 
 since I learnt the Koran by heart in a theological school at Constantinople, to 
 which I was admitted by exceptional favour.) 
 
 The Abbasside, Ummiyade, and other Khalifas were of the bluest blood, and yet 
 were scarcely nerfect Khalifas. In short, by admitting the- claim of the Sultan's- 
 Khilifat, we do neither more nor less than is warranted by the consensus of 
 the faithful of his persuasion, and we gain, as long as he has any power, the 
 advantage of being in sympathy with the bulk of the " orthodox " Muhammadan 
 world, whereas by discussing pretensions with which we have no concern, and by 
 confusing the " Imamat " (the spiritual headship of IslAm) with the de facto 
 Khilifat, we raise a storm of which a cloud is already on the horizon. The 
 common sense of Sunniism is a safe and sufficient guide in this matter, if left to- 
 itself, as also the supposed kindred question of the " Jihid " or the holy war against 
 infidels, on which more than one volume would have been unwritten had it been 
 generally understood to mean merely " an effort " which is only lawful, if almost 
 certain of success ; otherwise, as elsewhere, patriotism becomes flat rebellion. 
 
 Far different is the case with Shiahs. To them the Khalifa is a dead letter and 
 the " Imdm " a living being. The special sense of Im&m is that of spiritual head. 
 Thus, in the Koran, God appoints Abraham, after testing his complete obedience,, 
 as an " Imam for Mankind " though he refuses to make the dignity hereditary 
 since the offspring might not be free from sin, which Abraham, as an Imdm, by 
 implication, was. It will be remembered that a similar guarantee was not required, 
 when man was created God's Khalifa, but, be that as it may, the hereditary 
 descent of the Imam is the special property of the Shiah persuasion. When the 
 popular assembly at which the just claim of the chivalrous relative, and another 
 *' light " of Mahomed, His Highness Ali, was rejected in favour of Muavriya, the 
 consolation still remained to the lovers of justice, Adilias, as the Shiahs are more 
 
MUHAMMADANISM. 269 
 
 properly called, that whoever had usurped the de facto secular dominion of the 
 Mussulmans, the spiritual head, the lm6,m, was still theirs, and would remain with 
 them in his lineal descendants. They alone are the " guides " (the root from which 
 " Mahdi " is formed) of nations in both secular and spiritual matters. 
 
 Deprived of the former, the spiritual rule was handed down from father to son, 
 until the twelfth and last Imam, Muhammad Mahdi, who disappeared from earth 
 <in 265 A.H. or in 878-79 A.D.) in order to return vrith the day of judgment. At 
 all assemblies, however, of believing Shiahs, the Imka. Mahdi, who is also called 
 the ruler of worlds, is invisibly present. The Magian basis of belief has never been 
 entirely destroyed in Shiah Persia, and it is still the feeder of a vivid and artistic 
 imagination in contrast to the monotony and practical sense of orthodox Sunniism. 
 but for political purposes the fanaticism that can be evoked by the spread of the 
 doctrine that the leadership of IslAm belongs to the Imdm, which is the inevitable 
 result of denying the KhilAfat of the Sultan on the ground of his not being a 
 Koreishi by descent, is far more dangerous than the voluntary subordination 
 of Sunnis to the/aii accompli of the Sultan as the Khalifa for the time being. 
 
 Unfortunately, surrounded as the Sultans have been by flatterers or servile 
 instruments of their will, and owing to an impulse from without which I can only 
 vaguely indicate, the suicidal notion has gained a firm footing at the Sublime 
 Porte that the Bultan is a sort of Muhammadan Pope, and more or less doubtful 
 documents have been disinterred to show that the last Khalifa had in 1519, if I 
 remember rightly, made over the Khildiat to the Ottoman Sultan Salim, while on 
 a visit to Constantinople. Even if this was not done under duresse, it proves 
 nothing, for the Khil&f at is not hereditary according to Sunni notions, and Sultan 
 Salim was not elected, although, once in power as the chief, or a great chief of 
 Sunnis, his claim, or that of his descendants, is sufliciently ratified by the simplicity 
 of " the concensus of the faithful," beyond which it is unnecessary and unsafe to 
 go. Equally unnecessary flirtations for a spiritual sanction of the claim to a 
 perfect Khalifatship have been carried on with the Sharif of Mecca and are now 
 invoked, not so much against the Mahdi as against the growing agitation among 
 the Arabs and other Muhammadans. That prelate would be more than human if 
 he did not tacitly support a leaning in favour of the sanctity of Koreish descent. 
 Indeed, the innumerable progeny of Sayyads, or descendants of the prophet among 
 Sunni Muhammadans, have been more or less active propagators of the heresy of 
 hereditary sanctity. Many educated Sunnis, especially those who enjoy Persian 
 literature, profess or feel a secret " affection for the House of Ali," and indignation 
 at the treatment it received by the Khaltfa, whom the " Jomda't" elected, while it 
 is to be feared that many unscrupulous Shiahs, who, mistaking the doctrine of 
 " Xaqqia " or denial of their faith which is, unf ortunately^ permitted to that sect 
 in times of extreme danger and among fellow-Mussulmans only, pass themselves 
 ojBE as Sunnis in order to propagate the fanatical doctrine of the Mahdi. How far 
 the presence of a " green-turbaned Sheikh," as suggested by Sir Samuel Baker, with 
 the troops to be sent (?) against the present usurper of that name, would be an 
 advantage or a new source of danger, depends not only on the individual who may 
 be selected for the suggested mission, but also on a number of circumstances of 
 which only those can judge who know the wheels within wheels of the inner 
 Muhammadan life, as they may afiect him. 
 
 As for the " pre-eminently black " Soudan Mahdi, who, if correctly reported to 
 the Times, explains, characteristically enough, his name to mean " given " instead 
 of the Shiah " guided," I notice that the African traveller Massari declares that his 
 " insurrection was provoked chiefly by the untoward interference of the Egyptian 
 Government in religious matters, and by their oppression of the people. " 
 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 G. W. Leitner 
 
 LoFSOH : December 2BM, 1883. 
 
270 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Appendix IV. 
 ISLi.M, AND MUHAMMADAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 TO THE EDITOB OP " THE DAILY TELEOBAPH." 
 
 SlE, — Having had the exceptional opportnnity of studying Arabic and the Eoian 
 at a Mnhammadan Mosque school at Constantinople, both before and after the 
 Bussian War in 1854-66, and having since inspected hundreds of Mohammedan 
 schools in India, not to speak of receiving the detailed reports of several thousands of 
 these schools,' I ask leave to protest against certain sweeping assertions lately made 
 to the effect that they are dens of iniquity. It is, as regards these schools, an 
 utterly unjustifiable libel. Deviations from morality are rendered almost im- 
 possible in them, owing to both scholastic and family organisation, and the 
 influence of the admirable religions treatises and books on conduct (Akhliq — 
 qualities) which have to be read by the student. At the first-mentioned of these- 
 schools primary education was given to both boys and girls together (some of the 
 latter wearing the half-veil of betrothal). Precocious as Easterns are deemed 
 to be, there was never the slightest approach to impropriety in the school in 
 question. A few boys once threw stones at some Christian lads, and this miscon- 
 duct was immediately punished by the Im&m of the Mosque, and was not repeated. 
 The youths in what may be " called the higher form were examples of good 
 behaviour, and, indeed, the placidity of the Oriental temper is generally a sufficient 
 law in itself. Vice is not so alluring as in Europe, and although the ideal in our 
 schools may be higher, the practical purity in Muhammadan schools is probably 
 greater. 
 
 In none of the schools that I have inspected in India did I hear of any cases 
 of impropriety of any kind, except in some boarding-houses attached to Govern- 
 ment schools. In fact, the religious sentiment, the discipline of reverence and 
 obedience, the inter-dependence or co-operation of teacher and parent, seem to me 
 to render departures from moraUty far more difficult in Muhammadan than in 
 Government schools in India, in wMch religious teaching is ignored, and even the 
 introduction of a reader on morals and conduct (of little use among Orientals 
 without a religious basis), has only quite recently been ordered by the Government 
 of India. In my humble opinion, our greatest mistake in that country has been 
 our system of secular education, and our displacement of the indigenous schools 
 which ought to have been developed so as to combine ancient culture vidth modem 
 requirements. 
 
 As for the wider question of the respective merits of Christianity and Muham- 
 madanism as civilising agencies, allow me to observe that no person nnacquainted 
 with Arabic can discuss, at any rate, the theory of the latter religion, which is far 
 more interwoven with the practice of the every-day life of its professors than, 
 unfortunately, is Christianity. At the same time, there is no reason why, in onr 
 relations vrith Muhammadans, we should not emphasise the points of agreement 
 of our respective faiths, rather than their differences. 
 
 Muhammadans recognise Christians and Jews as "Ehl Eitab," or possessors 
 of a (sacred) book. In the solemn " covenant with the Creator " into which the 
 boy enters on leaving school he confesses his faith in these books. The Koran 
 enjoins the protection of mosques, synagogues, and churches, in which the name 
 of the one God is preached, as the special object of the effort (Jih^) of a true 
 believer. Jesus is called the Spirit and Word of God, and His miraculous con- 
 ception and glorious return are accepted in a sense which is not irreconcilable 
 with doctrines that have been held by Christian sects. Muhammadans have 
 liberally supported Christian schools and even churches, though few Christians 
 have subscribed to mosques. Under Turkish rule, the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish 
 denominations have preserved their autonomy for centuries. In India the " E^i" 
 is little more than tolerated, and numerous Muhammadan endowments have been 
 curtailed, mis-applied, or " resumed "—an euphemism for confiscation. These 
 
MUHAMMADA2iriSM. 271 
 
 shoald be restored, and their educational side be developed in accordance with the 
 practical, as well as the religious, requirements of the Muhammadan community. 
 
 The social economy of Muhammadans, for which there is scriptural precedent, 
 provides for women, and gives them greater legal rights than are possessed by 
 Englishwomen, even since the Married Women's Property Act of 1882. Indeed, 
 nothing, except perhaps the Hindu family life in the higher castes, can exceed 
 the respect, tenderness, purity, and legitimate influence of women in the Muham- 
 madan household. The " beau seie " forms no subject of conversation among 
 Muhammadan as among Christian youths, and its seclusion is the protection given 
 to what is precious and weak. The pious Muhammadan widow is proverbial as a 
 patroness of education. The kindness of Muhammadans to dependents, their 
 humane treatment of animals, " who also return to the Lord," their greatcharity, 
 and the simplicity which characterises the true believer should draw us to Him, 
 and, instead of clamouring against "the false prophet," our missionaries would do 
 well in cementing an alliance between the sister-faiths of IsUm and Christianity. 
 Even now many a good Muhammadan would rather send his boy to a missionary 
 school, " because the Bible, at any rate, is taught there," than to a Qovemment school, 
 where there is " nothing " (in the form of religious instruction). Indirectly, also, the 
 unexjjeoted effect of Christian teaching in missionary schools in very many places 
 is to increase the conversion of Hindus to Muhammadanism, for reasons which 
 are too long to explain. In my humble opinion we ought to set aside the first 
 hour in Qovemment schools in India to the separate religious teaching of the 
 various denominations frequenting them in their own faiths, the remaining five 
 hours of secular instruction being enjoyed in common by all denominations. 
 Unless we do this we practically condemn the Muhammadan either to give up the 
 worldly advantages of modem education, or else to abandon what be considers 
 most sacred, and that is, his religious training. " fieligious neutrality " should 
 mean that " religious impartiality " which gives a share of the taxation of Orientals 
 to what they value most, their religion ; and if we wish to attach Muhammadans 
 to British rule, we must give them "din wa dunya" (religion and worldly ad- 
 vantages), and believe, with the Emperor Akbar, that " Government and religion 
 are twins," for just as no Government can last that destroys the religious sentiment 
 among its subjects, so also can no Government prosper that does not support their 
 respective faith with equal generosity and justice. 
 
 It is, however, the special alliance of Isl^m and Christianity which I would 
 urge, not only from a religious, but also from a political standpoint. There was a 
 time when the Englishman was looked upon as the natural protector of the 
 Muhammadan world, chiefly owing to the traditional friendship with Turkey, 
 the ruler of which is the Ae facto Khalifa of the Sunni Muhammadans, who also 
 form the majority of our Muhammadan fellow-subjects. This friendship should 
 be strengthened, and among minor measures I would urge the admission of 
 Muhammadan youths (as, indeed, also of Bajputs) of good birth into our military 
 schools, with the view of their being employed, with exactly the same prospects 
 of promotion as European officers, in the Indi^ army of the future, which will 
 have to be very largely increased. 
 
 In conclusion, allow me to express the conviction that to advances such as I 
 have ventured to indicate, made in a true Christian spirit to the professors of 
 a sister-faith, the followers of Muhammad will cordi^ly respond, much to the 
 advantage of real religion throughout the world, and to the legitimate promotion 
 of British interests, which will otherwise deservedly suffer at the hands of a new 
 rival in the affections of Muhammadans. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 G. W. Lkitnee. 
 
 Jaiauiry 26M, 1888. 
 
 (Published February 2nd, 1888.) 
 
272 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Appendix V. 
 
 JIHAD. 
 
 I. 
 
 The subject of Jihad is so thoroughly misunderstood both by European scholars 
 and by the bulk of Muhammadans themselves, that it will be well to point out 
 what really constitutes Jihad. In order to do so, it is necessary to analyse the 
 word, and to show when and how it was first used. 
 
 Etymologioally the root is Jahd, " he exerted himself," and the substantival 
 infinitive that is formed from it means " utmost exertion." Its first use amongst 
 Arabic authors is that particular exertion which takes place under great difficulties, 
 and. when applied to religious matters, it means an exertion under religions 
 difficulties on behalf of the true religion. Keeping in mind the strictly logical, 
 philosophical, historical, and ethnographical applications of each Arabic root, it 
 will be seen at once how a word of this kind would be subject to interpretations 
 apcording to circumstances. Taking into consideration the surrounding life of an 
 Arab, we are confronted first and foremost with his domestic and natural relations. 
 We then follow him out of his tent, and we see him deal with his camel or his 
 horse ; we follow him on predatory expeditions, and we see him in the lonely desert 
 as he complains of the disdain of his beloved, of the arrogance of a neighbouring 
 tribe, of the melancholy prospects of his country, and of the perversity of his 
 heart in not finding full solace in community with God. Here are all obstacles to 
 oe overcome, and if he forces his camel or horse to take a desperate ride through 
 the night so as to surprise the violators of his peace before the early morn, it is 
 Jihad : if he appeals to his kinsmen to shake ofi their lethargy and to rally round 
 the tribal standard or to spread the opinions of the true faith it is Jihad, and if he 
 abstains alike from worldly cares and amusements in order to find that peace 
 which meditation alone can give in spite of an obdurate heart it is Jiluid. Nor 
 can the student's Jihad as poring over his books, the merchant's Jihad in amassing 
 money, the ploughman's Jihad in winning food from an obstinate soil, be forgotten. 
 j6o that when people say that Jihad means the duty of the Muhammadans to wage 
 war against a non-Muhammadan Government or country and call this Jihad 
 (although it is possible to conceive that under certain circumstances this use of the 
 word might be legitimate), they really talk nonsense, and pass an undeserved libel 
 on a religion with which they are not acquainted. It would be more just to 
 deduce sanguinary precepts from the Old Testament, or to find an encouragement 
 to slavery in the Epistle of St. Paul which enjoins Onesimus, the runaway 
 Christian slave, to return to his heathen master. If Christian theologians, 
 bearing in mind the nature of the mission of our Saviour, find a voluntary 
 sacrifice for the salvation of mankind in Him, Who on the cross complained that 
 <3od had forsaken him, we might as well pause before we explain Jihad as meaning 
 in its entirety what it might mean in the mouths of Muhammadan warriors. 
 If it is the duty of the Christian soldier to fight for his government, irrespective of 
 the cause in which he is engaged, it would clearly seem that it was not less his 
 duty to fight for that Government when engaged in . a crusade against the 
 unbeliever or against the oppressors of the Christian community. Similarly, if the 
 Muhammadan warrior is engaged in a Crescentade against those who do not allow 
 their Mussulman subjects to perform the commonest of religious duties, who expel 
 them from their homes and confiscate their property, simply and solely becaute 
 they are Mussulmans, if such oppression is committed as a breach of Treaty, 
 if even a single Muhammadan cannot live undisturbed by the infidel, it does not 
 seem to be an unrighteous cause for him to exert himself in an effort of Jihad 
 -which win then assume a peculiar sense. " Inter arma silent leges," to which 
 we may add "et religio," though not necessarily every form of " pietas," and we 
 anay still have our pious warriors, who died in the Holy Land ; and the Saracens 
 
MUHAMMADANISM. 273 
 
 may also hare their pious martyrs or " Shahid " who perished fighting on 
 infidel soil. 
 
 After this lengthy, but not unnecessary, preliminary observation on the meaning 
 of the word Jiliad, I will now examine the causes which have led to its present 
 gross mis-interpretation, and I shall then quote the passages bearing on the sacred 
 war and on the conditions under which alone it can be waged. This inquiry will 
 not only be of academical interest, but also perhaps of some political importance, 
 because it is immediately connected with tlie question of the Khalifa and of the 
 Imam., as understood by the two great sects, the Sunni and Shiahn respectively, 
 and by the Sanni sub-sects of Mubammadan subjects. The matter is still veiled 
 in considerable obscurity, in spite, if not in consequence, of the explanations that 
 have been given from interested standpoints. We shall then be able to under- 
 stand the precise authority of the Sultan of Turkey on the Muhammadan Sunni 
 world ; we shall then discover whether and how far the Mahdi was right in 
 opposing Egyptian encroachment and the invasion of the foreigner, and, if he 
 was right, whether this fact has, or can have, the faintest influence on the 
 attitude of Muhammadans under Christian rule, whatever their condition or 
 treatment. I shall ^ow that it has not, and cannot have, the faintest influence 
 on the attitude of Muhammadans -under t!hristian rule, whatever their condition 
 or treatment. I shall show that it has not, and cannot have, such an influence 
 from a religious point of view, and I shall go further and prove that the most 
 suspected class in the Muhammadan community, the so-called Wahabi, is the one 
 that, under all circumstances, is the foremost in deprecating resistance to 
 constituted authority, however obtained and by whomsoever exercised. With the 
 utter submission of private interests and feelings to a usurper we have no 
 sympathy, as being opposed alike to common sense and the natural feelings of 
 mankind, but we have no hesitation in asserting that it is impossible for 
 any modem Christian Government to commit those acts which would alone 
 give a colour of justification to a Jihad by its Muhammadan subjects, even 
 with the prospects of success and the temptations held out by a victorious 
 neighbouring Muhammadan power among the least patient of our Muhammadan 
 fellow-subjects. 
 
 An Islamitic Confederation, therefore, as suggested in the last number of the 
 IttUa, a Persian newspaper published at Teheran, under the presumed direction of 
 the Government of the Bhah, may be an interesting and perhaps even a politically 
 important suggestion. To consider for a moment that a SIdah interpretation of 
 Jihad will have an efiect on Sunnis, or that a Shiah explanation of JilMd is 
 consistent with their religion if it implies an attack on non-Muhammadan Govern- 
 ments, especially by their own subjects, who are assumed to be under a tacit treaty 
 of allegiance with it, would be far indeed from truth. We ourselves entirely 
 sympathize with every effort to cement the feeling of brotherhood among the 
 various Muhammadan sects, but we are equally convinced that, in proportion as it 
 rests on a religious basis and as that basis is understood, the result will be the 
 deepening of the loyalty of our Muhammadan fellow-subjects. 
 
 Assuming the translation of the Ittila article given by the Olohe to be 
 correct, I find nothing in it that is an appeal to passion or prejudice. There is 
 nothing in the passages quoted from the Koran which can be construed as an 
 incitement to rebellion. " The hand of God would be over their (the believers') 
 hands," " superior worth would belong unto God, His apostle, and the true believers, 
 and the unbelievers would be smitten with vileness and afflicted with poverty," are 
 evidently passages capable of another interpretation than that of waging war with 
 unbelievers. If the religion of the Gospel and of universal brotherhood says that 
 it has not come to bring peace to the world but strife, or if it enjoins " to give 
 Cassar what belongs unto Caesar, and to God what belongs unto God," it may be 
 inferred that it would be unlawful to give to Cassar what belongs to God, or to say 
 there is peace when there is no peace. No doubt the Ittila refers to the doctrine 
 of Jihad, just as an oppressed Christian community would, in the words of Milton, 
 call on the Deity to avenge His slaughtered " saints," but from such a reference to 
 the main object of the article there is indeed a great distance ; this object 
 is distinctly defined as being that of a defensive alliance. 
 
 18 
 
274 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 The passage is as follows : — 
 
 " If all Mussulman nations were to form a confederation for the sake of defend- 
 ing themselves against attacks from without, they would acquire power and 
 strength, and be able to overcome all other nations, just as they did in former 
 times. Let all dissension which now separates the different Mussulman nations be 
 put aside ; let the nations form a defensive alliance ; and, should any power attack 
 any one of the Mussulman nations, let none remain neutral, but let all co-operate 
 in repelling the enemy ; let them combine their wealth and property for the 
 support of ail — and then no aggressor would have a chance of success. If Prussia 
 had fought single-handed against France, she would have been defeated, and would 
 never have acquired her present glory. Why was she victorious, and how was it that, 
 from being at best only a second-rate Power, she has become one of the great 
 Powers, and how is it that the fame of her mightiness has pervaded all the 
 world ? Bimply because she had formed a Confederation of all the German States. 
 Mussulman States should follow Prussia's example, and not forget that union gives 
 strength. We mish to tee all Islim united in a defensive alliance only ; no State 
 should interfere with the internal affairs of any other State, and the Confederation 
 should exist only for joint action against an aggressor. Other nations would then 
 not dare to attack, the Mussulman States would be able to protect their liberty, 
 independence, and nationality, and defend their property and country with gloiy 
 and fame against all aggressors. Now that Isl4m is not united, protection and 
 defence are impossible, as every State singly is too weak. 
 
 " Whoever aids in this cause will make himself a glorious reputation in both 
 worlds, and his name will be mentioned in the history of Isl&m till the end of the 
 world, and never be effaced from the pages of time. Is such a Confederation 
 impossible 7 No, certainly not. We have now shovTn the result of dissension and 
 that of union, and unless Isl&m forms a Confederation it will neither be safe from 
 attacks from without nor be able to return to its ancient power and its glory of 
 former days. All intelligent men are advocates of a Mussulman Confederation, and 
 are of our opinion. It is the duty of every true believer to exert himself to 
 the utmost to attain this end ; any neglect would ensure terrible and fatal 
 consequences." 
 
 I consider this appeal to be neither unnatural nor impractical ; on the contrary, 
 it is one of the best signs of the times. Already at Lahore, Lucknow, and other 
 places, Sunnii and Shiahs in India are prepared to sink their differences for 
 the common social and political good of their fellow-Muhammadans ; nor does 
 this concession imply any disloyalty to Government. It rather implies the growtti 
 of a common citizenship cemented by the same allegiance to the same Empress ; 
 and as regards the Muhammadan States unconnect^ with India, it would indeed 
 be well if they formed an alliance for defensive purposes under the jEgis of 
 Great Britain, instead of that of Bussia, and the former is now prepared to assume 
 that protectorate. 
 
 IL 
 
 " In the sweat of thy f a«e Bhalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the eronnd, Jor out of it 
 wast thon taken ; for dust thou art and unto dost Bhalt thou return."— Qek. ill. 19. 
 
 The nature of the ground, to the cultivation of which the first man was addressed, 
 is sufficiently indicated in the verses preceding the above quotation, which describe 
 it as " cursed," and as yielding " thorns also and thistles," except what great labour 
 might win from an obdurate soil for the sorrowing worker. This labour might be 
 accompanied by prayer, but it was itself a punishment, and it was reserved to 
 Christianity and to modem civilization to impress that laborare ett orare. 
 
 In Arabic and in the Muhammadan religion, which it is idle to discuss without 
 a knowledge of the sacred language in which it is written, the Biblical passages 
 which we have quoted might be rendered as follows :— 
 
 " In Jihad bhalt thou eat bread, till thou eetuen to the Jihadat " 
 (rtony and sterile soil). As for the remaining part of the quotation, although it is 
 admitted by Muhammadans that we are dust and return unto it. the more common 
 exhortation refers to the breath or living soul which God " breathed into the 
 
MUHAMMADANISM. 275 
 
 nostrils of man," whom He formed of dnst, or rather clay. "We belong to God, 
 «nd unto Him shall we return," is the refrain to numerous verses of the Koran. As 
 for the mortal coil, the Arab was formed of red clay, which is what the word Arab 
 means ; and the coasts and bottom of the Bed Sea, at the entrance to which he 
 
 Places Eden, and which, according to Professor Haekel and others, now flows over 
 riMUBiA, the ancient seat of primceTal man in his transition from the monkey, who 
 ate the fruits of Paradise where we enjoy cakes, ever attract the notice of tnc 
 traveller by their red colour. Edom, or Adam, or Idumea, whence the rugged 
 Mount Sair reddens in the sun from the reflection of the waters, means " red." 
 ADAM, too, was named and formed from Adama or " red soil," so that if we are to 
 ^nd our prototype and his lineal descendant, we find him in the A rah, whilst if any 
 language can be " the first " in the present cycle of mankind's development during 
 the last 6,000 years, it is Arabic. The reference to the soil and to the sexual 
 relations of most of the words is, at any rate, suggestive of its early historic origin. 
 Their snbsei^uent application to custom, religion, and other motive powers of 
 mankind, is instructive as to the history of the Arabs and that of human thought. 
 But " Jihdd " is the one word into whose primary meaning sex does not enter ; it 
 is simply that labouk which Muhammadan religion has rendered identical 
 with PBAYBE. Nor can we leave this interesting philological inquiry without 
 remarking that, in our opinion, great as are the disciplinary uses of Idio-Germanic 
 ■studies, the logic and lessons of the Shemitio Branch are unparalleled. We would 
 Kiiiect the attention of students of languages to that application of Arabic words 
 with their hundred (in one instance 500) meanings to those p'oups of associations 
 •connected with the life of that people which, once understood, will create Grand 
 Trunk roads through the jungle of its linguistic wealth, and will establish 
 principles which, sublime in their simplicity and sense, will not only enable us to 
 learn with ease the, by far, most diflicult of all developed languages, but will also 
 solve many problems in human history and thought, with special reference to the 
 physiology, ethnology, and psychology of the people of the Arabian Peninsula. . 
 
 We then assert that, like other Arabic roots, Jihad has first a concrete and then 
 an applied meaning. This applied meaning varies according to the circumstances of 
 Arabian life and the development of Arabian literature, but never loses its original 
 keynote of " exertion against difficulties." Unlike, however, other Arabic words, it 
 is devoid of sexual rrference, and it is thus the purest Arabic word in all its 
 -concrete, allegorical, and abstract applications, as it is also the noblest duty of 
 a pious Muhajoimadan. 
 
 Jihad, therefore, in the first form of that root, is applied to exertion, and in the 
 third, sixth, and eighth forms to the unsparing exertion in speech or action, or in 
 order to arrive at a correct opinion in spite of difficulties. Thus an examiner 
 in dealing with a candidate and a physician in treating a patient have tasks 
 before them which tax their power ; and so has a petitioner who wishes to extract 
 a favour from an official The general result of these efforts is that Jdhad is one 
 who is harassed, fatigued, and grieved, and, above all, when a famine befalls the 
 land and the agriculturists are sorely distressed, both their condition and their 
 •efforts are " Jahad." Indeed, if we are told of a people simply that they are Jaliad, 
 it means that they are af&icted with drought and dryness of the earth. No doubt, 
 -that, similarly, a soldier's fatigue party, the wearied wayfarer, and the jaded beast 
 plied beyond its power of marching, all are aptly described as Jahad. To deprive 
 milk of its butter, or to chum it, so as to render it pleasant, or to dilute it with 
 water, the desire of food of a hungry being or eating plentifully of it, whether it 
 be human food or pasture, ia Jihad. In the third form, which adds the notion of 
 causation to that of the original meaning, the object which causes exertion is 
 -obviously put into the foreground, and as resistance is greater, so efforts must be 
 increased ; therefore, as Jihad is really the infinitive of this form, it is equivalent 
 to the Latin fortia peotora opponere adversis rebus. These adverse tlnngs aie 
 generally objects of disapprobation. As with the Christian, the Mussulman haa to 
 wage war with " the world, the flesh, and the devil," and so Jihad is of three kinds, 
 namely, against a visible enemy, against the devil, and against one's self ; and all 
 these three opponents are included in the term Jihad, as used in the 22nd Snra of 
 ■the Koran, 27th verse. Thus to fight an enemy under conditions of great difficulty 
 
276 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 and opposition, the enemy doing the same, is Jihad, it being remembered that the 
 earliest enemies with whom Muhammadanism had to fii;ht for its very existence 
 were non-Muhammadans desirous of suppressing a hated religion. It was only 
 natural that when reference was made to a " Jihad in the path of God " the word 
 should have come to mean a fight in the cause of religion, and that, finally, when 
 the words " in the path of God " were dropped in ordinary conversation, or writing, 
 it should assume the meaning of a " religious war," which it has kept to the present 
 day. 
 
 III. 
 
 The other forms of Jiluid continue the general meaning of the original form as 
 modified by the super-added value of the derived form. Thus, to the labourer it 
 becomes in the fourth form the entering upon land, such as is termed " Jiliad, a 
 desert, a plain," or " open, barren country," whilst in dealing with affairs that form 
 adds " the necessity of prudence, precaution, and sound judgment." The physical 
 result of this is the old man's hoariness and the appearance of white hair in the 
 dark beard, but exertions steadfastly prosecuted have the effect of both concrete 
 and abstract difficulties being removed, and, therefore, Ajhad means that "the 
 earth, the road, or the truth become open to him who takes trouble," and finally 
 Jtjhad means that " the matter in hand becomes within one's reach." 
 
 We now, passing over the sixth form as being very much the same in meaning a» 
 the first, approach the eighth, which has had such an importance in the theological 
 Government of the Shiah community in which the Mujtahida are the scholastic 
 witnesses, commentators, and guides of the faith, whose words, whether it be at 
 Lahore, at Lucknow, or at Teheran, the faithful of the Shiah sect find it impossible- 
 to resist. Indeed, the Shah's Government is an absolute Government tempered by 
 the advice or resistance of the Mnjtahid-Ijtihad ; Mnjtahid as a conventional term,- 
 means " a lav^yer exerting the faculty of the mind to the utmost for the purpose of 
 forming a right opinion in a case of law respecting a doubtful and difficult point by 
 means of reasoning and ' comparison," and, similarly, Ijtihad means " the referring- 
 a case proposed to the judge respecting a doubtful and difficult point from the 
 method uf analogy to the Koran and the Siinnah." If ever a Mussulman rising- 
 were to become formidable among Shiahs, the influence of the Mujtahids would 
 have to be conciliated. 
 
 The simple noun jahd therefore obviously means power, ability, labour, effortr 
 a stringent oath, or else the difficulty, affliction, or &tigue with which the above- 
 named qualities have to contend. Physiologically, of course, disease is jahd. The 
 trouble of a large family combined with poverty, or the difficulty of a poor man in 
 paying exorbitant taxes, are all jaJtd. Applied to land Jihad- has already been' 
 explained to be the land in which there is no herbage, or level and rugged land, 
 sterile and ungrateful, though it is also applied to land of which the herbage is 
 much eaten by cattle in the form jahid. Mujhid, if referred to a friend, shovra that 
 be is a sincere and careful adviser ; if applied to oneself denotes an embarrassed 
 condition, and if to one's beast, one that is weak by reason of fatigue. The passive 
 participle otjahd * similarly refers to the distressed condition of affairs, of disease, 
 of dearth, or drought ; but we think we have said enough to prove that none of the 
 meanings in any of the forms necessarily implies the fighting of a man because he 
 is of a different religion, or the opposition to a non-Muhammadan Government, 
 and that it even does not go so far as the word " Crusade," as animating a com- 
 
 * Jihad, to summarize the ordinary meanings as given by Arabic lexicographers, 
 is simply as follows : — 
 
 Jahd— to exert oneself, endure fatigue, to become emaciated from disease, to 
 examine, to extract butter from milk, to wish for food, to live in straitened 
 circumstances. 
 
 Jihadat — the hard ground which has no vegetation. 
 
 Jihad — war with an enemy. 
 
 Jjhad — the increase of white hair, the unfolding of truth, exertion, and (in special. 
 appUcatious) to di-vide and to waste property. 
 
MUHAMMADANISM. 27/ 
 
 tnunity in an attempt to oust the unbeliever from foreign land in order to obtain 
 ■the guardianship of the Holy Sepulchre, or to simply wrest land from the 
 Mnhammadans for the glory of a most Christian King. 
 
 IV. 
 
 When some people applied to Muhammad for permission to join in a holy war 
 against those who were oppressing Muhammadans, he replied to them, " Your true 
 Jihad is in endeavouring to serve your parents." The Koran when using the word 
 ■" Jib^ " seems preferentially to use it for war with sin — " whoever wages Jih^ in 
 morality we will show him the true way." Elsewhere, the Koran exhorts us to 
 fight infidels with the "great Jihdd," the sword of the spirit and the arguments of 
 the Muhammadan Bible. In the traditions regarding the sayings and doings of the 
 prophet, a band of holy warriors is returning cheerfiSly from a victorious war with 
 infidels to the peace of their homes and the tranquil observation of their faith. In 
 .passing the prophet they exclaim : " We have returned from the small Jih^, the 
 •war with aggressors on the Muhammadan faith, to the great Jihdd, the war with 
 ■sin." Christians should similarly, as representatives of the Church of Universal 
 Brotherhood, which yet is called the Church Militant, and which has as often wielded 
 the secular sword as it has that of the spirit, act on the words alike of St. John and 
 of the ancient Arabic proverb, " Take what is pure and leave what is impure," even 
 from religious opponents. Fas est et ab hoste dooere, and although we are in a 
 world in which, as another Arab proverb has it, " one hiXix " (originally a seller of 
 the 'atar or Otto = essence of loses) " is of little use in an age of corruption," we may 
 yet hope that some reader may address himself to the important subject of Jihad 
 without the preconceptions which have hitherto prevented its investigation. 
 
 The principal references in the Koran relating to religions war are found in the 
 [following Sura) or chapters : — 
 
 No violence is to be used in reUgious matters, although the popular impression is 
 that this is the very essence of Muhammad anism. The second chapter of the Koran 
 distinctly lays dovm, " Let there be no violence in religion." This passage was 
 particularly directed to some of Muhammad's first proselytes, who having sons that 
 had been brought up in idolatry or Judaism, wished to compel them to embrace 
 Huhammadanism. Indeed, even when the mothers of non-Muhammadan children 
 wanted to take them away from their believing relatives, Muhammad prevented 
 every attempt to retain them. The second chapter similarly says, " Surely those 
 who believe " (viz., Muhammadans) " and those who Judoize, and Christians and 
 SabseaBS, whoever beUeveth in God, in the last day, and doeth that which is right, 
 they shall have their reward of their Lord." These words are repeated in the fifth 
 chapter, and, no doubt, several Muhammadan doctors consider it to be the doctrine 
 of t£eir Prophet that every man may be saved in his own religion, provided he be 
 sincere and lead a good Ufe; however, under the pressure of the followers of 
 Muhammad this latitude was curtailed and was explained to mean " if he became 
 a Moslem " — though this explanation is manifestly a faulty one, because if an 
 idolater became a Moslem he would be equally saved, and so there would be no 
 difEerence between him and an " Ahl.Kitab," or possessor of a (sacred) book, namely, 
 & Christian or a Jew. In Acts x. 36 the Apostle Peter similarly states that " in 
 «very nation he that feareth Qod and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him," 
 and yet we do not infer from this that any religion is sufficient to save without 
 faith in Christ. The fact is that there is an essential difference between the Swrat 
 delivered at Mecca and those delivered at Medina. In the first case, we have the 
 utterances of one who, as a true Prophet, calls people to repentance and to a godly 
 life apart from worldly considerations. In the chapters, however, given at Medina, 
 we necessarily find these worldly considerations paramount, Muhammadanism 
 struggling for its very existence, and being confront^, not only with the necessity 
 of legislation among its own followers, but also with the organization of war, and 
 with the circumstances that give rise to it or the results fiiat follow from it ; so 
 that it is obvious that instructions given to warriors or in a code of legislation must 
 differ from appeals to salvation. It is only in bearing in mind the circumstances 
 
»78 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 undeT which each particular instruction was given that we can come to a right 
 conclusion as to whether war with infidels, as such, is legitimate or not. We have 
 no hesitation in stating that an unbiassed study of the Muhammadan scriptures 
 will lead one to the conclusion that all those who believe in God and act righteously, 
 will be saved. Indeed, the ground is cut off from under the feet of those people 
 who maintain that Jiluid is intended to propagate the Muhammadan religion by 
 means of the sword. It is, on the contrary, distinctly laid down in the Sura called 
 " Pilgrimage," that the object of Jilmd. is to protect mosques, churches, synagogues, 
 and/ monasteries from destruction, and we have yet to learn the name of the 
 Christian crusader whose object it was to protect mosques or synagogues. Of 
 (x>nrse, when the Arabs were driven from Spain, to which they had brought their 
 industry and learning, by Ferdinand and Isabella, and were driven into opposition 
 to Christians, the modem meaning of Jihad as hostility to Christianity was 
 naturally accentuated. Indeed, Jihad is so essentially an effoet for the protec- 
 tion of Muhammadanism against assault, that the Muhammadan generals were 
 distinctly commanded not to attack any place in which the Muhammadan call to 
 prayer could be performed or in which a smgle Muhammadan could live unmolested 
 as a witness to the faith. 
 
 Fighting for religion is, indeed, encouraged in the second chapter, which was 
 given under circumstances of great provocation, but even in that it is distinctly 
 laid down, " and fight for the religion of God against those that fight against you, 
 but transgress not by attacking them first, for God loveth not the transgressors ^ 
 Vill them wherever you find them, and turn them out of that whereof they have 
 dispossessed you, for temptation to idolatry is more grievous than slaughter ; yet 
 fight not against them in the holy temple uutU they attack you therein, and if they 
 attack you, slay them, but if they desist, God is gracious and merciful ; fight there- 
 fore against them until there be no temptation to idolatry and the religion be God's,, 
 but if they desist, then let there be no hostility except against the ungodly " — ^in 
 other' words: fight sin but not the sinner in times of peace. Again, in the third' 
 chapter, when the Lord of Hosts is invoked as being more powerful than all the- 
 confronting armies of enemies, when the Eoreish endeavoured to induce the 
 Mnhammadans to return to their old idolatry as they fled in the battle of Ohd, the 
 encouragement to fight given in that chapter has, of course, only special applica- 
 tion : " How many prophets have encountered foes who had myriads of troops, 
 and yet they desponded not in their mind for what had befallen them in fighting 
 for the religion of God, and were not weakened (in their belief), neither behaved 
 themselves in an abject manner. . . . God gave them the reward of this world and 
 a glorious reward in the life to come ; " and again, " we will surely cast a dread- 
 into the hearts of the unbelievers," in allusion to the Eoreish repenting that they 
 had not utterly extirpated the Mnhammadans, and to their beginning to think of 
 going back to Medina for that purpose, but being prevented by a sudden panic 
 which. fell from God. 
 
 Again, in the fourth chapter, " Fight therefore for the religion of God, and 
 oblige not any one te do what is difficult except thyseU." This is in allusion to the 
 Mnhammadans refusing to follow their prophet to the lesser expedition of Bedr, 
 so that he was obhged to set out with no more than seventy men. In other words, 
 the prophet only was under the obligation of obeying God's commands, however 
 difficult " However excite the faithful to war, perhaps God will restrain the 
 courage of the unbelievers, for God is stronger than they and more able to punish. 
 Se who intercedeth between men with a good interoestion shall have a portion 
 thereof ;" and further on, "When you are saluted with a salutation, salute the 
 person with a better salutation," in other words, when the purely Muhammadan 
 salutation of Salam aleikum is given by a Muhammadan, the reply should be the 
 same with the addition, " and the mercy of God and His blessing." Again, in the 
 eighth chapter, " All true believers I when you meet the unbelievers marching in 
 great numbers a^nst you turn not your backs on to them, for whoso shall turn his 
 back on to them in that day, unless he turn aside to fight or retreateth to another 
 party of the faithful, shall draw on himself the indignation of God." The fact was 
 that on the occasion when the injunction was given, Muhammadans covld not avoid 
 Jighting, and there was therefore a necessity for a special strong appeal ; Imt Jihad, 
 
MUHAMMADANISM. 279 
 
 CTen when explained as a righteous effort of waging war in self-defence against the 
 grossest outrage on one's religion, is strictly limited in the passage to which we 
 have already alluded and which we now quote in extemo : — 
 • Koran Sura, entitled " The Pilgrimage "— Al Hajj. 
 
 " Permission is granted unto those who take anns against the unbelievers, heoa%»e 
 they have been unjustly persecuted by them and have been turned out of their 
 habitations injuriously and /or no other reason than because they say ' Our Lord is 
 God.' And if God did not repel the violence of some men by others, terilt 
 Monasteries aitd Chtjeoheb and Stnagoques and Mosqites, wherein 
 the name of god is prequentlt commemorated, would be utterlt 
 demolished." 
 
 G. W. Lbitner. 
 
 Asiatic Quarterly Review of October 1886. 
 
 Appendix VI. 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF MUHAMMAD AN LEARNING. 
 
 (From The Bombay Gazette Summary of May 3rd, 1889.) 
 
 The Nawab Im&d Naw&z Jang (a well-known Hyderabad nobleman), has ad- 
 dressed the following letter to Dr. Leitner: — 
 
 ^ivucovasi, Khakkiii DuiBiCT, Htsibasad, Diccur, 8M Januati), 1889. 
 
 Dear Sie, — I have much pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of your letter 
 of November 16th, 1888, and, as a Muhammadan, I have to offer you my warmest 
 thanks for the sympathy therein expressed towards my co-religionists. 
 
 I need hardly remark that education throughout the Muhammadan world is 
 at present in a deplorably backward condition. For this several reasons may 
 be assigned, one of the principal ones being, in my opinion, the following. 
 Treatises on the various sciences and arts that were cultivated in former times 
 by Mnhammadans are now extant, but they are chiefly in the Arabic language, 
 while the Mnhammadans who speak that tongue form but a small proportion of 
 the total Mussulman population of the world. The main languages in use among 
 the Mnhammadans, besides Arabic, are Urdu, Persian, and Turkish. 
 
 The works that exist in Arabic on the ancient sciences and arts have not yet 
 been all translated into these languages, nor have they been enriched with transla- 
 tions from Furopean languages of works on modem sciences and arts. Original 
 works, such as would be considered requisite for the purposes of a complete 
 system of national Muhammadan education in all its branches, have not yet been 
 produced in them. These languages, I mean those of the Muslim world, save 
 Arabic, can only boast of a limited number of works on Literature and Theology. 
 The cultivation of the Arabic language itself began to decline in 666 A. h., 
 after the fall of the Abbaside Caliphs, the reign of one of whom (Almamun) may 
 be considered the Augustan period of Arabian literature, arts, and sciences. The 
 attempts that have recently been made to produce translations and original works 
 in that language do not appear as yet to have been crowned with any high degree 
 of success. 
 
 In the present state of Muhammadan education it is not difficult to conceive 
 why the total number of Mnhammadans who can understand Arabic, which is 
 the language of their sacred writings, is exceedingly small. Perhaps I may not 
 be wrong in remarking that in India, where the Mnhammadans number nearly 
 six crores (sixty millions), there are not even ten thousand amongst them who 
 can rightly comprehend the meaning of the Koran in the original, while the rest 
 of them recite passages from it during their prayers which they have learnt by 
 
280 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 rote, generally without understanding their meaning. The eystem of teaching 
 Arabic in India is so defective that many of the Ulmea (or " the learned ") who 
 go tiirough a course of study in that language, extending over several years, can 
 barely speak or write in it. Many of the works which have been translated from 
 Ajabic into Urdu, Persian, Turkish, will, when compared with the original, be 
 found to differ from them in several material respects. Although in no 
 Muhammadan country does there exist a proper system of compulsory or national 
 education, yet the majority of the Mussulmans in those countries and elsewhere 
 luiow their religious tenets and understand the various details of their prayers 
 and ceremonies, which are simple enough ; such of them as have read Arabic 
 cannot, however, understand several passages in the Koran, without the aid of 
 commentaries, and no Muhammadan can ofEer prayers to God or perform the 
 ordinary rites without acquainting himself with the rules of Fikha, the religious 
 Law (as laid down by Commentators and Jurists). As a rule, Muhammadans 
 adhere to Fikha, which lays down ordinances as to what we should do and what 
 we should avoid doing. There are many disputed points in Fikha, but in regard 
 to these we abide by Fatwas (or " rulings " by eminent leaders in the Faith). 
 Fikha apart there are innumerable difficult questions connected with Islam 
 which one should comprehend before expressing an opinion on the subject. It 
 is a matter for surprise to us to find that many Europeans, possessing the 
 intelligence they do, come to the conclusion that they have mastered the 
 intricacies of I^am if they have simply read such inaccurate translations of 
 the Koran as Sale has produced, or have merely perused an article or two in a 
 journal on Islam. Among Europeans there are some who have not taken the 
 trouble to inquire for themselves what Islam is, but have formed their opinion 
 about it from what they have heard fiom others in course of conversation. There 
 are some who, having found a Muhammadan king or ruler practise oppression, 
 or having read tales of cruelties of Muhammadans in historical works, are led 
 to think that all this is what Islam dictates. Bome have formed their opinion 
 about Islam from a perusual of some book written by a prejudiced European 
 solely on its demerits, or have in the course of their studies come across a repealed 
 conmiand or a disputed point connected with our religion. All such men have 
 fallen into error in consequence of their not having found wherein the error lies. 
 But those Europeans who, being profound Arabic scholars, and bringing to bear 
 on the subject a mind impartial and free from prejudice, have read the Koran 
 with the aid of commentaries, and have had sufficient material before them to 
 distinguish those points on which Fatwas exist, from those on which there are 
 none, have always written respectfully of Islam, The names of such distinguished 
 and liberal-minded scholars are too well known to be mentioned here. While 
 various united attempts are being made in Europe for the advancement of 
 knowledge, no united efforts have ever been made there to inquire into the real 
 nature of Islam. There has never yet assembled in any part of Europe to discuss 
 this question, a Conference consisting of such unprejudiced European scholars of 
 Arabic as have well read the Koran and other works which are necessary for 
 its proper comprehension, and also of such Muhammadan gentlemen as are 
 acquainted with European sciences and arts, and the real nature of Christianity. 
 Individual Christians have, no doubt, pronounced their one-sided opinion about 
 Islam, Among them there are some who are in favour of it, while others are 
 against it. 
 
 In this brief letter I cannot discuss the various questions connected with Islam, 
 or explain various merits which, in an ethical point of view, it possesses, or explain 
 away the objections of its assailants. Even if I could do so it would produce 
 little effect on the public, 
 
 I am desirous that a movement should be set on foot for having a network of 
 Associations to enquire into the real nature of Islam, which will be the means 
 of drawing the attention of the public to this question and of affording an 
 opportunity to competent persons to express their individual views thereon. Such 
 Associations should be established in various countries of the globe. If this idea 
 were ever realized, it would be the first of its kind so far as the Muhammadan 
 religion is concerned. Perhaps the first Association of this description may 
 
MTJHAMMADANISM. 281 
 
 spring up in London, which abounds in learned, onprejndiced, and liberal-minded 
 men. I am certain that if an Association on the lines I have indicated above be 
 established, the ill-feeling which now exists between Muhammadans and Christians 
 wiU, ere long, disappear, and they will understand what good their respective 
 religions possess. If suitable arrangements be made, many Muhammadans and 
 Christians who are desirous of seeking the truth, will be very glad to take part in 
 this movement. The funds needed for defraying the expenses incidental to the 
 management of such Associations could, of course, be raised by subscriptions and 
 donations. A portion of the fund so raised may be set apart for creating an 
 agency for contributing articles to journals, and for delivering lectures in further- 
 ance of the objects of the Association, and whenever practical branch associations 
 may be established in cities or towns. Although at first this idea seems one 
 likely to be attended with practical difficulties, yet, if such a movement were once 
 set on foot, no obstacles would arise in the way of working out the scheme in its 
 entirety. I am inclined to think that many of the learned Societies that now 
 exist in various parts of the world will be glad to further oui aims and to manifest 
 their sympathy with our cause. 
 
 I am, vrith best wishes, yours sincerely, 
 
 IMAD Nawaz Jang. 
 G. W. Leitneb, Esq., LL.D., Ph.D., 
 
 Oriental iNSTiTniE, Woking, England, 
 
 Dr. Leitner writes as follows to the Editor of Diplomatic Flyalieets on the above 
 letter : — 
 
 Bait 8EBi.BTiA.ir, 6M March, 1689. 
 
 SlE, — In the present state of my health 1 can do little more than correct the proof 
 of the admirable letter of Nawab Imad Kawaz Jang, and express my hearty 
 general concurrence in its views. A Conference for discussing the sister faiths of 
 Christiamty and Islam, composed of scholars such as he proposes, would, no 
 doubt, remove many misconceptions that now exist, and would pave the way to 
 a better understanding between Christians and Muhammadans. The translation 
 of important Arabic works on theology and law would also be of importance, and 
 the Nawab has already given efEect to his views by offering a prize for a translation 
 into English of a famous commentary on the Koran, the Tafsir-uI-Jalalein. His 
 suggestion for better and more widely-spread instruction in Arabic among 
 Muhammadans of all countries is of the greatest importance it the religious and 
 literary life of Muhammadans is to be preserved, for in Arabic are treasures of 
 thought and of facts which are unparalleled, and which enrich not only Muham- 
 madan culture, but also that of the world. The study of that language, which is 
 connected with all the best historical and other Associations of Muhammadans, 
 offers the desired link among them and forms a basis for the mental discipline 
 which alone renders the connection between ancient civilization and modem 
 requirements beneficial and truly progressive, because developed from within an 
 indigenous source. My official report on " Indigenous Education " shows that in 
 the Panjab alone more than ten thousand know Arabic (though not so profoundly 
 as the Nawab would wish), whilst the 9^ millions of Muhammadans in that 
 province are more affected for good in their daily lives through a knowledge o 
 their religious duties, more or less inspired by Arabian thought, than a similar 
 number oif Christians in any country are affected by a knowledge of their own 
 sacred writings, whether in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, or (for that matter) ia their 
 own vernacular language. The translation also of European works of merit into 
 the various spoken languages of Muhammadans is certainly a matter in which the 
 Asiatic Societies of Europe, especially that in ELgland, should help, and a 
 beginning might be made by the publication of a series of scientific subjects and 
 standard Muhammadan authors, in Arabic, Urdu, Persian, and Turkish, such as 
 the French have brought out for themselves in the " Cent bans livres " at the cost 
 
282 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of one penny for each of the hundred small Tolumes. I need hardly add that in. 
 any sach efEoTts and towards the working of an &nglo-Muhamniadan confeience 
 or Association in England, my services, such as they can be at my age and state 
 of health are, if desir^, at the service of a cause which will promote alike learning 
 and goodwill among men. 
 , As for the article on " Moslem Fanaticism " in Colhurn's United Service 
 Magazine, you cannot answer its half-truths or coloured side-lights better than by 
 the republication of the article on "Jihad" in the Anatio Quarterly Jieviea;. 
 which shows that Mnhammadans can only engage in a "holy war," or rather 
 " effort," if they are persecuted becanne they are Muhammadans, the object of a 
 " Jihad " being " the protection of mosques, churches, and synagogues in which 
 the name of the Only God is preached " (see chapter on the " Pilgrimage " in the 
 Koran). I agree, however, with the writer that " Muhammadans in general are 
 aware of their educational disadvantages," although in their desire to acquire 
 modem "instruction " in the race for wordly advantages, they should not neglect 
 what will alone render that instruction profitable to them, namely, that true 
 " education," which they already possess in their noble religious associations,, 
 when correctly understood, and in that noblest of all languages — the classical and 
 yet still spoken Arabic. 
 
 I am. Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 G. W. Leitnbe. 
 
283 
 
 TEUTONIC HEATHENDOM. 
 
 BT F. YORK POWELL, M.A. 
 
 NotD God be praited that to believinff SouU^ 
 Gives Light m Darkiieee, Ctmfvri in Deepair, 
 
 a Hiir. VI. ii. 1. 
 
 It can hardly be denied that there is an enduring interest in the 
 suljject of this lecture. No one who cares for the history of the 
 thought of our race but must feel an interest in tracing back to 
 their springs the courses of such mighty rivers. But this voyage 
 of discovery is a difficult one. The way becomes darker and 
 darker, and difficulties crowd around as one neais these sources. 
 
 The material existing includes, first, written evidence, which, 
 apart from the notices preserved by Tacitus, Dio, Velleius, Floras, 
 the Augustan Historians, Marcellinus, and other classical authors, 
 consists mainly of exact and excellent accounts of heathen ways 
 and customs, preserved by an Icelandic priest named Are, bom 
 in 1067, who took a great interest in the antiquities of his race, 
 and wrote books (c. 1100-25), in which are preserved a number of 
 most'Curions traditions. 
 
 Then there is an old collection of songs, the so-called Older 
 Edda, which, it is believed, was compiled in the twelfth century, 
 in the Orkney or Shetland Islands, by some Icelander who retained 
 an interest in the old heathen Lays which but for him had 
 died out of memory. He has preserved some thirty fragmentary 
 poems. The Younger Edda, really a gradus or poetic dictionary, 
 was compiled by Snorre Sturlason, 1178 — 1241, the Icelandic 
 historian, and other scholars and poets for the benefit of those 
 who intended to compose verse, for the Icelandic poets (like our 
 own poets of last century) even after the acceptance of Chris- 
 tianity were accustomed to make allusions to the old gods of 
 a past mythology. 
 
 Next comes the Latin Hietoria Dcmica of Saxo the monk of 
 Lnnd, who not only wrote a good history of his own time, but out 
 of old songs and traditions — many furnished to him by Icelanders, 
 and persons familiar with other of the western Scandinavian 
 colonies — ^.put together a curious account of the mythic days 
 
284 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of Denmark, working after the fashion of our Geoffrey of 
 Monmouth.^ 
 
 Besides these main authorities there are a vast number of 
 valuable little stories, hints and allusions to heathen habits 
 and beliefs, scattered through the vast mediaeval literature of 
 England, France and Germany. These have been for the most 
 part collected and arranged in his masterly and delightful way 
 by Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology, now accessible to all 
 in Mr. Stallybrass's excellent and accurate translation. This book 
 may be supplemented by M. Eydberg's study of parts of Saxo, 
 entitled Teutonic Mythology, and translated by Rasmus B. 
 Anderson (Swan Sonnenschein & Co.: 1889). 
 
 Jacob Grimm and his brother William also set the example 
 of collecting and using oral evidence, fairy tales and folk lore 
 of all kinds, which still linger upon the lips of the people in 
 country-places, as material for the history of mythology and 
 thought of the past. Much has been done by Germans, 
 Icelanders, Scandinavians, and something by such Englishmen as 
 Halliwell and Campbell, to work this great mine of popular 
 tradition ; and recent scholars, especially Mr. A. Lang, have shown 
 the use to which it can be put in elucidating some of the more 
 important problems of the history of man's past. 
 
 Such being, roughly, our materials, how are we to study them ? 
 What trains of thought may be most profitably followed ? First 
 of all, it must be acknowledged — that it is useless to attempt 
 to solve the problem by one key, to explain the religion of the 
 past by one principle. 
 
 Our early Teuton forefathers were inflenced by anthrapo- 
 morphisTn, and animism, and thought that inanimate objects, as 
 stones, stars, the elements, and organisms such as trees, fishes, 
 birds, and beasts were possessed of spirits akin to their own; 
 they believed in dreams, and used them largely as a means of 
 foretelling the future; they worshipped the dead and treated 
 their deceased ancestors as gods; they held the doctrine of 
 correspondences, i.e. that things which had a superficial like- 
 ness had a deeper resemblance — from which last doctrine there 
 grew up some of the earlier systems of medicine : while the 
 wizard, with his use of hypnotism, mania, poison, jugglery, and 
 medicine, was dreaded and sometimes punished. In fact, there 
 
 ' The chief works of Are, Zandndma-boc (The Book of Settlements), Libellus 
 Islandnrum; and the Story of the Conversion of Iceland, have been edited and 
 translated by Dr. Vigfusson and myself, and will shortly appear. The Elder Edda 
 poems have been edited and translated by the same in Corpui Pneticum Boreale 
 (Oxford: 1883). The first two parts of the prose or Younger Edda have been 
 translated into English, by Sir G. Dasent, and others. Are's Ynglinga-tal is 
 translated by Laing from a Danish version in his Sea-Jdngt of Norway. 
 
TEUTONIC HEATHENDOM. 285 
 
 is hardly a superstitious use or observance, which a modem 
 missionary may note in the barbarous Central African or South 
 American, or Polynesian tribe he is endeavouring to civilize and 
 raise, but we may find its analogue among the practices or beliefs 
 of our Teutonic forefathers. These things are a part of the 
 general history of mankind, they make up a mental stage through 
 which progressive nations pass — a stage of false but shrewd 
 reasoning, of clever but mistaken guesses, of erroneous but 
 plausible conclusions, a stage such as individually we aU go 
 through in infancy and childhood. Our minds are of little better 
 quality than our ancestors', but we profit by the vast mass of 
 accepted, tested, and recorded information which they had not. 
 We start higher up the ladder, and consequently ought to get a 
 little higher on the climb to knowledge. 
 
 Again, it is important that we should at once throw aside the 
 idea that there was any system, any organized pantheon, in the 
 religion of these peoples. Their tribes were small and isolated, 
 and each had its own peculiar gods and observances, although the 
 mould of each faith was somewhat similar. Hence there were 
 VEirieties of religious customs among the Goths, Swedes, Saxons, 
 and Angles. The same thing was the case in ancient Greece, 
 and it must occur in all civilizations at the stage before small 
 clans and tribes have combined into great leagues and centraUzed 
 nations. Hence we shall find many parallel versions of leading 
 myths, many alternative forms of the same tale, many widespread 
 legends attributed to different persons in different places. Then, 
 too, one perceives that round the actual living flesh-and-blood 
 hero of the day the stories of former heroes crystallize. Thus 
 the stories related about King Arthur once belonged to earlier 
 heroes — Grwyn and others ; precisely as I was once told by a 
 friend that in a country-part of Italy he had heard a story of 
 Garibaldi, which has been referred for many hundreds of years to 
 an old Semitic hero. Garibaldi was in the hills with a small band 
 of men, pursued closely by the cruel Whitecoats. The fugitives 
 had been marching hour after hour in the burning sun without 
 a drop of water ; it was high noon, and in the agony of thirst 
 several of the General's little band threw themselves down on 
 the ground declaring they could go no farther. Garibaldi ordered 
 a little mountain gim he had to be brought up. This gun he 
 aimed himself at a conspicuous cUff, not far off, and fired. Scarcely 
 had the smoke of the gun passed away when a glittering thread 
 of water was seen trickling from the rock precisely where the 
 shot had smitten it. The thirsty Eedshirts drank thefr fill, 
 marched on refreshed, and escaped their foes. In the light of 
 this story it is easy to see how upon Theodric the famous East 
 
286 RELIOIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOflLD. 
 
 Crotliic king, there descended legends which belonged to an earlier 
 and divine Theodric, as Professor Rhys has pointed out ; how upon 
 Beowulf the Jute, and upon Sigofredos-Arminius the Cheruscan, 
 there have festened tales of dragon-slaying which belonged to 
 more mythical heroes. 
 
 With such preliminary note, one may proceed to touch on some 
 of the beliefs of the heathen Teuton world. With regard to 
 cosmogony three or four different opinions have reached us, the 
 oldest being, as we should suppose, extremely childish. It was 
 that originally there was nothing but a huge giant, who nearly 
 filled all space. Some heroic persons killed the giant, and &om 
 his body they made the world, sun, moon, etc. At first this was 
 firmly believed in, then doubted, and afterwards told to children 
 ■as a fairy tale. It is, of course, common among Aryan nations. 
 
 There were also tales of the earth-goddess and the sky-god, of 
 the god of day, of the sun-goddess and the moon-god, often very 
 like those in other mythologies. Then, there was a tale of the 
 first man and woman, being made by the gods out of two trees, 
 ash and elder, that grew on the seashore. Kings and heroes were 
 always supposed to be the actual descendants of the gods, and 
 became gods themselves when they died. 
 
 The world was looked upon as a huge plain, a belief which 
 existed in Greece and other countries. Man lived near the edge 
 of this earth-plain, outside was the ocean-stream, as in Homer's 
 cosmogony. Beyond this again was a belt of frozen land, the 
 boundaries of which were indefinite, where dwelt giants and 
 ■demons. 
 
 All the primitive a/iis and cidf.wre came from the underworld 
 won by the clever tricks and devices of heroes. Swans and bees 
 came from a paradise, somewhere underground, where the Fates 
 lived. Sheep and oxen were also believed to be gifts from the 
 underworld. Man obtained inspiration by some hero stealing 
 from the giants or dwarfs a certain potent liquid, which gave to 
 him that quaffed it the power of poetry, prophecy, and memory. 
 As to the origin oifire, Woden was the Prometheus of the Teutonic 
 race, as Heimdal was its culture-god and Sheaf its Triptolemos, 
 the hero who taught men to sow com and make bread. Frey 
 and Tew were the chief gods of the Swedes and Franks, Thunder 
 (Thdr) of the Reams and Throwends in West Norway. Eager was 
 the sea-god and Ran his wife. Rode the wind-god, and Loke the 
 evil-plotting giant who brings trouble among gods and men. 
 
 'All natural phenom&na were ascribed to the agency of the gods 
 or demons, thunder and bad weather were the work of spirits; 
 frost and cold were the work of giants and much to be feared. 
 Thunder was looked upon as a beneficent god — killing demons. 
 
TEUTONIC HEATHENDOM. 287 
 
 bringipg back the sunlight and fructifying rain. Pearls and 
 4unber were the tears of goddesses.^ 
 
 These beliefs were chUdish; but their explanations were the 
 beginning of science. They only differ from many of our 
 hypotheses in their greater ambition and simplicity. We are 
 content nowadays to try and make out the how without trying to 
 explain the why. 
 
 As to ritual, animal and human sacrifices were offered. The 
 latt«r, nevertheless, were always regarded with a kind of horror 
 and awe. A great temple was a kind of treasury, storehouse, and 
 meeting-place. Once or twice a year there were great sacrifices 
 of cattle, persons were sprinkled with the blood, auguries were 
 taken, and afterwards the sacrificed beasts formed the material 
 for feasts. They had village feasts, holiday feasts, Easter feasts 
 welcoming the Summer ; Midsummer and Christmas feasts. 
 
 The Teutons — differing in this from the Western Prse-Celtid 
 race, and those Celts who had adapted their customs and beliefs — 
 <io not seem to have had a regular priesthood, though special 
 persons were, by hereditary right, charged with the service of 
 •certain shrines. 
 
 The greatest fanes we know of were situated at the head- 
 quarters of the great tribes, or tribal leagues; thus at Upsala 
 (the High-Hall) in Sweden, the cult of Yngwe-Frey flourished ; at 
 his grave-mound were a temple, a treasury, a sacrificial place, 
 and an oracle where folks sought, by various kinds of divination, 
 to gain from the god a morsel of his prescience. In England 
 the word Harrow marks a heathen "high place." There was 
 always a temple at the place where the High Court of Parliament 
 or Folk-moot of a tribe was held, and the courtfield was hallowed, 
 and order kept there by the hereditary priests of the place 
 -(chaplains of these earliest Houses of Lords and Commons). 
 Heligoland, that tiny North Sea island, now famous only as 
 a station for " bird-men," and a watering-place for north-west 
 Germany, was once a iamous fane and sanctuary. 
 
 In the temples no weapon could be worn, no unhallowed act 
 performed, under penalty of the god's high displeasure, as we 
 learn from Bede's story of the converted heathen priest, Coifi 
 (Coibhe), who, mounted on a horse and fully armed, rode into the 
 sacred temple-enclosure and hurled his spear in defiamje of the god 
 to which the temple belonged, at Godmundingham, hard by York. 
 
 With regard to death and the future life, there were two pretty 
 •distinct sets of ideas. The older seems to have been that at 
 
 ' It is probable from a curious story in the Kalevala that the nodules of white flint 
 in the white chalk were looked on among the earlier Fins as the clotted, hardened 
 .milk of some spiritual being. , 
 
288 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 death man's spirit dwelt in the grave where his body lay. The 
 grave-mounds were the resting-places of the dead who inhabited 
 them, just as the living inhabit houses. With the deceased were 
 always buried those things which it was thought would be useful 
 to him in his spirit life. 
 
 No one was supposed to die naturally ; it was alway some spirit, 
 such as Weird or Fate, or the War-goddess, or the Fever-spirit, 
 or some demon sent by witchcraft, which destroyed a man, and 
 then Death, a kind of psychopomp (like Hermeias in ancient 
 Greece, or Charon in modem Greece), led his spirit away. 
 
 Again, there was a belief that at death man took a long journey 
 and plunged into a great abyss, where dwelt a black goddess, 
 from whom the name of Hell in a later religious system is obtained. 
 If the departed were clever enough to elude the demons there, 
 they passed on into a happier sphere. This is, in some of its 
 later forms, a kind of heathen reflex of the Christian idea. 
 
 Some of the Teutons seem (in the ninth century, at least) 
 to have believed in the transmigration of souls, in a dead hero 
 being bom again in his descendant. Hence, when Hakon the 
 Good — our Athelstane's foster-son — came back to Norway, men 
 said : " It is Harold Fairhair come again ! " And the soul of 
 Helge the Good was — according to a fine tenth-century poem — 
 twice re-incarnated in heroes named Helge. 
 
 As to punishment after death, as early as the eighth century, 
 there was a widespread belief that evildoers, perjurers, murderers, 
 persons of foul life, and traitors, would meet a fit recompense in 
 the next world; and Christians in England, and Germany, and 
 Scandinavia, and France, throughout the Middle Ages, had their 
 ideas of judgment and the next world deeply coloured by these old 
 heathen beliefs. But, till the infiltration of Christian ideas, in 
 the ninth century, they had not arrived at any idea of a great 
 day of doom. 
 
 The elaborate Walhalla pantheon found in the later Edda was 
 put together by scholars after the heathen days, and the 
 eachatology, with its Eagnarok, is largely drawn from one poem, 
 the Sybil's Prophecy, which bears evident traces of Christian 
 influence. 
 
 One of the most important of early Teutonic institutions, but 
 one which we can only reconstruct by piecing together bits of 
 scattered fact, was the dan or totem system — an institution very 
 widespread and very important in the early history of many races, 
 both of the Old and New Worlds. The pattern of nomenclature 
 among the Teutons seems to point to this system being in full 
 vigour down to pretty recent times. But it fell rapidly before 
 the economic and social changes, brought about by an altered 
 
TEUTONIC HEATHENDOM. 289 
 
 mode of life, and by the change of thought consequent upon 
 contact witli Christianity. The members of a clan could not, 
 originally, intermarry ; they traced descent originally through the 
 mother; they bore the name of their eponym, or ancestor, as part 
 of their own name ; and, no doubt, they had certain common legal 
 rights, and performed certain religious rites, in common. The 
 wolf, the bear, the horse, the war-goddess, the chief god of the 
 tribe under many epithets, the rock, the spear, the home-land, 
 the day, the sun, the shrine, are the chief eponyms used by the 
 early Teutons. The Athelings, who ruled South England in the 
 ninth and tenth centuries, the Gothic Amalings and Balthings, 
 the Choruscan Sigelings, are examples of famous royal clans. 
 
 Witchcraft, of a type resembling that of the Obi or Voodoo 
 hlack-magic cult, was met with among the early Teutons, and 
 was to them, even as heathens, a thing hateful and horrible, 
 loathsome to gods and men ; though seers, and weather-prophets, 
 soothsayers and men of second sight, augurs and dream-readers, 
 were reverenced and treated as specially favoured by the gods, 
 who gave them part of their own knowledge ; and white magic 
 was often appealed to, to frustrate the wicked assaults of witches 
 and wizards. 
 
 Turning from ritual and the creed of Teutonic heathendom to 
 its ethical system an immense superiority is manifest. There 
 were no "Ten Commandments," but good manners and morals 
 were taught in songs, and given to the young in the form of 
 story. One old poetic Dialogue between Father and Son contains 
 many precepts — as, how to behave as a guest, friend, and house- 
 holder, and much wisdom in the form of proverbs. The first 
 virtue is bravery, the next is manliness. Uprightness of life, 
 cleanness of living, were enforced. Sincerity and generosity were 
 directed. Silence was a virtue. Reverence was much enjoined, 
 and, indeed, no people can advance far without a high regard 
 being paid to this virtue. Reverence was paid, not only to the 
 gods but to those things that were worthy of reverence ; respect 
 must be paid to family life, the political organization, to the king, 
 to the aged, to women and children. There was also a high 
 ideal of duty to kindred, lord, and comrade, and among the free 
 classes a high standard of self-respect. 
 
 Alongside of these excellent principles there were great short- 
 comings — harshness, deceit, and cruelty towards all who were not 
 kinsfolk or friends (for only these were considered as within the 
 ethical circle, all the rest of the world was outside with the 
 animals), pride and self-complacency, false ideas of honour, weak- 
 ness in face of superstitious fears, though we find noble examples 
 in which men, of their own truth and sweetness of nature, refused 
 
 19 
 
290 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 and scorned sins which those around them commended and 
 committed. 
 
 With such good ethical principles, and such poor creed and 
 ritual, it is not to be wondered that the heathen beliefs and faith 
 went down before Christianity without any compulsion, and that 
 in England and Scandinavia Christianity was accepted willingly 
 and readily by king and people. 
 
 There were many gains accruing from the adoption of the new 
 system. First, kindliness was enforced instead of brutality to 
 slaves, paupers, and persons not of their own family. Next, there 
 was greater truthfulness and stricter keeping of covenants, which 
 rendered progress possible. Third, the importance of self-sacriiice 
 to duty was more decidedly enjoined. Fourth, the cruel terrors 
 and foul superstitions connected with witchcraft were lessened. 
 Fifth, the greater simplicity and reasonableness of the New P'aith 
 opened the way to further progress in thought. Last, the New 
 Faith brought its Teutonic votaries into touch with other 
 European nations, with anterior civilizations, and with a certain 
 amount of knowledge won from nature by wise men in the past. 
 
 After this brief and necessarily imperfect sketch of a great 
 subject — every paragraph in which might be illustrated by 
 numerous examples and instances, and sustained by lengthy 
 argument and copious exposition — it may be well to conclude by 
 giving a faithful and plain version of a poem composed in the last 
 days of Teutonic heathendom by a warrior and poet, named Egil, 
 who had served our own King Athelstan, had wandered over many 
 northern lands and seas, and settled down at last, after all his 
 chequered career abroad, in his father's house in the new colony of 
 Iceland, looking for peace. But he met with a series of mis- 
 fortunes in his old age ; and, worst of all, there befell the death 
 of his two elder and best beloved sons. The first, Gunnere, died of 
 fever ; the second was drowned. It is told that when the news of 
 the last calamity reached him that Egil rode to the shore to seek 
 his son's body, and came right upon it, and took it up and set it 
 across his knees, and rode with it to the grave of his own father. 
 Then he had the grave opened, and laid his son therein by the side 
 of his grandfather. And the grave was not closed again till about 
 sunset. Then Egil rode straight home and went in and shut 
 himself up in his own room and lay down. There he stayed, speech- 
 less and neither eating nor drinking all that night and next day, 
 and no one dared to speak to him or reason with him. But on the 
 third morning his wife sent oif a man on horseback to fetch 
 Thorberg, his favourite daughter, who was living some way off 
 with her husband. She at once started for her father's house, and 
 rode all that evening and through the night without halting till 
 
TEUTONIC HEATHENDOM. 291 
 
 she reached it. Then she alighted, and went into the hall. Her 
 mother greeted her : " Have ye eaten by the way ? " Says Thorberg : 
 " I have taken neither bit nor sup, nor will I till I sup with Woden's 
 wife [the goddess] ; I will follow my father and brother." Then 
 she went to her father's door and cried : " Come father ; for I wish 
 us both to go the same way ! " And Egil opened the door to her, 
 saying : " "Thou hast done well, daughter, to wish to die with thy 
 father. Is it likely I could live after such sorrow ? " But Thorberg 
 did this that she might by some stratagem get her father to break 
 his fast and live, and this she cunningly brought about, and then 
 said : " Now our plan of starving is over, and perhaps it is better, 
 for I should like us to live a little longer, father, that thou 
 mightest make a dirge over thy son. P'or there is no one else 
 that could do so fitly." And Egil said he would try to do as she 
 wished. And as he made the dirge he grew better, and when 
 it was finished he rose up and recited it to his wife and daughter 
 and kinsfolk, and then sat down in his seat and ate and drank 
 and held the funeral feast over his son in heathen fashion. And 
 he sent his daughter home again with costly gifts and much love.' 
 And this is the dirge, and it is called 
 
 THE SONS' WEECK. 
 
 It is hard for me to raise my tongue, 
 the steel-yard o£ sound, within my mouth j 
 Little hope have I of winning Wodin's spoil [poesy] 
 nor is it Lightly drawn from the hiding-places of my mind, 
 
 • » * • * 
 The heaviness of my woe is the cause thereof. 
 
 * * • * * 
 
 For my race hath come down to the stock 
 like the burnt trunk of the trees in the forest 1 ' 
 
 No hearty man is he that must bear in his arms 
 the corse of his kinsman from his house 1 
 
 First I will with my song-blade [tongue] 
 hew this matter out in the hall of memories [my breast] : 
 Yea, this verse-timber, leafed with speech, 
 shall pass out of the word-fane [my mouth]. 
 
 Cruel was the breach the billow made 
 in my father's fence of kinsmen ! 
 1 can see it standing unfilled and unclosed, 
 the gap, left by my son, which the Sea caused me I 
 
 Ban [the ocean-giantess] hath handled me very roughly 
 I am utterly reft of my loving friends : 
 The Sea hath cut the bonds of my race 
 its hard-spun strands that lay about me. 
 
 How shall I take up my cause with the sword 
 against the Brewer of all the Gods [the Sea God] ? 
 How shall I make war upon the awful Maids of the Storm [billows] 
 or fight a wager of battle with the wife of Eager [the Sea God] / 
 
292 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Moreover I know that I am not strong enough 
 to cope with the slayer of my sjns, 
 for manifest to the eyes of all the people 
 is the helplessness of me, an old man I 
 
 The Ocean hath spoiled me sorely : 
 it is a hard thing to tell over the slaughter of kinsfolk 1 
 
 * * * » * 
 
 The second matter of my Song shall be 
 how the Friend of the Gauts [Woden] raised up to Godhara 
 the Sapling of my race [Guniicre], tbat sprung from me, 
 the tendril of the kin of my wife. 
 
 » * • * » 
 
 Tea, he is gone to be a guest at the city of the Hive [Paradise] 
 
 •♦*■*• 
 
 I know very well that in my son 
 was the making of a goodly gentleman : 
 if that fruitful branch had been left to ripen 
 ere the Lord of Hosts [Woden] laid hands on him. 
 
 He ever held fast to his father's word 
 though the whole congresation spake against it : 
 and upheld my cause at Wal-rock [the Moot-hill] 
 and was the greatest stay to my strength. 
 
 There cometh often longing into my mind 
 for the brotherhood of Arinbeorn [the best friend of his youth] : 
 reft of my friends, when the battle is waxing high, 
 that bold baron, I think on him I 
 
 What other man that loves me well 
 will stand by ray side against my foes' counsels ? 
 
 I often lack the Strang pimotm that upheld me. 
 I go with drooping flight for my friends are dropping away. 
 It is right hard to find a man to trust 
 among all the congregation beneath the gallows of Woden [the World-tree] 
 
 * • » * ♦ 
 
 It is a proverb that no man can get 
 full recompense for his own son ; 
 nor can one bom of another kin 
 stand to a man in the place of a brother. 
 
 * • ♦ * ♦ 
 
 I was friendly with the King of Spears [Woden] 
 and I put my trust in him believing in his plighted peace : 
 till he broke, the Lord of the Wain, 
 the Judge of Victory, his friendship with me : 
 
 Wherefore I do not worship the brother of Wile [Woden] 
 the Prince of the Gods, nor look yearningly upon him : 
 yet the Friend of Mim [Woden] bath bestowed upon me 
 recomi)ense for my wrongs, if 1 am to count up his better deeds to me. 
 
 The war- wont Foe of the Wolf [Woden] 
 hath given me the blameless art : 
 yea, the poet's song, by which 1 may turn 
 open foes into well-wishers. 
 
 Now the Wreck of my Two Sons is sung to the end, 
 Night standeth near at hand : 
 but I gladly and with a good will 
 and without dread await Death I 
 
TEUTONIC HEATHENDOM. 293 
 
 This poem, badly preserved in a corrupt text, necessarily loses 
 in translation much of its character, its metrical harmony, its fine 
 concise rhythm, its powerful flow ; yet I could scarcely have 
 chosen for you a more typical or nobler utterance of ohl Teutonic 
 heathendom than these lines, instinct with deep grief and wrath, 
 but all-inspired with a courage which never let the man sink to 
 despair or mockery, but enabled him to beat out in the very 
 furnace of affliction a poem which for its beauty and strength 
 is as wrought steel. 
 
 Human nature is everywhere much the same. Grief touches the 
 same chords in us as it did in those heathen forefathers of ours 
 long ago ; or in those older heroes whose sorrow is enshrined in the 
 Homeric I^iaments over Patroclos and Hector, or that Song of the 
 Bow which David taught his people. Their primitive faith, 
 clumsy and childish as it was, yet represented the higher instincts 
 of their nature, the sympathy they felt for their fellows, and the 
 awe that was upon them by reason of the unknown forces that 
 compassed them about: our faith can do no more for us. 
 
 It is not in a man's creed but in his deeds, not in his knowledge 
 but in his wisdom, not in his power but in his sympathy, that there 
 lies the essence of what is good and what will last in human life. 
 
 [NOTE. — It is beside mj purpose here to note the affinities of Teutonic 
 Heathenism. The mythology is largely of the general Aryan type. There are 
 many close parallels to the Celtic mythology in particular, and apparently also 
 to Slavonic heathendom. This was of course to be expected. I <lo not believe 
 that there are any traces of borrowings from the Latin or Greek mythology in 
 the earlier Teutonic myths. It must be remembered tliat among the fairy tales 
 of modern Teutonic nations are many which do not go back to the heathen days, 
 but are drawn from foreign souiccs during or since the middle ages.] - 
 
294 HELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 
 THE MYTHS OF CHRISTMASTIDE. /f-^L' 
 
 BY It. BITHELL, B.Sc, Ph.D. 
 
 On the twenty-fifth day of December, we all of us, each in his own 
 way, commemorate an event which has had a wonderful fascination 
 for a large portion of the civilized world for eighteen centuries. 
 Great obscurity has always surrounded that event : and, as mostly 
 happens, when men are deeply interested in what is obscure, an 
 enormous mass of conjecture, invention, myth, and superstition 
 came into existence ; taking a concrete form in tales, narratives, 
 fables, which passed from mouth to mouth, and were repeated 
 with as much solemnity and piety as if the vague memories of 
 the story-tellers were as trustworthy as a divine revelation. 
 
 And yet these tales were in many cases inconsistent with each 
 other ; sometimes quite contradictory, always dependent on the 
 caprices of memory ; and worse than all, exposed to the corrupt- 
 ing influence of the prepossessions, superstitions, and dominating 
 ideas of an illiterate and credulous people. 
 
 Then as to the origin of these stories. The narrators spoke of 
 them as relating to events of quite recent occurrence. But in 
 many cases we shall see that they are a simple survival of stories 
 which had been in circulation for hundreds of years. 
 
 A grave evil pervades society just now. This nineteenth cen- 
 tury has witnessed such astonishing achievements in physical 
 science, that almost every man or woman who has access to our 
 weekly and monthly journals picks up a smattering of scientific 
 gossip, and an enormous majority of these readers remain 
 smatterers to the end of their days. That in itself would be no 
 harm to them or any one else. But they are not content with the 
 role suited to their capacities. They must set themselves up as 
 censors and critics, and seem to imagine that every one who in 
 former days had beliefs and prepossessions different from their 
 own must have been idiots or fools ; some even go so far as to 
 represent them as cunning, self-interested deceivers, whose main 
 object was to mislead the people. This is very wrong. It is not 
 necessary to accuse or even suspect any of these credulous natures 
 of intentional deceit. On the contrary, everything in the litera- 
 ture of the period goes to show they were just as sincere and 
 
THE MYTHS OF CHRISTMASTIDE. 295 
 
 earnest as you and I are, in gathering from their scribes and 
 teachers the most trustworthy intelligence they could obtain. 
 
 Now we will not begin by assuming any part of the scriptural 
 narrative as a Myth ; that would be begging the question, an act 
 unworthy of intelligent men. What we aim at is, to read the 
 narrative just as it stands, and then place beside it some of the 
 recognized and accredited myths circulating in the minds of the 
 people of the same age. This will enable us to appreciate in 
 some measure the difficulties and disadvantages under which they 
 laboured. They had not the accumulated stores of knowledge 
 which the science of near two thousand years has contributed, and 
 which you are privileged to enjoy ; and many things which 
 appear to us absurd or physically impossible were accepted by 
 them as quite ordinary events, and made but small demands on 
 their credulity. P'or it must always be borne in mind that they 
 were surrounded by tribes who were steeped to the lips in the 
 grossest superstition ; so that the wonder is, not that the gospel 
 writers retained some of those superstitious beliefs, but that the}' 
 shook themselves free from so many. 
 
 The miraculous birth of Christ is the first legend to demand 
 our attention. And in order to^j udge of its mythical ch aracter or 
 other wise, it will b e well to remember that all the greatlounders 
 of religions came mt o the world witli the sacred stam^ ^oT^per- 
 natural birth. Several of the Jigyptian gods were bom o f virg in 
 motEers? GTautamaTTuddha was said to haveTieen ^orn from the. 
 side of a virgin. Laou-tzse, the great predecessor of Confucius,! 
 born 604 B.C., was miraculously brought forth. His mother being' 
 in a solitary place, suddenly conceived by the simple presence of 
 the vivifying power of heaven and earth, and bore him in her 
 womb for twenty-four years. It is instructive to note also how 
 familiar was the notion of supernatural births, and how diflScult 
 it was even for acute intellects to free themselves from the super- 
 stition. Even St. Jerome in the fourth century a.d. avowed his 
 belief that so divine an intellect as Plato's could only have been 
 the fruit of immaculate conception. Later still, we have the 
 signs and portents of coming greatness attending the birth of 
 Mohamed, and the superhuman precocity of the child himself, 
 who, immediately on his birth, exclaimed, " God is great ; there 
 is no god but God, and I am His prophet." 
 
 Closely allied to this doctrine of parthenogenesis, is the belief 
 in the incubi and succubi — male and female demons — which con- 
 sort with men and women during sleep. As in New Zealand and 
 the Samoan Islands, where th^y are said to cause supernatural 
 births, so also in Lapland, where cases are recorded with all the 
 seriousness of judicial and ofificial detail. More amazing still, 
 
296 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ■when we turn from the haunts of barbarism and ignorance to the 
 strongholds of Christian influence and learning, we find the saintly 
 I Augustine descanting on the i)oi)ular notions concerning the visits 
 of the incubi, which he says are vouched for by testimony of such 
 high character that it would seem impudence to deny it. He does 
 not, however, assert his own belief in these tales, or even in 
 the existence of those amorous spirits. In later days, and all 
 through the middle ages, the belief in them was so widely 
 dififused, that churchmen and lawyers gave full credence to the 
 stories respecting the visits of these nocturnal demons, and of 
 their intercourse with men and women — stories which we, in 
 these sceptical days, are inclined to regard as a cloak to the inter- 
 course of visitors of a less spiritual nature. 
 
 We are not suq)rised, therefore, to hear the prophet proclaim- 
 ing, " Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son," greatly as 
 we should be astonished and scandalized to hear in these days any 
 I such announcement. It was at that date quite a familiar notion, 
 J and the sanernatural was to the ancients the most natura l. 
 Matthew, therefore, when writing his Gospel, having arrived STSl 
 full conviction that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, would easily 
 pass to the logical inference that he was bom of a virgin ; other- 
 wise what would be the worth of the prophecy ? 
 . Be it noted, further, that the Romans of that period, and the 
 ' Greeks before them, could never satisfactorily account for the vast 
 superiority of their heroes in wisdom and power, but by supposing 
 . them to be descended from the gods and goddesses of their 
 imagination. You that have read much of the history of early 
 Greece will remember how the Greeks or Hellenes derived their 
 origin from Hellen, the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha : while in 
 the history of Eome you will find the venerable story of Komulus 
 with his descent from the god Mars and the vestal virgin Rhea 
 Sylvia. 
 
 " Happy is the man," says a Latin author, "who can find out 
 the causes of things." Very unhappy are most men when they 
 cannot find out the causes of things. And because they are so 
 unhappy, if they cannot find out a satisfactory cause, they must 
 and will invent one. In this wa;y we may account for the fact, 
 that stories and legends like those I have described found cur- 
 rency among the people of former days. They saw that some 
 men were pre-eminently sagacious, powerful, or virtuous ; and 
 f they could find no convincing ground for their superiority but in 
 I assuming that they were begotten of the gods or born of virgins. 
 A belief in the possibility of such births was then universal. In 
 these days they are regarded as physiologically impossible. We 
 are placed in this position now : (1) We may accept the deliver- 
 
THE MYTHS OF OHRISTMASTIDE. 297 
 
 ances of science, and reject all these legends of superhuman 
 births as fictions unworthy of credence ; or (2), we may (to save 
 our reputation as orthodox Christians) reject all but one, and 
 still assert our faith in the immaculate conception of the Virgin 
 Mary. For my part, I believe that very few intelligent Christians, \ 
 orthodox or otherwise, attach much importance to the story. 
 
 Intimately connected with the legend of the supernatural birth 
 of Jesus is that of Joseph's dream. That some weight should be ' 
 attached to this account of a dream is not so surprising, seeing 
 that in these modem days an immense number of well-meaning ' 
 people place great faith in dreams. Indeed, we are on deUcate 
 ground here, for our knowledge of dreams and their causes is ! 
 very incomplete. What concerns us most in this inquiry is that i 
 the dream, if it ever occurred, could have been known to no one 1 
 but Joseph himself. No mention is made of it except in the 
 Gospel of Matthew ; and when it is related the narrative is imme- 
 diately followed by the familiar formula, " Now all this was done, 
 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet," which 1 
 throws on the story an air of suspicion that it was put together in 
 later times in order to give a show of consistency between the 
 prophecies of the Old Testament and the statements of the New. 
 Statements of this kind were easily credited in those days. To 
 these simple, unsophisticated people there was nothing startling 
 in the notion of revelation by means of visions and dreams. The 
 world was full of such stories. You wil l remember how it is ' 
 recorded in the history of Rome that the death of Julius CsesarJ 
 was foretold by his wife on account of a dream she had had. Ofl 
 coTirse dreams were occurring in thousands every night, and every 
 dreamer was free to invent some sort of interpretation of his dream. 
 Coincidences of a striking character therefore did sometimes occur. 
 But even this admission does not justify us in attaching any im- 
 portance to the report of Joseph's dream, because we have nothing 
 but a vague tradition that such a dream ever occurred. We cannot 
 dogmatically assert that it is a myth ; but in the midst of so many 
 myths it is not entitled to much credence. Nor does the most 
 zealous apologist ever base any argument upon it. Those who 
 have studied the Scriptures most profoundly tell us that manj' 
 years elapsed between the birth of Christ and the date when the 
 Grospel by Matthew was compiled. What that date was is variously 
 estimated, and is not certainly known. But we all know how a 'i 
 narrative, as it passes from mouth to mouth, gets modified and ; 
 corrupted. A mere suspicion, or conjecture, is quite sufficient to 
 start a legend amongst a credulous people, and if it falls in with 
 the prepossessions. and expectations of the hearers, it soon acquires 
 a hold on their minds which no reasoning can relax. 
 
 20 
 
298 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Following the narrative as given in the Gospels, we find the 
 phenomenon of a star in the East referred to as an object of great 
 significance. That a star of great brilliance did actually appear 
 about this time there is no difficulty in believing. It was only 
 recently, you will recollect, that in the month of December a very 
 bright star was seen in the East, a little before sunrise. Its 
 phenomenal brightness attracted much attention at the time, and 
 some wiseacre suggested that it was a return to our hemisphere 
 of the Star of Bethlehem. The phrase was immediately caught 
 up, and repeated in the newspapers, until all London was agog at 
 the prodigy. Of course, every one possessing an elementary know- 
 ledge of astronomy, and accustomed to the most cursory observation, 
 might have recognized this brilliant star as the planet Venus, 
 which just then appeared as the morning star; its unusual splen- 
 dour arising from the darkness of the December night favomred 
 by a clear sky. As is well known, Venus has a synodic period of 
 584 days — much less than two years and rather more than one 
 and a half — so that it is a comparatively rare occurrence for its 
 appearance as a morning star to fall within the last two weeks of 
 December. Still it does so fall, and that with the greatest regu- 
 larity ; but at intervals so widely separated that the memory of 
 one event dies out before the next occurs. Hence the wonder and 
 curiosity excited by the phenomenon. Now, if such emotions are 
 excited by so simple an observation in these days of scientific 
 knowledge, can you wonder that in those ages when astronomy, 
 as we understand it, was utterly unknown, much significance should 
 be attached to the appearance of so splendid an object, supposing 
 it possible to connect the popular recollection of it with the assumed 
 date of the Nativity ? For be it remembered that in that age 
 almost every meteorological or astronomical phenomenon was 
 looked upon as a portent. A meteor (or " shooting star," as it 
 was formerly called), an ecHpse, a cloud of unusual shape or colour, 
 a comet, anything sufficiently unusual to arrest the attention, was 
 deemed significant of some impending calamity. 
 
 But there were other events occurring about that time which 
 might have furnished a foundation for the legend of the star in 
 the East, perhaps with greater probability. Astronomers tell us 
 of a remarkable conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn a 
 few years before the date assigned to the birth of Christ. The 
 learned Dr. Edersheim, in his Life and Times of Jesus, etc., and 
 writing in the interest of orthodox Christianity, says : — 
 
 " Did such a star, then, really appear in the East seven years 
 before the Christian era ? Astronomically speaking, and without 
 any reference to controversy, there can be no doubt that the most 
 remarkable conjunction of planets — that of Jupiter and Saturn in 
 
THE MYTHS OF CHRISTMASTIDE. 299 
 
 the constellation Pisces, which occurs only once in 800 years — did 
 take place no less than three times in the year 747 a.u.c. or two 
 years before the birth of Christ (in May, October, and December). 
 This conjunction is admitted by all astronomers. It was not only 
 extraordinary, but presented the most brilliant spectacle in the 
 night-sky, such as could not but attract the attention of all who 
 watched the sidereal heavens, but especially of those who busied 
 themselves with astrology. In the year following (that is, in 748 
 A.u.c.) another planet, Mars, joined this conjunction. The merit 
 of first discovering these facts, of which it is unnecessary here to 
 present the literary history, belongs to the great Kepler, who 
 accordingly placed the Nativity of Christ in the year 748 A.u.c. 
 This date, however, is not only well nigh impossible ; but it has 
 also been shown that such a conjunction would, for various reasons, 
 not answer to the requirements of the Evangelical narrative, so 
 far as the gwldance to Bethlehem is concerned. But it does fully 
 account for the attention of the Magi being aroused, and, even if 
 they had not possessed knowledge of the Jewish expectancy above 
 described, for their making inquiry of all around, and certainly 
 among others, of the Jews. Here we leave the domain of the 
 certain, and enter upon that of the probable. Kepler, who was 
 led to the discovery by observing a similar conjunction in 1603-4, 
 also noticed that when the three planets came into conjunction, a 
 new, extraordinarily brilliant, and peculiarly coloured evanescent 
 star was visible between Jupiter and Saturn, and he suggested 
 that a similar star had appeared under the same circumstances in 
 the conjunction preceding the Nativity. Of this, of course, there 
 is not, and cannot be, absolute certainty." — Edersheim's Life and 
 Times of Jesus, p. 212. 
 
 You will have observed that the year assigned to the birth of 
 Christ varies according to the computations of dififerent observers 
 and commentators. Eeckoning from the foundation of the city 
 of Rome, as is the custom with Western nations when dealing 
 with the chronology of that period, you will perceive that astro- 
 nomers have fixed upon the years 747 and 748 A.u.c. as the time 
 when the conjunctions of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars presented 
 such a splendid appearance in the sky; whereas the common 
 reckoning in use by the whole Christian world is 753 A.u.c. 
 This common reckoning, however, is so generally acknowledged 
 to be wrong, that the marginal reference in our Authorised 
 Version of the Testament gives the fourth year before that called 
 the year One as that in which Jesus was bom. These differences 
 are very perplexing to the student of Gospel history. It does 
 seem amazing when reading the details as related by Matthew — 
 Joseph's dream, the virgin birth, the star over Bethlehem, the 
 
300 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 visit of -wise men, the terror of Herod the king— all of them 
 striking and impressive events — that Matthew and the other 
 Evangelists should be so ignorant of the time when they occurred 
 as to make a mistake of four or six years, more especially when 
 we recollect that IMatthew and the disciples were in daily com- 
 munion with Jesus after his entrance into public life, and had 
 abundant opportunities of learning the truth. The probability 
 seems to be, that the events occurring in the life of Christ during 
 the first thirty years were by no means of a striking nature ; and 
 that it is only when we read the condensed account as given by 
 the Evangelists that they assume so profound a significance. 
 Then there is the glamour thrown over the narrative by the 
 fervour, the piety, and the credulity of the disciples, which must 
 be taken into account in making our estimate of its worth. We 
 must bear in mind, too, that in those days when astrology con- 
 stituted the main feature in the wisdom of the wise men, portents 
 and prodigies far more astounding than those described by the 
 Evangelists were recorded by the most sober historians and 
 ' naturalists of Rome and the neighbouring nations. Tacitus, when 
 writing the history of our own country, gives us a string of 
 prodigies said to have happened in Britain immediately before 
 the insurrection of Boadicea. First, in the town of Camelodunum, 
 the image of the goddess of Victory, without any apparent cause, 
 suddenly fell firom its place, and turned its face round as if 
 giving way to the enemy. Then there was a representation in 
 the air of the colony laid in ruins, which was seen near the mouth 
 of the Thames, while the sea assumed the colour of blood, and 
 the receding tide seemed to leave behind the phantoms of human 
 carcases. Plutarch records another wild story concerning the 
 death of one of the Archdruids of Anglesey, when the air grew 
 black, and troubled and strange apparitions were seen ; the winds 
 rose to a tempest, and fiery spots and whirlwinds appeared dancing 
 towards the earth. Livy, Sallust, Virgil, and others furnish us 
 with numerous examples of superstitions like these ; and you will 
 all remember how, on the death of Caesar, Virgil gravely informs 
 us that the Alps trembled, and the sun was eclipsed. 
 
 Mythical as these legends are, it must always be borne in mind 
 there was a substratum of truth in almost every one of them. It 
 was in virtue of that little grain of truth it held its ground. That 
 grain of truth being very precious, it is caught up by the imagina- 
 tion, and invested with all sorts of accessories, in order to impress the 
 minds of the multitude with a sense of its importance. That the 
 sun or moon should be eclipsed is easily believed ; such an event 
 occurs several times in a year. That mountains should tremble 
 no one would dispute; earthquakes occur in volcanic regions 
 
THE MYTHS OF CHRISTMASTIDE. 301 
 
 almost daily. That the sky should assume the colour of blood or 
 of fire is a matter of common observation in all parts of the 
 world. That the heavens should be shrouded in darkness for 
 hours together at midday would not surprise a Londoner at all. 
 But that these natural events are connected with the death of 
 human beings, or are the precursors of disaster to nations, except 
 as mere coincidences, we have no proof or evidence whatever. 
 And since astrology went out of fashion, it is rare to find an 
 individual who places any reliance on these coincidences. 
 
 Still there is, as all admit, a golden thread of truth running 
 through most of these legends, and it is the part of a wise man 
 to find that thread and trace it in its meanderings through the 
 course of history. For many of these truths, obscured as they 
 may be by the ignorance and folly of mankind, are of transcendent 
 importance, and have been a source of light, comfort, and strength 
 to myriads of the human family for ages. 
 
 There is, perhaps, nothing connected with this annual festival 
 more strictly mythical than the legend which assigns the 25th of 
 December as the natal day of Jesus Christ. Many competent 
 writers tell us that the simple narrative of the shepherds watching 
 their flocks by night ought to warn us of the error of supposing 
 that it could have occurred in midwinter. In truth, there is no 
 connection between this date and the birth of Christ. It was not 
 till the fourth century of the Christian era that the festival was 
 observed by Christians. Even then it was observed as a survival 
 of an oldjpagan institution, and fully~ recognised as such. "But 
 the common people, whether Christian, Ro^an, Greek, or heathen, 
 were always fond of their festivals and games ; and as they could 
 not be persuaded to renounce them, the heads of the Church hit 
 on the expedient of incorporating them with their own ritual. 
 This particular midwinter festival was dedicated to the sun-god, 
 and had been observed most religiously for hundreds of years 
 before the Christian era. The winter solstice festival, as cele- 
 brated by the Romans on the 25th of December in connection 
 with the worship of the sun-god Mithra, appears to have been 
 transferred to the Christian ritual about a.d. 273. At this date, 
 and for many years after, the festival continued to retain its 
 original name — the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun {Dies 
 Natalie Soils invicti). In the Western Church it became a 
 general observance in the fourth century, but with its ancient 
 purport. It afterwards passed to the Eastern Church, and gradu- 
 ally dropped its heathen character, and acquired a name more in 
 accordance with Christian sentiment — the Christian Dies Natalie, 
 or, as it was afterwards called, Christmas Day. The real solar 
 origin of the festival is clear from the writings of the fathers, and 
 
302 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ■ was distinctly recognized by them, even after its observance by 
 the Christian Church. St. Augustine and Gregory both speak of 
 • it in language which leaves no room to doubt what their opinions 
 were ; but the time had arrived when the incongruity of mixing 
 up the origin of a heathen festival with the Christian ritual 
 became too apparent, and we jfind the great Leo in a celebrated 
 sermon rebuking the people for their adherence to what he called 
 the "pestiferous persuasion," that the day should be honoured 
 because of the rising of the new stt7i,when it ought to be observed 
 as a memorial of the more solemn advent of Christ into the world. 
 
 From these utterances of the early Fathers you will see that 
 there was no thought at first of the birth of Jesus as occurring on 
 this day of the year, and the argument derived from it as a 
 proof of the unbroken continuity of Christian evidence falls to 
 the ground. The facts as related by contemporary writers are 
 very simple. That particular day when the noonday sun ceased 
 to fall lower and lower, and began again to rise in the heavens, 
 was a day of great rejoicing among a primitive and pastoral people. 
 It gave a promise of warmth and light, of spring and summer, 
 of com and fruit, of flocks and herds, and all that made life 
 prosperous and desirable. That the people should feast and 
 rejoice was the most natural expression of gratitude to the great 
 Sun-god from whom all these blessings accrued. And it was 
 just as natural when the Church had fairly enlisted the affections 
 of the multitude that preachers and pastors should seize the 
 occasion to direct their thoughts to the Sun of Righteousness. 
 Thus the transition was made, and, once adopted, its solar origin, 
 in Europe at least, was at length forgotten. 
 
 Connected with the season of Christmastide, no custom is 
 more marked than that of feasting. Feasting, of course, is a 
 part of every festival, but at Christmas this feature stands out 
 more conspicuously than in any other. Several concurrent causes 
 have contributed to this pre-eminence. There is nothing mythical 
 about the fact itsfelf in these modern days. It is a good, solid, 
 tangible, edible, and sometimes, I fear, rather indigestible reality. 
 That the custom should have been so widespread and so firmly 
 established is not so easily explained until we come to examine 
 the myths out of which it sprang. But when we find that eating 
 and drinking was in ancient times and at certain seasons one of 
 the most imperative and solemn of religious observances, we have 
 a satisfactory explanation both of the origin and persistency of 
 the practice. 
 
 Of these ceremonial observances there are two groups which 
 bear more specially on the practice of Christmas feasting, — those 
 connected with the sacrificial ritual of the Jews ; and those arising 
 
THE MYTHS OF CHRISTMASTIDE. 303 
 
 from the almost universal custom among primitive peoples of 
 \rorshipping their dead ancestors. 
 
 When reading the instructions supposed to have been delivered 
 to Aaron and the priests concerning their sacrifices, nothing is 
 more conspicuous than the obligation of eating the flesh of the 
 victims on the day of sacrifice if possible, and if not, then on the 
 second day. If any were left on the third day it was to be cast 
 out and destroyed. Aaron and the priests were to have the first 
 bite (a nice arrangement for the priests), and after them the 
 congregation of the people. Such an obligation must often have 
 led to gorging. In after times we learn that the gluttony, 
 drunkenness, and other excesses became so common as to amount 
 to a scandal, which prophets and seers were free in denouncing. 
 But customs which gratify the lower appetites and passions of men, 
 when once established, are not easily extirpated, and they last for 
 centuries when their relig^ious import is forgotten or has ceased 
 to be recognized. Thus it was with the Jews and the Jewish 
 Christians who succeeded them. And had it not been for other 
 influences which came into operation, the practice of excessive 
 feasting would probably have died out. 
 
 But there were other influences at work, as I have already 
 intimated, and these were the duties enjoined on most semi- 
 barbarous nations arising from the worship of dead ancestors. 
 Amongst primitive peoples it has at all times been difficult, as it 
 is now, to get rid of the notion that after the death of the body 
 the man still lives in some spiritual or ethereal form, needing 
 much the same things for his support and comfort as were necessary 
 during his lifetime on earth. Food, drink, wives, servants, horses, 
 weapons, ornaments, some or all, according to the rank of the 
 deceased, were deemed indispensable to his felicity ; hence the 
 funeral rites, some so horrible, some so grotesque, performed by 
 survivors. And after the faneral, those daily sacrifices and 
 offerings which occupy so large a portion of the time of super- 
 stitious worshippers, until at length every meeting of a family or 
 tribe is celebrated by feasting. Thus the Chinese off'er sacrifices 
 to sun and moon (of course no ancestry short of that will satisfy 
 our celestial neighbours), to stars and constellations, by burning 
 not only beasts and fowls, but silks and precious stones on their 
 altars, with the well-defined intention that the smoke and vapour 
 may ascend to the objects of their adoration. The Siamese offers 
 to the household deity incense and arrack and rice, steaming hot ; 
 the deity is not supposed to eat it all, not always any part of it ; it 
 is the fragrant steam which he loves to inhale. Among the 
 Indians of the American lakes it is considered that offerings; 
 whether consumed or abandoned by the worshippers, go in a 
 
304 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 spiritual form to the spirit to which they are devoted. In India 
 the Limbus act on the declared principle, — " the life breath to 
 the gods, the flesh to ourselves." 
 
 Many inventions were adopted in explanation of the fact that 
 food left for the service of the deity or deceased ancestor dis- 
 appeared. The sceptical and scientific young men of the period 
 suggested that solid food might have been consumed by birds 
 or vermin or by natural decay, and that liquids might have 
 disappeared by evaporation. Some were so profane as to suggest 
 that perhaps the priests had appropriated it. Indeed it became 
 the duty of the priest, as minister of the deities he represented, 
 to consume the first portions of the offerings ; and the dtdy was 
 subsequently regarded as a privilege (to which his successors 
 have stuck), when the priest took the lion's share of turtle and 
 pudding offered by the pious Fijian, or of the rice and fruit 
 contributed by the West African. But there would often be more 
 than the priest could consume, and this was distributed among the 
 worshippers, or the poor, who were never absent on those occasions. 
 Out of aU these superstitious customs arose the practice of feasting 
 as a religious observance, which spread so rapidly, that in later 
 days there was scarcely a meeting of family or clan, scarcely a 
 trade guild, village club, or city corporation, whose organisation 
 was considered complete unless its members met together once or 
 more every year for the purpose of dining and drinking. 
 
 The custom of drinking healths is closely connected with an 
 ancient rite which gives a much more serious aspect to the practice 
 than we usually assign to it. This is the custom of pouring out 
 libations, and drinking at ceremonial banquets to gods and dead 
 ancestors. The old Scandinavian drank to the memory of Thor, 
 of Odin, and Freya ; at the funerals of kings the same respect 
 was shown to them ; and thus the custom spread. In the south 
 of Europe the Greeks in symposium drank to one another, the 
 Romans adopted the practice, and transmitted it to the modems, 
 and at length it got to be deemed an indispensable mark of civility 
 on the meeting of an acquaintance or friend. When the Christian 
 religion spread through Europe the custom of drinking as a cere- 
 monial rite was so firmly established, that it was found aU but 
 impossible to induce the people to abandon their old ways, and so 
 the ministers of religion endeavoured to turn the practice to 
 pious uses, by substituting the memory of Christ, Mary, Michael, 
 and sundry other saints for that of pagan gods and heroes ; and 
 thus the most memorable feast of the year, and one of the most 
 ancient of ceremonial rites, became associated with the name of 
 the Founder of their religion. 
 
CHRISTIAI^ Al^D PHILOSOPHIC. 
 
THE CHURCH CATHOLIC,^ 
 
 BT £. F. C. COSTELLOE, M.A. 
 
 " Through all the centuries of civilization " — so I imagine 
 Macaulay's New Zealander will say to an impartial generation 
 — " through all the change and chance of History there runs 
 one permanent power. Alike in the decay of Greece and the 
 pride of Eome, alike through the tempest of the barbarian times 
 and the gradual uprising of the kingdoms, from the ages when 
 men accepted meekly their appointed place, to the latter day 
 when every man's hand was against his brother in the bitter war 
 of individual competition, one system of things has stood secure, 
 as a castle founded upon a rock stands above the rising and the 
 falling tide, through the calm weather and the storm. 
 
 " An organization at first but of the unlearned and the outcasts 
 of society — as was its Founder — placed under the ban of the most 
 imperial despotism the world has seen, it was a little later the 
 sister sovereign of that same Empire throughout the Eoman 
 world; and when the Empire fell beneath the greatness of its 
 task, the throne of the Fisherman continued to stand in the very 
 palace of the Caesars, and the city where the Popes of four 
 centuries had been driven like things of darkness underground 
 became the world-capital of the Papacy. 
 
 " In one age the apostle of an ideal morality in an evil time ; in 
 another the conserver of learning ; in a third the mother of the 
 Arts ; in all, the pattern and helper of political and social unity 
 — this unchanging yet ever varying kingdom, this stem and yet 
 most liberal philosophy, not only claimed to teach, but taught, as 
 with authority, the children of men." 
 
 Surely I may claim, my friends, that it is a startling item in 
 the secular march of things, a masterful fact not lightly to be put 
 by — no more than that other cardinal fact to which it leads us 
 back — the life and death of Jesus who was called the Christ. He 
 founded this power. He said it should not fail; and it has not 
 &.iled. 
 
 ' This address has already been printed as a separate tract, by the Catholic 
 Truth Society. 
 
308 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Not once but many times, indeed, there came great waves 
 of what the world thought disaster. In the beginning it was 
 persecution. Edict after edict went out against them, till in the 
 darkest of the night before the dawn an illiterate barbarian bent 
 the force of the twin Empires to exterminate the Christian name : 
 and knowing how easy was the detection of those who never would 
 deny their crime, the imperial statesmen said that the dangerous 
 rival of the Caesars would not be heard of any more — but it is the 
 statesmen who are forgotten. 
 
 Then there was the wave of Schism. The Arian heresy pre- 
 vailed so far that men said the Church's time was ended upon 
 the earth. Princes and peoples, Bishops and provinces, fell away, 
 till there was but a handful left to continue the great tradition. 
 Yet in a little while the Arians passed like a mirage, and men 
 asked each other the meaning of the name. 
 
 It was an even darker hour, when a rising tide of moral 
 corruption and a swift outbreak of intellectual doubt coinciding 
 in the period of the Renaissance seemed to have killed the 
 energies of the Church, and swamped in wickedness and infidelity 
 the very Court of Rome. Yet the curious reasonings of the Neo- 
 Pagans have left but faint echoes in the history of thought — the 
 worldly Popes and the corrupt Cardinals and all the unfaithful 
 stewards who dared to lift their mitres up against their Master 
 have gone to their account — and there does not remain upon the 
 institutions or the morals or the doctrine of the Church a vestige 
 of the evil time. 
 
 Wave upon wave, in the very worst of the danger, came the 
 great upheaval called the Reformation, wherein the spirit of 
 Individualism, personified in the rough violence of Luther, rent 
 the Church in twain ; and in this rebellion and the disorders which 
 accompanied and followed it, it seemed as if the bark of Peter 
 must assuredly go down. Yet as even Macaulay — most typical of 
 English Protestants — has borne witness, the work of the Council 
 of Trent and the early labours of the Jesuit Order and all that 
 inner Reformation which accompanied these, left the Papacy not 
 weaker but stronger than before. 
 
 Finally, in our time, are come the days when countless new 
 chapters of revelation are unrolled by science, and when a 
 universal criticism, laying faith and reverence aside, has summoned 
 every creed and every law to answer at the bar of reason for its 
 right to be. All these great and good men who are to free us 
 from the trammels of old time — whether they come as agnostics 
 or in the name of evolution, whether they say they hold Grod 
 needless, or have found our immortality to be a phantom, or 
 cannot recognize that there is such a thing as sin — with one 
 
THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 309 
 
 accord in divers tongues cry out to us that the old creeds have 
 passed for ever, and that the religion of the future, if religion 
 there be at all, must be something less archaic than the Church 
 of Christ. But in the midst of them — not denying whatever 
 truth they have to show, adapting indeed the message of the 
 ages to the later time, but upholding always her profession of 
 Christ's teaching and the Christian Law — the ancient Church 
 goes on. 
 
 It is in this permanence amid the changing centuries, it is 
 in^ this enduring triumph in defeat, that even the most hostile 
 critics have felt something of that great appeal which to her 
 children the mere existence of the Church implies ; and something 
 of the force with which to their eyes is realized in her the 
 prophecy of the Divine Founder. May we not well call it a 
 fulfilment of that commission, with which, in different wordings, 
 it pleased the Spirit that inspired the writers of the covenant 
 to close three Gospels and to begin the Acts : " As My Father 
 hath . sent Me, so send I you. Go ye therefore into all nations, 
 baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things, what- 
 soever I have commanded you : and behold I am with you always, 
 even to the end of the world." 
 
 It is in this light, then, that I desire first to present to you 
 the mission and office of the Catholic Church. Its name insists 
 upon its universal claim. It is not a congregation of persons 
 agreeing together ; it is not a School of Philosophy ; it is not 
 a Mutual Improvement Society. It is not even a Church among 
 other Churches. It is the Church Universal — the Living Voice 
 of God, in Christ's revelation, unto all people, through all time. 
 It is for this reason, and this only, that it teaches as its Master 
 taught, — not as the Scribes and Pharisees, but as one " having 
 authority." It is for this reason that in God's name it makes 
 that awful demand upon the faith of men which no human power, 
 however arrogant, would dare suggest — that we who accept 
 its teaching office shall accept those propositions which are " of 
 faith," even where we do not wholly understand them, and even 
 where they may seem to us to stand in conflict with other portions 
 of our personal reasoning as to the things that lie within the 
 human ken. 
 
 You will see at once that this demand cannot merely be 
 waived aside as being incompatible with so-called rights of private 
 judgment, unless you are prepared on the same principle to deny 
 that there can be any authoritative revelation of God's truth 
 at all. 
 
 Private judgment — meaning the paramount authority of that 
 
310 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ■which at any moment may commend itself to me — must dissolve 
 any Divine authority of the Written Word, as surely as of the 
 Living Voice. Luther, in his more consistent mood, was hardly 
 less arrogant than jVIr. Matthew Arnold in his assertion that the 
 Canon of the New Testament was to be limited by his own 
 theology. The Epistle of James, said Luther, cannot be the Word 
 of God, because it is tainted with " Justification by works." This 
 and this cannot be a Xoyujv of Jesus, says the modem critic, 
 because I would not have said it. 
 
 I do not forget that one great watchword of the sixteenth 
 century revolt was the appeal from the Church to the Bible. 
 But the impartial critics have long since begun to recognize that 
 the Bible is no ally of the Lutheran and Calvinist theology, much 
 less of the eclectic system of the so-called National Church of 
 England. And as the inevitable disintegration has gone on, the 
 appeal to the Bible has come to be an appeal against the Bible. 
 
 I do not hesitate, indeed, to say that the teaching oflBce of the 
 Church and the existence of any real revelation must stand and 
 fall together. If there be no Church, neither is there any Bible, 
 unless you mean by a Bible an interesting but scrappy compen- 
 dium of Oriental literature. If the Church be not a teacher, then 
 there is not any Christ at all, unless it be a self-deluded Hebrew 
 Socrates. 
 
 It will enable me to make my position clearer, if I may for 
 a moment assume that those whom I address accept the pro- 
 position that the mission of Christ was to reveal to the whole 
 world some knowledge of Divine things not attainable or not 
 attained before. My position is that, if this be true, the claim 
 of the Church to be a living voice, expounding with authority 
 from age to age what was contained in that revelation and in- 
 cluded in the deposit of faith, must of necessity be allowed. For 
 if a revelation was required for the spiritual guidance of the race, 
 it is self-evident that the truth intended to be revealed must be 
 capable of being apprehended by all sorts and conditions of men, 
 and in the coming ages of the world, with some reasonable 
 security. A revelation which in its cardinal points was open to 
 such absolute doubt, that the most honest, enlightened and 
 spiritual men could arrive at conclusions diametrically opposed, 
 and yet have no kind of arbiter to whom they could refer their 
 difference, is no revelation at all. That any revelation should 
 be useful for the world or conceivable as a providential design, 
 three things surely are necessary ; that it should be guaranteed 
 in its inception; that it should carry a continuing certitude; and 
 that it should be applicable to the intelligence and practical 
 necessities of every struggling soul. It is written, indeed, that 
 
THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 311 
 
 the things of God are hidden oftentimes from the wise and 
 learned, and are revealed rather to the babes and sucklings of 
 the world. But assuredly it cannot be true that the revelation 
 of Christ is a thing discernible by sundry scholars and gentlemen, 
 having leisure and much knowledge, but wholly misapprehended 
 or not visible at all among the " little ones " of whom He always 
 spoke so carefully, — by the crossing-sweeper and the washer- 
 woman, the labourer in the fields, the proletariat of the town. 
 If from these, who need it most, the revelation of Christ is 
 inevitably hidden, then God has mocked the universe. But if 
 there be not a teaching authority and a living voice, how is the 
 truth accessible to these ? 
 
 Will you tell me they can read a Bible ? I reply, that men 
 better and more learned than they have found a thousand con- 
 tradictory religions within the covers of the Sacred Books of 
 Christianity. Even if it were not so, who shall guarantee to 
 them either the degree of authority that attaches to these books 
 or even the contents of the canon, if there be no continuing 
 teacher in the world since the day when Christ last stood on Olivet, 
 when not a line indeed of the New Testament was written ? 
 
 The movers of the revolt against authority in the sixteenth 
 centmry felt the difficulty dimly; but they evidently were not 
 aware of the far-reaching scepticism which their protest logically 
 involved. They adopted, as a working principle, the doctrine 
 of the infallibility of Bible texts, supplemented by the conception 
 of the "testimony of the Holy Spirit." On this view, earnest 
 souls throughout Protestantism, prayerfully reading the Word 
 of God with the intoxicating belief in a personal revelation of 
 its import, were not long in setting up an infinite diversity 
 of creed and practice, wherein for want of any pope, each teacher 
 was his own. Even the monstrosities of the Anabaptists in the 
 earlier time, or of the Mormons in our own, have come to them 
 guaranteed by the same authority which guarantees the sturdy 
 Calvinism of Scotland, the Puritanism of the Ironsides, the mystic 
 spirituality of George Fox and William Penn. Of all this I 
 merely say that, to my mind, such a revelation reveals nothing ; 
 and that if the office of the Messiah were but to live and speak 
 for a little while, and charge a few uneducated persons to commit 
 to writing a fragmentary account of what He did and said, and 
 a still more imperfect set of epistolary remarks upon the theories 
 of life and action which He taught, then He has left the world 
 without any secure guidance in the ways of God, or any safe 
 criterion of truth and right. 
 
 Surely the cult of isolated texts which is nicknamed " Biblio- 
 latry" is no possible assurance of God's teaching. There are 
 
312 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 texts which, taken apart, prove almost everything. And con- 
 versely there are many vital matters which no set of texts, taken 
 apart, will satisfactorily establish. If anything is clear about 
 the New Testament, it is that nowhere does it profess to set out 
 either a reasoned philosophy of life or a comprehensive scheme 
 of doctrine. Apart from the patent circumstance, that the 
 "Discipline of the Secret" precluded the publication of what 
 may be called the esoteric dogmas of the early Christians, it is 
 obvious that in no one of the Gospels or Epistles has the writer 
 any idea of writing a systematic exposition, or any notion that 
 he is putting on record an exhaustive or complete account of the 
 teaching either of Christ or of the early Church. To them, as 
 to me, the deposit of faith was a body of tradition, providentially 
 safeguarded by the earthly work of the Spirit of IVuth, but not 
 depending on nor bounded by the Sacred Books, for it was going 
 on concurrently before and during their construction, by the same 
 authority which adjudicated, first vaguely and afterwards with 
 definite precision, upon the number and office of the Sacred Books 
 themselves. 
 
 There is of course another sense in which all Christianity must 
 depend on the Bible, for it is there chiefly that we find the 
 historic warrant for the belief that such a life as Christ's was ever 
 lived at all. But when we have used our Matthew, and John, 
 and Paul, with Clement and Hennas, and the Pseudo-Areopagite 
 and the rest, as we might use our Tacitus or our Josephus ; and 
 in the character of historic students have sifted out from these 
 the fact that Christ's life and acts and work and personality are 
 in the main as historic as Caesar's ; then, as a Catholic, I would 
 say that we can collect from that account and the historic facts 
 surrounding it the assurance not only that this momentous Person 
 did found the Catholic Church — of which I am as certain as that 
 Caesar initiated the Empire — but also that in founding it He 
 gave it a commission which, if He was truly God, was verily 
 Divine. Thus it is that when, in course of centuries we find it 
 declared that Matthew, John and Paul are " of the canon of 
 scripture," and are to be read as inspired writings, whereas 
 Clement and Hermas, however venerable, are not ; then we can 
 go back to Matthew, and John and Paul and re-read them not 
 as mere historical critics but as humble students of the Word 
 of God — and so are prepared to accept, on their authority endorsed 
 by the authority of the faith, much in their narrative which, 
 as historical critics, we were content to earmark as possibly 
 legendary or of doubtful accuracy, and much in their doctrine 
 which, as mere literature, might not have commended itself to a 
 fastidious taste. 
 
THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 313 
 
 I have desired to define at some length this Catholic view of 
 Christ's revelation and the Catholic attitude towards the Bible, 
 as opposed to the Protestant theories on these matters, partly 
 because it is vital to the understanding of Catholicism, and partly 
 because it is seldom understood by those who stand outside the 
 Church. I now pass to the consideration of some of the main 
 Lines of the Catholic teaching. It will be understood that I have 
 indeed nothing to ofifer but a few suggestions, whose only value, 
 if they have any, is that they have been borne in upon me by 
 reason of much converse with those to whom CathoUcism speaks 
 the language of a strange country. 
 
 Upon the commonplaces of controversy I do not propose to 
 waste time. The " errors of JRome " which exercise the mind of 
 anti-Popery lecturers and other wise men, £ire for the most part 
 beside the point. Too, often, they are either flat misstatements 
 of Catholic belief, imputing to us what no Catholic would dream 
 of teaching — as that " the end justifies the means ; " or they are 
 a travesty of something which is the merest fringe of that great 
 body of doctrine, such as the ancient usage of Indulgences or the 
 celibacy of the clergy. Of such things, at a fit time, I should 
 not despair of giving you a wholly reasonable account ; but if 
 a man desires to appreciate the Catholic Faith as it deserves, 
 it is not with these high points of controversy that he will begin. 
 It is the broad base-lines of that majestic plan that such a one 
 will look for. It is the pregnant words which, by that Living 
 Voice, the Master speaks to all the world and to each man's 
 soul. 
 
 I cannot hope to make you know these mighty words — ^which 
 Paul heard in the third Heaven — ^which all of us will hear when 
 the last trumpet sounds — which, as we well know, descend at the 
 altar rails into many a simple heart. To the ear of faith, they are 
 not hard to hear ; but to state them in the common language 
 of the world, and above all in the customary speech of modem 
 England, is a work that for its full accomplishment must wait, 
 I think, till God shall send again that gift of " prophecy," where- 
 with He touched the lips of John of the Golden Mouth, and 
 lit the fiery eyes of Savonarola. Yet, however little power there 
 be to do it, we must do the little that we may. For when we 
 look back upon that woful time when the Body of Christ was 
 torn asunder, and the mightiest semblance of God's Kingdom 
 which the world had seen was rent by civil war, I think we 
 cannot choose but say that these men, however we are to judge 
 their motives or their aim, threw back the world's religious life by 
 centuries. 
 
 We have had more than two hundred years of " Phoenix 
 
 21 
 
314 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 cremation " since the Bull of Wittenberg was burnt ; but I 
 doubt if another two hundred will place us at the point the 
 world might have reached, if the party of reform had been led 
 by men of the type of Savonarola and of Thomas More, rather 
 than by Luther and Henry VIII. That is our view ; but of those 
 who take any other, we may at least demand that they shall 
 be willing to labour with us to restore the broken unity, to 
 heal the secular war, to point the nations, amid a chaos that 
 seemingly grows worse with every tide of books, to that City 
 whereof the pattern is laid up in heaven, whose walls are justice 
 and whose ways are peace, since it is builded upon the rock of 
 an assured authority, and lit for ever by the light of God. 
 
 I must pray you therefore to follow me a little, while I try 
 to tell you what Cathohcism means to me. It implies, first of 
 all, a deep tremendous consciousness of the heaven-high difference 
 between good and evil, truth and untruth, righteousness and sin. 
 If it seems to be rigid in its teaching and in its insistence on 
 obedience, it is because it feels that the tolerance which holds 
 that one thing may as well be true as any other, is but an 
 opening of the floodgates of all misery. Tolerance we are 
 perfectly ready to give where it is due. Where a man believes 
 error honestly, only because he is somehow disabled from seeing 
 the truth, we do not venture to condemn him ; but we cannot 
 talk of it as if he were as likely to be right as we are, or as if 
 it did not matter which of us was right at all. For when we 
 say that we believe, we mean it ; and when we profess to hold the 
 Truth revealed by God in Christ, we hold it as a precious gift, the 
 wanton loss of which would be by far more terrible than any 
 worldly calamity. 
 
 As with truth, so with the consciousness of sin. We are re- 
 proached, unjustly enough, with some unreasonable hostility to 
 modem progress, and to that all-pervading spirit of emancipation 
 which is the pride of the children of the Great Revolution. 
 Neither with progress, nor with science, nor with freedom, has 
 the Church any quarrel. She has herself in many ways been 
 the promoter and guardian of them all; but she has always 
 been and is and will be jealous of the souls that are in danger, 
 for she counts the risk of moral evil as a thing far graver than 
 material prosperity. As we would all say, surely, in our personal 
 ethics, that no amount of money gain should weigh with an honest 
 man against his moral degradation ; so the Church says, upon 
 her wider plane, that no amount of monetary or material progress 
 will compensate a generation, if thereby it suffers moral wreck. 
 " What doth it profit a man," she cries from age to age, " if 
 he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? " " Woe upon 
 
THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 315 
 
 you," she cries to the heralds of comfortable Utopias of emanci- 
 pation, " if by your recklessness the little ones of Christ are made 
 to stumble and to fall." So much, — but no more. Churchmen 
 have been mistaken, as we all admit, in their application of that 
 principle. You are free to say bitter things about their politics, 
 if you will. But if you would do justice to the spirit which 
 animated even the narrowest among them, you must remember 
 that the thought which underlay their warfare was the paramount 
 importance of saving, if possible, these little ones among their flock, 
 from what seemed a probable risk of being led to sin against God. 
 
 Throughout all the Catholic doctrine and the living practice 
 of the Church runs the same dominant note of the consciousness 
 of sin. That Grod is above all things infinitely Holy — that every 
 single grave and deliberate sin is a disaster to the universe which 
 we cannot measure — that, in the things of human life, sin is 
 indeed, the only real evil that exists, and that to advance towards 
 perfection of personal character is our only real progress — these 
 are the alphabet of the Catholic rule of life. If it be asceticism 
 to hold that our pain and pleasure are of absolutely no account 
 in comparison with any moral gain, then we are all ascetics in our 
 belief, however little we may fulfil that rule in practice. And 
 the reason why we hold each particular sin' a woful evil, is 
 because it appears to us as a direct contempt of Grod, who is 
 our absolute liOrd and infinite Benefactor, and because we feel 
 that to Him by His essential nature, evil must needs be horrible 
 altogether. If we are to talk of justice, therefore, any one rebel- 
 lion could be enough to forfeit all His grace, forego His promises, 
 and alienate the sinner by the issue of his own choice from 
 that Heavenly Presence wherein no discord dwells. 
 
 Not only does the Church so think of sin, but she goes on to 
 say that even if by repentance and in God's grace the direct 
 offence is put away, the rebel absolved, the alien soul brought 
 back into the happy family who are at home with God, yet even 
 so the mischief of that once-committed sin is not put by. For 
 it is the nature of evil to work itself out still, in evil and disable- 
 ment and loss ; and these, which are technically called the 
 " temporal consequence " of sin, must needs be suffered even 
 while there is rejoicing in Heaven over the sheep which was lost 
 and now is found again. It is in this connection that we think 
 of Purgatory. It is the life beyond this life where souls, who 
 are indeed not rebels now but God's beloved penitents, must 
 wait and toil and grow till they have wholly purged away the 
 oonsequences of forgotten sin, and wrought upon the frail and 
 faulty characters they built themselves, that final beauty of 
 holiness which is alone receptive of the Vision of God. 
 
316 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 But if the Churcli is stem and terrible in her anathemas on 
 even the beginnings of moral wrong, she is not slow to preach 
 the good tidings of the infinite mercy. I cannot profess to you 
 that the God of whom she speaks is the God of those who go 
 their easy ways and say, " He's a good fellow and 'twill all be 
 well." She dare not bid us think it will be well, unless we will 
 it. " He made us," says St. Austin, " without our consent, but 
 He wiU not save us so." For with the consciousness of sin, the 
 Church insists by logical necessity on the paramount fact of 
 human freedom. When the human soul came from the creative 
 fiat as a self capable of moral life, and therein stamped with 
 the very image of the Divine, it bore both the mark of respon- 
 sibility and the inalienable power, in God's despite yet none the 
 less triumphantly, to cause evil things to be, in what was God's 
 fair universe before. Why did He do it ? we may all ask ; but 
 with our little knowledge of the secrets of the Eternal we cannot 
 give much other answer than that, as far as we can see, it was 
 not possible to separate the transcendent gift of a potential moral 
 goodness, whereby we are indeed ennobled as no other gift could 
 honour us, from its correlative possibility of creating crime. 
 
 On Free Will, then, the Church insists ; but she insists no less 
 on Grace. If God be stainless purity. He is no less essential 
 Ix)ve. If He does not compel us to obey the Holy Law, at least 
 He plies us with inducement, with suggestion, with facility of 
 every kind which infinite wisdom joined to infinite love can offer 
 for our aid. The world which we inhabit is the world our fathers 
 made, and it is beset with the results of old ancestral sin : for 
 it is the tragic property of wrong that its ill consequences affect 
 not only him who does it, but also those to whom his life is 
 bound in this great family of struggling souls. We live then, 
 not in a Paradise of God's arranging, but in a Babylon of crooked 
 ways, whose streets are littered with the rotting evil and barred 
 with the accumulated rubbish of that past which we inherit. I 
 do not forget, still less deny, that this same Babylon is a mighty 
 city, wherein are also goodly sights and gracious buildings not 
 a few, with many that, though still imperfect, and it may be 
 dangerous in their perfection, are full of promise for the later 
 time. I am no decrier of the noble inheritance our fathers left 
 us ; yet I say that when I think of it as the abode wherein we 
 must work out each of us his own salvation, it would to me seem 
 little better than a fever swamp or stricken city of the plague, 
 were it not for the grace of God. 
 
 For, as the Church conceives, the teeming millions who are 
 bom and die, at mere haphazard as it were, along the crooked ways, 
 where to the human eye there is no light nor joy, are not 
 
THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 317 
 
 forgotten. Up and down, as Jacob saw them, go the messengers of 
 God. To all they come : to those who are working out, with fear 
 and trembling always, yet with steady resolution, what they take 
 to be for them the will of Grod ; and to those who are wavering 
 on the brink of danger ; and to those no less — nay rather, more 
 eagerly, if possible, — who have already sinned and are persisting 
 in their sin. 
 
 Up and down, too, go the messengers, in those hard places of the 
 world where circumstance, to human eyes, is as a Devil-giant co- 
 ercing hapless lives not only into pain but into moral wreck. We 
 do not say that evil circumstance, that plagueinheritance of ancient 
 sin, is a light thing. We think, indeed, that He who judges all 
 of us will make allowance amply. It seems evident that to some 
 the avoidance of a special sin — say "drunkenness — is easier than to 
 others. To none, short of moral madness, is sin in truth a necessity ; 
 and the madman's acts are not sin. What we conclude is not so 
 much that those who are thrown among evil surroundings are 
 wholly to be excused, as that those of us who have had better 
 advantage, have the deeper blame. But everywhere, and to each 
 with the appropriate message, come the bearers of God's grace. 
 
 When the man who is clothed in purple and fine linen and fares 
 sumptuously every day, is basking in a sensual ease, some warning, 
 whether it take the form of Lazarus or no, awakes him to remem- 
 ber better things. When the stricken child, to whom life never 
 brought a sweeter message than the harmony of the outward 
 squalor and the inward pain, lies wistfully drifting towards the 
 welcome end, there are hands unseen that clothe upon its soul 
 the raiment of a lovely patience, and light up within its eyes the 
 radiance of an unearthly lesson. When the successful Philistine 
 is blotting day by day from the tablets of his brain the memory 
 of any spiritual possibilities, there is a hand that constantly renews 
 the unconsidered lines, so that he cannot choose but sometimes 
 see them. For every battle there is an ally, for every frailty a 
 support ; with every temptation, however fierce it seems to our 
 not quite impartial judgment, there goes forth for us the possibility 
 of bearing it. 
 
 Conceiving thus of human life as a warfare wherein we daily fight 
 with sin with the perpetual assistance of the grace of God, the 
 Catholic Church presents to us, as the central fact of the world's 
 history, the coming of the Christ. 
 
 It is not uncommon to reproach us with our acceptance of the 
 supernatural ; and our critics seem to be quite satisfied that the 
 admission of any belief which involves things not explainable by 
 so-called " natural law," is mere superstition — as absurd as witch- 
 craft, and less respectable than Spiritualism or the Mind Cure. I 
 
318 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 will not stay to discuss this general point of view, but I will content 
 myself with the remark that there is no necessary antagonism at 
 all between Naturalism and the Supernatural, rightly understood. 
 If Free Will be a fact, that alone transcends at once all that in the 
 narrow sense is spoken of as " natural law ; " for every free act, 
 if it be truly free, introduces a spiritual new creation into the 
 sequence of material and organic forces. Why should not the 
 same be true in a wider field ? If there be a personal God, why 
 may His will not also intervene and mould the stolid course of 
 physical change and consequence ? And if there be such influence 
 at all, why should we assume that it is opposed to Law ? Rather 
 must it be itself the action and evidence of a higher and more 
 spiritual reason in things, which we perhaps cannot as yet follow, 
 but which we too may some day see. 
 
 To the Catholic, then, the cardinal fact of the whole world's 
 history is the birth, and life, and death of Christ. The old world 
 leads up to it : the new is its development and outcome. Unique 
 in all the centuries — lowliest and yet most royal — that dying 
 Preacher, who was crucified by Jerusalem and Rome for saying 
 that He was the very Son of God, is the comer-stone of the world 
 fabric — the key of the human mystery — the Lord of Life. Reading 
 the simple narrative, waiving all question of inspiration, if you 
 will, we can come to no other conclusion but that He claimed to 
 be the Incarnate God. Not at aU a wise Socrates — ^not in the least, 
 a later Isaiah — not a mystic nor a magician ; but the very God — 
 the Word made Flesh — the absolute " I am." 
 
 " Think, Ablb 1 Dost thou think ? The very God— 
 Lo, the All-Great were the All-Loving too — 
 Lo, through the thunder, speaks a human voice, 
 Saying, ' A heart I made, a heart beats here — 
 Thou hast no power, nor mayst conceive of mine, 
 But love I gave thee, with myself to love. 
 And thou must love me, who have died for thee,' 
 
 The madman saith Se said so — it is strange 1 " 
 
 Upon this absolute and central truth of Christ's Divinity, the 
 Church insists as the focus and radiating point of all her teaching. 
 I have spoken of her wide philosophy of sin and grace. For both, 
 she takes us back at once to Christ. His life and death — the 
 perfect sacrifice, the purifying and the reconciliation of sinstained 
 humanity — bore in it the needed infinite redemption, built in the 
 counsels of the eternal mercy, the golden bridge by which every 
 sinner may return. In the mystery of that Life and Death, at 
 once true human and inalienably divine, is the origin of all grace. 
 He is the link between the Finite and the Infinite ; therefore He 
 is the Way whereby we come to God, and whereby God communi- 
 
THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 319 
 
 cates Himself to us. In that, by reason of His humanity, we are 
 the brethren of the Son of Grod, so are we heirs of the Heavenly 
 Kingdom. In His Sonship is the eternal Fatherhood of G-od 
 revealed. In that He died, He conquered death; in that He 
 lived and liveth, He is the door of Life Eternal. 
 
 On all this, I say, the Catholic Church insists — and with far 
 keener and more eager vigilance than any other of the confessions. 
 For if Christ be not God, she feels, then is our hope vain. If He, 
 who on a score of critical occasions claimed to be Divine, was but 
 a madman or a fraud, let us not play at Christianity — let us rather 
 eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Because from the first she 
 guarded this essential truth before all else, therefore she spent 
 centuries in defining and maintaining the doctrine of the Trinity 
 and the related doctrine of the Person of Christ, the Human and 
 Divine. The elaborate formulae of the Nicene theology and the 
 rest are not scholastic subtleties or the quibbles of an oriental 
 fancy : they are the necessary basis and security of the vital fact 
 of Christianity. It is either these, or nothing. 
 
 And as she has insisted always on the doctrine of the Trinity, 
 so, for exactly the same reason, she has been careful to uphold the 
 honourable prerogative of her, whom from the earliest centuries 
 she has styled the Mother of G-od. Wonderful, indeed, it is to any 
 Catholic to hear the stale invectives which are still bestowed on 
 " Mariolatry," as if somehow the worship of the Divine were 
 squandered on a creature ; for there lives no Catholic so ignorant 
 as not to be able to tell you the true answer — that we honour her 
 precisely because to do otherwise would be to ignore the real 
 G-odhead of her Son. 
 
 Believing, then, that Christ is the " very G-od of very God," who 
 took upon Himself the human nature and dwelt with us on earth 
 awhile, the Church presents His earthly work under four different 
 aspects — though these also are in truth the same. He is the 
 Saviour of the world ; He is the Revelation of the Truth of God ; 
 He is the Perfect Life ; and He is the Founder of the spiritual 
 kingdom. You will see that each and all of these grow naturally 
 and at once out of the main conception of His nature and His 
 office. In the world-reconciliation, it was needful that men should 
 learn to know God better, and that they should be taught to do 
 His will, seeing that the human wisdom and human good inten- 
 tions had not sufficed. Equally, as I have sought to show you, was it 
 necessary that an abiding institute should be created — not indeed 
 a kingdom of this world, but yet a palpable, continuing, organic 
 fact — a sure custodian and an abiding witness. 
 
 On some of these points I have dwelt already — of all, there is 
 abundant notice in the Gospel texts. To insist on them at length 
 
320 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OP THE WORLD. 
 
 here would carry me beyond my scope. I pass therefore at once 
 to say that beyond this fundamental insistence on the Divine 
 character of Christ, there is another derivative sense in which the 
 Catholic Church insists constantly upon the supernatural. 
 
 I said that, in her view, the life of man must needs be constantly 
 assisted by the spiritual help of God ; and that she presents the 
 life and death of Christ as being, in the design of Providence, the 
 fountain of this unfailing Grace. 
 
 Now it is her special pride and office to be a means of salvation 
 available to all — to be a Church truly Catholic, to whom nothing 
 of humanity is alien, from whom the beggar can draw spiritual 
 wealth as surely as the prince or the professor, though they too 
 find, if they will seek it, all the special help they need. To the 
 end that there should be in the world such tangible and easy ways 
 of entering into the Heavenly Communion, of appropriating, each 
 I)oor nature for itself, the riches of the treasure of the Lord, the 
 Church believes that Christ ordained that series of symbolic rites, 
 adapted to the crises of our life, which we call Sacraments ; and 
 that it was His will to appoint concerning these that they should 
 be to His disciples (apart from prayer) the ordinary channels of 
 the communication of that grace and pardon and spiritual susten- 
 ance which in and through the office of our Saviour we claim from 
 the Almighty. True is it, that this infinite ocean of Love is waiting 
 for us all the while. Yet, in the spiritual order. Love, too, has its 
 own laws, and this is one of them. That by Christ's appointment 
 we draw its channels into our souls as ireely and as fully as we will, 
 or as our capacity for receiving it will allow, by obeying the sacra- 
 mental ordinances of the Christian dispensation in faith and love 
 and humble trust in Him. 
 
 I need not tell you — for it is patent — that of this sacramental 
 system the central fact is that, which more than any theoretic 
 point marks oflf the life of the Church Catholic from everything 
 beyond it — the acceptance of the Keal Presence of the Lord upon 
 our altars under the sacramental form. 
 
 To those who approach this as mere critics, bringing neither 
 personal experience nor sympathy to aid them, no man can hope 
 to say what it implies. To them I will only say, " You read the 
 Imitation and you hold it a great book — one of the treasures of 
 the world — a mirror and revelation of the holiest in man. Read, 
 then, the sacramental chapters of that soul-swaying meditation, 
 and go back and scoff at us, if you can." Or let them go, if they 
 prefer life to literature, into any Catholic church — not at a fash- 
 ionable midday Mass, but in the early morning, on some great day 
 like Easter or the Birth of Christ — and watch the still, rapt glad- 
 
THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 321 
 
 ness that has fallen on the meanest faces, watch the fellowship and 
 ■democracy of the altar rails, catch the energy of better effort and 
 of new beginning, and the enthusiasm of sincere repentance, 
 and the nobility of high worship that makes the air electric, and 
 tell us, if they can, that it is all no more than mummery and 
 priestcraft, folly countersigned by fraud. 
 
 All this may be deception, you will say ; and undoubtedly, 
 although subjective testimony may be much to us who have 
 believed, to others it is at the best a noticeable phenomenon. 
 Something more is wanted. We must show a reason for our faith 
 in this most startling or most mystic doctrine of a spiritual 
 Presence that transcends not only sense but maddest imagination, 
 of which yet there is no outward sign at all. 
 
 Our first reason, naturally, is in the Bible text itself We say, 
 and I confess I cannot conceive that an intelligent atheist would 
 doubt it, that Christ said neither more nor less than what the 
 Church teaches concerning the Eucharist, not only when He 
 founded that rite on the most solemn occasion of His intercourse 
 with His Apostles, but at many other times ; and, above all, in 
 that test discussion which is recorded in the sixth chapter of St. 
 John. But strong as is the Scriptural argument, the Church has 
 another that is perhaps still stronger. 
 
 The doctrine of the Real Presence, linked with that of the 
 ordinance of the Last Supper as a mystic, yet most effectual com- 
 memoration and representation of the Passion of the Lord, is the 
 essence and import of " the Mass." Now that great act of common 
 worship and of mystic sacrifice, of solemn commemoration and 
 public prayer for all the living and the dead, is, and has always 
 been, the central office of the Church — in every age and nation 
 substantially, nay even minutely, the same. Being so notable a 
 corporate act, it has been always safe-guarded by jealous provision 
 for a settled liturgical form. There is no time in the history of 
 Christendom when that liturgy is not before us as a palpable and 
 most significant record ; for in every age and under every variation 
 it testifies beyond cavil to the belief in a Real Sacramental 
 Presence of the Lord as the whole point and meaning of the great 
 office. 1 suppose there are many able and learned persons who 
 imagine, in a very careless ignorance, that the Mass is a " fond 
 thing vainly invented" somewhere in the iliddle Ages. Yet 
 nothing is more palpably untrue. 
 
 The case stands thus. There exist certain great types of the 
 Liturgy of the Mass — all perfectly at one in their intent and 
 doctrine and general plan, and even in their main forms of prayer 
 and in unexpected coincidences of phrase and action, yet varying 
 in practical arrangements and filled in with details evidently 
 
322 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 arising by local usage. Each of these is clearly parallel to and 
 not derived from the others. Each is attributed by the local 
 tradition to an apostle, who was the early founder of the local 
 church. Each is carried up, by a separate chain of documentary 
 and historical evidence, to a time not very many generations 
 removed from the living witness of those who saw and heard the 
 Lord. What is more clear as a mere matter of scientific historical 
 criticism, than that these great trunk lines of liturgical tradition 
 must have diverged from a common Apostolic type or norm — 
 and that this type must have been, as they are, a central and 
 sacramental and commemorative office, involving a Real Presence, 
 and being to them in all essentials what the office of the Mass has 
 been to us to-day ? 
 
 Probably many of you will be incredulous, but the proofs are 
 very simple. At Some, we have the Liturgy which is now the 
 common, though by no means the only form used in the Catholic 
 Church, and we trace it back so far, that details of its use are 
 attributed to Popes who ruled between 100 a.d. and 120 A.D, 
 The names of the Saints commemorated in the text are known ta 
 have been added by gradual accretion, and yet all of them, with a 
 solitary ezception, were martyred before a.d. 310 (the excepted 
 date being 362), while the earlier names go back to Linus, Cletus,. 
 and Clement, the immediate successors of Peter's Chair. Ambrose 
 of Milan, himself the editor of a special rite still preserved there,, 
 cites some of the Roman prayers soon after 400 a.d., as being 
 taken from what he then called "the ancient rites." Like all 
 the others, it was preserved in oral tradition, by reason of the 
 Discipline of the Secret, until the fifth century ; but we have on 
 record, in the Epistles of St. Innocent I. in the fourth century, 
 that Pope's opinion that the Liturgy was in fact the true tradition 
 given by St. Peter to the Church at Rome. 
 
 Turn now to the other great rite preserved at Alexandria, which 
 in like manner was committed to writing by St. Cyril, Bishop of 
 Alexandria, after 400 a.d., and ascribed by him and by the whole 
 Church to the direct oral tradition of St. Mark himself. The 
 internal evidence of the prayers, as they were then set down and 
 have been since preserved, points to the period of persecution, say 
 300 A.D., as the date of some of the added prayers, the body of 
 the rite being therefore earlier. The condemnation of the Euty- 
 chian opinions in 451 led to the schism which detached aU the 
 Copts from Rome : yet the Copts have to this day a form of the 
 same Sacramental Liturgy of St. Mark and St. Cyril, which was 
 old among them then. 
 
 If you go to Syria, the great Liturgy of Jerusalem, ascribed to 
 the tradition of St. James himself and to the dfrect development 
 
THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 323 
 
 of the Church described in the Acts of the Apostles, is the Liturgy 
 long used by and still preserved among the Eastern Eutychians, 
 who therefore held it as the true tradition before 450. The 
 Nestorians, who have been separated since 431, keep to this day 
 a related rite, named from St. Thaddaeus the Apostle. Indeed, 
 we are told that Nestorius was the iirst of the schismatics 
 of whom it is even alleged that he had altered the ancient 
 Liturgy. It is curious to remember that the Portuguese, when 
 they discovered Malabar in the sixteenth century, found a 
 native Church there using this very rite ; and it is now clear 
 that they had it from the Nestorian Church of Babylon, where it 
 was in use before 400. But we carry this rite still further back 
 with an absolute historic certainty. For it happens by good 
 fortune that there are preserved to us the Sunday-school lessons 
 of St. Cyril, who was Bishop of Jerusalem in 347. In these he 
 actually instructs his catechumens in the ritual and meaning of 
 the Mass, and for that purpose he explains point by point this 
 venerable liturgy of St. James, much as we have it still as the 
 basis of a hundred local rites throughout the Catholic East. 
 
 Now each of these three great normal types of the Eucharistic 
 tradition — that of Peter at Rome, that of James at Jerusalem, 
 that of Mark at Alexandria — is perfectly independent. No scholar 
 can dream that any is derived from, or even moulded by, any 
 other. The hundreds of minor variations fall to the scholar's 
 criticism easily under one or other of these or other equally 
 ancient types. But the types themselves are sisters, not inter- 
 dependent but collateral ; and therefore they are sisters of a 
 common stock. These three or four most venerable types — ^to 
 leave aside the others — involve an archetype. Yet each of them 
 by about the year 300, was not only established but old, and 
 based by those who loved it upon an Apostolic tradition. Who 
 made the common archetype, I pray you, which Rome and 
 Alexandria and Jerusalem and Babylon assume ? In what common 
 Eucharistic centre do these traditions meet ? Who taught the 
 half-dozen intervening generations to accept this appalling mystery 
 with common certainty, as a thing not doubted even when dog- 
 matic heresy was rife and all the world rang with polemical 
 debate — as a thing which every schismatic took with him, what- 
 ever else he left ? Who taught it, I ask, or could have taught it, 
 but the Master who, on the world-historic night, commanded them 
 to do in memory of Him the solemn act which He did then. 
 
 If you still doubt what I say of the Apostolic origin of the 
 Eucharistic Act, I would have you read what is not hard of 
 access — the Apologia of Justin, who is called the " Philosopher," 
 addressed as early as 138 a.d. to Antoninus Pius, in defence of 
 
324 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the Christian faith. Therein, speaking generally of the existing 
 rites, for he had lived in Syria and at Alexandria and Borne, he 
 describes the outline of the Mass. As the core and heart of it, 
 he insists in plain terms on the doctrine of the Eeal Presence. 
 With great simplicity and directness he bases both the doctrine 
 and the ofiBce upon the institutionary words of Christ. And as if 
 to exclude any caviller who might suppose it a new idea of his 
 own or his contemporaries, he goes on to remark as a striking 
 fact that " the evil spirits " (as he puts it) " have introduced this 
 very solemnity into the mysteries of Mithra," the then fashionable 
 ritualism of Rome ; proving so that to his knowledge, — and he 
 was a master of all the schools before his baptism, — the Mass 
 was older than these fantastic Eastern rites, and was in fact, as 
 it claimed to be, the commemorative office framed by those who 
 first received the Eucharist at the very hands of Christ. 
 
 If then the Mass we have to-day, was known as the ancient and 
 undoubted worship of the Churches by this Syrian convert, bom 
 when John, if dead, was only just dead, and to whom John's 
 personal disciples and the imme(fiate followers of James and Paul 
 must have been known, what will you say ? If the " Supper of 
 the Lord," which Paul was setting in order among the Corinthians 
 about 50 A.D., was not the same thing as Justin was admitted to 
 about 120 A.D., who altered it ? Not the beloved disciple, or his 
 pupil if you will, who wrote the Fourth Gospel ; for the Fourth 
 G-ospel insists most markedly on this very Eucharistic doctrine. 
 Not the Church at Rome ; for there, as I have said, the tradition 
 preserved by well remembered records from the joint martyrdom 
 of Peter and Paul down to the Sacramentary of Gelasius is un- 
 broken by any hint of variance. The answer is that there is no 
 change, no innovation; only an untiring efifort to hold fast the 
 ordinance of the Saviour, who left it as His most precious legacy 
 when He went out to die. 
 
 Terrible it is, if you will — surpassing human speech — this 
 point of heavenly fire that lives within our worship. You will 
 tell me it is vain to trace it back to the Apostles, for the thing 
 itself is past believing. I admit that if Christ be not God, our 
 hope is vain — omr holy office, as you say, a mummery — our 
 Communion with the Lord of Heaven and Earth a bitter firaud. 
 But I warn you that if you come with me so far as to SLgiee that 
 Christ was, and that He was Divine, you must come further. If 
 you repudiate the whole record, I understand you. But every 
 competent critic now admits that quite worthy witnesses are 
 before us. If you take the witness as of any weight at all, you 
 cannot put aside the clear consensus and wilful repetition of the 
 three Synoptics who record the words of institution ; nor the still 
 
THE CHUECH CATHOLIC. 325 
 
 fuller and more deliberate enforcement of the same by Paul ; nor, 
 above all, tbat vivid dramatic sermon in the sixth of John. 
 
 I have dwelt long upon the subject of the Mass and of the 
 Eucharistic doctrine. It is, I think, an obvious dividing line 
 between those conceptions of faith and worship which in our 
 own day are tending towards Catholicism, and those which lead 
 away from it. I have only time to pass now to one other 
 aspect of the Catholic Church, in which it appeals with peculiar 
 force to the present struggling generation, and to the coming 
 time. 
 
 As the root idea of the Protestant Reformers was flat individual- 
 ism, so the dominant note of the Catholic conception of the world is 
 solidarity. In the beginning, the Church was all but a communism. 
 In the days of persecution, all who had, without other compulsion 
 than the love that Christ revealed, gave up their wealth to feed 
 the needy ; and this fraternal distribution was directly organized 
 by the Church. At all times, though she has allowed private 
 property, she has suggested that to forego it is the better way. 
 At all times, to those who keep their own, she has preached a 
 far-reaching duty of charity to all the world, which if it were 
 carried out, would leave little disparity to mourn. 
 
 As in property, so in all else. The universal brotherhood has 
 been to her no empty name, but a world-reforming fact and law. 
 Strongly, through bribe and menace, she has striven to uphold 
 the equality of prince and peasant before the moral code ; and it is 
 her pride to remember that even when the hatred of the English 
 Crown was the penalty of refusal, a weak and hunted and tor- 
 mented Pope refused to mete out to the Tudor any other marriage 
 law than would be meted out to the meanest hind within his realm. 
 
 And no less is it our pride that we can say that while the 
 Church stood upright, here and elsewhere— even to the latest 
 hour of what they call her worst corruption — she provided for the 
 people a career, far more sure and better worth their following 
 than the most advanced democracy has given them since. 
 
 Take the great Churchmen, who, by their sheer ability and 
 learning, did the chief part of the government of the world for 
 many a century. They are a noble line, promoted often to an 
 almost royal dignity, and in the vast majority of cases for no 
 reason except their talents, or their virtues, or both ; and of these 
 men an enormous multitude are the children of the poor. There 
 was not a country side that had not within reach its abbey or its 
 cathedral ; and where a peasant lad showed promise, and desired 
 at once to serve God and to make his life useful upon a wider 
 plane, it was very certain he would be put to school and made 
 a " clerk ; " and once a clerk, the Church to him was but an 
 
326 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 organized democracy, wherein nothing, even to the Papal chair, 
 was inaccessible to merit. You have sown the land with schools ; 
 you have improved the Poor Law and multiplied philanthropies ; 
 and you do well: but for all these things it was easier for the 
 deserving helpless ones of the earth to find help in their need, 
 and easier for those whom God endowed with power to find their 
 rightful place, before Henry sacked the monasteries and made 
 himself the English Pope. 
 
 If you pass to social or to political liberty it is still the same. 
 In the Brotherhood of Christ the Church saw neither bond nor 
 free. The patrician maiden and the slave-girl, in the Acts of 
 •the Early Martyrs, meet as equals and as friends. As swiftly 
 as human inertia allowed, the Church abolished slavery. In the 
 home, she found woman degraded by the licentiousness of the 
 age. She freed them at a stroke when she declared that marriage 
 was a Sacrament of God ; and when she placed above her altars, 
 as the symbol next in holiness to the Incarnate God, her stainless 
 ideal of womanhood and maternity, she did more to hold in check 
 men's proneness to brutality than all the laws that ever punished 
 crime. In our own and every other struggling commonwealth, 
 when the feudal power was at its worst, and threatened to engulf 
 for ever the liberties of the tenants of the soil, it was the Church 
 more than any other single force that bearded these lords of war, 
 and made it possible for the common people to achieve their 
 liberty. So it was the Church that gave articulate voice to justice 
 and to civic reason, in adapting first and in administering after- 
 wards the codes of written law ; and here, as everywhere, she was 
 but seeking, after the rough-hewn fashion of human institutions, 
 to carry out Christ's paramount commandment — rthe Law of Love. 
 
 But not only within each single state was she a power for justice 
 and emancipation — she was more and greater than them all. By 
 the character of her Catholic title and her Catholic commission, 
 she held up before the peoples the ideal of a world-community. 
 Amid the lawless violence of the mail-clad centuries, she provided 
 at least a possible arbiter. And however men may sneer at the 
 ambition of the Popes, the European peace would be much nearer 
 than it is to-day if the notable example of Prince Bismarck could 
 be adopted as a commonplace of diplomacy. 
 
 A^Tien the Empire fell, the Church upheld its claim. To this 
 hour, she refuses in the name of her conmiission, and she will 
 refuse, to bind herself by any frontiers, or to be otherwise than 
 independent in her own field of every, national government 
 whether it wears its crown in Rome or no. She knows that the 
 world-progress is hampered while our narrow frontiers hedge us 
 in with prejudice and tarififs, and our national self-seekings and 
 
THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 327 
 
 distorted patriotisms keep all the nations lowering at each other 
 like caged beasts, and stifle industry and freedom and every noble 
 thing beneath the immeasurable load of military preparation; 
 she looks for a better time when the human brotherhood may be, 
 even in statecraft, a practical reality. 
 
 Yet not even here can I pause. For if she prophesies of a 
 World-State, and laughs at the little fences statesmen draw upon 
 the map, no less does she bid us think of even such a common- 
 wealth as but one province of the Heavenly Kingdom. " The 
 Church " to her cannot be bounded by the little scene whereon 
 we play our parts a little while ; for the Church is the Body of 
 Christ. In our Father's house there are many mansions ; and 
 this is but the outer porch. Beyond the grave her children are 
 not far away. She has taught and always teaches that they are 
 linked to us, and we to them, in that Community of Saints which 
 reaches upwards to the throne of God. It may be that they, our 
 brethren, are of the company of the Church Sufifering — purging 
 away, by what endurance and patience and travail we know not, 
 the mortal stains they carried from the warfare of the Church 
 Militant, where we were comrades and brethren in arms. It may 
 be that already, if with our measures we can rightly appraise 
 what with the immortals takes the place of time, they have 
 passed into that other company of the Church Triumphant, 
 ■whose place is in the sight of God. Yet wheresoever they may 
 be, our comrades, we can reach our hands to them and they to us, 
 in prayer and spiritual fellowship, and unseen in God's ordering 
 a common life goes on. Members we are then, of one another — 
 here and in the unknown : members of one transcendent spiritual 
 yet organic whole — and that whole is the Body of Christ. 
 
 Endless, of course, are the things that yet remain to say 
 concerning the great tradition of the Catholic teaching. Endless 
 also, I believe, are the ways in which it would be well for us and 
 for our children, if the Catholic Truth were so stated in our 
 modem speech, that those who now say that every Catholic must 
 needs be either knave or fool, could understand the things that 
 they despise. For the present purpose I am content if I have 
 been able in any measure to set forth these three outstanding 
 aspects of the Catholic belief — the claim of the Living Voice, the 
 treasure of the Sacraments, the Brotherhood of the Body of 
 Christ. Like all else in Truth, they are but dififerent aspects 
 of the same thing, — the application, namely, of the work of Christ 
 to the needs of all humanity. They are the same in this also, 
 that in each there comes the note of Catholicity. In Christ all 
 men are one, — and that, not merely in any formal or theoretic 
 unity, but in a brotherhood which, if we could once translate it 
 
328 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 into the formulae of government, would leave Democracies and 
 Socialisms behind. 
 
 Those who take themselves to be the best exponents of Western 
 civilization, have been accustomed of late to treat the Church 
 with scant courtesy ; and I agree that if, as some of them suppose, 
 religion, and perhaps duty also, is altogether to vanish from the 
 earth, then the study of Catholicism would be but a waste of 
 energy. But if, as I believe, the moral and religious conscious- 
 ness of man be no less a fact than knowledge or physical growth 
 or life or death, then I claim that this transcendent expression of 
 religion through the Christian centuries demands a hearing from 
 them all. They call it dead, yet it is more alive, in the moiilding 
 of humanity, than all their schools. They say it belongs to a 
 forgotten past, but there are not wanting signs that it shall 
 inherit the future. In the field of ethics and religion, England, 
 like the rest, is dividing rapidly into two camps — those who do 
 and those who do not hold that religion is unnecessary and any 
 reab'ty of God superfluous. When that division is complete, it 
 will be seen that the walls of the camp of the believers are but 
 the fold of the Catholic Church. 
 
 In the field of social and political relations the old order 
 changes day by day more swiftly. Much is gone and more will 
 go. Surely one thing is clear : that neither just industry nor 
 social health nor noble government is possible, unless we build on 
 something better than self-seeking, and appeal to something 
 holier than " the desire of a remembered pleasure " ? Indi- 
 vidualism, and the Manchester School, and freedom of contract, 
 and all the theories that sought justice in the war of interests 
 and progress in the clash of infinite selfishness, are being carried 
 out before our eyes to burial. Protestantism is fighting for its 
 life with organic disintegration and intellectual doubt, to which 
 it can oppose neither a reasoned philosophy of life nor any authori- 
 tative gospel. It cannot rescue the body politic, for it cannot save 
 itself The masses leave it on the one side, and the leaders of 
 opinion on the other. Is there no hope at all, of light and leader- 
 ship in the coming time ? 
 
 I -submit to you that the promises of the Messiah have not 
 failed. His followers were the social saviours of the earUer 
 Europe; it is not more difficult to help the centuries that He 
 before us. That which He promised to upkold, lives on ; and, 
 gathering up the ancient truth and the modem hope, it points 
 the nations, now as always, to that true Republic, where freedom 
 is the law of duty ; where all are equal as the sons of God ; and 
 where fraternity is the willing service of the brotherhood of 
 Christ, when the Kingdom of the Lord shall come. 
 
329 
 
 THE- MASS. 
 
 £r B. F. C. COSTELLOE, M.A. 
 
 I FELT that I was attempting a difficult task when I ventured to 
 address you last year on the broad subject of " The Church 
 Catholic." Your kindness and patience then have made me think 
 it possible to accept your renewed invitation, and to speak to you 
 of a subject harder still for me to deal with wisely and for you to 
 rightly apprehend ; for I suppose there is not one of the institu- 
 tions of the world which has been, and is, so great a stumbling- 
 block to modem Englishmen as is that great historic and spiritual 
 fact which is the subject of this address. 
 
 I have taken it for two converse reasons. To all Catholics it is, 
 and has been since Christianity began, the very heart and centre 
 of the spiritual life. To the majority of Englishmen, and to 
 most of you, it must have hitherto seemed to be a relic of 
 barbarism and a psychological enigma. The very name of the 
 " Mass " has been for centuries a bjrword among you, connoting 
 to the unheeding generation of our fathers only an exploded 
 superstition and an aimless mummery. In our own time, since 
 Protestantism of the original type has begun to give way before 
 the advance of a more consistent unbelief, the great names and 
 uses of the Church have not been visited with so much obloquy, — 
 perhaps, with some, because they have been relegated to a deeper 
 contempt. Yet I dare to hold and say that what lack there is 
 among you of sympathy, of respect, nay of belief, is in the main 
 the outcome not of an evil will but of a lack of opportunity ; and 
 it is for that reason that I make bold to try if at least some poor 
 beginning may be made by setting forth the Catholic beliefs in 
 language less strange to your own habits of thought than is the 
 common language of our books of doctrine or devotion. That the 
 task is too great for me, I know only too well. I have neither 
 the knowledge nor the spiritual insight, neither the preparatory 
 training nor the official authority, which that man must have 
 who would state the truths of God to this hurrying generation. 
 And yet, poor preachers though we be, there lies, I think, on all 
 
 22 
 
330 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of us a duty, when occasion comes, to do our little spell of work in 
 building up the roads of truth. In the day of beginnings we 
 may be able to do little ; but if we do our little work, in God's 
 own time " that prophet " shall rise. London is not more proud 
 of the swift advance of culture than was Florence in its new birth 
 of knowledge and triumphant art; yet Savonarola led Florence 
 captive, in the power of God. London is not half so hopeless of 
 Christianity, not half so sunk in the mad endeavour to fill up the 
 void of the spirit with the sweet things of the flesh, as was the 
 Paris of fifty years ago ; and yet all Paris was swept into reverent 
 attention by the voice of Lacordaire. Pray with me, my iriends, 
 if you still pray, that God may send His prophet unto us also — if 
 it be but as one crying in the wilderness, that after all the long 
 confusion in the way of the Lord may be made straight again, and 
 His good tidings preached abroad ; so that they who have ears to 
 hear — they who have not stopped the ears God gave them with 
 the wax of self-indulgence or with the wool of slipshod, careless, 
 idle ways of thought — may hear and understand. 
 
 I have said that to the majority of the English people the 
 Mass is a byword ; and yet there is a large and important section 
 of them who have nevertheless been drifting steadily towards all 
 forms of Catholic usage and belief. Those who are not of them 
 may miY but little among them ; but if they would reckon with 
 the currents of the time, they cannot overlook the startling 
 growth of a pro-Catholic party in England. I do not mean the 
 mere triflers in ecclesiastical fancy work. I mean those who speak 
 of sacramental, of eucharistic, doctrine in terms an outsider 
 would not easily be able to discriminate from our own. The 
 fact has its significance, even for the world of unbelief. If 
 you count those who, since Newman, have joined the Church 
 outright with those who have come so close to it that for this 
 purpose they are our allies, you will find that there is a Catholic 
 school of thought among you which may well claim a respectful 
 hearing. Men who are eminent in politics ought to be no bad 
 judges of a thing so human as religious tendencies — and it is a 
 curious fact that the actual chiefs of both the political parties are 
 earnest and avowed believers in everything probably which I shall 
 have to say to-day. 
 
 It is not much to count heads, but we have startling things to 
 say, which to many of you may seem but a midsummer madness. 
 Therefore, we pray you to remember that, apart from other times 
 and other lands, there are those among your political leaders, 
 among your judges and your greatest lawyers, among your best 
 scientific men, and in every rank and circumstance of English 
 Ufe, who, being no more fools than any of you, yet find it possible 
 
THE MASS. 331 
 
 and imperative to believe these strange and startling things, as 
 truths for which they would be well content to die, if need were, 
 and by which, as their main spiritual stay, they live their daily 
 life among you. This does not begin to prove that our beliefs 
 are true ; but it does prove that they are not incredible. 
 
 How shall I even begin to speak of it ? To us of the family of 
 the faith it is a fact so familiar, so closely woven in with all we 
 know of God and of the spiritual experience, that we hardly put 
 it into words. You may haunt our ceremonies and know our 
 printed prayers by heart, yet if you do not bring to them some 
 Catholic sense, you will find but the tinkling cymbal and the 
 sounding brass. In the first centuries it was pre-eminently " the 
 secret " — that fact of the new life so holy, so beloved, that no 
 profane eye should see it, and none but they who were prepared 
 to love it should even know the mystery. We have fallen far, in 
 these easy times, below the fervour of their devotion ; yet in our 
 measure the same is true of us. To-day, as then, — in this city, 
 as in the catacombs, — it is the secret of holy souls, the guarded 
 heart of fire in many a commonplace, unnoticed life. Outwardly 
 it may seem to you often a trivial thing, with tinkling bells and 
 inartistic ornament ; but equally in the silence and the song, in 
 the poverty and in the pride, it is the tense communion of our 
 myriads of souls, each for itself and in its own way, with the 
 hidden presence of the Lord. The Mass is the one essential act 
 of the public worship of the Church. It is designed to combine 
 the new idea of a sacrament with the old tradition of a sacrifice. 
 It is in truth a hundred things in one — as complete in its adapta- 
 tion to every private need as it is rigid in its ritual adherence to 
 the canons of the earliest liturgy. But, above and before all else, 
 it is the commemoration of the death of Christ, and of that 
 .Last Supper when He left this ordinance to His disciples, as 
 a momentous legacy and a last command. 
 
 There are two linked beliefs relating to that Last Supper which 
 must be borne in mind by every one who would approach in any 
 honest way the consideration of the Mass. They are the sacra- 
 mental doctrine of the Eucharist, and the belief that Christ then 
 founded by His recorded words and deeds an ordinance since 
 followed in the Liturgies of the Church. The vindication of these 
 involves, of course, all Catholicism : the testimony and value of 
 the New Testament, the question of the person and oflSce of 
 Christ, the reality of any religion, the personality of Grod. The 
 Catholic view of the world hangs together ; you must take it or 
 reject it as a whole. It is, as I have already sought to show you, 
 the only consistent Christianity — the only escape from the quick- 
 sands of private interpretation or the deep sea of sceptical suspense. 
 
332 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 The proof or disproof of this claim is the ultimate question. For 
 the present, however, I take it that your chief desire is to know 
 what we msan; and therefore I say that, for the apprehension 
 of our meaning, you must first realize that we do in truth believe 
 in the world-historic scene in that upper room. It is in that 
 narrative — the account, as we maintain, of a Divine Person — 
 that we find the key to and the warrant for the office of the 
 Mass ; and I think that unbiassed readers will probably agree with 
 us that, if the words recorded were said at all, their sense is not 
 really doubtful. They certainly were not understood in any but 
 the one way, either by the Apostles or their immediate pupils, 
 or by the ages of the Church, or even by the countless 
 heresies, until Luther and his friends went a-hunting for new 
 interpretations. 
 
 Recall for a moment the familiar story. The strange sending 
 of Peter and John to claim the room " because the Master's time 
 was near at hand : " the keeping of their last Passover, with all that 
 it implied to them as the central office of the Jewish system, in 
 which the lamb was slain in token of the saving of Israel out of 
 the land of bondage in the early days; the memory in their 
 minds of His repeated prophecies that He would leave them soon, 
 and of that recent scene when the Healer of Lazarus rode into 
 Jerusalem amid the hosannas of the people, waving triumphal 
 palms ; the sudden shock when Jesus girt Himself with a towel 
 and began to wash the feet of all the twelve, that, as He said, 
 they might be " wholly clean " for some great event to come ; 
 the high words of commission that followed, " Verily I say unto 
 you, he that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth Me, and he 
 that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me ; " and then the 
 culminating words of institution, — concurrently recorded with 
 religious care in the three synoptic gospels, designedly omitted 
 in the Gospel of John, — commemorated by the testimony of the 
 Apostolic writings, and by the unbroken tradition of the Church's 
 Liturgies, — when (having said, " With desire have I desired to eat 
 this passover with you before I suffer ") " He took bread, and 
 giving thanks He brake it {e&xapurrijaai e«Xo<re), and gave unto 
 them saying, Take and eat. This is My body which is given for 
 you. This do in commemoration of Me." 
 
 You will know that when He says, " Do this," He uses a word 
 appropriate to a sacrificial act, " Do this office, perform this rite, 
 in memory of Me." You will notice also, that when He identifies 
 the Eucharistic Bread with His body. He is careful, according to 
 all the witnesses, to use the clear present tense, " My body which 
 is even now being broken,'' or (as another puts it), "being given 
 over to death " for you. 
 
THE MASS. 333 
 
 These were strange sayings, my brethren, either senseless or 
 supernatural. But they understood. For they remembered that 
 preliminary lesson which John has recorded in his sixth chapter, 
 for the confirming of this very teaching in a later time, when 
 much was in danger of being forgotten or misbelieved. They 
 remembered — how could they forget it ? — when to those cavillers 
 who asked for such a sign as was the manna to their fathers He 
 replied, "/am the Bread of Life," "The bread I will give is My 
 jleah ; " and they cried out, " How can this man — this carpenter's 
 son — give us His flesh to eat ? " 
 
 But His words beat down on them again, royal, imperative, 
 unyielding. " Moreover, I say to you, except ye eat the fiesh of 
 the Son of man, ye have no life in you. . . . He that eateth 
 My fiesh and d/rinketh My blood, dAmUeth in Me and I in 
 hvm." And now not the Jews only, but almost all His followers, 
 rebelled. It is a hard sajdng — who can hear it ? " How can we 
 eat His flesh ? " Does He retract, or soften, or explain ? Nay ; 
 but as He had begun by telling them that the work of God 
 was to believe Him that He had sent, so now in this crisis of 
 their faith He asks only for belief again. And many — all but 
 the twelve, it seems — ^went back and walked with Him no more. 
 Did He say, " Ye have taken a parable too literally " ? Did He 
 offer a hidden meaning ? He only turned sadly, half wearily, 
 to His twelve and said, " Will ye too go away ? " And Peter 
 answered — not, " It is easy ; " not, " We understand ; " but with 
 a cry of faith, confident through all strange teaching, even as 
 are we Catholics to-day, that the message was Divine — " Lord, 
 to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life." 
 
 I have said that the writer of the Fourth Gospel omits the words 
 of institution, as being in his day the common knowledge of 
 the Church. But the vast importance which he attaches to the 
 fact is made all the more clear by the wonderful sermon, burning 
 with the Divine Love, and instinct with the idea of the Divine 
 Communion as the root of all the holiness of that new life, which, 
 Hke the earlier lesson, he alone reports. He wrote somewhere 
 about 100 A.D., long after the Synoptics and the writings of St. 
 Paul. And it is important to notice that the same connection 
 between the idea of the Eucharist with its sacramental com- 
 munion and the idea of the unity of the Church as the Mystical 
 Body of Christ, wherein Christ's life and love must needs be 
 indwelling, had been also worked out in other forms by the 
 Pauline Epistles. 
 
 It is not possible to detail within any reasonable limits 
 the great number of indications to be found in the New Testa- 
 ment as to the continuance by the earliest followers of Christ of a 
 
334 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 commemorative rite, in which this " giving of thanks" at the "break- 
 ing of the bread " was repeated in an evidently sacramental sense, 
 and as an act of public worship. There is a hint of it even in the 
 ,story of Emmaus. But immediately after Pentecost we are told 
 that the converts " continued steadfast in the Apostles' doctrine, 
 and fellowship, and in the breaking of bread, and prayer," where 
 evidently this "breaking of bread" is a distinctive note and 
 observance of the Christians. A little later their action is de- 
 scribed by saying that they " continued daily with one accord in 
 the Temple " (at their public resort in Solomon's Porch), and 
 " breaking bread from house to house," as each afforded that 
 " upper room " in which they loved to commemorate the Supper 
 of the Lord. In the latter part of the Acts there is more explicit 
 notice of this same observance, as of a public gathering for worship, 
 in the account, plainly given by a fellow-traveller and eye-witness, 
 of St. Paul's visit to Troas. They found there an important com- 
 munity, and the words of the writer give us a graphic picture. 
 He describes the upper chamber, with its many lights. He says 
 that on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together 
 for the brea,king of bread (apparently now a technical phrase), 
 Paul preached to them, and, intending to depart on the morrow, 
 he continued his discourse till midnight. Then, after describing 
 the accident and the healing, which was the occasion of the 
 narrative, he goes straight on : " And having come up again, and 
 having broken bread and eaten, and having conversed with themi 
 till the dawn, Paul departed." 
 
 Now it is plain to any impartial reader of this narrative who 
 knows anything of the other evidences concerning the early 
 Church, that this was a public Sunday service in commemoration 
 of the Supper of the Lord, and that the " breaking of bread " was 
 the characteristic central act, to which St. Paul's sermon was lead- 
 ing up, and which, after the startling interruption, he completed 
 in due form. 
 
 Apart from any question of biblical inspiration, it is not possible 
 to escape from the clear meaning (as a matter of history) of certain 
 passages of the Epistles, such as the tenth and eleventh chapters 
 of the first letter to the Corinthians, admittedly one of the earliest 
 documents of the Church. It is a sermon against certain laxities, 
 first as to the Temple meats, and then as to the misuse of the 
 " Ag^pe," the Love Feast, combined, as is well known, with the 
 special celebration of the Supper. The whole passage is charged 
 with forms of expression and turns of thought which evidently 
 refer to the sacramental conception of the Mass as we hold it now. 
 After recalling those types of the sacraments of Christianity 
 which he found in the history of his own people, he tells his 
 
THE MASS. 335 
 
 followers, as the very reason why they may not be partakers of 
 the table of the heathen gods, that they are already partakers 
 of " that one Bread " — " the bread which we break," as he 
 calls it — "which is the communion of the body of Christ." 
 That " bread " is thew" sacred sacrifice, and they dare not hold 
 it so lightly as to let it be supposed that the heathen travesty 
 of sacrifice to Aphrodite and the rest was otherwise than an 
 abhorrence in their eyes. 
 
 In the eleventh chapter he is still more explicit. His warrant 
 for complaining of such unseemly things as happened when they 
 " came together for the eating of the Lord's Supper " is no other 
 (as he tells them) than the very words of Christ's institution, which 
 he repeats in full. " I have received of the Lord that which I 
 delivered unto you, that the same night in which He was betrayed 
 He took bread, and when He had given thanks He brake it, and 
 said. Take, eat, this My body, which is broken for you : this do 
 in remembrance of Me." He tells them in plain words that " as 
 often as they eat this bread and drink this cup they are showing 
 forth the death of the Lord," and he warns them that if they take 
 part therein " unworthily " — if each man does not first prove, 
 examine, assay himself, to see that he is void of grave ofi'ence, and 
 " so eat that bread " — ^then they shall be " guilty of the body and 
 blood of the Lord," and it shall bring the uttermost judgments 
 upon them. 
 
 I can only indicate the Pauline argument, but every line and 
 word of it strengthens the conclusion that he is referring to an 
 Apostolic antitype of our office of the Mass, and to nothing else. 
 Less distinctly, but with equal truth, the same thing may be said 
 of the argument of the unique Epistle to the Hebrews, of which 
 the' keynote is the insistence on the " priesthood according to the 
 order of Melchisedek," who offered the bread and wine. I venture 
 to affirm that if there were no other historic testimony for the 
 Mass than that which is to be found within the canon of the New 
 Testament, it would be enough. We do not find any direct account 
 of the liturgical form. The texts we have do not deal with such 
 matters. Yet, even as to this, there is in the same passage of 
 the Corinthians a significant phrase. The graver abuses he has 
 attacked they will themselves, he is confident, put away ; " the 
 rest," he adds, " I will myself put in order when I come." He will 
 regulate, he means, the manner of their observance, that all things 
 may be done, as Clement put it, " decently and in order." We 
 cannot, in the face of the surrounding evidence, doubt that such a 
 settled order did arise. There is thought to be further reference 
 to it in the second chapter to Timothy, and in parts of the Book of 
 the Eevelation. It has even been plausibly maintained by some 
 
336 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of the best scholars that at least one passage in the Epistles is 
 itself a quotation from one of the ancient liturgies. 
 
 I alluded in my former address to the remarkable evidence 
 which is afforded by the comparison of the ancient liturgies them- 
 selves, and by the concurrent testimony of the earliest writings. 
 Before I revert to that subject now, I think it will be well that 
 I should attempt to state in a few words what the Mass in fact 
 contains. 
 
 Reverting to the historical side of the subject, it now becomes 
 needful to refer to the address delivered some months ago, when I 
 had not thought that I should be asked to devote a separate paper 
 to this special aspect of the Catholic tradition. Had I foreseen 
 any such opportunity, I should perhaps have reserved the general 
 sketch I then set before you. But in view of the account now 
 given of the actual contents and character of the Liturgy, it will 
 not be amiss if, without unnecessary repetition, I direct attention 
 in a more special way to the cogency of the arguments from criti- 
 cal and historical data, on which we hold that it is impossible to 
 ascribe to the Catholic beliefs and usages in the Mass any later 
 origin than the recorded ordinance of Christ. 
 
 I have urged that the biblical arguments are striking. But to 
 the critical student of Christianity, the books which the early 
 Church included in the canon are not necessarily more authentic 
 than other early documents extant. From the latter part of the 
 first down to the beginning of the fourth century we have a chain 
 of writers differing widely in nationality and character, and writing 
 about many different subjects. My proposition is that no fair 
 reader can collate their numerous utterances which bear on the 
 central service of the Christian Church as they knew it vrithout 
 admitting that it was in all essentials the same thing as the Mass 
 I have described, of course in a less developed form. 
 
 I will not repeat what I said before as to the consensus of the 
 early rites, though that is, in truth, the most striking argu- 
 ment of all. But I will just refer you to a few remarkable facts 
 about the liturgies themselves, which point very strongly to the 
 Apostolic age. 
 
 It is known that the ritual texts were not committed to writing 
 till the fourth century. St. Basil, when he wrote out his own 
 liturgy, was himself struck, as he indicates, by the singular fact 
 that, at the most vital and most carefully guarded portion of the 
 office, — the words of institution, — the liturgical tradition did Twt 
 follow the written texts of the Gospels and Epistles which had for 
 centuries been the common possession of the Church. He ex- 
 plains that in that matter the Church had not referred herself to 
 the written words, because " there are many points most impor- 
 
THE MASS. 337 
 
 tant for the mystery which we receive (from the Apostles) by 
 unwritten tradition, in addition to those which the Gospels 
 relate." 
 
 And even if we had not his weighty testimony, it is very plain, 
 on a mere comparison of the texts, that in spite of their necessary 
 veneration for and dependence on the origin and charter of the 
 rite, no one of the ancient types followed the formula of any 
 Gospel. Evidently they claimed for themselves a co-equal or even 
 a superior authority, as regards the events of that momentous 
 Supper, 
 
 It comes out in many ways. The liturgy of St. James, which 
 is probably the nearest of all we possess to the archetype, gives us 
 the words in the first person, meaning apparently that James 
 himself is speaking. The texts of the Gospels vary as to whether 
 Christ spoke of " My body which is broken," or " My body which 
 is given." The liturgy of St. James vouches that He said both. 
 Almost all the rites are particular to say that when He invoked 
 the Eucharistic blessing Christ " raised His eyes to heaven " — not 
 to be found in the Bible — and apparently therefore a traditional 
 detail. But the most curious fact is that practically all the 
 rites concur in the ceremony of " mixing water with the wine " 
 — of which there is no word in the Bible. Their tradition as to 
 this detail of Christ's action was so strong that they regarded it as 
 an essential part of the rubric of the commemoration. And St. 
 Cyprian, discussing (not long after, A.D. 200) this very question 
 of form, asserts that he upheld it because it was the tradition of 
 the Apostles as to that act of Christ which they were commanded 
 to repeat. 
 
 Now, as I have before proved, such matters cannot conceivably 
 have been copied by any one of the liturgical fiamilies from another. 
 There is no common centre, after the Apostles, on which they can 
 be supposed to converge. If then such minute matters were 
 preserved and handed down concurrently in each, they can have 
 •come only from the scrupulous care of those who saw and heard 
 the great act, and themselves directed the manner of its 
 commemoration. 
 
 As for early testimonies, they come to us from every side. 
 Pliny's inept account to Trajan of the worship of the despised sect 
 confirms, as do all the other Soman travesties, the internal and 
 very accurate account we have from Justin Martyr. Pliny uses 
 the word " sacrament," though he does not know its meaning. 
 Justin even uses the word "sacrifice." 
 
 Irenaeus is not very far removed from the Apostles, and his 
 writings teem with allusions to the doctrine of the Real Presence ; 
 but he gives us even a stronger piece of evidence than his own. 
 
338 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 for he tells us in distinct and very technical terms how the 
 heretic Marcus, whom he was attacking, had himself retained, 
 though in a perverted form, the Mass and the Real Presence, so 
 that he professed to make the wine show as red blood in the cup 
 after his words of invocation. Why should a heretic of the second 
 century have carried away these things, even in his revolt, if they 
 were not then one of the essentials of the Apostolic faith ? 
 
 I mentioned before the minute account of the then ritual 
 of Jerusalem in the catechism of Cyril, written about 350 ; and 
 I cannot now dwell, as I would wish to do, on the extraordinary 
 strength of the argument as to the antiquity even of the minutiae 
 of the office I have described, which we derive from this and from 
 the far earlier account of Justin. Even in the Mass known to the 
 latter — not long after 100 — we can distinguish the Entrance, the 
 Offertory, the Preface, the Eucharistic Prayer, and the Formula of 
 Institution, the Exclusion of the Catechumens, the Communion 
 of the presiding priest and of the people, and the explicit doc- 
 trine of the Real Presence. What stronger evidence need we require 
 to prove that the tenor of the Mass was in existence, as the 
 accepted Christian ritual, a few years after the death of John ? 
 
 One further point I would wish to mention, and with it I will 
 leave this argument. I have mentioned the Prayer of the Great 
 Intercession. St. Cyril, in 347, refers to it, and he mentions 
 a number of topics which it then embraced. All these, as 
 a matter of fact, are found in every one of the Liturgies. But 
 that form of prayer has lately been found, by a fortunate accident, 
 to be far older than Cyril. Clement of Pome, who is named by 
 St. Paul in the unquestioned Epistles, and who was undoubtedly 
 in authority at Rome soon afterwards, wrote several Epistles and 
 other things which were not included in the Canon, though they 
 sure probably more ancient than some parts of it. Certain 
 fragments of one of these which was lost have recently been 
 recovered ; and these are found to contain an extract from this 
 very portion of the Liturgy, which, therefore, was then in use and 
 honour. Their wording is found to be the same, so far as it goes, 
 as that which is preserved to us in the texts of the Liturgy used 
 at Alexandria, and ascribed to the tradition of the Evangelist 
 St. Mark. Here then is a vritness that cannot be tampered with ; 
 and the voice of this fragment, buried for near eighteen 
 centuries, joins with all the other voices in proclaiming that the 
 Liturgy of to-day is as old as the Apostles. 
 
 So fer I have been seeking to make clear to you the basis, the 
 tenor, and the history of the Mass. 
 
 To each of the great institutions of the world there belongs 
 a philosophy, a group of antecedent ideas which it pre-snpposes. 
 
THE MASS. 339 
 
 embodies, and translates into the actualities of life ; and a utility, 
 a range of ends subserved, a scope of human needs fulfilled, a tale 
 of the world's work done. In the former, the critical thinker will 
 seek the inner logic of the historic fact. By the latter, the 
 practical man will appraise, too often rashly, the right of that 
 which is to be preserved. 
 
 Let me ask then at once, what is the philosophy of religion 
 which underlies and is involved in the unique institution with 
 which I have to deal ? 
 
 The fact of knowledge, the existence of ethics, the possibility 
 of political or social life, — all these involve, as all who are familiar 
 with Kant's fundamental arguments will allow, certain ideas as 
 the antecedent conditions of their possibility. So also does the 
 existence of religion. I do not seek, however, to analyze religion ; 
 I can only ask you, for purposes of elucidation, to permit me 
 to set out at once those broad general ideas which are here 
 implied in that expression of religion with which I have to deal. 
 
 Of these, I distinguish four : the need of prayer, the fitness 
 of worship, the craving for a Divine comrmunion, and, above 
 all, the realization of the personal presence of Qod. 
 
 These form what I may call the abstract ba.sis of the Mass, apart 
 from that dogmatic aspect of it which I have already referred 
 to as the public profession of a Catholic faith, the commemoration 
 of the death of Christ, the fulfilment of His last behest, and the 
 mystical renewal of His sacrifice. 
 
 You will see, I hope, that the four ideas I have referred to arise 
 out of the very essential character of religion, as distinguished, for 
 example, from ethics or from poetry. Ethics is the side of life 
 on which I stand related to an abstract, imperative, rigid law, 
 a pitiless, infinite yea or nay. Poetry — indeed, art in general — 
 is that phase of life in which I stand related to an infinite beauty, 
 revealed in endless subtleties of unexpressed suggestion; an 
 infinite that evades us as we grasp it, a truth that is so vague and 
 unconfined that it is very hard to say when it is true. 
 
 Religion also is a relation between the finite self and the 
 infinite, but it is distinguished pre-eminently in this, that for it 
 the relation is always and above all things a personal one. That 
 the attribution to infinite being of all that we mean, in any 
 positive sense, by personality, is involved not only in ethics but 
 even in knowledge and all else, is capable, I am certain, of strict 
 proof. But neither in the intellectual nor in the etiiical side 
 of things is the personality of the infinite the prominent note. 
 In the religion of intellectual life, the infinite is truth ; in the 
 arts it is beauty ; in the ethical world, it is law ; but in religion, 
 beyond and above all else, it is love. Knowledge may imply a 
 
340 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 knower, and law may presuppose a lawgiver. But love cannot 
 even be stated or thought of but as the love of one person for 
 another. 
 
 In this we touch the beating heart of the universe. Unless 
 you are audacious enough to seriously say that all the religion 
 of the human centuries is a mere delusion and a dream, then we 
 may appeal to the mere existence of religion as a fact of life 
 in proof that the infinite distances are not a silent void, that in 
 the tideless reaches of the past the seeing eye would find, not the 
 blind onset of an iron fate, but the personal tending of a tireless 
 care, and that the shut portals of the future shall disclose not 
 death, but the living God. 
 
 If, then, religion presupposes and indeed Tneana a personal 
 relation between my personal self and a personal God, this 
 relation must be evidently common to all men ; and in every age, 
 accordingly, it has presented itself in public as well as in private 
 forms. By all kinds of men it seems to have been felt that public 
 assemblies for religious observance were a natural need. What 
 then should such a sacred office imply? I contend that, by the very 
 necessity of the case, it must imply exactly those great elements 
 which I have abeady named as essential points for every Catholic 
 Mass. Each of these, therefore, I will ask you to consider with 
 me for a moment. 
 
 It must involve the element of jprayer. If there were no such 
 thing as prayer, religion would be an idle sentiment — indeed, a 
 mockery. If I stand face to face across the universe of things 
 with another Person who cares for me infinitely, and whose power 
 is limitless, I will surely cry to Him in my need. Some access, 
 some way of intercourse, is involved in the very thought of such 
 a Godhead. We speak to Him and He will hear us. But there 
 are those who ask. How can He answer ? and they tell us that the 
 course of things is fixed by a beneficent and unswerving law. 
 No one denies the cosmic order, nor the sequences of cause ana 
 effect. I am not talking of any such thing as praying for a miracle, 
 nor do I need even to discuss whether there be such things : for 
 there is scope enough for God's answer to our prayer without 
 violence to any of the so-called laws which are the fetish of the 
 lesser sort of scientific men. You do not prove by pointing us 
 to causes and events that Providence must stand aside and see 
 the cruel wheels go round. I venture to say you will prove 
 nothing against a rational belief in prayer until you go the whole 
 irrational range of pure materialism, and deny all freedom of 
 human action as well as of the Divine. Are any of you prepared 
 to say the universe is but a gigantic mechanism ? If you think 
 you are, let me remind you that the theory will do more than 
 
THE MASS. 341 
 
 just destroy religion. It will end at once all ethics, all efifort, all 
 ideals. It will reduce consciousness to a mockery, spirituality to 
 a dream, and love to a chemical attraction ; and, after all, it will 
 have explained nothing, but rather rendered everything insoluble. 
 
 No such wild hypothesis can be rationally described as the 
 result of science ; and, consistently with all we do know, I repeat 
 ^at there is ample scope for our belief In the first place, we 
 know, as clearly as we know anything, that our action is every 
 instant changing, sometimes on issues of enormous moment, the 
 natural trend of the forces about us. A ship is driving on a lee 
 shore. To a savage eye her wreck is an obvious inference from law. 
 But a man's will, by a power of selection and adaptation simple 
 enough to us, can turn the very engines of destruction into the 
 servants of his design. So can God, we say, upon His greater plane. 
 
 Again, a thing of daily experience for us, as between the human 
 lives we know, is the fact of influence. Exactly how the personality 
 of a man or woman acts on other lives, we cannot pretend to say. 
 But friendship and love, hate and help, rivalry and discipleship, 
 we have all seen to spring into being, sometimes in a moment, 
 for a mere nothing, a casual meeting, a passing word. A trick 
 of feature, some subtlety of voice, or a so-called personal 
 magnetism yet more impalpable, may bind as by a spell not only 
 individuals but mighty masses of men. We see such things 
 among ourselves. When we pray God for light and growth, for 
 purity and healing, for help and hope and holiness, why shall not 
 He act also in such ways of influence, in His far wider way ? 
 
 We pray, then, in the Mass, as the Church has always prayed, 
 for our own needs and for all the world's, in due obedience to the 
 will of God. The element of general prayer — the great inter- 
 cession — is, indeed, one of the main factors of that archetype of 
 all the liturgies for which we claim an apostolic origin. Not only 
 is it present in all the five great families, but its very tenor is in 
 all of them the same, and in all it is connected closely with the 
 central act — the repetition of the sacramental words. In all it 
 takes the double form of a prayer, first, for all the living, and 
 then for all the dead ; for to us they are all members of that body 
 of Christ, which is the Church. To us the life beyond the grave 
 is not a fatal alternative of instant heaven or hopeless misery, with 
 no world of growth and preparation set between. If by prayer we 
 can help our brethren whom we see, then we believe that by 
 prayer, if God will, we may help also our brethren who have gone 
 before us — out of sight, indeed, but not beyond our reach; for 
 they also are but another of the folds of God. 
 
 It is this great intercession which has survived in most of the 
 Protestant religious services under one form or another; though 
 
342 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 in tliese its great significance as a witness to the idea of the 
 solidarity of all the Church on earth and in the other world has, 
 for some strange reason, been destroyed. But it is not on this 
 venerable formula alone that Catholics rely for the element of 
 prayer. In the Mass the ritual words are but the guides, and not 
 the fetters of devotion. The whole course of the oflBce is to the 
 devout Catholic one long occasion for prayer. It is made intense 
 and living by the solemnity of the action. It is assuredly not 
 chilled, but rather constantly upheld, by the familiar form and 
 ceremonial. Every movement of the priest and his attendants, 
 every time a bell is rung or a salutation or response is heard, is 
 but another warning to pray — eagerly, keenly, ceaselessly — using 
 the moments well, for now is the acceptable time. The Mass has 
 hardly begun when the Collects summon all to offer their prayers 
 for the good estate of Christendom, for these are the gathered 
 prayers of all the brethren. After the Creed, the offertory warns 
 us to present our lives as a living sacrifice before the Lord, and to 
 pray for all our personal needs. The ceremony of the " Lavabo " 
 bids us pray for purity of heart and forgiveness of our remembered 
 sins. Presently there are the so-called " secret" prayers of the 
 priest, where we bethink us of our hidden necessities. We join 
 in the great intercession, and we are taught to make therein a 
 special mention of every personal friend, and every individual soul, 
 in life or death, for whom, by any personal reason, we are moved 
 to pray. Presently, raising his voice, the priest cries, " And to us 
 sinners also." It is a call to his hearers that they should turn 
 again to ask of God the helps that, in their sin, they need. A 
 few moments more and you will hear again the lifted voice reciting 
 the ancient formula with which the Lord's Prayer is ushered in ; 
 and all will follow it, for it is said aloud ; and all will answer at 
 the closing words, and join in that echo of them which comes after 
 in the prayer against temptation. The " Agnus Dei " is yet another 
 summons, and its cry for mercy, for acceptance, and for peace 
 is echoed in its turn by the beautiful prayer for the peace of the 
 Church, which leads on to the Communion. That past, there 
 follow prayers of thanksgiving, and the Mass is closed. 
 
 Anyone is free, of course, to read the ritual words with scrupu- 
 lous observance, and if it be helpful to his personal devotion he 
 does well ; but everyone is likewise free and is advised to adapt 
 this course and movement of the ritual to his own soul's wants, 
 and to his own best methods of spiritual expression. Therefore 
 the Mass is never rigid, cold, inert, as other rites have been 
 where ritual was the beginning and the end. The whole great 
 company of worshippers in a Catholic cathedral are doing but one 
 thing — they are joining, and they feel themselves to be joining, 
 
THE MASS. 343 
 
 in one and the same great act ; and yet at the same moment 
 everyone is standing face to face in instant personal relation with 
 the presence of God. 
 
 If it were possible T would have wished to indicate to you a few 
 of the many common plans for individual prayer, called " Methods 
 of hearing Mass," which are to be found in our various books. 
 But prayer is not the only phase of that personal relation which 
 religion means, and I must pass now to another form of it at 
 least as universal. No one can deny the constant recurrence in 
 human history of the idea of " worship " — that homage paid to 
 the infinite Lord which we commemorate in the common use 
 of language when we describe our religious office as " Divine 
 service." 
 
 If it be true that religion means a relation of person to person, 
 it is also evident that that relation does not imply any equality 
 of rights such as we expect, rightly or wrongly, in the human 
 relations we know. Freedom of one individual as against another 
 we assume, and rightly, in our human conduct. For every 
 assertion of a right to make me alter my own course for your 
 advantage or desire must prove itself or be denied. Until you can 
 show good reason to the contrary, I am among men my own 
 master, and, in right of my mere manhood, equal comrade of every 
 man who breathes. But as between any man and the Divine, 
 how vast, how inefifable, is the difference ! 
 
 I observe that in the post-Eeformation systems of thought, and 
 above all in those American new departures of which Emerson 
 and Walt Whitman are the true exponents, there is a strong 
 tendency to suggest that there is something base and servile in 
 the acknowledgment of any dependence of a human person — 
 even upon the Divine. Some of these people talk as if they 
 might shake hands with Grod ; others as if it were a fine thing to 
 shake their fists at Him. One of the most brilliant, and as I 
 fear most subtly mischievous, expositions of this kind of human 
 pride is to be found in Emerson's remarkable Essay on Self- 
 reliaiice. Yet what utter nonsense it all is ! One is tempted to 
 cry out, like the sour sage, " How God must laugh, if such a thing 
 could be, to see His wondrous manikins below ! " If we are in 
 fact face to face with a personality which is not one among other 
 equal selves, but infinite — a self as against whom neither right 
 nor duty can be predicated at all — a self without any possible 
 selfishness, for whom all conceivable limitations are but as an idle 
 fancy, and every imaginable power but as the lightest motion of 
 His will — then our self-assertion as against such an one is a mere 
 insanity. All ultimate goodness is and can be nothing but the 
 adjustment of our personal volition to the standard of that one 
 
344 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 effectual will. If then revolt can be nothing in the end but self- 
 destruction, it is merely ludicrous to enquire whether our human 
 dignity is injured by the act of adoration. As from Him we 
 derive our being, it cannot be false to say He is our Lord. If 
 there be any sense in which we can talk of justice entering into 
 so unequal a relation, it is most just that we should do Him 
 service. 
 
 The best reason for it, of course, is not that it is His due — for 
 our refusal will hardly make Him poorer. As with prayer, so with 
 worship also — it is for our sakes that we must lift our hearts 
 to Him. It is exactly because the emptiness of human folly is 
 prone to raise itself against the Master; it is because pride, 
 rebellion, swollen insolence, are possible, that it is well we should 
 remind ourselves of that eternal infinite disparity, and bow down 
 and bend the knee. Not even of purity or truth did Christ so 
 strongly speak as of humility, meekness, lowliness of heart. 
 
 Not that there are not forms of self-reliance and respect which 
 are wholesome and honourable, nay, even needful for the perfect 
 service of our God. If each man reverenced himself to every 
 height consistent with all other reverence the world would be 
 quickly purified. It is against the self-insistence in the face of the 
 Divine that we protest. Because to set up our will against the 
 holy will is the very mark of sin, therefore to worship is of 
 the essence of religion. 
 
 I have seen the stout burghers of a Dutch town, assembled in 
 their Grroote Kerk, marching about with hats on, talking sturdily, 
 to show that they disclaimed all figments of a reverent bearing. 
 If their manner did not belie them, they were minded, I fear, to 
 obey no more and no farther than they chose. To say that is 
 to say they were independent centres of action in the universe : 
 and these, like independent centres in our own or any other 
 organization, are in fact a disease, and must work out their own 
 elimination. 
 
 I fear that not a little of the common prejudice of a certain 
 robust type of Englishman against the Catholic religion arises 
 out of such a distaste as these Dutchmen, or as the typical John 
 Bull of the past, would certainly have felt for anything in the way 
 of worship which involved any very obvious abasement before 
 a higher power. To the Catholic mind this is not dignity, but a 
 monstrous littleness of soul. To us the acknowledgment of our 
 dependence upon the Father as those " little children " of whom 
 Christ spoke is a good and a beautiful thing. We believe that 
 they who in this sense are " poor in spirit " are " blessed," as 
 the Master said ; we confess our nothingness in the face of the 
 Almighty love, not grudgingly but joyously ; and every time that 
 
THE MASS. 345 
 
 we are privileged to assist at the offering of the Mass, we rejoice 
 in it as in a special and most fitting opportunity for the act of 
 adoration. 
 
 It is to this ruling idea of worship that all our formal usages 
 refer : a kneeling posture, a reverent demeanour ; and all such 
 symbols as the offering of incense, or of flowers and other precious 
 things about the altar, which we think of as His throne. They 
 are but poor attempts after the expression of that sense of reve- 
 rence which it is surely our interest not to lose. Ruskin said 
 once that " in reverence lies the chief joy and power of life." The 
 lack of it in the modem world is an evil deeper than we know. 
 If you abolish the fashion and semblance of reverent worship in 
 religion, where else will it survive ? 
 
 Apart from symbolism, the note of worship is continued, through- 
 out the whole office, by the constant recurrence of the poetic 
 expression of the Divine praise. The hymn of the Nativity, 
 " Glory to God in the highest ; " the hymn of the Trinity, which 
 we call the " Preface," with the " Holy, holy," that follows it, are 
 in fact the earliest Christian poetry. Other psalms and chants of 
 the like intent were added, as the devotional sentiment of the 
 various churches ruled. You may think it is unmeaning that 
 men should " praise God ; " and so it would be if it were not that 
 spontaneous expression of our gladness in His perfect majesty 
 which is but the translating of our adoration into words. Your 
 blustering burgher chanting formal psalms may be but " a sound- 
 ing brass ; " but the humble soul, who for the pure delight of 
 thinking upon God must needs proclaim His glory, is but joining, 
 as our own Preface puts it, in the Heavenly Song. 
 
 There is yet another sense in which the Mass is charged with an 
 intense adoration, such as must often amaze an earnest stranger. 
 As the action rises towards its culminating point, you cannot fail 
 to notice how the signs of waywardness, or vanity, or inattention 
 gradually cease. Those who have been sitting, kneel — those who 
 have been reading lay their brows upon their hands to pray. 
 And when the warning bell has rung, there is throughout a 
 Catholic Chtirch an intense silence, a rapt devotion, such as I, 
 at least, have never elsewhere seen. It is in that moment that 
 you may see how reverence alone can solemnize and glorify the 
 trivialities of Ufe. From the squalid warrens of the poor, from 
 the sordid worries of the middle class, from the idle vanities of 
 fashion, they are gathered together — as of old — for the breaking 
 of the bread. They have come to pay their service to that 
 Majesty before whom all differences fade. And as the great words 
 are said, the great act done, they are rapt beyond the little 
 things about their feet, and are forced to look up, if it be but for 
 
 23 
 
346 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 a moment, at the mighty things that are eternal. In that great 
 moment, even the least of His little ones may be glorified by the 
 solemnity and the enthusiasm of adoration. The inspiration of 
 high poetry and of glorious music is a noble thing, but for us 
 there is a way of nobler inspiration open to the dull and the 
 unlearned at least as readily as to the wise whenever Mass is 
 said. 
 
 The third idea which I set before you is the need of a Divme 
 Commv/nion. I know not, indeed, how I may express to you with 
 any clearness what to us that word conveys. I have said that 
 the idea of prayer — the access from our side to God — is inherent 
 in the very conception of a personal relation between the Finite 
 and the Infinite. If that is one side, Communion is the other. 
 The sense of our dependence, which we express as worship, is not 
 inconsistent, to the Christian, with the belief that in another 
 sense, transcending our imagination, we may yet be made one 
 with the Divine. If you will read the intense chapters at the 
 end of John's Grospel, or if you read any of the great books of 
 religious utterance, such as the " Imitation," you will see that the 
 sense of the Divine Love cannot remain for the religious soul a 
 merely intellectual proposition. "Whosoever eateth My flesh 
 abideth in Me, and I in Him." " That they may be one as we are 
 one ; I in them and Thou in Me," — such phrases, commonly de- 
 scribed as mystical, are reiterated over and over again. Aiad in 
 the passion of the Son of God, the great writers of the Church 
 have delighted to talk of dying to themselves and to all earthly 
 things that they may be the more lost in their Beloved. 
 
 These things are of personal experience, and to those who are 
 without they will seem nothing. I desire now only to point out 
 that the personal relation of each finite self to the Infinite Self 
 of which I began by speaking cannot be otherwise thought of 
 than as a union of love ; whatever in the marvels of the Infinite 
 such love may mean. This love, not merely of man for God, but 
 of God for man, is of the essence of the Christian, as indeed of 
 any, religion. Now of love itself, in any phase of it, what can we 
 say ? We have said and sung an infinite deal about it ; but we 
 can say little more than that it is a union of two souls, wherein 
 in some sense their personal interests have fallen away so that 
 they are to each another no longer alien, but as one. What, then, 
 would such love be, if it could transcend our limits and be taken 
 up into the Divine? We could not, apart from any revelation, 
 have professed to say ; but we may say without unreason that in 
 such a conception we have a key at least to some of the aspects 
 of the sacramental and mystic conceptions of the Divine Commu- 
 nion ; of an Infinite Love, who gives Himself to us, whose delight 
 
THE MASS. 347 
 
 it is to dwell with us, whose yearning is for our answering 
 love, who makes Himself like to our lowliness that He may reach 
 us and draw us to Himself; who can indeed, if we will love Him, 
 be one with us and yet our God, as we can indeed be lost in Him 
 and yet be none the less the personal selves He made. 
 
 I cannot pretend to tell you, even remotely, of that hidden 
 wisdom of the spiritual experience. None of you who have read 
 the lives and writings of the Saints can doubt that it exists, and 
 that they who have expressed it were uttering the most sacred 
 truths they knew, for the truth of which they would have counted 
 it a joy to die. You may think they are deceived, but that 
 intense belief is a tremendous fact of our humanity, and has had 
 and still has its immense results. There is, however, you explain it, 
 a human craving for such oneness with the far-off Infinite ; and 
 in the Mass it has found, among all manner of men, its full and 
 abiding satisfaction. The idea of such communion is, as you already 
 know, inherent in its earliest plan, as it was the main idea of the 
 Last Supper itself. In early times, the actual reception of the 
 Sacramental Communion by all present was the usual custom ; 
 but at an early date, for various reasons, that ceased to be ex- 
 pected. Nevertheless, so strongly is this side of the Mass insisted 
 on that you will find that all our books of devotion exhort the 
 hearer, if he is not prepared for the actual reception of the 
 Eucharist, to make at that part of the Mass the meditations and 
 exercises which are known as a S-pvritual CoTntnunion — that he 
 may thereby take unto himself, if not the sacramental fulness of 
 the Divine Love, at least so much of the sense and effect of that 
 union with the present God as in his duller spiritual state he 
 may. 
 
 The three ideas to which I have now sought to direct your 
 attention are, however, all dominated by the last, which con- 
 tains in itself the wide and fundamental distinction between 
 the Mass and every other form of the public worship of God. I 
 have called it the realization of the presence of God. 
 
 To all who believe in God He must of logical necessity be, in 
 some sense, always present. But when Christ said that " where 
 two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in 
 the midst of them," He was referring to the evident fact that 
 for the human consciousness there may and must be a special 
 presence of God, on those occasions when His children come before 
 Him. Here, as so often in the Catholic Creed, we come upon the 
 note of human solidarity. God is present to any religious soul ; 
 but where the brethren are gathered together — where the col- 
 lective life of the Christian society is manifested — there He is, 
 so to say, more fully present, and more near. It is good to pray 
 
348 KELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 alone, and to lift up the silent worship of the heart ; but it is 
 better, it is indeed a duty, to come forth and join with others 
 in a social act of worship, in a common prayer for all the common 
 need. For the Church of Christ is above all things an organic 
 community, wherein none are isolated, none rejected, none sent 
 empty away. The representative office of the Priest, offering the 
 Mass in the name of all the people, absent as well as present, dead 
 as well as alive, is itself the sign and token of this corporate 
 character. The congregation — each particular iKKXijcrla — is but 
 the representative of all the Church ; and to each there comes, 
 as we believe, the real presence of that Lord who has called the 
 Church His bride. 
 
 It is not enough that one should know, as an intellectual 
 proposition, that God is here. It is of much more consequence 
 that one should realize it — that His personal nearness should be 
 brought home to one's heart. We may know that a close friend 
 is not far off, but that knowledge has on us a very different effect 
 from the sound of a well-known step, and the hearing of a long- 
 remembered voice. Now the one thing which, above all else, 
 I venture here to claim for the great office of the Catholic 
 Church is, that it brings home to us the vivid, palpable sense 
 of " God with man." 
 
 At this point, however, the subject passes out beyond my reach. 
 I have more than occupied the space of time appointed to me. 
 And I could not hope, even if I delayed you far longer, to bring 
 home to you what is meant in the spiritual experience of the 
 Catholic world by the Sacramental Presence. There are some 
 things which it is not granted to man to utter, at least in the 
 ordinary ways of speech. 
 
 I will close, therefore, by pointing you for a moment to an 
 entirely different, but not alien, aspect of the great office of 
 the ChurcL 
 
 It has many forms and many uses ; but in such a world as that 
 we live in there is one great use which should not be forgotten. 
 It may clothe itself in the simplest surroundings and yet do all 
 its work for men. But in the ancient ritual and the ceremonial 
 tradition there is an opportunity which the Church has always 
 gladly used, clothing upon it all the glory of architecture and 
 of music, aU the wealth of colour and of precious things which the 
 devotion of the servants of God can offer in the highest act of their 
 worship. You know, my friends, what an infinite impulse this 
 very desire to glorify the place and the occasion in which the 
 Lord came to His people has been to Art in all the Catholic 
 centuries. Until some such religious fervour comes again, your 
 Art will strive but slowly. Do not say : " To what purpose is this 
 
THE aiASS. 349 
 
 ■waste ? " That which in the service of God is used to make 
 more glorious the common worship of the people is one of the best 
 gifts that can be given to God's poor. In many parts of the East 
 End of London, as a Protestant observer lately said, there is no 
 place of light and beauty but the Catholic Church. And what 
 higher work can art and beauty do than that of the handmaid 
 of a religion which is itself the solace and inspiration of the poor ? 
 If I could go on to tell you what we know of the human uses 
 which this office serves, I should have much to say of its utility 
 for many kinds of men. But it is to the poor, whom He most 
 loved on earth, that the fullest advantage of His great com- 
 memoration comes. You may do much for social conditions — you 
 may redress much injustice and open many avenues of success ; 
 but nothing you can do will compensate those who bear the 
 misery of the world for what they will lose if you deprive them 
 of a living religion, and of that great public act in which all that 
 is hard in human conditions needs must fall away, and in which 
 all that is glorious in human wealth is taken up into the glory 
 of the Divine. 
 
350 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 THE NEW CHUECH, COMMONLY CALLED 
 SWEDENBOKGIAN. 
 
 BT THE REV. THOMAS CHILD. 
 
 It may be asked, " Have we not enough of ChurcheB, . and why 
 another one calling itself the New Church ? " Well, there never 
 was a new movement which did not begin as a Church ; the more 
 secular fraternities of the politician and the reformer are to them 
 as Churches are in religious matters. And as regards the New 
 Church our claim is that it explains the problems which have so 
 long vexed mankind. 
 
 Turning then fvrat to the Philosophical Aspect of New Church 
 teaching, our primary attitude is not things as they are, but my 
 relation to them ; not, " Do things exist ? " but, " What must I, 
 as a rational human being, from the constitution and laws of my 
 nature, believe ? " Not primarily whether my belief is answered or 
 matched by existing things, but, "What is it that I am con- 
 stituted, and thus that reason compels me, to believe ? " This 
 is our starting-point. The facts of human nature are the best 
 interpreters of man; if we come down to them and let them 
 speak for themselves, we shall get clear and explicit answers. 
 But men seldom allow reason, as such, to speak, or the facts of 
 their own nature to declare, as they would with unmistakable 
 voice, the things that are true for it, and which that nature is 
 boimd, because constituted, to believe. Primarily, for example, 
 I am not concerned with whether God exists, but with whether 
 I ought to believe that God exists as the outcome of my con- 
 stitution. Afterwards, the question may come as to whether my 
 conception answers to the facts. You may always be sure, how- 
 ever, that what a man acknowledges himself as bound to believe, 
 he will equally declare to be an existing fact. Man then must 
 have a creed, because he has a nature ; he has a right to know 
 what his nature can tell him, and he is bound to follow its 
 teachings, whatever they be and wherever they lead him. 
 
 Materialists say : " Some things we know. We know that 
 man is matter. We don't know that he is anything else." But 
 have we a right to assume that, inasmuch as we do not see mind 
 acting without matter, therefore mind is the result of matter? 
 
THE NEW CHURCH, CALLED SWEDENBORGLA.N. 351 
 
 We have no such right. These two are simply, so far as we can 
 tell, co-existent ; and, being so, scientific inquiry should itself 
 prevent us confounding things that differ. Nobody knows, as a 
 matter of fact, that mind comes from matter. 
 
 But what is it that constitutes matter or substance ? " Qualities ! 
 qualities ! ! " the materialist says. " Destroy a man's orgfanism, — put 
 him in the fire, for instance, — and where is he ? What then are 
 these things you call soul, immortality ? They are myths. Don't 
 you see that when you destroy the qualities the man is gone, and 
 gone for 'ever ? " 
 
 I accept the position. Qualities constitute " things ; " and the 
 qualities of a material thing constitute a material thing, and the 
 qualities of an immaterial thing constitute an immaterial thing ; 
 and there's the end of it. Take the principle and follow it up, and 
 where does it lead ? To spiritual organization. How is that ? 
 In this way. The qualities of a stone constitute a stone ; of a 
 chair, a chair. Suppose you take the qualities from the chair. 
 How can you do that ? Put it in the fire ; the chair and its 
 qualities have gone. Of course there is a residue of dust and gas, 
 having qualities of their own ; but the point is, whether the 
 destruction of the qualities of any body is not the destruction of 
 the body itself Season and fact answer, " Yes." In man there 
 are two forms of substance. " No," says the materialist, " I deny 
 that." Well, look at the facts, so far as reason can show them. 
 Abstractly speaking, immaterial properties or qualities, if there 
 be such, constitute immaterial things, just as material qualities 
 constitute material things. But are there any such qualities as 
 immaterial qualities ? Is thought a material quality ? Is feeling 
 a material quality? Surely neither thoughts nor feelings are 
 material. They are not subject to the laws of gravity or cohesion ; 
 they cannot be weighed nor measured ; and they do not admit of 
 being seen, smelt, tasted, heard, or felt. They are, therefore, 
 immaterial properties or qualities, no matter whence they exist 
 as to origin. A series of qualities known as material, constitute 
 material substance ; and (we must not hesitate) a series of qualities 
 known £is mental, constitute mental substance. Mental and 
 material qualities are side by side in man. 
 
 The mental — or, if you do not object, the spiritual — directs the 
 material ; the directed matter is the agent, the means by which 
 the mind works here in a material sphere. Man is a spiritual 
 being at work in a material environment. It appears then that 
 the materialistic position is really undermined, and that another 
 position has taken its place. You put it in a nutshell thus : 
 Qualities constitute substance. There are immaterial qualities ; 
 therefore there is immaterial substance. 
 
352 . KELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 In what way are we to. think of the Infinite Cause or G-od? 
 Our only idea must be anthropomorphic — we cannot help ourselves: 
 in the very nature of the case it must be so. Man is bound to 
 think that God must be as man is. Don't you know that if 
 a dog could think of God it would think of Him as a dog, and 
 that a horse would think of Him as a horse ? And if you are 
 thinking of God, once more our point is, " What am I, as a human 
 creature, bound to think and believe concerning this Cause, but 
 that He is essentially like me, that He is not less than human — 
 that He is infinitely what I am finitely." Yes,, and your reason 
 declares that God is like you. You have emotions and feelings ; 
 and God has these, has intellect, has energy. God is the origin 
 of man. " God created man in His own image and likeness." 
 It was from an efflux of the Divine nature passing forth to the 
 external world, and fitting there to itself a material organism 
 taken from dust, that man was brought forth. 
 
 Is this transcendent ? It is rational. Nothing is more trans- 
 cendent than the simplest facts of life. 
 
 Well, but He may not exist after all ; it may be only my idea ! 
 Trust the idea which your nature impels you to hold, and all 
 else will come right. Be loyal to the facts of reason, and things 
 as they are will not be far from reason's way. 
 
 But I heeir another voice, which cries, " You say the mind 
 declares for cause, and you lead the mind up to God as the Cause 
 of all. Then what caused God ? Is not God caused too ? " No, 
 there is a mistake in the reasoning. Sequence is simply suc- 
 cession. Cause is the stoppage of succession, and your idea that 
 God may be caused is really a denial of cause and a reintroduction 
 of sequence. You take nature's idea of sequence, and read it 
 into Cause. In Cause there can be no such succession ; there 
 is the beginning of successions. When, therefore, man declares 
 that there is a cause of these successions, the last for him has 
 been reached ; and he cannot now, to be true to his nature and 
 reason, apply the law of succession to the Cause, for therein he 
 will be denying what he has already affirmed. 
 
 Men have had religion after its kind ; and now men have 
 science after its kind ; but the two must go together, if there 
 is to be any religion or science worth the name. What evidence, 
 then, does the scientist demand for the knowledge any man would 
 confer upon him ? In brief, the evidence of experience, his own 
 or another's. 
 
 Turning now to our second point (the Spiritual Aspect of the 
 New Church, that is, the sort of evidence which the New Church 
 presents concerning man's future, — the evidence of the senses), I 
 have not seen into that other world, I cannot let you see it ; but 
 
THE NEW CHURCH, CALLED SWEDENBORGIAN. 353 
 
 such is the evidence given. The Lord, as we think, when He 
 would unfold heaven to earth, unfolded it, as He must and could 
 only do, through a man prepared for that purpose. He made it 
 known through that man. I know that it is a risky thing to say 
 here, but I am bound to tell you what I believe. Swedenborg, 
 the man I speak of, says : " I have for thirty years been in open 
 communication, by the Lord's mercy, with the spiritual world." 
 And he gives us its laws ; and, curiously enough, the facts 
 interpret the laws, and the laws the facts ; and a study of these 
 things impresses the mind with the conviction that here th^e 
 is no crazy enthusiast, but a man of science, prepared through 
 his science, through all the knowledge the world could give him, 
 for this wider ememcipation, this opening of thought and knowledge 
 into the interior sphere, that he might bring forth the facts 
 from thence, and make them known. And now they stand in 
 black and white for the men of to-day to read and ponder and 
 comprehend. 
 
 The New Church, then, believes that there is a God acting 
 through the spiritual world into the natural world. Where is 
 the spiritual world ? It is in the natural world as the soul is in 
 the body; and as the soul is the centre and source of all human 
 activity, so is the spiritual world the source and centre of all 
 natiu-al growth and life. The idea of the spiritual world in the 
 natural world affords a key to much which the isms of the day 
 leave out. The mission of Swedenborg was to lay open the 
 spiritual world — the causal world — to our apprehension, so that 
 the world of causes and the world of effects might alike be 
 unfolded to the rational apprehension of humanity. Swedenborg 
 explained the facts and laws of both worlds, and the results are at 
 hand for our study. 
 
 Third. The Doctrinal Aspects of the New Church. The Bible 
 is not to us as to others. We do not accept it because it is 
 literally true, because the miracles are established, because 
 the prophecy is conclusive. It is not rational that such external 
 things should produce belief, which is an internal matter; 
 it is not rational to perform a miracle to make one believe. 
 Swedenborg has been the means of unfolding this book, the 
 Bible, to us in a way which has never been done before ; he says 
 that there is in the books constituting the Scriptures proper — 
 not in all the books which are now bound up with the Bible 
 — a real coherence from one end to the other, and such as could 
 never have been in a merely human construction. Our Church 
 holds the doctrine of the " spiritual sense of the word " which 
 is discerned as men progress from being, spiritually, " big boys " 
 to " grown up men." If revelation was closed ages ago, we are 
 
354 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 now "left out in the cold." To the very questions disturbing 
 men now there may be found an answer in the " spiritual sense of 
 the word." [The difiference between the literal and the spiritual 
 meaning of Scripture was illustrated by referring to a casket with 
 a beautiful exterior, but the gems which the interior held appeared 
 far more beautiful.] On the lines thus laid down the Bible was 
 provable to be God's book, but on no other lines. 
 
 As to the doctrines derived from the Bible, they consider that 
 there is nothing in the Bible to warrant the belief in a Trinity 
 of Persons in the Godhead ; that is simply impossible ; it is an 
 absurdity, three in one is a thing contrary to reason. A trinity 
 of essentials, however, there may be in God. There is a likeness 
 to this in nature, e.g. from the sun emanates heat, light, and 
 energy; and there is a trinity of powers in man. The New 
 Church considers the Father to be the Divine Love ; the Son 
 the Thought and Wisdom by means of which all things proceed ; 
 and the Holy Spirit the Energy sustaining all things. It wholly 
 disclaims the ordinary idea of the " Atonement." The Atonement 
 properly means " at-onement," i.e. reconciliation of God and man, 
 not the reconciliation of God to man, but man to God ; and this 
 was brought about when God assumed humanity as the Son, 
 and led men from matter to spirit, from death to life. This is 
 an awful thing to say, but the conception possesses rational 
 harmony. The " resurrection of the material body " we do not 
 believe in, inasmuch as when men go into the spiritual world 
 they will never want a material body more. A spiritual substance 
 is inevitably a spiritual body. 
 
 Fowrth. The Practical Aspect of the New Church — which may 
 be summed up in the sentence, " All religion has relation to life, 
 and the life of religion is to do good." That is the practical 
 embodiment of the New Church teaching. It does not deal 
 with mere doctrines, but its motto is, Doctrine in Life. 
 
 What must that future religion be that will satisfy man ? It 
 must be a union of science and religion. A religion capable of 
 being scientifically proved, because organically, humanly based, 
 is the only religion that the future could possibly accept. And 
 it is because this is exactly true of the New Church throughout 
 her universal grasp of facts and principles, because she can give 
 a rational reason for the facts of life and what she alleges in 
 regard to them, because she meets man wholly and explains him 
 through and through, that she stands out distinctively as the 
 exponent of this new era of the world. If the New Church is 
 not a philosophical and spiritual interpretation of man and his 
 surroundings, it is nothing. 
 
355 
 
 THE EELIGION OF DANTE. 
 
 BY OSCAR BROWNINQ. 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable than the manner in which the 
 reputation of Dante has developed with the new growth of 
 national life in the kingdom of Italy. There was a time when, 
 although his name was famous, his works were comparatively 
 unread. Tasso was sung by Venetian gondoliers, and shared 
 with the Promessi Sposi the honour of being an Italian text-book 
 for studious youth. The knowledge of Dante was confined to 
 the Inferno, and in that almost to the two episodes of 
 Francesca da Rimini and Ugolino, the pair of unfortunate 
 lovers who expiated their fault by being borne everlastingly 
 upon a rushing wind; and the father who, murdered by the 
 vengeance of an implacable enemy, fed in his last agony on the 
 bodies of his children, who had died before him. 
 
 With the first flush of Italian independence this state of 
 things entirely changed. I was privileged to witness from 
 time to time the marvellous spectacle of the renascence of 
 Italy. I remember Milan before Magenta, and Verona before 
 Custozza; Milan, when any citizen was liable to be roused 
 from his bed, and imprisoned in a fortress without a trial ; and 
 Verona, when it was dangerous to speak seriously except in 
 the open fields. I witnessed the rivalry of Cavour and Gari- 
 baldi at Turin, and read in the streets of Parma the half-hourly 
 telegrams which announced the entry of the Italian troops 
 into other marches. As soon as the Press was free it teemed 
 with cheap editions of Dante. They were exposed in every 
 bookshop and kiosque, and were hawked about the streets on 
 trays. The fever spread from Turin to Florence, from Florence 
 to Rome, and from Rome to Naples. Dante was lectured upon 
 to ladies, and taught as a classic in the schools. Undoubtedly 
 this enthusiasm sprang chiefly from political causes. Dante was 
 a Ghibelline — that is, in the great struggle which divided Italy 
 between the party of authority and the party of local in- 
 dependence, be supported the party of authority. He believed 
 in the subordination of the Papacy to the Empire, in the 
 
35G RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 presence of a strong ruler who could quell the discordant rivalries 
 of Italian cities, and educe order out of chaos : above all, he 
 believed in the unity of Italy, that great cause which was then 
 in process of consummation. Dante, in his first canto, prophesies 
 of the coming hero, the greyhound who, disregarding the gain of 
 money and territory, is to drive the wolf of the Papacy from 
 city to city until she returns to the hell from which she sprang. 
 It was a favourite conceit, which has not altogether disappeared, 
 that the greyhound — the Veltro — began with the two initials ol 
 "Victor Emmanuel's name, and that the whole title might run 
 Vittorio Emmanuele, Liberatore, Trionfatere, Re Ottimo (Victor 
 Emmanuel, the Liberator, the Triumpher, the Best of Kings). 
 
 But Dante has not been without his revival on the religious 
 side. When the leaders of the Oxford movement were leaving 
 the Church of England, which they believed to be corrupt, for 
 the Church of Rome, which they imagined thej^ could purify, 
 they studied Dante as the source of undefiled religion. In him 
 they found, or thought they found, an orthodoxy unimpeached, 
 a faith founded on reason and knowledge, unembittered by 
 the theological disputes which followed the Reformation, and 
 transfused by passionate love of humanity and truth. 
 
 What then are the essential characteristics of the religion of 
 Dante ? How does Dante deal with what are the three necessary 
 component parts of all religions — Faith, Hope, and Charity ; which 
 last more fitly bears the name of Love ? These three virtues — the 
 theological virtues as they are sometimes called — are symbolized 
 by a cross, an anchor, and a heart. The heart is symbolical of 
 Charity or Love, but in mediaeval Italian sculpture Charity is 
 figured by a woman who has not only her heart but her brain 
 on fire, showing that real love, the true enthusiasm of humanity, 
 must not only inflame the heart with burning zeal, but must 
 set the mind aglow until it disregards the dictates of cool reason. 
 Reason has no place where emotion is the guiding principle. 
 The cross, the symbol of Christianity, represents revealed religion, 
 the dogma which could not be known to us except by a 
 tradition which is apart from and above the eSects of human 
 wisdom. There remains the anchor of Hope, that quality which, 
 when the heart and the brain are on fire and the mind is lifted 
 into the region of revealed truth, keeps the soul fixed to a sure 
 and certain anchorage. This was afforded in Dante's case by 
 intellectual knowledge — the knowledge of the world and of the 
 universe, as far as it can be ascertained by human understanding ; 
 the reahzation of the past, the present, and the future of man ; 
 the lower hfe from which he has gradually emerged, the envi- 
 ronments which surround and condition his existence, and the 
 
THE RELIGION OF DANTE. 357 
 
 destiny which awaits him. Let us, then, study the religion of 
 Dante under these three aspects. Let us consider in turn : of what 
 nature was his love ; what was his knowledge of the world and of 
 man ; what was the complexion of his faith ; and, lastly, how these 
 three qualities were fused together into a harmonious whole, so 
 as to survive to future ages and influence a distant posterity. 
 
 Let us first speak of the origin and character of his love. 
 The name of Dante is inseparable from that of Beatrice. Dante 
 was bom at Florence, about the middle of May 1265. He first 
 met Beatrice Portinari, at the house of her father, Folco Portinari, 
 on May-day 1274. In the Vita Nuova (" The Young Life "), which 
 gives an account of this absorbing passion, he tells us : " Already 
 nine times after my birth the heaven of hght had returned as it 
 were to the same period, when there appeared to my eyes the 
 glorious lady of my mind, who was by many called Beatrice, 
 who knew not what to call her. She had already been so long 
 in this life that already in its time the starry heaven had 
 moved toward the east the twelfth part of a degree, so that she 
 appeared to me about the beginning of her ninth year, and I 
 saw her about the end of my ninth year. Her dress on that 
 day was of a most noble nature, a subdued and goodly crimson, 
 girdled and adorned in such sort as best suited with her tender 
 age. At that moment I saw most truly that the spirit of life, 
 which hath its dwelling in the most secret chamber of the 
 heart, began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of 
 my body shook therewith, and in trembling it said these 
 words : ' Ecce deus fortis me qui veniens domina vitum mihi ! ' 
 ' Behold a god stronger than I am, who in his coming will have 
 lordship over me ! ' From that time forth I declare that love 
 had lordship over my soul, which was speedily placed at its 
 disposition, and it began to assume over me such authority 
 by the power which my imagination gave it that I was forced 
 to perform all its behests. Love ordered me many times to 
 take occasion to see this youngest of the angels, so that in 
 my boyhood many a time I went about in search of her, and 
 saw that she had such noble and praiseworthy carriage that 
 certainly it might be said of her the expression of the poet 
 Homer, ' She appeared to be a daughter not of man but of God.' 
 And although the image which always abided with me was 
 the boldness at Love to lord it over me, yet it was of such 
 noble power that at no time did it sufier that Love should 
 guide me without the faithful counsel of reason in these things 
 in which such counsel was useful to listen to." 
 
 Another story of a contemporary tells us of this marvellous 
 and absorbing love. Dante, when he has related in the fifth 
 
358 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 canto of the Inferno the punishments of Francesca da Eimini 
 and her lover, says that the tears they shed at the end of their 
 narrative affected him so deeply that ' he felt his forces fail as 
 if in death, and fell as a dead body falls. A note in the MS. of 
 Monte Cassino, evidently written by some one who knew Dante, 
 says that this experience befell Dante himself, and that one day, 
 unexpectedly meeting Beatrice on the staircase of a house, he 
 fell suddenly to the ground as if he were dead. Dante lost his 
 father when he was ten years old, and his boyhood and youth 
 for the next eight years were spent in severe study. His next 
 memorable meeting with Beatrice was nine years later, when 
 this marvellous lady appeared to him in a dress of dazzling 
 white. She was accompanied by two older ladies, one on each 
 side, and as she passed Dante in the street she turned her eyes 
 to where he stood full of fear, and, of her ineffable courtesy, 
 saluted him so virtuously that all the blessedness of heaven 
 seemed open to Dante's eyes. This was the first time that he 
 ever heard her speak, and the words came to his ears with such 
 sweetness that he went away as if intoxicated with delight. He 
 then retired to a solitary place in his chamber and set himself 
 to think of that most courteous lady ; and as he thought, there 
 came upon him a very sweet sleep, in which there appeared to 
 him a marvellous vision. There appeared to him in his chamber 
 a cloud of the colour of fire, and within this cloud was seen a 
 figure of fearful aspect, who said, with much that Dante did not 
 understand, " I am thy Lord." He bore in his arms the body of 
 Beatrice asleep, wrapped lightly in a blood-coloured cloth. In 
 one of ' his hands he held a burning heart, the heart of Dante. 
 Gradually the sleeping lady whom he bore awoke, and the Lord 
 of Love forced her to feed on Dante's burning heart, which she 
 did with much hesitation. Then the joy of Love turned to 
 sorrow, and weeping bitterly he went back to the heaven from 
 which he had come, carrying with him the lady in his arms. 
 Folco Portinari, the father of Beatrice, died on the last day of 
 the year 1285. Beatrice only lived four years longer. Shortly 
 before her death Dante had an illness, on the sixth day of which 
 he suffered intolerable agony ; and while he reflected — atone time 
 on his weakness, and at another time on Beatrice — it came into 
 his mind that Beatrice also would die some day, and this re- 
 flection greatly troubled him. Horrible dreams assailed him, 
 in which women with dishevelled hair cried to him, " You will 
 die," and other strange faces said, " Thou art dead." Then a 
 fiend announced to him that Beatrice was dead, and he thought 
 he saw a multitude of angels bearing her up to heaven with a 
 dazzling cloud in front of them. The vision was so real that 
 
THE RELIGION OF DANTE. 359 
 
 Dante wept bitterly. Beatrice died in very truth at daybreak 
 on June 9th, 1290. In the words of Dante, " The Lord of Justice 
 called that most gentle lady to glory under the banner of that 
 Blessed Queen the Virgin Mary, whose name was in very great 
 reverence in the words of that blessed Beatrice." 
 
 From the moment of her death Beatrice becomes more than ever 
 the guide and loadstar of Dante's life. She is so transfused into 
 his studies and his faith that many have supposed that she never 
 really existed, but was a mere abstraction, whereas all the notices 
 of her in the Vita Nuova, as well as much in the Divina Corn- 
 media, prove that she was really a creature of flesh and blood. 
 As I shall show later, she was the stimulus to Dante's studies, 
 and the purifier of his life. A year after Beatrice's death Dante 
 married Gemma de' Donati who bore him seven children. Beatrice 
 was also married at an early age, but their unions did not 
 preclude the deepest spiritual love. Let us trace some of the 
 relations between Beatrice and Dante in the Divine Comedy. 
 I need hardly say that this epic poem is the story of the wan- 
 derings of Dante through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Vergil, 
 the great poet of Rome, was his guide through the first 
 and second, Beatrice through the third, of these regions. 
 But Beatrice was the moving spirit of the whole journey. 
 Vergil tells him when they first meet at the entrance of 
 Hell how a lady, beautiful and blessed, had called him with eyes 
 brighter than the sun ; and how she had told him sweetly and 
 affably, with the voice of an angel, that Dante, her friend, but 
 not the friend of Fortune, was so impeded on the desert stage 
 of life that he was nearly lost. " Help him," she said, " with 
 everything that can assist him, that I may be consoled. Beatrice 
 is my name. Love impelled me to speak to you, and sent me 
 to you ; when I return to Heaven I will speak in thy praise 
 to the Lord." Beatrice does not appear herself until the poet 
 and his guide, after passing through the pit of Hell, reach the 
 earthly Paradise on the summit of the hill of Purgatory. Then 
 as the car, which represented the Church Militant, halted with 
 its attendant hosts " in the bosom of a cloud of flowers, thrown 
 by angelic hands, a lady appeared clothed in a green mantle and 
 a flame-coloured dress, with an olive cross over her snow-white 
 veil." Without distinctly seeing who it was, Dante felt the 
 power of the ancient love. The old influence which had pierced 
 him in his childhood now struck him in the eyes, and made 
 him weep. Like a child who runs to his mother in fear 
 or affliction he turned to Vergil, trembling in all his veins, but 
 that sweetest of fathers and best of guides was gone. "Dante," 
 the lady said, " weep not because Vergil is gone ; there is 
 
360 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 enough to make you weep without that. Look at me well, 
 I am Beatrice ; I am Beatrice. How did you dare approach this 
 mountain of blessedness ? Did you not know that here man 
 is happy?" Dante cast down his eyes in shame. She then 
 relates the story of their spiritual union, addressing the angels 
 which surround them. "Dante," she says, "in his early life 
 was such that he would have given wonderful proof of every 
 righteous action. But the strongest soil if uncultivated often 
 bears the most noxious weeds. For a long time I enchained him 
 with my countenance ; and by the light of my youthful eyes I led 
 him in the right way; but when I changed my earthly life 
 for a heavenly he took himself from me and gave himself 
 to another. When my flesh had become spirit, and I was more 
 beautiful, more virtuous, than before, I became less dear and less 
 acceptable to him. He turned his feet on a false way, following 
 vain images. I tried to rescue him by dreams and other means, 
 but they were of no avail ; he fell so low that nothing remained 
 but to show him the inhabitants of Hell. For his sake I visited 
 the gate of Hell, and prayed Vergil to lead him hither." 
 
 The manner of Dante's ascent through the various circles of 
 Heaven is deeply characteristic of his absorbing devotion. He 
 looks with fixed gaze into the eyes of Beatrice, and, by this power 
 alone, he is raised from the summit of the mount of Purgatory — 
 first into the sphere of fire which lies immediately above it, and 
 then into the heaven of the moon. From this he passes succes- 
 sively into each of the heavens until he reaches the Empyrean. 
 The face of Beatrice, her eyes, and her smile acquire fresh beauty 
 at each ascent, so that when they reach the seventh and last 
 sphere his mortal gaze carmot endure the exceeding light, and 
 he is obliged to find means of tempering it. 
 
 In the CoTnito, the philosophical treatise which Dante composed, 
 between the love story of the Vita Nuova and the great poem 
 which was the crown of his career, he tells us that Beatrice is the 
 type of Divine wisdom, and that in her face appear things which 
 tell of the pleasures of Paradise, and that the place wherein 
 this appears is in her eyes and smile. For the eyes of wisdom 
 are the two methods of demonstration by which truth is most 
 clearly seen, and the smile of wisdom is the persuasion in which 
 the inner light of wisdom is seen, although under a veil. And 
 in these two things, demonstration and persuasion, is felt that 
 highest pleasure of beatitude which is the greatest good in 
 Paradise. The lines which describe his arrival into this highest 
 heaven are among the most beautiful with which Dante was 
 ever inspired. He says that the remembrance of her sweet 
 smile is as far above the heaven of his mind as the light of the 
 
THE RELIGION OF DAITTE. 361 
 
 sun surpasses the ■weakest eyesight. He has followed her, he 
 tells us in his verse, from the first day that he ever beheld her 
 up to the present moment, bat now her beauty transcends 
 all his power of poetic description, for every artist has a limit 
 beyond which he cannot go. He must leave the further praise 
 of her beauty to a louder sound than that of his trumpet. " We 
 issued from the ninth heaven to that heaven which is pure light." 
 
 " Light intellectual, full of burning love. 
 Love of the very good, full of delight, 
 Delight which far transcends all human sweetness. " 
 
 "Luce intellettual, piena d'amore, 
 Amor di vero ben, pien di letizia, 
 Letizia che trascende ogni dolzore," 
 
 After Beatrice has explained to Dante the features of the 
 scene on which he gazes, and has concluded with a severe 
 attack on Pope Clement V., she remains silent. Full of amaze- 
 ment he stands gazing at the vast amphitheatre of saints, 
 and the multitude of angels burning with love, quivering 
 flames of fire, their wings of gold, and the rest of them whiter 
 than snow. Like swarms of bees they float up and down from 
 bench to bench of the saints, giving them peace and ardour, 
 mounting as high as the throne of Grod Himself to rekindle their 
 flames, singing all the time in praise to God, who inspires them 
 with love. Yet amongst this multitude of flying angels, and in 
 spite of the vastness of the distance, Dante can see that all these 
 saints have their faces turned to the central point of all, which is 
 God Himself He sees the joyousness of their smile, and the 
 energy of their action. His gaze passes now up, now down, along 
 the benches, and by degrees he becomes aware of the general 
 form and constitution of the heavenly Paradise. He turns for a 
 moment to his beloved guide to ask for some explanation, but 
 she is gone. In her place is a venerable old man in glorious 
 attire. This is St. Bernard, the last of the Fathers. Beatrice 
 has mounted to her own individual throne in the heavenly 
 place, and has sent him to conduct the poet to the end. He 
 sees her in the third row from the summit, crowned with the 
 Divine light which is reflected from her face; he sends her 
 loving words of thanks for all the care she has taken in drawing 
 him from slavery to true liberty, and he prays her to continue to 
 protect him until his death. Beatrice looks at him and smiles, 
 and then turns to the central point of light which is the source 
 of all beatitude. The function of Love is over, that of Faith has 
 begun. Love has taught all that the mind can apprehend, what 
 remains can be traced by intuition alone. 
 
 Such as I have attempted to describe was the foundation and 
 
 24 
 
362 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the scope of Dante's love. Let us now see what were the grounds 
 of his hope — or, as I have explained it, his conception of the world, 
 of the value of human action, bad and good, and of the destinies 
 which accompany it here and hereafter. To make this intelligible, 
 I must give an account of Dante's cosmogony, his realization of 
 Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven — very distinct and precise, and yet 
 full of symbolism. 
 
 Dante regards the world as consisting of two hemispheres — 
 the eastern, in which we live, composed almost entirely of land ; 
 the western hemisphere opposite to it almost wholly water. The 
 central point of our hemisphere is Jerusalem, the city in which 
 the great drama of the Incarnation was played and consummated. 
 Things were quite different until the fall of the rebel angels. 
 Lucifer, their leader, driven headlong from heaven, plunged into 
 the earth — the western hemisphere, which was then a continent 
 with the Garden of Eden in its midst. The eastern half was till 
 then shrouded in sea. The West, in horror at what had happened, 
 veiled itself beneath the waves of the East, which left the land 
 there dry. All that then remained in the West was the island of 
 Eden. Lucifer fell into the earth till he reached the centre of grav- 
 ity, the middle point, from which he could move neither backwards 
 nor forwards. The earth fled before him and left a large pit, the 
 inverted cone of Hell — something like those great diamond-pits in 
 South Africa, of which we see models and pictures — but reaching 
 right down to the centre of the earth. The earth thus displaced 
 rose under the land of the earthly Paradise situated just opposite 
 Jerusalem, lifting it up as on the summit of a mountain, which 
 forms the mountain of Purgatory, up the side of which Dante 
 and his guide Vergil laboriously climbed. The base of this world 
 is surrounded by the sphere of air, subject to the ordinary varia- 
 tions of heat and cold, rain and drought, storm and tempest. 
 Above this is the sphere of fire. The boundaries of these two 
 spheres lie at the dividing line between Purgatory and Ante- 
 purgatory, just where the gate, guarded by St. Peter, admits 
 souls stained with sin to the mountain of purification. Beyond 
 these two spheres of air and fire — which, with the earth 
 and water of which the world is composed, form the four 
 elements — lie the nine heavens, each including the others, like 
 hollow revolving spheres or the coats of an onion. The first is the 
 sphere of the moon ; everything beneath that is sublunary or of 
 inferior quality. The second heaven is of Mercury, the third of 
 Venus, the fourth of the Sun, which in Dante's time was re- 
 garded as a planet, the fifth of Mars, the sixth of Jupiter, and 
 the seventh of Saturn. Outside these comes the Cielo stellato (or, 
 the heaven of the fixed stars) ; outside this again is the Cielo cris- 
 
THE RELIGION OF DANTE. 363 
 
 tallino (the crystalline heaven) — the Primum mobile (the first 
 moved) of Milton — itself, as the widest in circumference, moving 
 with extreme rapidity, the source of the movements of all the other 
 heavens which revolve within it with gradually slackening speed. 
 Yet beyond this is the Empireo (the Empyrean), without motion 
 and without limit, the dwelling-place of God Himself and of His 
 saints. These, as I have before indicated, are arranged in the 
 form of a rose, surrounding a vast and gleaming lake, which is 
 formed by the reflection of the original uncreated light on the 
 edge of the Primum mobile, the angels and saints of God. The 
 centre of the rose lies directly opposite to the earthly Jerusalem. 
 
 Thus much is necessary to understand Dante's conception of the 
 world and of vice and virtue. We must now give a more parti- 
 ticular account of the construction of Hell. This is conceived as 
 a pit in the shape of a tunnel or inverted cone. Just as the 
 circles of Paradise become gradually larger and more intense in 
 happiness as they increase in size, so in Hell the torment becomes 
 more severe as the circles are contracted. The Hell of Dante, 
 like that of Milton, is entered by a gate which is closed to none. 
 It has remained unlocked ever since Christ, after His Crucifixion, 
 forced a passage through it. Over it in dark letters is the 
 following inscription : — 
 
 " Per me si va nella citta dolente. 
 Per me si ya nell' etemo dolore. 
 Per me si va tra la perduta gente. 
 Oiustizia move il mio alto fattore, 
 Fecemi la divina Podestate 
 La summa sapienza, e il primo amore. 
 Iimanzi a me non fur cose create. 
 Se non eteme, ed io etemo dure : 
 Lasciate ogni speranza voi cV entrate." 
 
 After passing this gate the wanderers enter into a dreary 
 Ante-Hell, which is bounded by Acheron, the river of woe, the 
 first of the four infernal rivers, counterparts to the four rivers 
 of Paradise; the other three being Styx, Phlegethon, and Cocytus. 
 On this river Charon plies his boat and conveys the souls across. 
 Hell, thus reached, is divided into nine concentric circles, each 
 being a landing-place in the descent, having on one side the 
 wall of solid earth, and on the other the void of the abyss. 
 The first circle is Limbo, of which more anon. At the entrance 
 of the second circle sits the judge Minos. He is furnished with 
 a long tail, and has a peculiar way of pronouncing judgment. 
 Each soul as it comes before him confesses his sins, and Minos, 
 as soon as he has heard them, switches his tail round him with 
 varying degrees of vehemence. The sinner is sent to that circle 
 which is indicated by the number of times that the tail of 
 
364 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Minos encircles his body. The justice of Hell is very speedj'. 
 As Dante says in a line which imitates the quickness of the 
 sentence — 
 
 " Dicono, e odono, e poi son qiJi volte." 
 
 Upper HeU consists of the first six circles. Below that is Nether 
 Hell. Below the sixth circle is ^ fearful chasm exhaling an 
 intolerable stench, in which the monster Minotaur, half-bull, half- 
 man, prowls about ; to it leads a terrible and precipitous landslip 
 — made by the earthquake of the Crucifixion. At the foot of 
 this is the seventh circle, divided into three concentric rings. 
 The first of these is formed by Phlegethon, a river of boiling 
 blood. Within this is a wood of living trees, and beyond it 
 a dreary sand waste, rained upon by flakes of fire. Below this 
 again is a void of appalling depth down which Phlegethon dives. 
 Dante and Vergil can only descend by riding on the back of the 
 monster Geryon — with face of man and trunk of serpent, apt 
 emblem of fraud. We now reach the famous Malebolge (or evil 
 pits), huge concentric ditches separated by walls, and connected 
 by bridges of rock, in which different degrees of flame are fur- 
 nished. After the ten pits of Malebolge we reach another steep 
 descent, that which lies above the ninth and last circle. This is 
 the well of the giants. Nimrod, the Titans, and the other giants 
 stand towering to the height of about seventy feet. Their heads 
 rise far above Malebolge, while their feet rest on the frozen 
 floor of the abyss. Here we reach Cocytus, a stagnant pool, not 
 a river, the pool of Lamentation; The fire is now past, and thick- 
 ribbed ice takes its place. In this lower depth are punished 
 the traitors ; the four belts of Cocytus are marked by the names 
 of the most notorious traitors punished in them. Caina contains 
 those who, like Cain, betrayed their nearest kindred ; Antenora 
 those who, like Antenor, betrayed their country ; Ptolomea those 
 who, like Ptolemy the Younger, betrayed their friends and guests ; 
 and, last of all, Guidecca, containing those who, like Judas, betrayed 
 their benefactors and their masters. 
 
 We have now reached the centre of the world, the final period 
 of all things, and in this is deeply embedded the monstrous form 
 of Lucifer. He has three faces — that in the centre is red, the right- 
 hand face is yellow, and the left black. Beneath each face two 
 huge bat^wings flap with steady, but ceaseless, motion, causing the 
 icy wind which freezes Cocytus. In the three mouths of Lucifer 
 are crunched the three arch-traitors of the world. Who are they ? 
 I doubt if you would ever guess. The central mouth contains 
 Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ, who is not only marked by 
 the teeth, but torn by the claws, of the fallen angel. The two 
 other mouths hold Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Caesar. 
 
THE RELIGION OF DANTE. 366 
 
 Thus, in Dante's large and generous survey of the history of the 
 •world, are Christ and Caesar brought together : one, the Founder of 
 the Church and the Suzerain Head of the Vicegerent Power ; the 
 other the consummation of humanity, the founder of the Roman 
 Empire, the divine scheme for the order and governance of the 
 world, the origin and suzerain of the holy line of emperors whose 
 sword of justice and power Dante continually invoked to restrain 
 and subdue to harmony the jarring feuds of distracted Italy. 
 
 Such is the form of Hell as conceived by Dante. Let us now 
 consider what Dante tells us as to right and wrong, as to the 
 comparative goodness or badness of human actions in this world. 
 The moment Dante passes the gate of HeU, he enters a 
 place full of strange and horrible sounds, groans, cries, and 
 maimed accents of grief The dark air is swept by a mighty 
 rushing wind, like the Sahara in a hurricane. Here are the 
 miserable souls of those who lived in the world without blame 
 and without praise, who did neither good nor ill in life. Here are 
 the angels who took no part in the great struggle between God 
 and Lucifer, which stood aside in their own neutrality. They are 
 rejected both by Heaven and Hell. They have no hope of deatli, 
 their blind life is so degraded that they are envious of the lot of 
 all the rest. 
 
 " Fama di loro il mondo esser non lassa, 
 
 Misericordia e giustizia gli sdegna, 
 
 Non ragionam di lor ma guarda e paasa." 
 " No fame of these the world suffers to be, 
 
 Mercy and justice spurn them from their side, 
 
 Take no account of them — gaze and pass on." 
 
 How withering the scorn ! Dante was bound by his faith to 
 punish them as he had been taught that they are punished. 
 But he has his own standard. Better far the noble mind to 
 suffer anything, the burning marl, the flakes of fire, or the 
 pressure of thick-ribbed ice, than to be borne for ever in 
 the ceaseless storm of wavering purpose, despised alike by God 
 and devils. Two vices Dante hates with a supreme hatred — 
 cowardice and treachery. The dark waste of the Vigliacchi is 
 almost a worse abode than the mouths of Lucifer. The first circle 
 of Hell is Limbo, a place of far less torment ; it contains the souls 
 of infants who have died too young to commit sin, and unbelievers 
 who have guided their actions only bj' the light of conscience. 
 They have no definite punishment, they wail not, but only sigh. 
 Their only pain is to live ever in desire without hope. Lideed, 
 many might envy the noble companionship of the souls that dwell 
 there. As Vergil approaches a voice is heard, " Onorate, I'altissimo 
 poeta ! " and four mighty shades advance to do him honour. 
 These are Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. Vergil joins their 
 
366 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 company, Vergil whose cry soars above them like an eagle. A 
 little farther down, in a luminous spot, stands a noble castle, girt 
 with sevenfold walls, and encircled by a beautiful river. Seven 
 gates give access to the castle court. The seven walls are the 
 seven virtues, and the seven gates are the seven sciences. Here 
 dwell the great ones of olden time: Hector, .^neas, and the great 
 Caesar, with his eagle eyes ; and Saladin seated apart by himself 
 There is Aristotle, the master of those who know ; all admire 
 him and all do bim honour ; Socrates and Plato are seated by his 
 side ; Democritus and Dioscorides ; Orpheus, Cicero and Seneca ; 
 Euclid and Ptolemy ; Avicenna and Averroes. The enthusiasm of 
 the true Dante breaks forth in this description. He must have 
 thought it no evil fate to be one of this chosen company. Although 
 it is part of Hell it is better than many parts of Heaven. 
 
 In the next four circles are punished sins of incontinence or want 
 of self-control, each form of it being stamped as worse as we pro- 
 ceed downward. First and least guilty are those who have sinned 
 through excess of love. Dante is always tender to sins of this 
 nature. The teaching of the Church, which places sexual purity 
 above all other virtues, and regards it as the keystone of the good 
 life, excusing all other excesses of the soul if it be sound in this, 
 finds no response in Dante's judgment. Here are Semiramis, Dido 
 and Cleopatra, Helen of Ti-oy and Achilles, Paris and Tristan. 
 Here, tpo, is Francesca da Rimini, who died by her husband's 
 hand for the slip of one unguarded moment. Amply has this 
 cruel vengeance been redressed by Dante's undying song. Worse 
 than these . offenders are the gluttons, drenched by the eternal, 
 cursed, cold, and heavy rain ; the misers and the spendthrifts, both 
 equally culpable, throwing huge weights in ceaseless rivalry from 
 one to the other; and worse still are the wrathful and the melancholy 
 — the first tearing each other to pieces and the second buried forever 
 in the black mud of the hateful Styx. After want of self-control 
 comes what Dante calls bestiality, punished in the sixth circle — the 
 predominance of the material above the spiritual elements in man, 
 the failure to recognize the highest destinies of the individual and 
 the race. Dante tells us in the " Convito " : " Among all bestialities 
 that is most stupid, inert, vile, and most hurtful, by which any 
 believes after this life no other life to be." Here, then, we find 
 infidels and heretics. They are placed inside the city of Dis, a 
 cemetery fortified with turrets and walls, garrisoned by demons 
 and guarded by fiends. Inside are tombs heated red-hot by 
 creeping flames, open now, but to be closed at the Day of Judgment. 
 Even here are noble characters. The great Emperor Frederick II., 
 and Farinata degli Uberto, the chivalrous patriot of Florence, 
 who, when as Ghibelline leader he had defeated the Guelphs at 
 
THE EELIGION OF DANTE. 367 
 
 Montaperti and had so returned from banishment, withstood his 
 enraged companions who would have destroyed the city of their 
 birth. 
 
 Worse than the two offences of incontinence and materialism 
 is Malizia, the pure desire of evil, which affects men in different 
 ways, and from which all other sins proceed. This desire 
 of evil works either by open violence or by secret fraud, and 
 the second is the worse of the two. The seventh circle con- 
 tains the three categories of the violent : those who have done 
 violence to other men, to themselves, or to God. The circle of 
 the violent is guarded by Phlegethon, the river of burning blood. 
 In this river lie the tyrants, the murderers, and the marauders, 
 drowned in the blood for which they thirsted in life, each 
 immersed more deeply according to the depth of his wickedness. 
 The suicides form a dolorous wood, pathless and impenetrable, 
 the trees with knotted and twisted boughs, and dusky leaves 
 bearing thorns which drop poison. The birds are harpies which 
 feed upon the trees and echo the groans which come from them. 
 Thus have those who deprived themselves of life changed their 
 animal to a vegetable body, nor at the Day of Judgment will 
 they resume the human form of which they deprived themselves, 
 but it will be hung on a branch, just as St. Bartholomew in Milan 
 Cathedral carries his skin upon his arm. Round the wood are 
 those who from malice have wasted and destroyed their 
 property, now chased in nakedness, hunted and rent by demon 
 hands. Dante thus adopts as the measure of sin not its outward 
 form but its inward motive. The spendthrifts from incontinence 
 were placed in a higher circle, and were doomed to a less bitter 
 punishment. These wasters of their substance sinned through 
 deliberate malice, and from want of self-control. On a scorched 
 and scorching mud, rained upon by flakes of fire, a region which 
 Dante and his guide do not dare to tread, lie the blasphemous 
 on their backs, among them the rebel Capaneus. Here also, 
 punislied for another crime, is Brunette Latini, Dante's master. 
 Neither the gravity of his offence nor the severity of punishment 
 prevents Dante from treating him with affection and respect. 
 Conjoined with these, strangely enough, are the usurers, esteemed 
 as breakers of a law of God in nature. 
 
 Between the violent and the fraudulent is a deep chasm, down 
 which the fiery blood of Phlegethon falls in a cascade. Geryon — 
 a monster, as, I have said, with face of man and trail of serpent — 
 conducts the travellers down this abyss : a type and embodiment 
 of fraud. It is characteristic of Dante's temper that so large a space 
 of Hell is given to the punishment of fraud, and that it is deemed 
 by him as the blackest of crimes. Still there are gradations in 
 
368 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 fraud itself. We may deceive those who have no special ground 
 for trusting us, or we may prove traitors to our kinsmen, our 
 country, or our benefactors. Between these two classes of fraud 
 a great gulf is fixed. Simple fraud is punished in the ten 
 fosses of Malebolge. In the first are seducers of women, 
 Dante, as we have shown above, showing a certain tender- 
 ness to ofiences inspired by love; next to them come the 
 flatterers, and then the simoniacs, who have bartered spiritual 
 gifts for gain, a special place being devoted to simoniacal popes. 
 Diviners, sorcerers, and witches occupy the fourth fosse, the 
 heads twisted round upon their necks so that they look always 
 backward instead of forward. Next to them come the barterers 
 who have sold justice and ofiices. Then follow the hypocrites, 
 clad in heavy leaden cloaks and hoods, gilt outside with glittering 
 gold. Then follow in their several appointed places thieves, evil 
 counsellors, and breeders of discord. Last of all are falsifiers, 
 divided into several categories, as falsifiers of substance, semblance, 
 and facts. The first are alchemists and coiners, the second those 
 who have assumed the person of another for an evil end, the 
 last malicious liars. The final or ninth circle of Hell contains 
 the traitors as we have already described them. Here is found 
 the well-known form of Count UgoUno della Gherardesca as he 
 gnaws at the head of his treacherous friend Archbishop Ruggieri 
 of Pisa. The story of Ugolino was for a long time, with that of 
 Francesca da Rimini, the best known episode of Dante, and was 
 regarded as the most characteristic type of his genius, the softer 
 and more striking beauties of the Purgatory and the Paradise 
 being left unregarded. 
 
 Such is Dante's conception of the actions of the world. Most 
 vile and despicable are the weak creatures who can scarcely be 
 said to live at all, most infamous and most deeply damned is 
 ungrateful treachery. Culpable, yet excusable, is want of self- 
 control, most excusable that want of self-control which comes 
 from excess of love. Strong is the division between sins of weak- 
 ness and sins of malice, those which spring from weaknesses of 
 will to do what is right, and those which are inspired by the will 
 to do what is wrong. 
 
 We have lingered so long over this part of Dante's creed that we 
 have little space left for the description of his faith. He believes 
 the teaching of the Church of his time. Bold and soaring as his 
 spirit is he is not unorthodox. Purgatory, that "vague region of 
 theological speculation so difficult to realize or to believe in, is 
 represented by Dante with vivid distinctness. On the terraces 
 of the mountain are punished the seven cardinal sins. The 
 mountain itself is within the sphere of fire; its basement of 
 
THE RELIGION OF DANTE. 369 
 
 *J^ggy rock, rising from the sea, is in the sphere of air, and 
 contains souls who are waiting to cleanse themselves upon the 
 holy hill. Here, too, the sins are classified by the touch&tone 
 of Love. Pride, envy, and anger spring from love distorted ; 
 sloth (Accidia), from love defective ; avarice, gluttony, and las- 
 civiousness from love excessive. Here, too, as in the Hell, lust is 
 placed nearest to the earthly Paradise. The connection in Dante's 
 mind between love and knowledge, and between that again and 
 faith, is shown in the beautiful chapter which closes the Vita 
 Nuova, the story of his love for Beatrice. He tells how, some 
 time after her death, it web given to him to behold a wonderful 
 vision, in which he saw things which determined him to say 
 nothing further of this blessed lady until such time as he could 
 discourse more worthily of her ; " and to this end," he continues, 
 " I labour all I can, as she in truth knoweth. Therefore if it be 
 His pleasure, through whom is the life of all things, that mj'^ life 
 continue for a few years, it is my hope that I shall yet write 
 concerning her which hath not before been written of any woman. 
 After the which may it seem unto Him who is the Master 
 of Grace that my spirit should go hence to behold the glory 
 of its lady, to wit of that blessed Beatrice, who now gloriously 
 gazes on the countenance of Him, qui est per omnia seeula 
 benedictus, who is blessed for ever and ever. "Thus the love 
 of Beatrice leads to the desire of knowledge, and knowledge 
 in its turn leads to faith. 
 
 I must now conclude with a few words about the general 
 aspects of Dante's teaching. Dante may be said to have con- 
 centrated in himself the spirit of the middle ages. Whatever 
 there was of piety, of philosophy, of poetry, of love, of nature, 
 of art, and of knowledge, in those times, is sublimated to a 
 'quintessence in his writings. His is the first great name in 
 literature after the night of the dark ages. The Italian 
 language, in all its purity and sweetness, in its aptitude 
 for the tenderness of love, for the violence of passion, or for 
 the clearness of philosophical argument, sprang fully grown 
 and fully armed from his brain. The Vita Nuova is still the 
 best introduction to the study of the Tuscan tongue. The 
 astronomy and the science of the Divina Commedia are obscure 
 when we translate them, but in their original diction are aa clear 
 as crystal. The reputation of Dante has passed through many 
 vicissitudes. Read and commented upon in Italian universities, 
 in the generation immediately succeeding his death, his name 
 became obscured as the sun of the renascence rose higher 
 towards its meridian. In the seventeenth century he was less read 
 than Petrarch, Tasso, or Ariosto ; in the eighteenth century he was 
 
370 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 almost universally neglected. Nothing is more strange than the 
 indifference of Goethe for Dante, as shown in the writings and 
 conversations of his later years. His fame is now fully vindicated. 
 Translations and commentaries teem from the presses of Europe 
 and America. Societies are formed to investigate the diffi- 
 culties of his works. He occupies in the lecture-rooms of 
 regenerated Italy a place by the side of those masters whose 
 humble disciple he avowed himself to be. 
 
 The Divine Comedy is, indeed, as true an epic as the iEneid, 
 and Dante is as real a classic as Vergil. His metre is as 
 pliable and flexible to every mood of emotion, his distress 
 is as plaintive and as sonorous. Like Vergil, he could immor- 
 talize by a single epithet or person a place or a phase of nature. 
 Dante is indeed a better observer, and a more faithful describer, 
 of nature than Vergil, whether he is painting the falling of snow 
 in the high Alps, or the homeward flight of birds, or the swelling 
 of an angry torrent. But under the gorgeous pageantry of poetic 
 description there lies an unity of conception, a power of philoso- 
 phic grasp, an earnestness of reUgion, which were entirely un- 
 known to the Roman poet. Dante is too essentially a Christian 
 to be fitly compared with a pagan poet. 
 
 More striking is the similarity between Dante and our own 
 Milton. Yet it lies rather in the kindred nature of their 
 subjects, and in the parallel development of their minds, 
 than in any mere external resemblance. In both the man was 
 greater than the poet, the soul of each was "like a star and 
 dwelt apart." Both were academically trained in the deepest 
 studies of their age. The labours which made Dante lean made 
 Milton blind. The " Doricke sweetnesse " of the English poet is 
 not absent from the tender pages of the Vita Nuova. Better, 
 perhaps, it would have been for Milton if, like Dante, he had 
 known in youth an absorbing passion. The middle life of each 
 was spent in active controversy ; each lent his services to the 
 State ; each felt the quarrels of his age to be " the business of 
 posterity," and left his warnings to ring in the ears of a later 
 time. The lives of both were failures. " On evil days though 
 fallen, and evil tongues," they gathered the concentrated ex- 
 periences of their lives into one immortal work — the quintessence 
 of their hopes, their knowledge, and their sufferings. 
 
 But Dante is something more than this. Milton's voice has 
 grown faint to us ; we have passed into other modes of experience 
 and of thought. If we had to select two names in literature of 
 men who are still exercising their full influence on mankind, and 
 whose teaching is thus developing new sides to coming generations, 
 we should choose the names of Dante and Goethe. Goethe preached 
 
THE RELIGION OF DANTE. 371 
 
 a new gospel to the world, the pagan virtue of self-culture, a sym- 
 pathy with every form of human feeling, which decUnes to judge 
 and which often passes into indifference. There is no department 
 of modern literature or thought which does not bear upon it the 
 traces of the sage of Weimar. But if we rebel against this teach- 
 ing and yearn once more for the ardour of belief, the fervour of eelf- 
 sacrifice, the scorn of scorn and the hate of hate which is the meed 
 of the coward and the traitor, where shall we find them but in the 
 pages of the Florentine ? The religion of the future, if it be founded 
 on faith, will demand that faith be reconciled witli all that the 
 mind can apprehend of knowledge, or the heart experience of 
 emotion. The saints of these days will be trained, not so much 
 on the ascetic counsels of the Imitation of Christ, or on thoughts 
 which, like those of Pascal, base man's greatness in the con- 
 sciousness of his fall, as in the verse of the poet, theologian, and 
 philosopher, who is placed bj' Raphael with equal right among 
 the conclave of the doctors, and on the slope of Parnassus, in 
 whom the ardour of study is one with the love of Beatrice — 
 while both are made subservient to that burning zeal which lifts 
 the soul from the abyss of Hell, up the terraces of Purgatory, to 
 the spheres of Paradise, till it gazes on the ineffable revelation 
 of the existence of God Himself, which can only be apprehended 
 by the eye of faith. 
 
372 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 THE CHUKCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 BY THE REV. CANON CTTRTMIS. 
 
 The first question to be asked is thid : — What is the position 
 which the Church of England supposes herself to hold in 
 this country? — or, in other words, What is her own idea about 
 herself? 
 
 She believes herself to be part of that great brotherhood which was 
 planted in this country twelve hundred years ago, and which has left 
 no comer in the land unevangelized. No one has been able to show 
 a break of continuity in the work of the Church of England. In 
 this light must be interpreted every claim of the Church, if her 
 action is to be understood and her system to be fairly treated. 
 There is another leading principle of the Church that must not be 
 left out of account ; the great Master laid down the true relations 
 of the Church to the State in the words, "Render to Caesar 
 the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are 
 God's," thus leaving it to us to find out their exact relationships. 
 Accordingly the Church of England, has always recognized that 
 human Ufe has two sides. Secular and Sacred — though they are 
 essentially and at bottom one — and has drawn some frontier 
 line between them. Hence, on the one hand, she abhors 
 Erastianism — the State "overriding" the Church; and, on the 
 other, Romanism — the Church "swamping" the State. 
 
 ESTABLISHING THE CHURCH. 
 
 But whenever any State is sufficiently of one mind about its 
 religion to give it public recognition there is no harm, says the 
 Church of England, in such recognition being granted. And if 
 Christianity be thus established, as it was first by Constantine, 
 the Church is willing to teach the people the best she knows, and 
 even to send her bishops to serve in Parliament, so long as that 
 duty is required of her. Nay, further, should the State lawyers feel 
 so satisfied with her Prayer Book as to embody its teachings in 
 Acts of Uniformity, who can demand that the Church should prevent 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 373 
 
 it ? Hence the Church becomes established, not by individuals, 
 but by the nation. The first State Church in these islands was 
 established by Ethelbert King of Kent. Long afterwards Magna 
 Charta acknowledged the Church of England as free ; but such 
 freedom did not then, and does not now, seem to her incompa- 
 tible with connection with the State. The Church of England is, 
 indeed, strong enough to take care of herself without the State 
 connection ; but a disunion between the two is deprecated by her, 
 as a far greater calamity to the State than to herself. The connec- 
 tion involves no breach of charity, no lack of fairness to other 
 religious bodies who are endeavouring to promote the knowledge 
 of the same truth ; and even if it be an error to maintain that 
 there should be union between Church and State, it seems to her 
 a very harmless and a very pardonable one. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 
 
 He would next refer to the historical facts by which the Church 
 of England justifies her position. 
 
 In point of time, the leading date for the Church of England 
 is A.D. 600. Just at that time two events happened concern- 
 ing persons of first-rate importance. They were the death of 
 St. Columba in the North of this country, and the arrival of 
 St. Augustine in the South. Our heathen ancestors had just 
 settled down in Britain, and found themselves placed between 
 Christian Ireland on the one side, and Christian France on the 
 other. Missionaries came both from North and South ; and they 
 Christianized and civilized us. lona, lying off Scotland, and Thanet 
 off Kent, were the two centres whence Christianity issued and 
 converted our wild ancestors. Columba had settled in lona; 
 Augustine in Thanet. Ere long Theodore Archbishop of Canterbury 
 merged all the dissociated congregations in the kingdom into unity. 
 Thus one hundred and fifty-four years before any Kingdom of 
 England was established, the Church of England was established. 
 There were three great necessities which then were receiving 
 attention : (1) that of civilizing and elevating the warlike tribes of 
 the country ; (2) of bringing the soil under cultivation, draining 
 the marshes, etc. ; (3) of obtaining security by consolidating the 
 nation. Now all these inestimable benefits were conferred upon 
 our people, in a great measure, by the Church. Her priests went 
 up and down the country and were at that time in friendly con- 
 nection with the Church of Rome, then a great benefactor to this 
 land. Since that time there have been two great crises in the 
 history of our Church. The first, in the days of William the 
 Norman, was the Eeformation of the Church on the Continental 
 
374 EELIGIOTJS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 model, by a separation of the lay from the clerical element. But 
 this was a retrograde movement, for the Church became more 
 than ever subjected to Eome with its now extravagant pretensions. 
 A second Reformation in an opposite direction, therefore, was 
 inevitable, and it came into view in the time of Wycliffe, when 
 the old superstitions were being rapidly broken down. Then 
 under Queen Elizabeth there was further change, bringing the 
 Church into closer relationship with the State : and for three 
 hundred years the Church has had to fight her old enemy the Pope, 
 whose interference with the "things of Caesar" she has always 
 protested against. In 1532 Parliament agreed to sever connec- 
 tion with the Pope entirely, and then changes for the better went 
 on apace, though not without many mistakes ; but besides Bome 
 the Church had to oppose Puritanism. It was a miserable pity 
 this conflict was forced upon her; for the Church and Dissent 
 agree in ninety-nine points out of a hundred. Indeed, the great 
 majority of Churchmen heartily accept the modern situation in 
 which they are placed with regard to Dissent by recent legislative 
 enactments of the State. 
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 And now what is this wonderful activity of the Church all about 
 — what are her doctrines ? First and above all she teaches that 
 there is a vast and awful power pervading all nature which we call 
 Grod. So the Church teaches men and women to look up from 
 this sin-laden earth and to say " Our Father, which art in Heaven." 
 Not that the Church pretends to understand God ; it is Agnostic 
 on that point. For, as Augustine says, it is impossible for the 
 lower to understand the higher nature. Next, the Church asks 
 us to accept the doctrine that man was meant to be a higher 
 thing in nature than he actually is, and that Jesus of Nazareth 
 comes nearest to the idea of what man was intended to be — self- 
 denying for others' sake, even unto death. Nay, she carries up 
 this thought so high, that she includes in her creed what is called 
 the Divinity of Christ ; endeavours, by every kind of direct and of 
 symbolical teaching, to give forcible expression to the Christianity 
 of her Master and Founder ; and always strives to keep in touch 
 with the chain of the past. In doing this there have been many 
 faults, sins, and errors ; and even a superstitious overprizing of the 
 most precious things, — such as the Bible, the Ministry, and the 
 Sacraments. 
 
 For, like the Quaker, the Church recognizes as the chief re- 
 novating power, the Spirit of God, which a man requires in 
 addition to the Bible and other means of grace. There is room, 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 375 
 
 no doubt, in the world for a great variety of agencies — Heathen, 
 Mohammedan, and Christian ; but the latter is by far the best of 
 all, the Church thinks. " Go into all the world, baptizing in the 
 name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." This name, slightly 
 expanded into the Apostles' Creed, is all that the Church of 
 England demands of us to believe in. As to the Inspiration of 
 the Scriptures, the Church has never formulated any doctrine 
 whatever about it. As to Baptismal Kegeneration, it merely 
 means a second birth (as it were) into the family of Jesus Christ. 
 The Real Presence means : " Cannot you see through a symbol to the 
 reality behind it?" Nor are rites and ceremonies of much real 
 importance. The late Mr. Mackonochie used to say that he was 
 willing to oflSciate in his shirt^sleeves if the Church so bade him ? 
 What the Church did want was Faith, Hope, and Charity. Only 
 h&ve faith; do not think there is nothing beyond what you can 
 understand. Never let go hope when cast down, even by having 
 done wrong, — hope for redemption out of sin and out of death. 
 And be assured that charity is everything — the spirit of sacrifice 
 for others' sake, the spirit of serene and generous love. 
 
376 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 THE UNITAEIAN 
 
 BY SENRT W. CBOSSKET, LL.B., F.6.S. 
 
 (Minister of the Church of Vie Meseiah, Birvni-ngham.) 
 
 It is my privilege to speak to-day on behalf of a body of men, 
 upon whom it cannot be said that a very favourable judgment has 
 been passed either by the Churches of Christendom or by the 
 world at large. 
 
 By a large number of Christian Theologians, for many a long 
 year, Unitarians have been condemned to " eternal perdition," i.e. 
 (if the religious men who use such words realize their meaning) 
 to share the very worst fate to which the most degraded of our 
 race — scoundrels and liars, thieves and murderers — could by any 
 possibility be doomed. When we have remonstrated, we have 
 been met with a curt, sharp, decisive syllogism, derived from a 
 verse in the Gospel of Mark : " He that believeth and is baptized 
 shall be saved ; he that believeth not shall be damned : " '" You do 
 not believe, therefore the conclusion is inevitable." 
 
 This we have been told, to our mingled amusement and amaze- 
 ment, is " the word of God ; " and its acceptance cannot be 
 regarded as any sign of want of charity in man ! 
 
 The shadow of this stem condemnation falls darkly over us 
 throughout the whole confines of what is called technically " the 
 religious world " — the world of divided and battling sects ; — a 
 world which, in my judgment, often proves itself less generous- 
 hearted than the world of poets and artists, men of science and 
 novelists, philosophers and statesmen. In this " religious world " 
 the Unitarians are very generally regarded with suspicion and 
 distrust. 
 
 Among Christian Sects we are the dangerous people. Religious 
 communion with us is interdicted. Through the length and 
 breadth of England there is scarcely a church or chapel — save 
 it belong to the small group known as " Free Christian " or 
 " Unitarian " — in which an avowed Unitarian would be permitted 
 to preach, although he himself would vrillingly exchange pulpits 
 with the most orthodox of orthodox believers. Books, bearing on 
 their title-page the name of the "Unitarian Association" are 
 
THE "UNITARIANS. 377 
 
 practically placed on an index expwrgatorivs ; and devices have 
 to be employed to obtain a general circulation for them. 
 
 Men will sometimes come and listen to us in public halls, who 
 will not enter our churches — fearfully imagining, I suppose, that 
 the germs of our pestilential heresies fill the air they would breathe 
 in them, and haunt the cushions on which they would sit, so that 
 they might " catch " Unitarianism, like smallpox or scarlet fever. 
 
 The Education Act, which excludes from Board Schools the 
 teaching of creeds and catechisms " distinctive of any particular 
 denomination," is so interpreted by the majority of the English 
 School Boards as to mean that Unitarians are not a denomination 
 entitled to any particular respect ; and in schools supported by the 
 rates, to which Unitarians as well as Trinitarians, Jews as well as 
 •Christians, may be compelled to send their children, the doctrines 
 of Biblical Infallibility, the Fall of Man, the Atonement and the 
 Trinity are very commonly taught ; and scholars sing hymns of 
 glory to the " Bleeding Lamb " and the " Crucified " God ! 
 
 Even when men throw off the popular creeds, and announce 
 opinions which are as much entitled to be called " Unitarian " as 
 a rose is to be called a rose — they will repudiate that name with 
 indignation — as though it were shameful; and denounce us as 
 narrow bigots should we venture to apply it to them. 
 
 Outside the ranks of the professed adherents of distinctive 
 •Churches a curious aversion to the Unitarians may sometimes 
 be noted. We have, e.g., fallen under the lash of that great 
 prophet of the nineteenth century — Thomas Carlyle. He meets a 
 Unitarian minister, and admires him — " One of the sturdiest little 
 fellows I have come across for many a day. A face like a rock ; 
 a, voice like a howitzer ; only his honest, kind gray eyes re-assure 
 you a little ; " and after asking with amazement — in the spirit of 
 the famous old question " Can any good come out of Nazareth ? " 
 — " That hardy little fellow, what has he to do with the diisthole of 
 ■extinct Sodnianiam ? " describes the Unitarians in no compli- 
 mentary terms : " These people and their affairs — " he writes — 
 " seem all melting rapidly enough, into thaw slush, or one knows 
 not what. Considerable madness is visible in them. ' Stare 
 -super antiquas viae ! No, they say we cannot stand or walk 
 or do any good whatever there; by God's blessing we will fly 
 — will not you ? — here goes ! ' And their fught ! — it is as the 
 :fiight of the liwwinged ; of oxen endeavouring to fly with the 
 wings of an ox." 
 
 Why do I apeak of these things ? As an appeal ad miseri- 
 ■cordMvm ? God forbid that I should speak of my Religion with 
 hated breath and whispered humbleness ! 
 
 A man has no firm faith in his religion— no solemn confidence 
 
 25 
 
378 EELIGIOITS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 that its Temple is upbuilt upon the Eock of Ages — when he can 
 apologize for it. 
 
 I have noted the adverse judgments passed upon the faith I hold, 
 because I believe that the unpopularity of a cause is a divine 
 challenge for its careful study. The stone " rejected by the 
 builders " is the very stone to be considerately and conscientiously 
 examined, to see if it may not be fitted " to become the head of 
 the comer." Discarded principles of thought and conduct make 
 majestic demands of their own upon the hearts and souls of men— 
 in the great might of the excessive wrong that may perchance 
 have been done unto them. Not once or twice only, to find 
 the world's heroes its prisons have had to be searched; not 
 once or twice only has truth been found in those intellectual 
 dungeons, heavily barred with iron prejudices into which scorned 
 heresies have been pitilessly thrust. 
 
 In this world's history, its " foolish things " have so often been 
 chosen to " confound the wise ; " and its " base things " and 
 " things which are despised, to bring to nought things that are," 
 that the condemnation of any principle by the numerical majority 
 of any generation, is like the sound of silver trumpets heralding 
 the presence of a Power, on behalf of which it may fairly be pleaded 
 that there is at least sufficient chance of its possessing truthful 
 authority to justify the lover of righteousness in entering upon a 
 cedm and thorough study of its claims. 
 
 In this spirit, although condemned as a heretic by every one of 
 the great Churches, whose thoughtful and devout representatives 
 have stood before you, I ask your kindly and generous considera- 
 tion for the religion commonly known in this country as the 
 religion of the Unitarians. 
 
 One farther word I am bound to say by way of prelude. Every 
 Unitarian speaks for himself and for himself alone. I am the 
 mouthpiece of no organization ; I cannot be " brought to book " 
 by any authority on earth for any word I utter, however wild and 
 foolish it may be, I am no more amenable to a " Unitarian Asso- 
 ciation " than I am to a presbytery or a general assembly, a lord 
 bishop or a court of arches, a general council of Christendom or a 
 pope. 
 
 Although bom and bred, trained and educated, among Unitarians^ 
 and a minister in the churches they frequent during my whole 
 period of active life, I have never signed with my hand, or pro- 
 fessed with my lips, a dogmatic " Unitarian Creed." The principles 
 of my Unitarianism forbid me — ^for reasons which will presently 
 appear — to sign a " Unitarian Creed " as peremptorily as they 
 would forbid me to subscribe to the " Westminster Confession of 
 Faith" or the "Thirty-nine Articles," even should I personally 
 
THE UNITARIANS. 379 
 
 believe every doctrine those documents enunciate. In this I do 
 not stand by myself ; no Unitarian can speak authoritatively for 
 any other Unitarian. The Unitarians are not like an organized 
 regiment of soldiers, keeping step with each other in the ranks, 
 and promptly obedient to their commanding officers ; they are 
 simply and solely a band of independent men, who are bound 
 together, as friends are linked to friends, by certain broad and 
 deep, although unwritten and unenforced, sympathies, ends, and 
 aims, 
 
 All, therefore, I can do is to present statements for which I alone 
 am responsible. Since, however, I have held from childhood to 
 manhood continuous and intimate religious fellowship with those 
 who are commonly called " Unitarians," this m,uch may be fairly 
 concluded — viz. that a man holding such convictions as are mine 
 has his place openly acknowledged among them, and may find a 
 spiritual home within the churches in which they worship. 
 
 To this extent - but simply and solely to this extent — without 
 any egotistical assumption, I may claim to be their representative. 
 Should any Unitarian question what I say and declare that my 
 thoughts are not his thoughts, I reply, " I worship where you 
 worship, and no man has forbidden or can forbid me." 
 
 At the outset, there is one striking characteristic of the 
 Unitarians that must be made especially clear and firmly empha- 
 sized, or our whole position will be misunderstood. 
 
 The body of men called " Unitarians " hold that no series of 
 dogmatic articles of faith, no " creed," ought to be imposed upon 
 the ministers or members of a " church " as a condition of religious 
 fellowship ; in other words, that a church ought to be kept as 
 freely open for the pursuit of religious truth as a college is for 
 the advancement of learning. 
 
 The name " Unitarian " is applied to men who hold, as indAvi- 
 duals, certain opinions ; but it does not adequately describe the 
 constitution of the churches in which they worship. Our churches, 
 with very few exceptions, have free and open trusts; they are 
 dedicated, i.e., to religious purposes, but no special form of theo- 
 logical opinion is made legally binding upon their ministers or 
 members. 
 
 Personally, I happen to be a Unitarian ; but I am the minister 
 of a " church " in which no subscription to any specific articles 
 of theological belief is either required from the congregation or 
 involved in my own position. The ministers who preceded me 
 held many opinions which are not mine ; they frankly and freely 
 taught them. The ministers who will follow me will, without 
 doubt, not teach altogether as I teach ; and no legal restrictions 
 will close their lips. The living men and women of each day and 
 
380 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS -OF THE WORLD. 
 
 generation are at absolute liberty to worship God according to 
 their consciences, without being compelled by any Trust Deed 
 to forsake the churches their fathers built. 
 
 The term " Unitarian Church " somewhat hides from the light 
 of day this great fact. In the irony of fate, a body of men who 
 place less stress upon dogma than any other body of men in the 
 world, have yet been christened with a dogmatic name. Strictly 
 speaking, what is popularly known as a " Unitarian Church " is a 
 church in which " Unitarians " can and do meet for worship, but 
 in which no legal obligations exist to check or forbid the free 
 pursuit of truth. Our history illustrates our principle. 
 
 The Act of Uniformity (1662) rendered it imperative upon 
 every clergyman to declare his unfeigned assent and consent to 
 all and everything contained and prescribed in and by the Book 
 of Common Prayer; incapacitated every person from holding a 
 benefice or administering the Lord's Supper who had not pre- 
 viously received episcopal ordination ; and prohibited anyone 
 from preaching or conducting public worship unless he did it 
 according to the rites of the Church of England. Two thousand 
 ministers flung up their benefices and went out into the wilder- 
 ness of poverty, 'and endured patiently public scorn, rather than 
 live in ease as slaves. Commanded not to preach — they preached. 
 Churches were built for them by their immediate followers, and 
 the law was most justly, most nobly, and most gloriously defied ; 
 not without pains and penalties, imprisonment and bonds. 
 
 The life of those churches these brave men refused to shackle 
 with the chains of any creed. Sufferers for conscience' sake, they 
 resolved that their children and their children's children should 
 be free. Devoutly orthodox in creed themselves, they yet entrusted 
 the charge of that they deemed the truth of God to the unfettered 
 mind of man. 
 
 These men were our fathers ; in the churches they and their 
 friends and followers built, we worship. Gradually, generation by 
 generation, the freedom they bequeathed was exercised; under 
 its high warrant other opinions than theirs found a rightful home 
 in their Houses of Prayer — Trinitarianism passed into Arianism, 
 and Arianism into Unitarianism. Discussion undoubtedly at- 
 tended these changes of thought; but on the whole they were 
 effected with wonderful forbearance and kindliness, and when it 
 appeared that it was possible to raise actions in the law courts 
 for the purpose of depriving those holding Unitarian opinions of 
 the property inherited from their fathers, an Act of Parliament 
 was promptly passed to prevent what it was acknowledged by 
 statesmen of all parties — by Sir R. Peel and by Lord Macaulay — 
 would be a grave injustice. 
 
THE UNITAEIANS. 381 
 
 It is not for us — ^the living men of to-day — to say to the great 
 tidal waves of human thought, " Thus far shall ye come and no 
 farther." If owr children can find a better religion, the temples 
 in which their fathers worship to-day shall still be theirs. 
 
 As our Trust Deeds are free, so is membership of our churches. 
 If any living soul find in our services aught to strengthen him 
 against temptation — to uplift his aspirations — to fill him with 
 noble ardour to serve his fellow men — he is welcome. He is put 
 through no theological examination either of a heretical or 
 orthodox type ; be he saint or sinner, we dare not shut in his face 
 the doors of the temple of our God! I am not unfrequently 
 asked how we manage to prevent those with whom we may have 
 no sympathy from coming and taking possession of our churches. 
 Simply — by not attempting to " manage " the matter at all ; by 
 excluding no one we fling ourselves upon the hearts and con- 
 sciences of men — in confidence that the more thoroughly human 
 hearts and consciences are trusted, the more completely will trust 
 be justified. 
 
 As with our Trust Deeds and our church membership, so is it 
 with our ministry. The college in which a large proportion of 
 our students are educated has for its motto these words : " The 
 College adheres to its original principle of freely imparting Theo- 
 logical knowledge, without insisting on the adoption of particular 
 Theological doctrines." 
 
 As for our ministers, lengthened experience gives me some 
 slight right to speak. Thank God, this hand has never been 
 compelled to sign itself a " slave ! " From the first day on which 
 I entered a pulpit until now I have remained as personally 
 unpledged in teaching religion, as any professor in a college chair 
 of Art, Literature, or Science. Thank God, I am minister of a 
 church which declines to close its doors with the bolts and bars of 
 theological articles upon any child of God who chooses to come 
 and worship therein! Neither have we established a central 
 organization with authority to interfere with the independent 
 action of any church. The " British and Foreign Unitarian 
 Association " is simply an association of individuals interested in 
 its purposes ; and it has neither power, nor do its managers show 
 any inclination, to c-ontrol the affairs of our congregations. 
 
 The spiritual freedom of every assembly of men, gathered for 
 the worship of Almighty God — ^this is our first principle. The 
 grounds upon which this principle is defended are not far to seek. 
 We cannot presume to think that we possess the whole truth and 
 nothing but the truth ; and dare not, therefore, dictate a creed 
 either to our comrades in the pilgrimage of life, or to our pos- 
 terity. Were we to draw up for an astronomer XXXIX. or 
 
382 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CCCXXXIX. Articles of Astronomical Faith ; and ask him to sign 
 them ; and to promise to teach those articles only ; and to admit 
 to his class only those students who would accept them — would 
 not his reply be an indignant refusal ? Would he not exclaim, 
 " Who am I that I should declare no wonderful discovery can be 
 made ? What is man that he can dream that he has probed the 
 infinite depths of the awful Heaven clad with the loveliness of a 
 thousand stars ? " Would not a teacher of Chemistry — of Physics 
 — or of Philosophy — give the same refusal to any kindred demand? 
 Yet it would, I submit, be far more rational to say we know 
 everything that can be known, or at least all that it is necessary 
 to know regarding Astronomy, Chemistry, Physics, or Philosophy 
 — to frame a settled and changeless creed upon these subjects ; 
 and to insist that there shall be no professor and no student at our 
 colleges who will not sign it, than it is to say, " We have drawn up 
 articles of faith about Christ and the Eternal God — and none 
 shall be our ministers — and none shall have fellowship with us, as 
 members of our churches, who will not subscribe to them ? " 
 
 No creed within the scope of the wit of man to devise can 
 permanently secure uniformity of belief. Human words are 
 susceptible of a hundred meanings — even when employed by 
 severest lawyers in Acts of Parliament — still more completely do 
 they fail to convey one distinct thought and one distinct thought 
 only, when used for the purpose of defining the infinite truth of 
 G-od. A coach-and-four may be driven through an Act of Parlia- 
 ment — but a little child can ask a question which will bring to 
 confusion the meaning of the strictest creed. 
 
 We trust the truth of God — surely whatsoever be His truth, 
 He will protect. Were we to build a glass roof over an oak tree, 
 and carefully guard it from the weather; and fearful lest it should 
 fall, prop it up with stone buttresses — we should kill it for our 
 pains. Exposure to the air and the storm strengthens it — its 
 leaves are greener as they drink in freely the breath of heaven ; 
 its mighty trunk stands more firmly when kind nature is relied 
 upon for its sustenance and support. " Whatsoever is of the 
 truth" needs likewise no .artificial protection — its roots strike 
 deep down into the heart of man, and all the powers of heaven 
 and earth are pledged to its protection. The union established 
 by natural sympathies is, we believe, stronger, more enduring, 
 and sweeter than that achieved by the enforcement of an agree- 
 ment to one creed. 
 
 Worshipping together, certain convictions (of which I hav« 
 immediately to speak) have grown up amongst us ; but because 
 we absolutely trust the truth, and are persuaded that " the Lord 
 has more truth yet to break forth out of His Holy Word," we 
 
THE TTNITARIANS. 383 
 
 refuse to convert them into fetters by formulating them into 
 creeds. 
 
 I do not for one moment venture to say that the Unitarians 
 have always been faithful in their allegiance to the great principle 
 I am stating and defending. This Finsbury Chapel is the last 
 place in which I could venture to speak of the consistency of 
 Unitarians. I frankly admit, and admit to its honour, that this 
 is a chapel in which more than one man upon whom Unitarians 
 generally have looked askance has found a hearing. I ceinnot 
 forget that W. J. Fox once stood in this pulpit, and received 
 scant justice at their hands. I confess with sorrow that, when 
 W. J. Fox enforced with his marvellous eloquence those opinions 
 touching Christ and Christianity then current among them, he 
 was honoured; but when he declared that the Lord our God 
 works by law and not by miracle, and that pure and undefiled 
 religion does not rest upon the sole authority of a message 
 brought by supernatural agencies from heaven to earth, he was 
 to a large extent discarded. His opinions may have been mistaken 
 or correct — that is not the question ; the question is whether he 
 had not a right as a Unitarian to hold them by virtue of the 
 freedom of the churches in which Unitarians worship. Neither 
 can I forget how that prophet of God, Theodore Parker, was 
 covered with contumely because he preached 7u>t the Christ 
 who is said to have cast out demons from the maniacs, walked 
 upon the waves, and fed thousands with a few loaves and fishes ; 
 but the Christ who healed the broken-hearted, and welcomed 
 home the prodigal, and pardoned the woman that was a sinner, 
 and would fain have delivered the captives and set at liberty 
 them that were bruised. 
 
 I cannot forget these things; but I yet maintain that these 
 passing inconsistencies cannot shake the fact that the love of 
 Religious Liberty underlies the whole history of the Unitarians, 
 and that in this day and generation it is so intensely cherished 
 that it would be as possible for the uplifted arm of man to turn 
 back the sun in the sky, as for any section amongst them to 
 secure the establishment of even the shadow of a dogmatic creed 
 for the churches in which they worship. 
 
 All Unitarians certainly regard the churches they frequent as 
 places of worship. To do otherwise would be as great a perversion 
 as to employ a Literary Society, or a Scientific College, for theo- 
 logical purposes. A church is a religious institution, and the 
 freedom of a church is necessarily freedom within the limits of 
 religious thought. 
 
 As the natural and inevitable result of their freedom, broad 
 and striking differences of opinion exist among the Unitarians, 
 
384 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 differences indeed which would scarcely be tolerated; or, if 
 silently tolerated, would receive no public and avowed sanction, 
 among any other body of men in this country united for reli- 
 gious purposes. 
 
 For example : Some Unitarians believe that Jesus Christ wrought 
 miracles ; others reject as legendary those parts of the Bible 
 which record such " wonderful works," and yet claim to be " Chris- 
 tians ; " some pray to their Grod " through Christ ; " others humbly 
 seek direct access to the spirit of their Holy leather, and in the 
 most solemn moments of their lives would be "alone with the 
 Alone ; " some call themselves " Christian Theists," or simply 
 " Theists ;" others cherish a firm faith that a special and peculiar 
 revelation of the will of God was made through an accredited and 
 supematurally endowed " Messiah." 
 
 But no ecclesiastical machinery exists among Unitarians, by 
 means of which any man can be excluded from church member- 
 ship because his intellectual convictions differ from those held by 
 his fellow worshippers. 
 
 In spite, however, of widely prevailing divergences of thought, 
 certain distinctive and fundamental religious principles have won 
 acceptance, or, at least, have found a refuge and a home among 
 the worshippers in the Free Churches of England, principles to 
 which the name " Unitarian " is in common speech applied. 
 What these are I will attempt briefly and clearly to describe; 
 but it is necessary to premise that the Unitarians are charac- 
 terized by the method they employ to gain religimis truth Tnore 
 emphatically than by any system, of doctrines whatever. To 
 discover religious truth they turn to Science and Humanity. 
 
 In the fixed and determined laws in changeless action among 
 sun, moon, and stars; within our own minds and hearts and 
 consciences, and in the conditions imposed upon their growth; 
 in the course of history, in which events are overruled for the 
 accomplishment of purposes unintended and unimagined by the 
 actors in its dramas, we meet the will which is not our will, 
 the authority which is not our authority, and have revealed to us 
 what is the pleasure and the determination, and to that extent 
 what is the character of the Supreme Power of powers. Man's 
 decrees have not determined the methods by which this earth, 
 the worlds around, and his own race have come into existence, or 
 established the laws in accordance with which they are actually 
 governed. Every scientific fact must therefore be accepted im- 
 plicitly as a Divine truth, and conversely any " creed " concerning 
 Grod which contradicts a single scientific fact must necessarily be 
 untrue. 
 
 The unfailing constancy of natural laws, with the resulting 
 
THE UNrrARIAJS^S. 385 
 
 harmony of the worlds, is more wonderful than the most wonderful 
 of miracles ever recorded. It is more than amazing to note that 
 an established law never foils. North and south and east and 
 west ; at the bottom of the ocean ; in the depths of the sky ; in 
 the unfrequented desert ; in the recesses of pathless woods ; 
 among weeds and flowers; in the pool of water which is as a 
 universe to myriads of unseen creatures — no spot can be found in 
 which the laws of nature, which are to us the laws of God, lose 
 their hold or fail in their persistency. More wondrous still is the 
 law of duty to which a good man subjects all appetites, desires, 
 tempers, and inclinations. 
 
 When in the character of a man conscience and affection are at 
 one, the warm heart yielding its love to no object the conscience 
 does not approve ; when personal purity is united to mercifulness, 
 sin being hated while all the influences of bad education, sordid 
 surroundings, inherited tendencies have due allowance in passing 
 judgment upon the sinner; when enthusiasm, bright, hopeful, 
 keen and eager, is wedded to farseeing and calculating wisdom ; 
 when unyiel(fing courage, the courage of the man who can sail on 
 any sea and land on any shore, fearless of any known or unknown 
 foe, is tempered by the gentleness far readier to suffer than inflict 
 pain ; when resolute and determined endeavour to win from this 
 earth and this life their choicest gifts, is blended with enduring 
 patience; when the love of God and the love of man are as one 
 emotion, inextricably intertwined, so that no service is offered to 
 the Lord in heaven, which is not also a service to man on earth — 
 there is a harmony of character sublimer far than the ordered 
 harmony of this outward universe — the music of the spheres. 
 The awful Power of powers, men reverently name God — cannot 
 — it is our conviction — be less worthy than the noblest man. 
 As Thomas Carlyle writes : " All that is good, generous, wise, right, 
 whatever I deliberately and for ever love in others and myself, 
 who or what could by any possibility have given it to me, but one 
 who first had it to give. This is not logic, it is axiom. Logic 
 to and fro beats against this, like an idle wind on an adamantine 
 rock." 
 
 We worship the God of Life — not an almighty theologian, 
 chiefly interested in "Articles of Faith" and calling men to 
 heaven or dooming them to hell, according to the correctness or 
 incorrectness of their opinions touching His Infinite Being. The 
 Lord God Almighty is the Creator of the Man of Science, 
 the Philosopher, the Historian, the Wit and Humourist, the 
 Novelist, the Dramatist, the Poet, and the Artist. The 
 God and Father of Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph, is also the God 
 and Father of Shakespeare and Galileo, Milton and Wordsworth, 
 
386 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Michael Angelo and Beethoven. In a great library we stand in a 
 temple of God, sublimer than is the temple of which the earth is 
 the pavement, and the star-clad sky the over-arching roof. 
 
 To gain religious truth from nature and humanity the 
 Unitarians maintain that man must use and trust the natural 
 faculties he possesses. They assert the right of the human in- 
 tellect to reject what is unreasonable; the right of the human 
 heart to reject what is unlovable ; the right of the human con- 
 science to reject what it condemns as evil, in any and every 
 " creed " presented for their acceptance. A man who cultivates 
 his rational powers and uses them faithfully —although he may 
 form mistaken conclusions, does all that his Maker can expect 
 from him with respect to his creed, inasmuch as he does his best 
 with the faculties bestowed upon him. It would be utterly unjust 
 in a Supreme God, to enable us to think — and then because we 
 think to condemn us. We have affections which bind us together 
 by the sweetest and tenderest ties and render us capable of sacri- 
 ficing all earthly treasures for love's dear sake — when any creed, 
 therefore, attributes cruelty to the Creator of the heart of man, we 
 cannot receive it. " Or what man is there of you — " asks Jesus 
 Christ — "whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone ? Or if 
 he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent ? If ye then, being evil, 
 know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more 
 shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them 
 that ask Him ? " This principle makes short work of many a fierce 
 dogma. Would a father torment a child for ever? Impossible, 
 must be the reply. Then we conclude at once that the doctrine 
 of Eternal Punishment must be false. By our consciences we 
 mark the distinction between good and evil. It is true that what 
 one man esteems good .another may pronounce evil, just as what is 
 a rational conclusion to one man may be a perverse superstition 
 to another. What we believe everyone is bound to do is — to obey 
 his own conscience, and not to attribute to his God any actions 
 which he would condemn as wicked among men. 
 
 I read in the First Book of Samuel the " Lord of Hosts " spake 
 through his mouth these words to Saul : " I remember that which 
 Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when 
 he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly 
 destroy all that they have, and spare them not ; but slay both man 
 and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass " — and 
 was angry because this terrific commandment was not executed to 
 the last drop of blood. I do not believe that such a command was 
 ever issued by the Lord of Hosts. Why ? Because my conscience 
 declares that promiscuous slaughter in war is a great wickedness. 
 Suppose General Moltke, when he led the German army through 
 
THE UNITARIANS. 387 
 
 France, had ruthlessly put to death man, woman, and child, 
 together with all cattle of the field — the world would have stood 
 ■aghast with horror. I dare not ascribe to the God of humanity a 
 deed my conscience starts from with horror, as infamous among 
 men. 
 
 The Unitarians at the present day, with possibly a few 
 individual exceptions only, apply these tests to all the books of 
 the Bible ; and ask : Are their teachings reasonable ? are they 
 humane ? do they accord with the dictates of conscience ? 
 
 Science, with no uncertain voice, declares that the world was 
 not made in six days; that the serpent went upon the ground 
 long before man's appearance; that death came into the world 
 before a sin was committed ; that weeds are no sign of a ruined 
 soil; that a flood of waters never covered all the earth at one 
 time ; that madness is not caused by the entry of " devils " into 
 the soul. Such statements as these, therefore, are not believed, 
 although they are written in the pages of the Bible. Using our 
 ordinary sense of the distinction between right and wrong, we find 
 in the Bible more than one code of morality. In its earlier books 
 polygamy and revenge are sanctioned; while "witchcraft" and 
 the doing of work on the Sabbath, are pronounced to be crimes 
 worthy of death. The " Sermon on the Mount " sets aside what 
 " was said by them of old time " — with no uncertain emphasis. 
 The rough and barbarous warrior's code of duty which guided 
 Joshua in his relentless wars does not correspond with the 
 teachings of the great Master of Nazareth, the spirit of whose 
 religion finds voice in the angel-song which is said to have 
 rung through the sky at His birth — " On earth peace, good will 
 among men." 
 
 The desponding scepticism of the Book of Ecclesiastes — perhaps 
 the most thoroughly sceptical book ever written — does not har- 
 monize in the practical duties it inculcates either with the 
 majestic prophecy of Isaiah: "As the earth bringeth forth her 
 bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it 
 to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and 
 praise to spring forth before all the nations ; " or with the wondrous 
 injunction to toil divinely conveyed in the words "As ye go, 
 preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand." 
 
 We feel bound therefore to use our best judgments in order 
 that we may discriminate between the antagonistic views of life 
 and calls of duty contained in the Bible itself. 
 
 I can hardly express the fulness of my thankfulness that my 
 religion justifies this application of rational methods to the study 
 of the Bible. The Book of Genesis touches me infinitely more 
 deeply with its childlike faith — its pastoral beauty — its patri- 
 
388 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 archal simplicity — because I do not attempt to make Moses speak 
 the language of Lyell and Darwin ; and do not judge Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob by the standard of modem civilization. 
 
 The Psalms have infinitely greater power to make me lie down 
 in green pastures and to lead me beside the still waters, than 
 they could have did I feel bound to regard the wild curses 
 uttered by David against his enemies as the very " word of God " 
 Himself. 
 
 The Prophets become mightier guides when I study them as 
 men of Israel and Judah striving to direct the politics of their day 
 by the eternal laws of righteousness, than they could possibly be 
 to me were I to regard them as mere predictors of the fate of a 
 few cities and the results of a few wars. 
 
 The Gospels and Epistles are the richer in spiritual influence 
 over my soul because I believe that it is more certain that the 
 " blessed " among men are the merciful, the peacemakers, and the- 
 pure in heart, than it is that Christ turned water into wine ; and 
 that the metaphysics of Paul do not stand so far above criticism a^ 
 those sublime words, " Though I have the gift of prophecy, and 
 understand all mysteries, and all knowledge ; and though I have- 
 all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity,. 
 I am nothing." In ceasing to be regarded as infallible, the Bible 
 has become to me far more truly a Book of Life. 
 
 Exercising their spiritual freedom, and seeking truth by the 
 method now indicated, those called Unitarians have (as I have pre- 
 viously stated) arrived at a general agreement respecting a few great 
 religious principles although so far from employing them as theo- 
 logical tests for church membership, they have never even reduced 
 them into any fixed and final shape as doctrinal forrmdce. 
 
 The Unitarians are Believers in one God. They are not so- 
 presumptuous as to imagine that they can define the Infinite ; 
 but facts, which come fairly within the scope of human knowledge 
 appear to them to establish the existence of One Spirit, One 
 Power, One Life, pervading, sustaining, guiding all that is. 
 
 Every form of energy can be converted into some other form of 
 energy. Stars are linked to stars, and systems of worlds to- 
 systems of worlds ; while the elements of which a myriad orbs 
 are fashioned are the same as those to be found in the earth on 
 which we dwell. Moving bodies on earth are directed by the 
 same forces as the planets in their courses. The physical history 
 of our globe cannot be studied apart from problems that involve- 
 the history of every star in the sky. As completely as the body 
 is one, although it has many members, so is the universe one- 
 although it contains millions of worlds. Organism is connected 
 with organism, and the first creature crawling on the shote of the 
 
THE UNITARIANS. 389 
 
 first sea is related by secret life-ties to the insect floating in this 
 morning's sunbeam. 
 
 " Nature," writes Humbolt, " considered rationally — that is to 
 say, submitted to the process of thought — is a unity in diversity of 
 phenomena; a harmony, blending together all created things, 
 however dissimilar in form and attributes; one great whole 
 animated by the breath of life. The most important result of a 
 rational inquiry into nature is, therefore, to establish the unity 
 and harmony of this stupendous mass of force and matter, to 
 determine with impartial justice what is due to the discoveries 
 of the past and to those of the present, and to analyze the 
 individual parts of natural phenomena, without succumbing 
 beneath the weight of the whole. Thus and thus alone is it 
 permitted to man, while mindful of the high destiny of his race, 
 to comprehend nature, to lift the veil that shrouds her phenomena, 
 and, as it were, submit the results of observation to the test of 
 reason and intellect." 
 
 Throughout the ages one moral law has persistently been 
 applied to the feelings, thoughts, and purposes of every individual 
 man, as to commvmities and nations. Purity and lust, selfishness 
 and self-sacrifice, cowardice and heroism, justice and injustice ; 
 have brought forth the same fruit, each after its kind, from the 
 beginning of time until now — in Ancient Babylon and Egypt, as 
 in Modem England. 
 
 All the men and women existing upon earth, belong to one 
 family; share, that is, a common humanity. This phrase, "a 
 common humanity " is neither vague, rhetorical, nor sentimental ; 
 it expresses a sublime fact. A man as a man, the wide world 
 through, has distinguishing endowments. He can master circum- 
 stances as no other creature can. He can think, love, do his duty, 
 sacrifice for others even to the death. The " civilized " gentleman 
 of the drawing-room — ^has passions which unite him to the barba- 
 rian ; the barbarians we may despise have some of the feelings 
 of gentlemen. The saint is linked (as only the saint himself 
 knows) to the sinner ; — and the sinner has powers hidden within 
 him, which may uplift him to the communion of the saints. 
 
 The world in which man lives is intimately related to the 
 constitution of his being — 
 
 " My voice proclaims 
 How ezqnisitely the individual mind 
 (And the progressive powers perhaps no less 
 Of the whole species) to the external world 
 Is fitted ; and how exquisitely too 
 The external world is fitted to the mind, 
 And the creation (by no lower name 
 Can it be called) which they with blended might 
 Accomplish." 
 
390 RELIGIOFS SYSTEMS OF THE WOBLD. 
 
 Faith in One Grod is the recognition and expression of this 
 blending together — this dependence upon each other of all atoms 
 and all worlds — in the physical universe ; this union of man with 
 man in a " common humanity ; " and this intimate connection 
 of man with nature. 
 
 The Unitarians believe that a noble life is the one supreme 
 requirement of the Ood they worship. 
 
 What is a noble life ? Not simply a life adorned by gracious 
 culture ; not simply a life rich in the sweet joys of refined tastes 
 and personal afiFections ; but a life spent in the unselfish service 
 of man. The noblest man is the humblest servant of his fellow- 
 creatures. He is as " a nerve o'er which do creep the else unfelt 
 oppressions of this earth ; " he is the unlooser of heavy burdens ; 
 he is the leader of forlorn hopes for truth and freedom and righ- 
 teousness' sake ; he is the friend of publicans and sinners ; he is 
 the bringer of glad tidings to those in the bonds of their lower 
 passions ; he is the teacher of the ignorant, the uplifter of the 
 fallen, and the champion of those who have no helper. The 
 world's iniquities and the world's miseries are heavy burdens on 
 his soul ; and he cannot endure to dwell in peace and ease and 
 comfort, while they remain unredeemed and unrelieved. Christi- 
 anity to the majority of Unitarians is not an abstract system of 
 doctrines about the essential nature of the Infinite God and the 
 rightful place of a " Messiah " in the hierarchy of created beings ; but 
 the religion that demands that they should put away all evil firom 
 their doings, and press forward to the highest nobleness which can 
 be attained by man. Many of them freely criticize the letter of 
 the records of the life of Christ, and in no way consider them- 
 selves bound to accept every text as an oracle from heaven ; but 
 they turn to the Cross as the sign and symbol of the religion of 
 the divine life, rendered perfect by the sacrifice of self in the 
 loving service of man. To the Unitarian nobleness of character 
 outweighs in worth all other considerations whatever. A man 
 may be a heathen, or a Jew, or Christian ; a Confucian, a Buddhist, 
 a Mahometan or what not ; he may be a Catholic or a Protestant 
 of any sect ; he may be a sceptic and a doubter ; — ^nay, he may 
 more than question, he may declare that he sees no reason for 
 believing, in any religion at all, — and yet, if he be an honest man 
 and strive to do his duty towards his fellow-creatures, he is, in the 
 faith I cherish within my heart of hearts, an accepted saint of Grod. 
 I no more believe that a just Grod will punish an honest man for 
 an erroneous faith, or for the lack of any faith at all, than I believe 
 that He will condemn me to perdition because in my unconscious 
 ignorance when a flower is presented to me, I assign it to a wrong 
 species ; or when I have to examine a rock, I place it in a forma- 
 
THE UNITARIANS. 391 
 
 tion to which it does not belong. Wrong opinions, conscientiously 
 formed, are not crimes. 
 
 I shall be asked how Unitarians propose to deal with men who 
 are not noble ; how they meet the awful problem of human guilt. 
 I have but one answer to make ; and that the very simplest 
 and plainest of all possible answers. I can see no way to " save 
 sinners," except by persuading them to go and sin no more. 
 Save by obedience to the eternal laws of righteousness I know not 
 how the human heart can be purified from its stains. A sick 
 man can only hope for recovery, as he observes the conditions of 
 healthfulness ; so is it with the sick soul. Whatsoever a man 
 soweth that shall he also reap ; and until he sows wheat, he cannot 
 gamer wheat in his bams. As we believe " in fire that it will burn," 
 in gravitation and electricity, in the flowing of the tides through 
 the influence of sun and moon, in the warmth of the sun and the 
 fragrance of flowers, so we beUeve in the ceaseless and unswerving 
 activity of moral laws. No theological contrivance will avail if we 
 scatter chaff over a garden to make it blossom with flowers ; if we 
 scamp our work and put in bad material, to render it strong and 
 enduring ; if we take poison, to protect us from death ; neither 
 will any theological contrivance avail to convert a sinner into a 
 saint, unless he resolve to walk in the path of righteousness. We 
 have no doctrine of " Atonement," therefore, to offer to the world 
 in any -shape or form save one — the Atonement for vnrong-doing 
 that can be made by nobler living. When Zaccheus the publican 
 joyfully received Jesus Christ in his house, in order to relieve 
 himself of the burden of guilt for any grinding down of the poor 
 of which he might have been guilty, he cried : " Behold, Lord, the 
 half of my goods I give to the poor ; and if I have taken anything 
 from any inan by false accusation, I restore to him fourfold." 
 What was the reply of Christ ? " And Jesus said unto him, This 
 day is salvation " (yes ! mark, " salvation ") " come to this house." 
 This is the kind of atonement we plead with men to make for 
 their sins ; the salvation our religion offers them is the salvation 
 of an ennobled life. 
 
 In the religion of the Unitarians this World is regarded as a 
 possible Kingdom, of Heaven. 
 
 This Earth as it is, how much fairer is it than we have had 
 eyes to see ! How much richer is it in blessings than we have 
 had grace to understand ! 
 
 By some forms of religion itself, have men's eyes been blinded^ 
 to the glorious loveliness spread around them ; and their hearts 
 hardened so that they have not felt the full, rich, sweetness of 
 innocent human joys. 
 
 An old monkish legend runs to the following effect : In May, 
 
392 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 1443, a company of priests at the time of the Council went to 
 ■walk in a wood near Basle. There were prelates and doctors and 
 monks of all colours, and they discussed theological subtilties ; 
 but suddenly, in the midst of their dogmatic arguments, they 
 stopped short, and remained rooted to the earth, before a linden 
 tree whereon a nightingale sat and exulted and sighed in the 
 softest, tenderest melodies. " Come away ! " cried a shocked monk, 
 " it is a. temptation of the devil." A temptation of the devil — to 
 be charmed from theological subtilties by a nightingale's song ! 
 In the religion I humbly cherish the nightingale's song tells me 
 more of my Maker than do the subtilties of theologians. 
 
 I am taught by my religion that it is graceless ingratitude to 
 neglect the beauties and glories of earth ; and that we shall best 
 prepare ourselves to receive any blessings that may be yet to 
 ■come in the world unseen by heartily enjoying the world that is 
 now seen. 
 
 In what is known as a " religious newspaper " I read the other 
 day a report of a sermon by a popular and devout preacher in 
 which the following tale was told : At a Gospel meeting a lady 
 was in deep concern about her soul ; and when pressed to believe 
 ■" God's word about Christ " (as the preacher called it) replied, " I 
 know that God won't save me to-day." The minister asked, " Why 
 •not ? God's word says that whosoever believeth shall be saved, 
 and now is the day of salvation." The lady replied, " Ah ! but I 
 know God won't save me to-day, because I have made up my mind 
 
 "to go to Mrs. 's ball on Tuesday evening, and He won't save 
 
 me, you know, unless I am willing to give up the ball." The 
 nuBister urged that God wished her then and there to believe that 
 "through Christ He could and would save her soul from hell." 
 The lady replied, "What about the ball?" The minister said, 
 " Come to Jesus just as you are, with the resolve to go to the 
 ball ; and leave that resolve to Him. God commands you just as 
 you are, and where you are, to believe that out of love to you His 
 only Son died on the Cross for your sins to save you from hell," 
 The lady burst into tears and cried, " I believe." The minister said, 
 " What about the ball ? " She joyfully exclaimed through her 
 tears, " Ah ! I don't want to go to the ball now ; I have obtained 
 something better — henceforth I shall live to return the love of 
 Him who laid down His life for me." 
 
 In one of the charmiug letters of the keenest satirist of modern 
 days, letters which show that the tenderness of Thackeray's heart 
 •excelled even the quickness of his insight into human follies, 
 Thackeray writes : " I don't know about the unseen world, the use 
 oi the seen world is the right thing, I'm sure. It is just as much 
 •God'« world and creation i\s the Kingdom of Heaven with all its 
 
THE UNITARIANS. 393 
 
 angels. How will you make yourself most happy in it ? how at 
 least secure the greatest amount of happiness compatible with 
 your condition? By despairing to-day and looking up cloud- 
 ward ? Pish. Let us turn God's to-day to its best use as well as 
 any other part of the time He gives us . . . The bounties of our 
 Father I believe to be countless and inexhaustible for most of us 
 here in life ; Love the greatest, Art (which is an exquisite, 
 admiring sense of nature) the next. By Jove ! I will admire, if 
 I can, the wing of a cock-sparrow as much as the pinion of an 
 archangel, and adore God the Father of the Earth, first; wait- 
 ing for the completion of my senses and the fulfilment of His 
 intention towards me afterwards, when this scene closes o'er us." 
 
 I cannot perhaps describe more clearly the spirit of the religion 
 I hold than by saying that it bids me cry " Amen " to the words 
 of the great humourist, rather than to the injunctions of the 
 preacher to " believe " a faith which will compel me to regard 
 the going to a ball as a desertion of Christ. 
 
 The Unitarians accept with all their hearts and souls the sub- 
 lime fact that the history of man is the history of a progressive 
 being. The legend of " the Fall " has a strange and touching 
 beauty of its own. It is like the sigh of an outworn and weary 
 man for the days of his childhood, when he knew no sin and had 
 received no wounds in the fierce battle of life. But we dismiss it 
 from our religion. We believe in the rise and not the fall of man. 
 We believe ourselves members of a race which has ever been 
 pressing onwards, unfolding fresh powers, discovering new truths, 
 recognizing higher and more comprehensive duties, escaping from 
 barbaric instincts and surroundings, and establishing from age to 
 age, in some portion of the world or other, a more wisely ordered 
 and happier civilization. 
 
 The commonest school-books teach how our rude forefathers 
 passed in their knowledge of the world's resources from the " age 
 of stone," through the " age of bronze," to the " age of iron." 
 When we study the history of nations we find that each empire 
 did some service in the world, and only fell when that service was 
 fully rendered and it encumbered the ground. The history of 
 religion tells the same glorious tale : every religion has been in 
 its day a step in advance. Practices and doctrines superstitious 
 to us at our time, helped, as we acknowledge with gratitude, to 
 uplift the souls of men. Every Christian Church, every form of 
 faith, now to be found in the world is, we believe, suited to the 
 wants of some human hearts, strengthens them to endure and 
 toil and hope as they pass through this strange pilgrimage, and 
 thus prepares in the desert a highway for our God. 
 
 Alas ! we are none of us true to our religion. So far as the 
 
 26 
 
394 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Unitarians are true to their faith they stand in the ranks of the 
 enthusiasts of humanity. This is their rightful place by virtue 
 of their principles and their history, however poor and weak may 
 be their organizations, however inconsistent may be their conduct, 
 however timidly they may shrink from the logical consequences 
 of their own convictions, however feebly they may discharge their 
 duties. At least I may claim without boastfulness that they have 
 to some real extent proved themselves among the enthusiasts of 
 humanity by making their spiritual centres centres of beneficent 
 activities. They taught reading, writing, and arithmetic in their 
 Sunday Schools, when a knowledge of those simple arts was 
 denied to the masses of our people. They conduct missions in 
 which the wants of the suflFering are heeded apart from any dis- 
 tinction of sect and party. They strive to unite themselves in 
 the discharge of public duties with all men who are sufficiently 
 liberal in spirit not to exclude heretics desirous of being useful in 
 God's world from their company. And who is the enthusiast of 
 humanity ? such an, enthusiast as I am moved by all the power 
 and authority of my religion, first and foremost of all things, to 
 pray that I may become ? The enthusiast of humanity especially 
 rejoices in all the bravest, most loving, self-sacrificing deeds 
 recorded in the history of man ; although performed by few they 
 mark for him sublime possibilities for all the children of God, 
 and are majestic prophecies of the world that is yet to be. His 
 heart beats as he hears of the captain standing by the sinking 
 ship until all are saved ; the soldier carrying a wounded comrade 
 from the battlefield amid a storm of bullets ; the miner pene- 
 trating dark and dangerous shafts in which the air is charged 
 with poison and flames to rescue his comrade ; the surgeon tend- 
 ing the sick in the haujits of pestilence. 
 
 He reverences with a boundless reverence those who have had 
 trial of cruel mockings and scourgings ; yea, moreover, of bonds 
 and imprisonment ; who have been stoned, sawn asunder, tempted, 
 slain with the sword, for righteousness' sake. 
 
 He enthrones as his masters, lords, and kings, those who have 
 been the world's outcasts, because the world's redeemers ; who 
 have opened the prison-house for the oppressed, and made the 
 blind see and the deaf hear. 
 
 He watches and aids to his utmost power the work of these 
 who would bring home the prodigal ; drag the stained woman 
 from haunts of debauchery ; bring young children from the 
 gutter to the school ; and replace by angel presences of pure and 
 holy feelings the demons of coarse passion which have entered 
 into human souls. 
 
 The enthusiast of humanity learns from all that has been done 
 
THE TTNITARIANS. 395 
 
 by man never to despair, and his confident hope, justified by the 
 lives of those who have strived, toiled, and died for the ungodly, 
 for the miserable, and for the wronged, is that 
 
 " A brighter mom awaits the human day 
 When every transfer of earth's natural gifts 
 Shall be a commerce of good words and works ; 
 When » » » 
 
 The fear of infamy, disease, and woe ; 
 War with its million horrors and fierce hell, — 
 Shall live but in the memory of time, 
 Who like a penitent libertine shall start, 
 Look back, and shudder at his younger years." 
 
 Whatsoever of this enthusiasm of humanity dwells within my 
 heart I owe to the religion I have so imperfectly described to-day. 
 I owe to my religion also the crowning hope that the awful and 
 majestic Power of powers, who has called into being as His 
 children those who can so majestically, although through such 
 dire and terrible struggles, pass from glory to glory, will not cast 
 away as worthless any individual soul belonging to the race. He 
 has so richly endowed with a capacity for endless growth, but has 
 prepared a heaven " of many mansions " where all tears shall be 
 wiped away from their eyes, and there shall be no more death ; 
 neither sorrow nor crying ; neither shall there be any more pain ; 
 for the former things shall have passed away. 
 
396 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 NONCONFOEMITY. 
 
 BY J. ALLANSON PICTON, M.A., M.P. 
 
 The title of this paper was not of my choosing, and when I 
 came to think of it, it appeared to me to present some pre- 
 liminary difficulties to which perhaps I had better allude. 
 Nonconformity, properly so called, exists only on a very narrow 
 portion of the earth's surface. It is confined almost entirely 
 to England and Wales. To a certain ejctent it may be said 
 to exist in Scotland, but on Scottish Nonconformity I shall 
 have another word to say presently. It is entirely unknown 
 in Ireland, it is also unknown in the United States of America, 
 and likewise in the British Colonies. It is unknown in Ireland,^ 
 in the United States, and in the Colonies, for the simple 
 reason that there exists in those happy lands no established 
 and authoritative Church, from which it is a crime, or at least a 
 social misdemeanour, to dissent. Where there is no legal standard 
 of Conformity, obviously there can be no such thing as Noncon- 
 formity ; and I could not but admire the sound common-sense of 
 Lord Salisbury a few months ago, who, when he was presented 
 with an address from certain alleged Irish Nonconformists 
 immediately remarked that no such people could possibly exist 
 in Ireland, since the Church was disestablished. 
 
 Not only is it the case that Nonconformity, properly so called,. 
 exists over a very limited extent of the earth's surface, but the 
 word has an entirely different meaning on opposite sides of the 
 Scottish Border. I heard an amusing illustration of this one day 
 when I was standing upon the Calton Hill in Edinburgh, and 
 surveying the noble prospect afforded there of the Modem 
 Athens. I was told that a good Presbyterian citizen had recently 
 been showing the hons of his native city to an Anglican clergyman 
 on a visit there. They ascended the Calton Hill together, and the 
 Presbyterian citizen pointed out with pride the large number of 
 ecclesiastical buildings to be seen. Said the Anglican clergyman, 
 " Certainly it is a glorious sight." " Well, yes," replied the 
 Presbyterian citizen, " but it is a little marred by the steeples 
 of those interloping Nonconformists." "What!" asked the 
 
NONCONFORMITY. 397 
 
 ■clergyman in surprise ; " Surely there are very few Methodists 
 or Independents in this country." "Oh, no," said the Pres- 
 "byterian citizen, "it is the Episcopalian Dissenting Churches 
 that I allude to." The good Anglican clergyman had not thought 
 at all of the fact that what was Nonconformity in England was 
 Conformity in Scotland, and what was Established in England would 
 be Dissent in Scotland. The word has, as I have said, entirely 
 different meanings on opposite sides of the Border. This is 
 -obviously a difficulty in the way of any comprehensive treatment 
 of the subject of Nonconformity. For all the forms of Christianity 
 are Nonconformist somewhere or other, and it can scarcely have 
 been the wish of the committee who manage this series of lec- 
 tures that I should attempt to deal with the opposition between 
 all historical Church establishments on the one hand, and all 
 Dissenting sects in every part of the world on the other. Never- 
 theless this idea of opposition gives the key, in my view, to the 
 meaning of the managers of these lectures, in asking me to 
 undertake the subject of Nonconformity. They wish me, I 
 presume, to deal with those English forms of Christianity the 
 ■evolution of which has been marked by the clash of conflict 
 against the traditional Catholic hierarchy, and, consequentially, 
 against the secular despotisms that have raged in this country in 
 times gone by. 
 
 Now, the various denominations whose history has this mark of 
 conflict in common present endless varieties of belief and of 
 ecclesiastical organization ; but all these varieties sprang originally 
 from one central conviction, on which I desire to dwell. That 
 central conviction was this, that a living inspiration is always to 
 Ije preferred to a dead tradition. Observe I use the word in- 
 spiration in no magic or miraculous sense. As nearly as I can 
 put it into the form of a definition, what I mean thereby is an 
 impulse that comes to emotional souls from a glimpse through the 
 veil of illusion into the deeper realities behind it. And such 
 •glimpses into the deeper realities of life, when they are experienced, 
 seem like — and I verily believe are — the inflow of a universal 
 life upon the sensitive heart. From Isaiah to Shakespeare and 
 onwards to Burns or Browning, where, apart from the poetic 
 beauty of expression in their utterances, you are moved to deep 
 :and noble emotions it is only by words that take you behind the 
 veil of conventional ideas, and surround you with the verities of 
 moral truth. 
 
 I don't know that ever a landscape looks more charming than 
 when it is suddenly revealed to you through a rent in a cloud. I 
 remember in the often misty, but always grand and beautiful, 
 land of Norway, I was wandering once down a mountain-side 
 
398 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 towards the seaward end of a valley, and I found myself entirely 
 encompassed by an impenetrable mist. But after some few 
 minutes of patience, suddenly a rift was cleared, and down below 
 I saw the solid luminous rocky feet of the adjoining moimtains, 
 and amidst them an exquisite little village, with deep red roofs 
 relieved against a background of verdant meadow. Never did the 
 soUd luminous earth appear so real or so beautiful to me, as by 
 contrast with the bewildering, uncertain mist in which I had been 
 lost. So it is with the soul that gets a glimpse of solid, luminous 
 reality through the uncertain mists of conventionalism and dead 
 tradition. 
 
 Those who have been sometimes wearied out with the dull 
 monotony of many Nonconformist services, or perhaps disgusted 
 with the mercenary vulgarity of others, may wonder that I should 
 attribute to Nonconformity any share of such inspiration as 
 I have spoken of. How can there be in Nonconformity, as we 
 know it in most conventicles at the present day, any impulse 
 coming to emotional souls from a glimpse through the veil 
 of illusion into the deeper realities behind? But remember, I 
 said just now that all varieties of belief and organization, embraced 
 within this wide word Nonconformity, sprang originally from such 
 inspiration ; I did not say they always represent such inspiration 
 now. They sprang originally from such inspiration, and were 
 for the most part glorious in the beginning. The stream that 
 stagnates as dead ditchwater, in the spreading mouth at the 
 outlet of a tidal river, may have leapt into the light as liquid 
 crystal, where the mountain-top meets the heavens; and e(y 
 it may happen, and very often does happen, that organizations 
 which appear now as very dull and prosaic sects had most nobl& 
 origins. It would, however, be invi(fious to particularize by way 
 of illustration, and therefore I leave yon to apply the remark 
 for yourselves. 
 
 Now, it is in its origin that Nonconformity is most instructive 
 to us. In its after-progress I am fain to confess that it has often 
 been fe,r more useful for purposes of warning, except in some 
 respects which I shall advert to presently. The conflict between 
 Nonconformity and the established hierarchy is only a modem 
 form of the perennial opposition between priestcraft on the 
 one hand, and prophetism on the other. The priest, from the 
 very beginning of religious organization, and even perhaps in 
 prehistoric times, represented customs that had become sacred 
 from thefr inveteracy. He represented traditional mysteries 
 which necessarily clothed these in ritual. He represented spiritual 
 authority that arrayed itself in pomp and glory. The prophet 
 on the other hand, represented inspiration in the sense that 
 
NONCONFORMITY. 399 
 
 I have given to the word. He represented the emergence of 
 truth out of mystery; the substitution of life for ritual,, and 
 of moral force fot the mechanical weight of authority. You may 
 find this contrast vividly portrayed in the Old Testament. A 
 quaint and striking instance occurs to my mind in the Book 
 of Amos the prophet. There we read that Amaziah, the priest 
 of Bethel, the most sacred place at that time in the northern 
 kingdom of Israel, was seriously scandalized by the plain, straight- 
 forward words of invective uttered by the mouth of Amos against 
 the wickedness of the priesthood and the people of the court. 
 Being unable to bear his words longer, and apparently somewhat 
 afraid of him, Amaziah said : " 0, thou seer, get thee into the 
 land of Judah, and there eat bread and there prophesy : but 
 prophesy not in Bethel ; for it is the king's chapel, and it is 
 the king's court." The reply of Amos was more forcible than 
 courteous, and by no means so touching as the words uttered 
 by a still greater prophet, Jeremiah, in somewhat similar circum- 
 stances. He resolved, owing to the strenuousness of the opposition 
 against him, to speak no more in the name of the Lord ; but, says 
 he : " His word was then within me as a burning fire shut up in 
 my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay." 
 In such illustrations as these you have, set forth with dramatic 
 force, the contrast between the priestly order of things sustained 
 by convention, custom, and passion ; and on the other hand the 
 vital inspiration of the prophet, who sees through the mists of 
 error a new truth — or rather, an eternal truth freshly revealed — 
 and must speak or die. 
 
 Christianity itself, was in its origin an extraordinary develop- 
 ment of this opposition between prophetism and priestcraft. 
 You know it is said of Jesus that when he addressed the multi- 
 tudes " they were astonished at his doctrine, because he taught 
 them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." Now, 
 foolish commentators have sometimes, though not in recent 
 times, seen in these words an acknowledgment of some divine 
 and supernatural claim on the part of Christ to instant obedience, 
 not on account of the truth he spoke, but because of his personal 
 prerogatives. Such, however, is as far as possible from being the 
 meaning of the words. The contrast is drawn between his teaching 
 and that of the scribes, who were the satellites of the priests. The 
 scribes gave form and order to the traditions that had come 
 down amongst the priests and their followers. The scribes put 
 into ancient and dried formulas the old customs that had become 
 sacred through inveteracy ; and their only idea of proving any 
 opinion was to count up the number of authorities by whom it 
 had been held. But this new prophet, Jesus, appealed to no 
 
400 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD, 
 
 external authority whatever. He spoke words that were lumin- 
 ous with the truth they bore to the soul within. As he told the 
 people of meekness, of mercy, of forgiveness, of brotherhood, of 
 simplicity, of humility, the words bore their own evidence with 
 them to the conscience of the hearer, and needed no appeal to 
 any other authority. This is the real force of the description 
 of his preaching, as that of one who spoke as having authority 
 and not as the scribes. His words came as a revelation bearing 
 its own evidence with it. 
 
 And yet Christianity, be it observed, was not in its origin, a 
 Nonconformist denomination ; that is to say, it did not depart or 
 separate itself from the established religion of the day. It kept 
 the law of Moses; and the very first followers of Jesus, like 
 himself, worshipped in the Temple and in the synagogues. It 
 was St. Paul who first developed Christianity into an outwardly 
 Nonconformist religion. It was St Paul who first taught that 
 the ritual and law of Moses was worthless, and had no power of 
 salvation in it. It was St. Paul who first invited heathen of all 
 classes and of all races to enter the Church without undergoing 
 any superstitious rite, and without binding themselves to observe 
 any ancient law whatever. What would Christianity have been 
 had it lived up to St. Paul ? St. Paul is sometimes honoured by 
 exaggeration on the one hand, and not suflBciently honoured 
 on the other for the real virtues he possessed. St. Paul was not 
 the profound philosopher, not the man of gigantic intellect, that he 
 is sometimes represented to be. But neither was he the Calvinistic 
 theologian that he is sometimes described as being. St. Paul was 
 certainly a prophet in the sense I have given to the word. The 
 mist of Jewish convention and tradition disappeared from before 
 his eyes, and he saw the solid luminous realities of moral truth 
 and goodness that are in themselves eternal, and independent of 
 any positive law whatever; and he taught those higher and 
 broader truths of morality as sufficient in themselves for salva- 
 tion. All that has been ascribed to him as Calvinistic theology 
 is only so much illustration, so much rabbinical habit, which 
 the man could not shake o£F, or to which he may have clung, 
 either on his own account or on account of the interests of 
 the people whom he addressed. He does indulge largely in 
 rabbinical modes of argument, and in Jewish illustrations; but 
 those who carefully read his writings will always see that there 
 is an object beyond these illustrations, and that the ultimate end 
 is always the establishment of a moral truth, independent of mere 
 convention and tradition. It is too often forgotten that St. Paul 
 never throughout his writings, so far as we possess them, ever sug- 
 gested such a thing as excommunication for differences of religious 
 
KONCONFOEMITY. 401 
 
 belief. He does occasionally tell his disciples to separate them- 
 selves from a brother who is walking in scandalous impurity ; but 
 those who read and remember will know that, in one of his 
 epistles, he refers to brethren in the Corinthian Church, who 
 actuedly said there was no resurrection. What does he do ? He 
 argues with them. He tells them of what he believes to have 
 been his own experience; he charges them with inconsistency 
 and with folly ; but he gives no direction that they shall be 
 excommunicated from the Church. 
 
 How very dififerent was his practice from that which would be 
 inevitable in any so-called Evangelical Church at the present day ! 
 Paul wished to establish a higher life amongst the people. For 
 this purpose he separated himself from the old Jewish ecclesiastical 
 organizations, and endeavoured to establish in the world a Chris- 
 tianity which should be entirely free from its traditions. But, 
 unfortunately, no man in that age of the world could possibly 
 •accomplish such a superhuman task. Notwithstanding all St. 
 Paul's teaching, the customs of Christianity ever tended to harden 
 into ritual. Its traditional mysteries became associated, through 
 its chief sacrament, with an irrational dogma. Its ritual demanded 
 a priesthood. Its priesthood developed into a hierarchy ; its hier- 
 archy necessarily assumed the functions of a spiritual tyranny. 
 
 During all this process of degeneration, however, protests and re- 
 actions continually arose. For the life of any religion, like the life 
 •of an organism, is shown by its power of internal rearrangement 
 and reconstruction to meet the necessities of changing circum- 
 stances. But the reaction most affecting the subject with which we 
 are now dealing did not occur, so far as our information goes, until 
 some six centuries had passed over the Church. In the fifty- 
 fourth chapter of his immortal history, Gibbon gives us a most 
 interesting account of the heresy called that of the Paulicians, 
 a name undoubtedly taken from the Apostle Paul. According 
 to Gibbon's account — and the best informed ecclesiastics allow 
 that, whatever his beliefs may have been, his information is 
 extremely accurate — a certain Syrian deacon in the course of his 
 travels met with a Christian named Constantine, somewhere in 
 the north of Syria, and in return for the hospitality he obtained 
 in his house presented him with certain sacred documents, which 
 turned out to consist of most of the canonical books of the 
 New Testament. Constantine studied these with great eagerness, 
 and was especially attracted, as anyone coming upon them for 
 the first time would necessarily be, by the passion and vitality 
 and energy of St. Paul's writings. Constantine felt as if a mist 
 were opening, and through a rift he saw more luminous and 
 fiolid truth behind. 
 
402 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Undoubtedly he and his followers soon fell into many fantasies 
 and errors, but, at the same time, their views were characterized 
 by very much vigour and simplicity. He shook off the yoke 
 of priestly superstition. He denied the necessity of either 
 bishops or elders to dispense the Word of Grod aright. He 
 repudiated the absolute need even for the sacraments of the 
 Church. He insisted upon a pure life, and simple attachment 
 to the teachings of Jesu.s, as they had come down through 
 St. Paul. He rejected the yoke of the Old Testament, and 
 thought that the New Testament had in it quite sufficient for 
 salvation. 
 
 His followers multiplied rapidly, and spread over a considerable 
 part of Asia Minor. As was always the case, until very recent 
 times, spiritual independence necessarily led not only to conflicts 
 with ecclesiastical, but to resistance against the secular, powers. 
 They made a violent fight for themselves, did these PauUcians ;. 
 but in the course of a century they were suppressed, and 
 removed entirely from their native soil, and transplanted to 
 the land of Thrace. Here they came into contact with the 
 Bulgarians, who had been newly established in the district, 
 and created another sect of heretics which was viewed with 
 the utmost abhorrence in the Middle Ages. Yet, though we 
 must allow that probably they had a great many wild ideas 
 mingled with their simple fervour, on the whole there seems 
 to be good reason to believe that they retained, even in Bulgaria, 
 very much of the simplicity and devotion that had characterized 
 the earliest Paulicians. 
 
 From Bulgaria this so-called heresy spread in various lines, 
 traced by Gibbon, to the west of Europe, and he believed,, 
 probably on fairly good grounds, that the teaching of the 
 Vaudois and the Albigenses was to be traced, if we only had 
 sufficient information on the subject, to the sporadic preaching 
 of these Bulgarian heretics, who derived their spiritual origin 
 from the Paulicians. 
 
 It is impossible to trace their influence directly on our own 
 country. But there is very much similarity between the general 
 spirit of Wycliffe and the Lollards on the one hand, and the 
 religious ideas of the Paulicians on the other ; and one can 
 scarcely help suspecting that through some underground channels, 
 the influence of the original sectaries had been brought to our 
 own country. Be that as it may, the followers of Wycliffe — the 
 Lollards as they were called — kept alive a similar spirit, a similar 
 desire to return to apostolic authority, for many years before 
 the Reformation dawned upon this country ; and it is doubtless 
 owing to their perseverance and bravery and patience, that 
 
NONCONFORMITY. 403 
 
 materials were preserved in this country on which a really 
 spiritual and moral reform could work. 
 
 The Reformation that took a visible form in the sixteenth 
 century in this country was something very different from that 
 inculcated by Wycliflfe and the Lollards. The royalties who 
 wrought that Reformation were practically untouched by any 
 religious revolt against superstition. Their objects were entirely 
 political. It was inconvenient to them to depend for any purpose 
 whatever upon the foreign authority of the Pope. All they 
 wished was to shake his yoke from their necks, while they, at 
 the same time, preserved the whole of the priestly discipline, 
 which was so convenient in dealing with the people. The 
 result was that there were two movements in this country, by 
 no means vitally united, or even connected one with the other. 
 There was the hierarchic movement, which was merely the asser- 
 tion of episcopal independence of Rome, while the Catholic 
 tradition was insisted on in its Anglican form ; and on the other 
 hand, there was the WycUffite or Lollard or Nonconformist 
 inspiration, which demanded a return to the teaching and spirit 
 of St. Paul. 
 
 It is obvious that I cannot take you through the history of 
 the conflicts arising from the double character of our Reformation. 
 I need only remind you that the priestly, hierarchic Church of 
 the Tudors and Stuarts entirely failed to satisfy the revived 
 prophetic spirit of the more radical reformers. This dissatisfac- 
 tion had much to do with preparing the way for the Great 
 Rebellion, and, stiU more, it had to do with ensuring the triumph 
 of that rebellion. 
 
 But, alas ! few of the victors in the struggle understood what 
 spirit they were of. Their notion was, that if they were perfectly 
 and confidently sure of anything themselves, they must compel 
 other people to be equally sure of it; and never were they 
 satisfied unless they could succeed. Absolute freedom of belief, 
 complete toleration for all forms of ecclesiastical organization, 
 seems to us so much a matter of course, that we can scarcely 
 conceive how two hundred and fifty years ago it was absolutely 
 impossible. Even when the presbytery had overthrown the hier- 
 archy, and wrung firom a defeated king and aristocracy the freedom 
 that had been so earnestly desired. Presbytery turned out to be, 
 as John Milton humorously said, " old priest writ large ; " and 
 the intolerance of the presbytery was a thorn in the side of the 
 very few earnest and thorough-going men who felt that there 
 was no remedy for the contentions of the time, but complete 
 and entire toleration of all dififerences of opinion. Even under the 
 Commonwealth — although from some study on the subject I, in my 
 
404 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 heart, believe that Oliver Cromwell was most anxious to forestall 
 future times in establishing tolerance even for Roman Catholics — 
 it was impossible to carry out this idea. Yet all new discoveries 
 that are made in ancient documents, and all more minute study 
 of the experience of individuals and local churches in those 
 days, give us continually a higher idea of the comprehensive and 
 tolerant spirit that in general actuated the greatest sovereignty 
 that this country ever experienced. 
 
 The restoration of Charles II. was in many respects the most 
 disastrous event, the direst curse, this country ever suffered. Yet 
 the persecution it brought on Nonconformity was by no means 
 an unmixed evil. That persecution forced Nonconformists back 
 into their proper duty of prophetic protest. It made them 
 heralds of a wider freedom than it ever entered into their 
 heads to dream of. It was not their theory, it was not their 
 aspiration, but the necessities of their position, that compelled 
 the passage of the Toleration Act. William III. was a man quite 
 shrewd enough to see that it was utterly impossible ever to stamp 
 out religious differences in this country ; and his Dutch experience 
 made him comparatively regardless of hierarchical superstitions. 
 He was, therefore, quite ready to make any reasonable compromise 
 which would give peeice in his time ; and thus it came to pass 
 that he obtained the throne on terms which ensured some limited 
 measure — a very limited measure it afterwards turned out to be — 
 of toleration to those who dissented from the Church as by law 
 estalished. 
 
 Toleration necessarily led afterwards to attempts at comprehen- 
 sion. When attempts at comprehension failed, the supporters of 
 authority were so disappointed and vexed that they recurred as 
 far as they could to methods of persecution, and so for more than 
 a hundred years Dissenters were held to-be rightly disabled from 
 taking any public oflBce of any kind unless they would sin against 
 their own consciences, by conforming to the outward rites and 
 ceremonies of the Church. Not until the year 1828 were the 
 Test and Corporation Acts repealed, and the right of all Non- 
 conformists fuUy acknowledged to take public appointments, 
 municipal positions, or offices under the Crown. 
 
 Catholic emancipation followed, as you know, about the same 
 time. It was a long while before the universities were thrown 
 open to Nonconformists, and they are scarcely thrown open yet as 
 wide as they ought to be ; and to this day we cry out, apparently 
 in vain, for the full and unlimited proclamation of religious 
 equality to all parties. 
 
 That, however, is assured to us. It is impossible for us to 
 draw back in the march of progress upon which we have entered, 
 
NONCONFORMITY. 405 
 
 and if not in our day, at least in the days of our children, 
 the last shreds of intolerance will be swept away from our 
 constitution. 
 
 Better, however, than any attempt to tell over again the history 
 of the struggles that have ensued from the persistency of Noncon- 
 formity, better is it to attempt some brief summary of what we 
 owe to Nonconformity as a phase of religious development. Very 
 different estimates must necessarily be formed as to the special 
 religious value to be attached to Nonconformity. Indeed, its 
 modes of belief, and its modes of religious action, and its forms of 
 worship are so endlessly different, that no general judgment can 
 possibly embrace them all. I am content to say that wherever 
 Nonconformity has kept alive its preference for living inspiration 
 over dead tradition there it remains a good thing ; there it is still 
 a glorious influence in our land. But wherever it has merely 
 substituted sectarian prejudice for the traditions of a hierarchy, 
 there it is necessarily evil. If I might give illustrations of Non- 
 conformist bodies that have retained for a long time their 
 preference for living inspiration over dead tradition, I could not 
 but refer specially to the Society of Friends. There is no sect 
 amongst the Nonconformists, which in its origin so entirely 
 abandoned all submission to earthly authority in matters of 
 religious opinion or religious worship. There is no religious body 
 that has made greater sacrifices, there is absolutely none that has 
 been so pure in its modes of action. For as you know, neither 
 Presbyterians nor Independents, nor for the matter of that 
 Baptists, scrupled to take the sword at times for the maintenance 
 of their own views, or of the power of their own religion. But the 
 followers of Fox have always confined themselves entirely to moral 
 suasion or to passive resistance. And none have ever shown more 
 martyr-like courage in bearing all the ills that a corrupt society 
 could heap upon them rather than soil their consciences. And 
 I cannot but think that the great statesman, whose voice is so 
 recently silenced in the tomb, owed very much indeed of his signal 
 moral influence over the senate and the people of this country 
 to his Quaker training. John Bright had learned in the meeting- 
 house that he attended in early life, near to which his remains 
 now lie, in truly " consecrated " ground, to prefer moral truth to 
 ecclesiastical forms, learned to prefer the direct utterances of an 
 unsophisticated conscience to the quibblings and explanations of 
 an effete theology. John Bright learned that the precious soul 
 of religion is righteousness ; and such convictions underlie all the 
 pleadings of his eloquence throughout his long and illustrious 
 career. 
 
 I might also, did time permit, allude to the poww of inspiration 
 
40G RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 for long possessed by the various Methodist connexions. Whether 
 their inspiration survives as brightly to the present day or not, 
 I will scarcely undertake to say. But there are sporadic move- 
 ments of Nonconformity, such as those represented by churches 
 scarcely connected with any sect whatever, in which able men — 
 men of profound convictions and of patriotic vigour — I might 
 say like the minister who used to preach in this building, the late 
 Mr. W. J. Fox, have borne testimony to the superiority of present 
 inspirations over eflfete traditions. 
 
 The inspiration does not die away. It may change from place 
 to place ; it may assume now one form and now another. It may 
 be associated now with one, and again with another species of 
 genius, but the inspiration is as immortal as humanity. 
 
 If I were to attempt to sum up the chief benefits that the 
 country has derived from Nonconformity, I would say they are 
 comprised mainly in the insistence on toleration, in the union of 
 freedom of thought with reverence, and in the exercise of the arts 
 of self-government. 
 
 Toleration, as I have already said, we do not owe directly to Non- 
 conformists. It was not intended by the original Nonconformists 
 themselves ; but their persistence in maintaining their own 
 position, and their impotence in attaining anything like 
 supremacy, compelled them to become advocates of toleration, and 
 therefore we do owe it indirectly to them. As to freedom of 
 thought, very little credit can be given to those denominations 
 who associate with the tenure of their most sacred edifices, a cut- 
 and-dried but mouldering creed, believed probably by not one in a 
 hundred of their congregation. They woidd chain men's thoughts 
 if they could, but happily they have found it to be impossible, 
 We do not owe freedom of thought, any more than toleration, 
 directly to Nonconformity ; but indirectly we may, because where 
 a number of sects had been arguing and wrangling together, the 
 conviction has gradually dawned upon a practical community that 
 really it does not matter very much what people say about these 
 things, so long as they act honestly and uprightly and purely. 
 The conviction has gradually dawned upon the country that it is 
 perfectly safe to allow thought to be free, so long as conduct is 
 right ; and in that sense we owe freedom of thought indirectly to 
 Nonconformists. 
 
 But there is one characteristic of our English freethought which 
 we owe even more directly to Nonconformity, and that is its 
 alliance with a spirit of reverence. On the Continent you do not 
 find this so often. There for the most part the power of establish- 
 ments on the one hand, and the mocking scepticism that surrounds 
 them on the other, suggest to us a weight of solemn humbug on 
 
NONCONFORMITY. 407 
 
 "the one side, and heartless levity on the other. There is not 
 sufficient appreciation in French or in most German scepticism of 
 the enormous moral advantage that religious struggles have given 
 to the world. But in this country of ours, the variety of forms 
 prevailing amongst Nonconformists and the sacrifices that they have 
 been ready to make for their religious convictions; the friction 
 that has been created amongst these various opinions, and the 
 •charity that has gradually been forced upon the holders of these 
 opinions, one towards the other ; have all united to bring about 
 ■finally, not only a law of toleration but a spirit of tolerance. And, 
 moreover, all these influences have tended to bring about a con- 
 viction that all forms of religion have had some meaning, and all 
 have been of some value to humanity. Accordingly in this 
 country the progress of freethought is not destructive merely, it is 
 ■constructive as well. We have learned to value the inspiration 
 given in past times by religion of a theological order ; and we are 
 busily, and I hope not without fruit, asking now : How shall this 
 inspiration be supplied from the eternal sources of truth ever open 
 in the visible universe itself? 
 
 Finally, we Anglo-Saxons often make our boast that we are 
 better capable of self-government than other races in the world. 
 Not only here but in our colonies we exhibit both imperial and 
 muncipal institutions in which the rights of the individual are for 
 the most part carefully observed while the needs of the community 
 ■axe insisted upon. Hardly, however, do we sufficiently remember 
 ■one of the sources from which our capacity of self-government has 
 sprung. The source I allude to is the exercise of self-goverment 
 amongst Nonconformist churches. When first Dissenters from the 
 Establishment met in holes and comers to carry on their own 
 worship, or the various charitable undertakings which have always 
 been connected which religion, they had no official authority to 
 compel any one to keep order — they were necessarily dependent 
 on each other. Each brother had as good a right to express his 
 opinion as any other. They could only rule by the majority, and 
 consequently they began to study the arts of self-government. 
 They found it was necessary to make compromises one with the 
 other ; they found that they must exercise charity. They found 
 that there was great need of patience. And those scomers who 
 ridicule and laugh at the squabbles of deacons and ministers in 
 Nonconformist bodies, and the fights between various sects and 
 parties in " little Bethels," are blind indeed if they do not per- 
 ceive that, precisely from such exercises in the art of self-control 
 and self-government as were given in these apparently ignoble 
 places, has gradually been developed to its highest possible extent 
 the power of self-government possessed by the English people. 
 
408 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Eemember, these little self-governing communities were scattered 
 throughout the land for hundreds of years before we were a free 
 people in the modem sense of the word ; before the franchise was 
 extended to every household. Undoubtedly the poor, who had little 
 advantages of intellectual culture, owed very much to their 
 membership of Methodist chapels, or of Independent meeting 
 houses, or of Baptist churches, in various parts of the country, 
 where they squabbled with each other until they learned to bear 
 with one another in patience and charity. 
 
 On the whole then, I would say that the chief value that we 
 should assign to Nonconformity in the history of this country is 
 not on account of the theological opinions it has advocated, or the 
 theoretical arguments whereby it has maintained them ; but rather 
 on account of its moral and political activity. And they who appraise 
 this rightly will find in Nonconformity one of the most beneficent 
 factors in^the evolution of the British nation. 
 
409 
 
 METHODISM. 
 
 BY MRS. SHELDON AMOS. 
 
 When I was invited to lecture iiere I had never delivered a 
 lecture anywhere, and looking at the list of subjects undertaken 
 by distinguished persons for this course, I was fainthearted, and 
 though I did not like exactly to refuse a kind offer, I saw no 
 excuse for speaking on any great World-Eeligion. Of ancient 
 Egypt alone I knew enough to know that I knew very little. So 
 I looked further, and seeing one lecture on "The Mass "I perceived 
 that a portion of Christianity might be admissible, and then it was 
 clear that I had hereditary right to speak on Methodism : for 
 after the name of John Wesley himself there occurs no name of a 
 Methodist organizer and, so to say, statesman so prominent as that 
 of my grandfather, Dr. Bunting. And yet, though brought up in 
 the innermost centre of English Methodism, it were with diffidence 
 I should approach the effort to speak of the great American, 
 Australian, and other branches of the Methodist Connexion, had 
 I not, in the course of a life spent among singularly varied sets 
 of human beings, found constantly a quite curious amount of 
 ignorance about the meaning, history, condition, and aims of 
 Methodism. If I can induce some of you to inform yourself about 
 what I take to be at once the most conservative, the most radical, 
 the most practical, and the most intensely spiritual of Churches, 
 the one which has most frequently been rent by the fierce deter- 
 mination of the violent who take the Kingdom of Heaven by 
 storm, to press on always to the next step in spiritualized and 
 spiritualizing popular religion and Church government, I shall not 
 regret having come to try to speak to you to-day. 
 
 I say that Methodism is conservative. John Wesley inherited 
 both the Puritan and the Anglican traditions, and so the spirit of 
 the Reformation, and you trace that back and back to the beginning 
 through more and less obscure retumings to a primitive ideal. 
 And John Wesley's four volumes of sermons and his notes on the 
 New Testament are still the comprehensive, tolerant, broad, while 
 minute and exact, body of theological teaching on which Methodist 
 ministers are trained, and to which they declare their agreement 
 
 37 
 
410 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 before they are ordained to the ministry. Such a mass of theo- 
 logical teaching cannot be rigid as a short creed. For while they 
 exclude creeds wider and more elastic, there has been no proposal 
 to dethrone' them as Methodist standards. And in these are 
 included sermons and notes which have caused High Churchmen 
 and Low, Sacramentarians and Salvationists, alike to claim John 
 Wesley as of their own particular way of thinking. I will not say 
 that they are as wide as Christianity itself, but they are very 
 inclusive and not rigid Hke creeds. 
 
 And Methodism is radical. No difficulty ever arose in Mr. 
 Wesley's time nor since to prevent the most daintily trained 
 clergyman, or son of a wealthy house, from finding himself either 
 under the direction, or on equal brotherly terms, or in authority 
 over, some earnest stonemason, or workhouse lad, or tailor, whom 
 the grace of God had endowed with a spiritual force of delicacy 
 that made them true brothers in work for their Master. And 
 while the ministers set apart to give their whole lives to the 
 preaching of the Gospel have their own place in the system 
 of Methodism, there are several distinct facts which prevent the 
 spirit of sacerdotalism from getting hold on Methodists. It is 
 true that none but ordained ministers have ever administered the 
 Sacraments, but that is held to be a mere matter of order and 
 organization, not of heaven-given special capacity as transmitters 
 of a grace not to be obtained save through them. It could not be 
 otherwise, for, while Mr. Wesley himself and many of his first 
 coadjutors were ordained clergymen of the Church of England, at 
 the time when the persecuting clergy of the Church of England 
 drove the Methodists from the Communion Table, and even refused 
 their children baptism and their dead burial, many of the 
 ministers who met in solemn conference, and after years of 
 anxious consultation and of strong demand from the people, finally 
 decided that it had become necessary for them to administer the 
 Sacraments themselves to their people, had never been formally 
 ordained by a bishop. Nothing would be more difficult than for 
 a Methodist minister to trace any link to ApostoHc Succession 
 in the High Church materialistic sense. Nothing easier than for 
 him to do so in the true spiritual sense of worship in the Gospel, 
 though a solemn setting apart of men to the ministry, by ministers, 
 had been the invariable rule since the first. Ordination by 
 the laying on of hands did not become customary in Methodism 
 till some forty years after that. So any theory of sacerdotalism 
 would be p. comedy in Methodism. Methodism holds that the 
 special grace and wisdom needful for the due fulfilment of any 
 calling in life, the ministry, banking, street sweeping, housewifery, 
 is to be looked for by all alike in answer to faithful prayer. But 
 
METHODISM. 411 
 
 Methodism is even more radical than this : ixom the beginning it 
 has done what the most advanced, political radicalism is only now 
 with pains and difiSculty advancing towards. And in Methodism 
 the advanced political radicals often have their eyes closed on this 
 one point, while the political and Methodistic conservatives are 
 more clearsighted, because Mr. Wesley was himself more clear- 
 sighted. He admitted women to almost an equality with men 
 throughout his religious system. It is true that there were no 
 ordained women to offer their help to him as some good clergy did, 
 and it is true that he never ordained or sent women on " rounds," 
 — now called " circuits," and stifHy organized — as preachers in 
 those rough times. But the son of Susannah Wesley, the mother 
 of the Church, the woman who in those days of excessive wifely 
 obedience had quietly taken in the villagers to her kitchen when 
 her clergyman-husband was long absent from his charge, and in 
 spite of his remonstrances prayed and sung and taught them as she 
 was called of God to do ; that woman's son, trained minutely by 
 her in such methodical ways — of saving every moment of his days 
 for orderly predetermined purposes — as earned for him, and for 
 the great multitude whom no man has numbered, who throughout 
 the world have now for one hundred and fifty years followed him 
 more or less truly, the name of Methoddsts ; that woman's son 
 was not likely to err as to the spiritual capacity and function of 
 •women in the Christian Church. Like St. Paul, whose teaching 
 as to the position of women has been so strangely reversed and 
 perverted, recognized the duty of women extraordinarily called of 
 ■God to preach, he advised and arranged that women's work should, 
 so far as his organization was concerned, not force them into 
 positions made too dangerous for them by the licentiousness and 
 roughness of the days ; but he, like St. Paul, was glad to learn from 
 them, and was carefiil to explain that these were casual and 
 temporary difficulties, and he gave to women as much place and 
 authority in the Church as could then be. Women preached 
 largely, and with great effect, in their own neighbourhoods and 
 -where they were invited to go. And it was not till the year 1801, 
 when more timid, smaller-natured men were at the helm, that the 
 Methodist Conference decided that the women should no longer 
 have a place upon the lists of regularly appointed ministers in the 
 Methodist chapels. One of the women thus rudely and foolishly 
 excluded from Wesleyan Methodist pulpits was the original of 
 Dinah Morris, the aunt of George Eliot, Mrs. Samuel Evans, to 
 whom the news was conveyed with discomfort by my great-uncle, 
 then the superintendent of the "circuit" in which she lived. 
 She joined the Kilhamites, a number of people who had already 
 left the Methodist Connexion in 1796, because they felt the growth 
 
412 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of that sacerdotal spirit which is always the haunting demon 
 of the Christian minister going about seeking whom it may 
 devour. 
 
 The date of this division, or first offshoot from Wesleyan 
 Methodism, is, however, significant, as all the early dates of 
 Methodism are. John Wesley had been bom into an England 
 brutalized by the deadened condition of the Church and the 
 comparative decay of Nonconformity; and had throughout his 
 laborious life been pouring on the people the spirit of brother- 
 hood in the Gospel which availed to save England from the 
 excesses, while it prepared it to derive immense blessing from 
 the true underlying principles, of the French Revolution. And 
 after his death, while the mourning and disorganized body of 
 ordained and unordained "helpers" of Mr. Wesley (as the 
 ministers were then called) were casting about for an organization 
 that should keep themselves and the people together, it is not 
 to be wondered that there were errors both revolutionary and 
 anti-revolutionary, which time has quietly operated upon till 
 the reunion is not far distant now of the central body of 
 Wesleyan Methodists with the original Kilhamite secession, and 
 others that have followed on more or less similar grounds. There 
 are not many Methodists now living who would not say that each 
 secession has taken from Methodism some of her saintliest and 
 most intelligent children, and that Methodism has learned by 
 each convulsion some lesson of democracy. In fact every point 
 of Church organization which has been contended for by successive 
 seceders, has now been carried in the body from which they seceded. 
 And now at last Methodism seems to have learned its lesson. The 
 authorities no longer hasten to drive beyond the borders energetic 
 seething souls, anxious to keep the Church up to the point 
 reached in popular government outside, and the young energetic 
 men are content to submit to some delay, some tight holding of 
 the reins, for the sake of those who do not yet, but soon will, think 
 with them. The history of the last two years in Methodism has 
 been a strange proof of this. A few men felt that the methods of 
 service, of attack upon wickedness and carelessness around, were 
 antiquated and less useful than they had been, and though their 
 ideas were by many thought wild, conceited, dangerous, impracti- 
 cable, the general sense of the Church was that room, time, 
 money, and permission ought to be given for a fair trial. That 
 the forward movement was right has been abundantly proved by 
 success is known, I do not doubt, to some here. To how great an 
 extent it has been successful it would need, in these days of quick 
 and perfected communication, a world-wide knowledge to estimate. 
 Meanwhile Methodists thank God and take courage, and turn with 
 
METHODISM. 413 
 
 a bolder face than ever to the surrounding masses of the people, 
 rich and poor, Christian and non-Christian, and say : " Here is a form 
 of Church organization which offers to you full use of every faculty 
 you have, naturally or by acquirement, if only it is unreservedly 
 devoted to the service of God and of His people the world over. 
 That is the keystone of Methodism : personal consecration ; the 
 consecration which is possibly only to the soul that is consciously 
 forgiven and at one with God, at one in will and in deed, carrying 
 His purposes, fulfilling His plans for the world day by day in 
 every form of activity possible to humanity, — at one with God in 
 Christ. 
 
 Methodism says that this union is necessarily a conscious one ; 
 that with uncertainty as to the favour and love of God, as to the 
 forgiveness of personal sin, there cannot co-exist the abounding 
 joy, the impeUing eagerness of love, which is the spring of 
 practical Christianity, which is true socialism. Once it is realized 
 that we are God's children and it becomes natural that, like Him, 
 we should care for the poor and the unhappy ; that, like Him, we 
 should take great part in the conduct of politics ; that, like Him, 
 we should wage war against vice and cruelty ; like Him, love peace 
 and pursue it ; like Him, of set purpose use our lives and our 
 deaths for the good of others, seeking not our own. 
 
 But this is not a new doctrine introduced by Methodism, though 
 it is the attracting force which has made Methodism — in spite of 
 the hugeness of the numbers of people who call themselves 
 Methodists all over the world, some millions — like a freemasonry. 
 They may be Episcopalian in America, Calvinistic in Wales, 
 Arminian in England and Australia and the South Sea Islands, 
 and may vary in many small matters. In the great matter there 
 is unity, — we know our sins forgiven, and we rejoice in the love 
 of God. I do not mean that all who call themselves Methodists are 
 faithful ; I do not mean that all bom into Methodist houses live as 
 the children of godly parents should do ; I do not mean that we 
 are a mass of saints. No, indeed ; I mean that every loyal and 
 true member of this great Church holds the doctrine that this 
 peace and joy in believing is a privilege which only personal lack 
 of faith or obedience to God's law can hold him from. That it is 
 God's will that he should share His life and work. May God 
 grant us all to see this truth ! It is a truth which has wrought 
 the three great revolutions of the world in Christian times. 
 St. Paul, earnest and energetic, distinguished for learning and 
 x'eal, conscientious, was but one man among many until one day 
 he saw himself as he was in relation to Christ, and saw in the 
 same critical hour what God in Christ was ready to be to him. 
 He knew his sins forgiven : he knew that a new life had begun in 
 
414 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 him. He was conscious that the Spirit of God dwelt in him 
 witnessing to his spirit that he was the child of Grod, and leading, 
 restraining, teaching him in all the ways in which till then he 
 had relied on his own judgment. The opponents of Christianity, 
 ignoring Christ's own promise, of such teaching by His Spirit, 
 attribute the change of the then known world from Paganism of 
 the most vicious type to Christianity to Paul, the man who had 
 passed through this great crisis — this judgment of himself and of 
 his relationship to Grod. But as the centuries passed on, and the 
 Church had grown respectable and powerful, this necessity that 
 each individual should in the same way see himself and herself 
 in the light of heaven, and should receive the Spirit of God in 
 order to live a true Christian life, receded into the background. 
 Persecution over there was not the same obvious desperate 
 necessity for each to be sure of a doctrine for which they might 
 be called on to give up everything in the world. And the 
 Christian Churches, while maturing in doctrine in some directions, 
 grew rotten in doctrine in others, and the people called by that 
 name ceased generally to understand that each one must live by 
 conscious union with Christ as the only Saviour from sin and 
 Teacher in the ways of life. The Church could speak with human 
 voice ; and ears were stopped, and did not listen for the inward 
 voice of the Spirit. Then came Luther, and once more the Chris- 
 tian world rang with the teaching that this man had passed 
 through a great crisis in life ; had seen himself, as Paul had, in 
 his true colours ; had seen, as Paul had, the promised help of the 
 indwelling Spirit; had received power once more to rouse the 
 sleeping world, and proclaim to it the blessed fact that each one 
 might know his sins forgiven, and learn by an ever-present Helper 
 to live a life of purity and joyful brotherliness in the world, by 
 word and deed — by political and religious activity to make it 
 easier for those around him to live good lives, to return to God, 
 to find the same help in life as himself. But, just as in St. Paul's 
 time this new spirit in the people led to persecution by the 
 authorities, who thought their power threatened by an appeal to 
 the supreme authority, conscious in themselves that they did not 
 subject their actions to the same law, so in Luther's time the new 
 consciousness of right and justice caused wars to rage and a 
 general seething unrest of the people of Europe, until the popular 
 spirit was exhausted for a while, and lay down in deathlike 
 sleep; and then the time of revolution followed on, in which 
 Wesley, and the group of remarkable men and women who 
 wrought with him, once more, in more hopeful surroimdings, 
 preached, and showed in their own lives, that Christianity is not 
 an authoritative dogma to be taught and submitted to, but 
 
METHODISM. 415 
 
 a life of spiritual union with God in His Son Jesus Christ; 
 that each one bom into the world is bom to see God as a Father 
 who has in Christ shown Himself to be Love, and who dwells 
 by His Spirit in the innermost secret place of life in everyone 
 who receives Him, in such a manner that that person cannot but 
 be conscious that sin is forgiven, that the law of God has become 
 the expression of his own opinion and will, that he sees it in 
 all ways to be good and to be desired. The Spirit of God 
 witnesses with his spirit that he is the child of God. Thus, the 
 essence of Methodism is simply that secret of Christianity which 
 has again and again remoulded the face of society. At each fresh 
 activity of this motor nervous system of the Christian body a 
 great advance has been made. It is true that each time the 
 period of activity has been followed by relapse, but it never 
 had been as before, and each time the social system has been 
 more fit to take a deeper and wider impression. And now, 
 again, I believe that the same doctrine has begun to give a 
 fresh impulse to -a far wider world than ever. Salvationism — an 
 offshoot of irrepressible vigour from a former offshoot that did 
 not find room enough in the Wesleyan Methodism which was 
 beginning to be respectable, and to frown on too much individuality 
 in obedience to inward impulsion — Salvationism has touched the 
 brutalized masses in our own country and elsewhere with a light 
 and fiame from heaven, and is sending such enthusiastic embassies 
 to India as to convince the people there (as no previous missions 
 have done) that there is power and truth in Christianity, since 
 these preachers of it, like their Master, strip themselves of all 
 their advantages and gladly lay down their life if only they 
 may convince them that they have a Father in Heaven, a Saviour 
 from sin, a Spirit of purity and wisdom, to lead them into all 
 truth. 
 
 Salvationism is the offspring of Methodism, and is Methodism 
 adapted to one section of society. But Methodism has its statelier 
 moods, and its bov/rgeois developments. It has its " churches " 
 with liturgy-organized services; it has its plain chapels with 
 hearty comfortable congregational worship ; and it has its lovefeasts 
 and class-meetings. It is, in fact, less a material organization 
 than a vital force. I believe that the next few years may see it 
 doing once more what it did in Wesley's own day, pouring into 
 churches here and abroad, new and old, and into a too respectable 
 Nonconformity — for ^Nonconformity, by instilling good principles 
 into the working classes, always tends to produce nouveaux 
 riches, who are smug and too respectable for anything good — a 
 vivacity, an audacity, of Christian vigour which must remould 
 society again. It has been said lately by one of the privileged. 
 
416 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 " We are all socialists," and it is to be hoped that at least the 
 religious are going to prove themselves so. 
 
 In John Wesley's idea Methodism was not a Church. He per- 
 mitted a Methodist service to be held in church hours, and even 
 to the present day in quiet villages the same filial respect is 
 shown to the National Church. The change came when the 
 numbers of persons excluded from the Communion, and treated 
 as pariahs by the clergy, grew so great that it was a practical 
 inconvenience for them to be unable to use the best hours of the 
 Sunday for the services to which they were attached. But the 
 spirit of dissent which now exists in Methodism is an unnatural 
 excrescence, and will die down again as soon as fresh life in the 
 Church of England causes the hand of brotherly love to be 
 stretched out. What I have said about the width of Methodist 
 standards of doctrine suffices to indicate that the narrowness of 
 dissent is non-Methodistic. It will always cherish the old name 
 of " the Society called Methodists." And in this it has a great 
 advantage. We are sometimes told that the Church of England 
 is the historical Church, or the Church of Eome. But we say 
 no — the historical Church is, of course, a body of people, called by 
 any name or names, who freely seek for all good things in the 
 past in various developments of Christianity, who exclude no help 
 or beauty that can be proved to be helpful or beautiful now ; that 
 is ready to learn from comrades now living, or who have passed 
 away to the Church above ; that is, in fact, the heir of the saints 
 of former days ; is aiming at training saints now ; and that is 
 making Church history every day. 
 
 This Society has some ways of conducting its religious life that 
 are subjects of curioaity and misunderstanding more than most 
 religious organizations. Especially I mean class-meetings and 
 lovefeasts, and of these I wish to speak. Lovefeasts are, at all 
 events for the present, rather in abeyance, or take a different 
 form. As I remember them, they were occasions on which pieces 
 of currant-bread and water were passed from pew to pew in the 
 chapel, and then, interspersed' with singing and prayer, one short 
 speech after another was made by whoever chose about the life of 
 Christ in the heart. One would be full of joy and praise for help 
 in trouble, or added and sharpened delight in happy circumstances. 
 Another would tell of heavy-heartedness and clinging faith and 
 hope in Grod. There was always a feeling of special approach to 
 the presence of God, and I think these meetings were good. Of 
 course they gave opening by their popularity to many strange 
 speeches ; and I must claim for Methodism a greater capacity for 
 humour in religion than any other Church. We are not afraid of 
 humour. It is a part of the human nature which our Master took 
 
METHODISM. 417 
 
 upon Himself ; and when the human being is at one with Him, 
 fun is part of the natural play of vitality. But it is kindly, 
 decorous, and well kept in hand. Many and many a story of 
 queer sayings in lovefeasts I could tell if this were the opportunity. 
 They were domestic gatherings. Nowadays we meet differently, 
 perhaps not so familiarly. Class-meetings, however, have not 
 suffered much change. They were usually small gatherings of 
 some dozen to twenty people for strictly devotional purposes, and 
 for the purpose of giving and getting sympathy and mutual 
 advice in leading a godly life. Very helpful, indeed, they are, and 
 the tie that binds members of a class can become exceedingly 
 valuable. They vary as infinitely as the characteristic of the 
 leader or person who is accountable to Methodism for those put 
 under his or her spiritual charge, as infinitely as the characteristics 
 of the members. In some cases it is a stiffer, in some a more 
 homely, meeting. But in every case the Word of God is accepted 
 as the rule of life, and the httle groups try to help each other to 
 conform to it ; and membership in one of these classes constitutes 
 membership in the Methodist Society. We do not count our 
 members by communicants or by attendance at our places of 
 worship, so that when I quoted the numbers of Methodists all 
 over the world as being five and a half millions, other Churches 
 would, who count by church attendance, have multiplied that by 
 at least four. 
 
 These domesticated groups are a great help to Methodist 
 ministers in getting to know the needs of their people. For the 
 minister is bound to visit all the classes once every quarter 
 of a year, and so gets a quite rare opportunity of gauging the 
 spiritual tone of his congregations. He learns where to look for 
 the spiritually minded men and women who will be likely to be 
 useful workers in the spiritual and temporal oflSces of the church ; 
 where the lads are growing who will make good ministers and 
 should be encouraged, and where he can best get help for some 
 doubtful or tender spirit whose troubles have been confided to 
 him. And the people get to know him — a very important thing 
 in Methodism. For Methodist ministers are not put in charge 
 of a congregation for life, or till a better opening comes. They 
 change from place to place every three years, alternating between 
 •country and town charges, learning life and people more 
 thoroughly than any other body of men, and carrying with them 
 from place to place a sense of brotherhood, and an actuality of 
 friendship which welds Methodists of all classes and all places 
 together. This healthy circulation was the invariable rule; 
 indeed, the change used to be actually, and still theoretically 
 may be, made every year. But for some purposes it is becoming 
 
418 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 desirable to give longer tether to some few ministers,, and the 
 ecclesiastical system I have attempted to indicate is easily 
 elastic enough for that. But there is another peculiar institution 
 in Methodism, which greatly modifies the relation of the ministers 
 and the people, and which enables me to say that with the 
 exception of the administration of the Sacraments there is no 
 function of the Christian ministry which Methodist ministers do- 
 not share with the laity. The pastoral office is shared with the 
 men and women leaders of classes, the ecclesiastical rule of the 
 Church is shared with laymen (and in the lower branches theoreti- 
 cally with women), and even the office of preaching is shared 
 very largely with lay preachers who live by their own labour and 
 give their Sundays to preaching in their own neighbourhoods, and 
 sometimes in distant parts of the country. The office of a local 
 preacher is one that has always been held by men of the most 
 various attainments and positions in the world, and much of the 
 vigorous life of the Methodist Society is owing to the fact that 
 the ministry is thus felt to be not a far-off office, but one of 
 the functions of the Christian life exercisable by anyone whose 
 capacity for teaching is recognized by a number of his fellows. 
 Many a useful local preacher has wished to be a minister set 
 apart and ordained, but his suitability for Orders has not been 
 clear to the authorities. It is evident that " priests and people," 
 as they are commonly classed elsewhere, are more intimately and 
 socially close together in Methodism than elsewhere. Yet there 
 is no lack of reverence or esteem for those who deem themselves 
 called, and whose call is recognized by the Church, to give them- 
 selves entirely to the work of the ministry. There is no super- 
 stition about Orders, but the ministry is considered the highest 
 vocation in life, and worthy so to be held in reverence. 
 
 I do not pretend to do justice to my subject. I can do nothing 
 more than hint at a few of the salient features of Methodism. 
 But I can end my lecture to-day as some others could not do. 
 You were not, I suppose, invited to become disciples of Con- 
 fucianism or Shintoism, nor, I hope, of that oddity now called 
 Buddhism which is not Buddhism ; but I have the happiness to be 
 able to say that I have no desire to take leave of any of you. I 
 rather say, speaking in the name of Methodists in general, to all 
 and everybody the round world over : " Come with us, and we will 
 try to do you good." 
 
419 
 
 INDEPENDENCY, OK LOCAL CHUKCH 
 GOVEENMENT. 
 
 BY THE JIEV. EDWAllD WHITE. 
 {Eit^havniian of the Congregational Union of Snffland and Walet.) 
 
 Nearly forty years ago I spent ten years of my life in the little 
 western city of Hereford, on the Wye, where, among our ten 
 thousand people, we had religious folk of almost every species 
 known in England : Anglicans of every type — High Church, Broad 
 Church, Low Church ; Roman Catholics; Methodists of each section — 
 Wesleyan, Primitive, New Connexion ; Quakers ; Baptists ; Plymouth 
 Brethren, of two or three shades, hived in separate " rooms," who 
 loved Grod so much that they would scarcely speak to one another 
 in the streets ; Congregational! sts ; Unitarians ; and professors of 
 every type of Modern Agnosticism and Nothingarianism, together 
 with a few active Infidels and Atheists. It was a strange expe- 
 rience. It was also an interesting opportunity. I was intimate 
 with specimens of almost each variety of thought and character, 
 fi;om Beans and Canons, and Roman Catholic Priests, down to 
 hyper-Calvinists, and God-denying materialists who had revolted 
 altogether against modem Christianity. It was a position almost 
 resembling that of Noah in the ark, where one could study close 
 at hand every species, sometimes well-nigh watching their evo- 
 lution of varieties and transformations. I was almost the only 
 person in the city who seemed to wish to know all sects and 
 parties ; and, though not popular with any of them, they taught 
 me many things which subsequent experience in this vast sea of 
 souls in liOndon has only confirmed during the subsequent forty 
 years. 
 
 One of the chief of these lessons in the natural history of religion 
 was the perception of the fact that all really good and God-fearing 
 men are very much ahke inside. If you could, as Plato somewhere 
 imagines, cleave them down the centre, and lay open a section of 
 their inmost characters, you would find them all, including many 
 of the doubters, earnest for truth-seeking, provided you did not 
 expect them to seek truth outside their own little sheepfolds : 
 for then the passion for truth-seeking begins to diminish in 
 
420 KELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 intensity ; men are so much more under the influence of their 
 friends and acquaintances than of abstract conscientious considera- 
 tions. And yet, within these limits how much one could learn to 
 love and admire round the whole circle ! All the good men — I do 
 not say all the professedly religious men, or all the pretenders — 
 seemed to desire the right, and tried to enjoy the lower pleasures 
 of life with due regard to the higher delights and duties possible 
 to mankind. All the good men were diligent, generous, tem- 
 perate, hospitable, and truth-speaking ; clean-handed, reverent, 
 and compassionate. And one had the feeling that, if their souls 
 could have been taken out of their bodies, and especially out of 
 the religious or non-religious bodies to which they belonged, they 
 would together have composed a Catholic and Apostolic Church, 
 which would have proved a mighty force against the powers .of 
 darkness in that Cathedral City, which indeed were considerable 
 both in the lay and clerical departments. 
 
 We see modern Christianity under many disadvantages. The 
 full breadth and depth of abstract Christianity is now found only, 
 I think, in its own original documents, which are strikingly 
 different from the more developed creeds and churches of later 
 Christendom. If the Apostles had gone forth to attack Judaism, 
 or the Heathenism of the Greeks and Romans and Asiatics, with 
 the Athanasian Creed, or the Assembly's Catechism, or the Deda- 
 ration of Faith of the Methodist or Presbyterian or Congrega- 
 tional bodies in one hand, and the Cross in the other, I suppose 
 no one thinks they would have had much success in the overthrow 
 of ancient paganism. The stupidity and ignorance of multitudes 
 of both saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers, is an enor- 
 mously powerful factor in the history of the world ; though it is 
 undoubtedly far better to have one eye than to have none, or 
 €ven to have a cast in your one eye than to be stone blind. 
 
 I fear we must admit that the impartial and passionate search 
 for truth is not so common an attribute of humanity as some 
 imagine it to be. Thinking generally leads to the dissatisfaction 
 of the set in which you are bom, and that prospect, with the 
 practical consequences following, seems to make a man think 
 twice, before he thinks with the desperate resolution of perfect 
 honesty in any direction. 
 
 Nevertheless, religious men are more closely related together 
 within than often appears on the surface ; just as one might think 
 the whale a fish because he flounders and dives in the deep sea ; 
 whereas he is not a fish, but a hot-blooded mammal, and first 
 cousin to the amphibious mammals both in skeleton and physio- 
 logical structure, and is a fish only in his environments ; just as 
 many of us who are Congregationalists feel, thank God, much more 
 
INDEPENDENCY, OR LOCAL CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 421 
 
 closely related to the excellent Canon who lectured to you last 
 Sunday afternoon than we do to some outward and congenital 
 types of Nonconformity. 
 
 Your wish to hear some account of diflferent " Centres of Spiritual 
 Activity " has interested me much, although I cannot pretend to 
 offer Independency to you as a short and easy road to the land 
 of Beulah. I was bom on this roadside, and one of the best 
 things I have to say of it is, that the Independents persecute you 
 and punish you less than any other set of religious people known 
 to me for your individual beliefs on serious questions. As much 
 as most men living I have gone against some of the theological 
 principles which they hold in common with other religious bodies, 
 and against some others special to themselves and their traditions ; 
 and yet they made me their Chairman by a pretty unanimous 
 vote two years ago. And I felt much more confident of having 
 been chosen to that post as a sign of catholic brotherhood, than 
 as a sign of advancing sympathy with my particular opinions. 
 The original Independents of the Tudor and Stuart reigns were, 
 I suspect, what we should now think a rather narrow and obstinate 
 set of men, full of conscience, and very godly, but rather fierce 
 and bitter in their goodness, and ready to behave to Queen 
 Elizabeth in such a manner as to make us wonder less at her 
 desire to hang them ; and under the Stuarts ready to become 
 fighting Cromwellian Ironsides, if you did not at once fall in with 
 their decisions in theology and ecclesiastical affairs. But the 
 modem Independents have laid aside the sword for the pen, and, 
 I think, have learned the noble lesson of tempering their love of 
 freedom and of local church government by the ruling influence 
 of the Divine Spirit, and by a readiness to submit to that influ- 
 ence in religion, however made known, by learning, judgment, and 
 criticism. 
 
 Without pretending to set them up as exceptionally wise men, 
 I venture to think that their history has taught them some 
 lessons of exceeding value in assisting the development of minds 
 moving in the midst of our modem chaos of conflicting beliefs and 
 no beliefs. My duty, however, is not so much to praise or defend 
 the Independents as to describe them, and classify them amidst 
 other varieties of militant Christians. I believe most of their 
 leading men would agree with me in saying that their attachment 
 to Independency is built rather on its being less of an ecclesias- 
 tical system than any other known in England, except that of 
 the Open Communion Baptists, who are Independents with one 
 ritualistic difference. The main attraction is a readiness for local 
 union with aU sincere and obedient Christians as soon as ever 
 the said local Christians of different colours are vrishful to unite 
 
422 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 with them on a broad basis in worship, in work, and in public 
 usefbbiess. The very wideness of their aspirations works, however, 
 in some degree against their success. A good party-cry has 
 .always more attractive power over the vulgar crowd than a great 
 truth, and a well upholstered ritual has a better chance of popularity 
 than either. Music, and dress, and office, are lawful accompani- 
 ments of every combination ; but we hold that they ought to take 
 a secondary place in a reUgion which deals chiefly with the unseen 
 And eternal in both God and Man. It is to the credit of the 
 Christian Scriptures that they are too full of thought and aspiration 
 to be the textbook of ecclesiastical milliners and mantua makers ; 
 or of people who go almost mad with rage if you even offer to 
 argue with them on any one of their so-called " Articles of Faith." 
 You cannot even imagine St. Paul's letters being addressed to the 
 parishioners of a great London parish. The ratepayers of St. 
 Pancras or St. Marylebone, I am sure, would consider the Epistle 
 to the Romans utterly unintelligible if addressed to them. And 
 yet it originally was addressed to a recently converted company 
 of Jews and Greeks and Romans. Early Christianity was a far 
 more intellectual movement than it sometimes gets credit for, 
 to say nothing of its moral qualifications. Each Church was an 
 intellectual and moral Ecclesia, or selection of the fittest. 
 
 Now the attractions of this system to the Independents lie in 
 these directions : — 
 
 It is an attempt to fall back on Original Christianity as set farth 
 in the Apostolic documents, This type we find far more credible 
 than the form which traditional Christianity has assumed in later 
 .ages. Take, as one example, the doctrine of the nature of Ood. 
 The Creed of St. AthanMsius — (&lsely so-called, for he lived in the 
 ■earlier part of the fourth century ; but this " Creed " is not found 
 in Greek at all, and not even in Latin, as Canon Swainson has 
 proved, till the eighth century) — this Creed insists on the use of 
 phrases concerning the Divine Nature such as Trinity and Three 
 Persons in One Ood, which are found nowhere in the New Testa- 
 ment. It speaks of the Son and Spirit as " equal to the Father." 
 The New Testament speaks of the Father as specially God : " One 
 God the Father," and " one Lord Jesus Christ." And we prefer 
 the New Testament language, and no one is rebuked for adhering 
 to it. For myself, having been a preacher for forty-seven years, 
 I have never once used the phrases, Trinity, or Three Persons in 
 One, Ood, in my public addresses and prayers, simply because they 
 are not Apostolic; and no one has ever reprimanded me for the 
 omission. 
 
 There is no doubt that the seven or eight thousand Independent 
 .and Baptist Churches, and the far larger number in America, firmly 
 
INDEPENDENCY, OR LOCAL CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 423 
 
 maintain that the language of Christ and His Inspired Apostles 
 signifies that in His Person there was some awful and sublime 
 mystery of Incarnation, as it is termed, some unique union of a 
 Divine Nature with the Human, which constituted Christ's 
 personality as an unexampled combination of the finite with the 
 Infimite: and they hold that it was this union which lifts Him 
 up into the dignity of Son of God, makes Him the object of 
 faith and worship, and gives Him power to bestow eternal life on 
 His followers. We firmly beheve that Jesus was the Christ or 
 Messiah, or King, promised to the Jewish people, and to mankind, 
 from early times, and that He is the " Saviour of the world," 
 through whom the Infinite and Eternal Love deals in gentleness 
 and mercy with sinful men, pardons us, and opens to us the 
 prospect of admission into that great and everlasting union of 
 worlds, which Astronomy now dimly unveils to our apprehensions ; 
 so that Christianity is closely connected with all the greatest 
 thoughts and aspirations possible to Humanity. 
 
 I give this only as an example. We hold the general principle 
 that Christians ought to strive by study and honest criticism to 
 get back to Original Christianity in thought and spirit — and, even 
 when we make mistakes, we sympathize with each other in this 
 endeavour ; for our onesided mistakes are often " right creeds in 
 the making." 
 
 I might mention another example in relation to the question of 
 the FUTURE LIFE. We agree that the ultimate truth concerning 
 man's future can be learned only from our Maker ; and if God has 
 spoken to us in the Christian religion it is there we mUst hear His 
 words. The old mediaeval faith of all Christian sects was that 
 man has been bom immortal in sin, and inherits by descent the 
 curse of immortality in sin and sorrow. From this men were to 
 be saved by the Son of God, through renewal by the Spirit of 
 God. It was held by the Calvinists that the finally saved were 
 chosen to glory from all eternity. The unsaved were either 
 " passed over," and left to their doom, or were even directly pre- 
 destined to suffer in immortal misery. 
 
 There has been a deep and general revolt among us against this 
 frightful result of false metaphysics and false criticism ; and now, 
 at least the majority of the Independents would agree that the 
 true doctrine on destiny cannot be one which shocks all our 
 primary notions on Divine Justice, to say nothing of Mercy. The 
 beginning of human life in every case being in feeblest infancy, 
 it cannot possibly be true that a dear little child exists now 
 in a state of reprobation ; or, if it depart, vrill go even into the 
 " mildest hell " that St. Augustine could imagine. No,^ there is a 
 great change here. The belief in just and awful retribution for 
 
424 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the wilfal wasters of life, for wilful depravity of soul, for foul 
 Climes against our fellow-creatures, for open defiance of God and of 
 right — this belief in just retribution for distinct wickedness in 
 thought, in government, in administration, in a punishment for 
 wicked war-makers, oppressors of the poor, or robbers of the rich : 
 this faith is stronger than ever, because the faith in Divine justice 
 and mei'cy is stronger still. 
 
 Thus we value Independency, because it distinctly discourages 
 dependence on the authority of priests and churches — on human 
 standards of faith — in order that the mind may be free to order its 
 belief and practice by the standards of Original Christianity. 
 
 Then, again, we value Independency from its habit of drawing 
 a sharp line between the function of the State with its law, and 
 of the Church with its Gospel ; and for the steady war it maintains 
 against the union of the two. 
 
 The State is the organization of Justice ; the Church is the 
 organization of Grace. Any attempt to unite the two must work 
 confusion in proportion to the completeness of the union, by 
 adulterating the spirit and defeating the purposes of both. The 
 State is a beneficent institution for the assertion and protection 
 by law of all rights — of life, family, property, and reputation — and 
 these rights are defended by force, and vindicated by penalties on 
 ofi"enders. Thus the magistrate is to be a " terror to evil-doers," 
 as the Christian Apostle himself boldly says. If the magistrate, 
 under the gtddance of a spurious humanitarianism, or a perverted 
 Christianity, fails in his duty to the evil-doer, he himself deserves 
 the punishment a thousand times over which he failed to inflict. 
 The Church is founded on the idea of pardon, forgiveness, for- 
 bearance ; and is a special society of believers, who thereby become 
 brothers, who voluntarily bind themselves to forgive and overcome 
 evil with good. They are organized for good works of mercy, for 
 tinith-spreading, for saving evil doers, for teaching the young, 
 for helping the poor, for practising Christian morality ; finally, for 
 maintaining these ends by a "discipline" which excludes obstinately 
 hostile elements. 
 
 It is impossible to conceive of two societies more profoundly 
 differing in their principles, ambitions, methods, and aims, when 
 each is confined to its proper function, than the State and the 
 Church. If you strive to unite them, what you caU to establish 
 the Church, you frustrate the ends of both. You soften the action 
 of the State till it ceases to fight as it ought to do against injustice 
 and violent wrong-doing, by both rich and poor ; and you harden 
 and secularize the Church, and convert it into a pale shadow of 
 the State, pious in aspect, but worldly and too often uninspired 
 within. 
 
INDEPENDENCY, OR LOCAL CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 425 
 
 The Independents have always upheld this distinction, and their 
 ideas have made way. Disestablishment is a long process ; it has 
 passed through several stages already, the last is approaching ; and 
 when the Church of England is disestablished, we hope that instead 
 of holding out (under lay or clerical fanatics) for unalterable 
 adhesion to old methods, there will be made a strong endeavour 
 towards local union with all good Christians — with Christian people 
 in every locality — after the model of Primitive Christianity. 
 
 Lastly, we stand for Local Church Government as of the essence 
 of permanent freedom, and the best provision for needful 
 reforms. 
 
 It is the belief of the Independents that Church fellowship in 
 every place ought to be broad enough to include all practical 
 and consistent Christians, and narrow enough to exclude all 
 who, whether in theory or practice, offer violence to essential 
 Christianity. In the Apostolic Churches there were many mis- 
 taken notions held by half-instructed converts to Christ ; but the 
 remedy was found not in ready excommunication, but in greater 
 zeal on the part of those who held the doctrine of the Apostles. 
 Morally bad men were expelled from the society, until they 
 repented, as we see in St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians ; 
 but persons who erred on the question of the Resurrection were 
 reproved, and instructed in the truth ; but not until they made 
 a party for their error were subjected to discipline. A large 
 local society receiving all practical disciples of Christ, and not 
 limiting its numbers by the size of any building, is the surest 
 guarantee for good fellowship, for practical good works, and for 
 ieffective reforms. A local church might use several buildings, 
 without sacrificing its unity. In the prospect of local and 
 catholic union we find the only prospect of Christian recon- 
 struction — a great society not dominated by distant sanhedrims, 
 nor ruled by the traditions of a slavish and interested hierarchy, 
 but permeated by all the currents of the best thought and the 
 best purposes of Christian civilization. The people who live in 
 puny gangs of sympathizers seldom have any sympathy to siiare 
 for those whom they regard as outsiders and heretics. 
 
 I believe that these statements, as far as they go, convey a true 
 idea of the genius of Independency, but in some respects an im- 
 perfect one, since the missionary spirit is one grand characteristic 
 of those Churches, which there is now no space to describe or 
 consider. 
 
 38 
 
THE PLACE OF BAPTISTS IN THE EVOLUTION 
 OF BEITISH CHEISTLA.NITY. 
 
 BY JOHN CLIFFORD, M.A., D.D. 
 
 ROTHE calls attention to the ominous circumstances tbat "the 
 idea of the kingdom of God which occupies so prominent a 
 position amongst the ideas of Christ &lls into the background in 
 the minds of the Apostles." The fact is as undeniable as it is 
 grave. For one reference to the " kingdom of righteousness, and 
 peace, and joy " in the letters of the New Testament, there are at 
 least a dozen in the reported sayings of the Master. In some of 
 the epistles, you are rarely out of hearing of the clanking and 
 grinding of ecclesiastical or controversial machinery, whereas in 
 the gospels, the kingdom comes without observation; its move- 
 mente are quiet as the healing and life-giving light, gentle and 
 noiseless as the growth of flowers and fruit. The Apostles are so 
 engrossed with the pressing needs of the new societies they have 
 founded, and so absorbed by the diflSculties of working the new 
 organizations they have set going, that although they never lose 
 sight of their King or of His kingdom, yet they suflfer the 
 brilliant conception of the Divine rule of justice, mercy, sweet 
 forgivingness, and brotherly love to pale its splendours before the 
 mean moralities and mordant controversies of their first con- 
 verts. Even Paul, who always construes history and life 
 through his belief in Christ, and never through any Church 
 theory or dogmatic system, does not escape these necessities; 
 so difficult is it in our world for even capable and heroic men 
 "to keep the heights the soul is competent to gain." 
 
 (2) That was the feteful beginning of a long and disastrous 
 decmie from the ideal of Jesus. The history of Christianity, 
 British and universal, is through many a long chapter, the story 
 of the contest for primacy between the idea of Christ as to the 
 " Kingdom of God," and the ideas of men as to the Churches. 
 The climate in which Christianity was born was so uncongenial 
 that, to use the imagery of Renan, as the " new-born child emerged 
 
BAPTISTS AND BRITISH CHRISTIANITY. 427 
 
 from its swaddling clothes, a most dangerous sort of croup 
 threatened to choke it." The air was laden with the miasma of 
 ritualism and the vision of men soon became dim to the essential 
 simplicity and dominant spiritujility of the teaching of Christ. 
 Priestism, that has never touched anything without corrupting 
 it, thrust itself into the simple societies of disciples, and forthwith 
 battles began concerning sacred orders and lordly hierarchies, 
 theological systems and speculative opinions. Next came the 
 tyranny of the intellect over the whole life in the form of 
 Gnosticism ; and men ceased to think deeply and practically 
 about a rule of God, i.e. a rule of real goodness and purity, of 
 sweet reasonableness, and tender compassion, of sustained 
 righteousness and conquering obedience to the law of the eternal. 
 Machinery was all in all, and love, and justice, and the service of 
 humanity slipped more and more out of sight. 
 
 (3) But a hopeful change is, and has been for a long period, in 
 progress. A true philososophy of history is coming into vogue, 
 which definitely follows the method of Christ and gives primary 
 rank to the kingdom, and only a secondary and subordinate one 
 to the priests and controversialists, the sectaries and dogmatists. 
 We are being carried slowly but surely back to the Gospel, and 
 to the " Gospel of the kingdom," i.e. to Christ's way of looking at 
 life, and thought, and progress, seeing them as they lie in His 
 mind and according to His ideal. For history is essentially 
 humanistic and by no means ecclesiastical, cares httle for doctrinal 
 disquisitions and much for practical ideas and creative principles, 
 ignores the fight for words and forms, and gives distinction to 
 aims and ideals. It winnows the chafi" from the wheat, the sense 
 from the soul, the form from the reality, the high-sounding claims 
 from the positive victories over sin and crime, disease and death. 
 It is never sectarian, but always broad and deep as the purest 
 love. It is not Baptist or Anglican, but human, and its insistent 
 question is, " What do ye more than others ? " — not what are your 
 claims, your " articles," your " orders ; " but what is your con- 
 tribution to the actual needs of men, your ministry to the poor 
 and weak, your impact and inspiration to unselfish service. This 
 is the law of the final judgment, and it is sheer waste of time and 
 power to care one straw about any other. 
 
 (4) Nor need the weakest who is true, and the most despised 
 who is sincere, fear that judgment. A true philosophy of history 
 is not unrighteous to forget any work that has in the slightest 
 degree met the felt needs of man as he is in himself and in his 
 relations to his fellows. History despises none of her intellectual 
 or ethical forces, whether Catholic or Culturist, Anglican or Quaker, 
 Comprehensionist or Separatist ; but rejoices without stint in the 
 
428 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 gift of all the sons of men, and assures us it would be as wise to 
 ignore the tiny creatures that buUd up the coral islands of the 
 southern seas as to pass by any one of these contributions to 
 the spiritual fulness and wealth of the world.' Therefore,, 
 the Ufe and work of Baptists is a valuable part of British 
 Christianity, only so far as it has become one of the successive 
 steps in which the human spirit has been forced onward by 
 the immanent logic of the religious life in its organic develop- 
 ment. Service to humanity in its higher ranges of life and work 
 is the supreme test of the worth of Churches. No society can 
 escape that judgment, nor can the most prosperous and popular 
 community finally confuse it. Each Church must be made 
 manifest according to its utterance of the " word," and offering of 
 the service by which men and nations really live and securely 
 advance towards their true ethical and spiritual goal. 
 
 n. 
 
 It is of the first importance to keep in view this cardinal law, 
 as we attempt to fix the place of Baptists in the development of 
 our British Christianity; for it is notorious that Baptists have 
 an extremely poor and inconspicuous place in the grand suc- 
 cession of majestic hierarchies and colossal system-builders that 
 marches along the centuries. Baptists have done nothing for 
 the methods and machinery of Christianity, unless it is that they 
 have shown how immeasurably inferior methods and machinery 
 are to intrinsic conviction, personal faith, and passionate devotion 
 to high ideals. , No elaborate organization bears our name. No 
 towering ecclesiastical edifice has been built by our hands. No 
 ornate and splendid ritual has come forth irom our mint. 
 No service, rich in its harmonies, prolific in mystic suggestion 
 and entrancing and calming at once with blended song and 
 prayer belongs to us. We cannot even claim to have created 
 one homogeneous Baptist Church with graded officers, binding 
 ceremonies, authoritative creed, and high pontifical dignitaries. 
 Few great organizing personalities have appeared amongst us ; 
 and those who have arisen have had to confront tremendous 
 difficulties in their building work. An Ignatius Loyola, vast as 
 was his innate power of attracting and commanding men, could 
 not have thriven on Baptist fare. The wonderful genius of the 
 founder of Methodism, could never have reared his beneficent 
 structure on our principles. Indeed, we are not, and cannot 
 
 ' Cf. Dean Stanley in Church and Chapel, edited by B. H. Hadden, pp. xxxv^ 
 xzxvi. 
 
BAPTISTS AND BRITISH CHRISTIANITY. 429 
 
 become, a mere ecclesiastical corporation without disloyalty tb 
 the creative ideas and living convictions which gave us birth. 
 
 Of course we are not entirely without machinery, and in 
 recent years a marked increase has slowly, and in the face of 
 much suspicion, taken place. We have created a union for the 
 churches of Great Britain and Ireland, in addition to the existing 
 associations for counties, societies for missions, and for the educa- 
 tion of preachers and various funds for helping the weak and 
 needy. Our foreign missionary organizations have become 
 colossal, widespread and reproductive. But our social unit is 
 still held in its integrity to be that which was settled by the men 
 of the seventeenth century, viz., a society of believers in Christ ; 
 & society self-contained, rigidly self-governed, and strenuously 
 independent. In a certain characteristic way, we have assented 
 to the saying of the philosopher Lotze that " mechanism is every- 
 where essential, but everywhere subordinate," but whilst the 
 latter clause is affirmed with energy, the former is met with 
 the inbred scepticism that watches the machinery with nervous 
 dread lest we should be caught in its revolving wheels and lose 
 our free and joyous life. Knowing how often organizations 
 have become the iron sceptre of the theological or ecclesiastical 
 despot, the Baptist has elected to diminish his immediate social 
 efficiency, rather than risk his freedom to act according to his 
 own conscience. 
 
 (2) Therefore the place of Baptists in British Christianity is not 
 to be looked for amongst its compact sjniods and priestly assem- 
 blies, but in the neighbourhood of the humble and ignoble few 
 who, single-handed or in small companies, have striven to increase 
 the vitality of the intellectual and spiritual contents of Chris- 
 tianity by glowvng enthusiasm for ideas. They belong to the 
 men who, in the judgment of their practical contemporaries have 
 been the vulgar and deluded victims of far-shining illusions, 
 vacuous dreamers of impossible Utopias, pinched fanatics who 
 have disdained the bread of this world and nourished their faith 
 and fortitude on airy and unsubstantial visions of God and duty. 
 Ideas have made them, shaped their movements, fed their heroism 
 in martyr flames, and inspired their quenchless zeal. Even the 
 wUd and frantic struggles of the Anabaptists of Holland were 
 sustained by the notions — that, if God had a kingdom at all, it 
 should be here on this earth, a boon to sufiering men ; that. His 
 inspirations could not be partial, exclusive, limited to castes and 
 orders, but must be free for all souls that sincerely sought Him ; 
 and when the General Baptists started into life in the first and 
 second decades of the seventeenth century, it was under the 
 magnetic spell of the doctrines of "Liberty of Conscience," 
 
430 EELIGIOTJS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " Freedom to worship God," " Salvation for everybody," the 
 sovereignty of the soul in religion, and the absolute and un- 
 questioned monarchy of Christ over the conscience and over all 
 
 life. 
 
 " O Troth I O Freedom I how are ye still bom 
 In the rude stable, in the manger nursed ; 
 What humble hands unbar those gates of mom, 
 Through which the splendours of the new day burst f " 
 
 (3) Is it not then one of the ghastly ironies of history that 
 after three centuries of existence the one idea of the Baptists 
 that has chief currency amongst outsiders is, that in the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries they were simple enough to give 
 vitality on British soil to the ancient practice of immersion 
 as' the right mode of baptism — a symbol, it is commonly alleged 
 by opponents, that in its Oriental home may have been appro- 
 priate and useful enough ; but in the frigid North, and amongst 
 reasoning Westerns, can never appear other than a " demoralizing 
 fetichism " ? Is it not strange that the popular label of one of 
 the most anti-ritualistic and spiritual of societies should fix 
 attention on a method and not on a conviction, on a form and 
 not on an idea ? It is a stui fate, and we must bear it as cheer- 
 fully as we can.* " Baptism by immeraion," says the Rev. 
 Brooke Lambert, Vicar of Greenwich, " is strictly no peculiarity 
 of the Baptist sect. The rubrics of our Church (i.e. the Episco- 
 
 Eal Church) make baptism by immersion the rule. It prescribes 
 aptism by immersion, ' if they shall certify that the child may 
 well endure it, but if they certify that the child is weak, it 
 shall suffice to pour water upon it.' The exception has by 
 custom become the rule." ' Moreover, it is a needless and care- 
 less misrepresentation to assign the motif of Baptist existence 
 to a rite in any sense whatever ; for as a matter of historic fact 
 they do not take their place in the annals of British Christianity 
 from special interest in the form of a ceremony as such, but 
 from those great formative ideas which are the impelling powers 
 of our modem life, — ideas concerning the human soul and in- 
 -trinsic religion; the human soul and personal liberty; the 
 human soul and the province of the state.' 
 
 III. 
 In order to verify that assertion let us glance for a moment at 
 the wonderful " revolt " of individualism against authority in 
 
 ' In an appendix on the different denominations in Chv/refi and Cliapel, 
 there are seven grave mistakes within the space of the first thirteen lines treating 
 of the Baptists, pp. 99, 100. 
 
 ^ Chv/rch and Chapel, edited by E. H. Hadden, p. 3. 
 
 s Of. Lazarus. Flint's Philoiophy of History, p. 683. 
 
BAPTISTS AND BRITISH OHRISTIAiaTY. 431 
 
 Church and State, which fills so large a space in the annals of 
 our race under the name of the "new birth or Jienaiasance." 
 " Revolutions," it has been said, " raise questions." The Renais- 
 sance was, in this respect, singularly prolific, and not even yet 
 are the authentic answers to those questions fully to hand. 
 It was, in its larger and later issues, the awakening and regenera- 
 tion of the intellect of Europe by the resurrection of the for- 
 gotten literature of the ancient world, — a resurrection disclosing 
 a richer civilization, a clearer thought, a finer style, and a 
 truer life ; and becoming a mirror in which the men of the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw themselves ; a standard 
 by which they judged their conduct and achievements, and a 
 starting-point from which they went forward to secure the 
 spiritual and political renewal of the world. 
 
 That recovered literature was Christian as well as classical, 
 and carried men back to Jerusalem and Christ as well as to 
 Athens and Socrates, so that the men who shrunk self-con- 
 demned, when they compared their corrupt life with classical 
 attainment, could not withhold their censures from the professors 
 and organizations of Christianity when they found their pro- 
 digious departure from the original purpose and plan of the 
 Founder of the Christian religion. Indeed they asked, " Was 
 it Christ's Church at all ? " Did it breathe His Spirit ? Was 
 it doing His work ? Ought they not to go back to ApostoUc 
 training as the only way of realizing at once the idea of Christ, 
 the deliverance of Europe from death, and the fuller education 
 of the human race ? 
 
 At that time there was no question of equal gravity. It was 
 the "blazing " subject of the hour. No topic required so much 
 daring in those who handled it; so much steadfest heroism in 
 those who were prepared to follow their answer to its legitimate 
 issues. It was a new question, and it was as revolutionary as it 
 was new. Merely to put it suggested to many minds the pro- 
 fanest hardihood, and lifted whirlwinds of scorn. Inefiably worse 
 was it then, to ask, " Is the State Church the New Testament 
 Church ? " " Ought all parishioners to be Church members ? " 
 than it is to ask to-day, " Is there a God ? " " Is the Bible 
 true ? " " Is Christianity historically verifiable ? " And the 
 men who put the inquiry had to be ready for banishment to the 
 wilds of America, or the more genial refuge of Holland, or even 
 for martyrdom, if the response they found carried them into 
 opposition to the reigning notions of the hour, and to the State- 
 supported and State-defended religious institutions of the day. 
 
 Do not let us disguise this fact. Whatever English Baptists 
 may be and do now, it is certain their origin is not due to the 
 
432 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 quiet investigation of two or three passages of Scripture con- 
 cerning the way in which believers in Christ should be baptized ; 
 whether by sprinkling, by pouring, or by dipping ; whether once 
 or three times ; nor to the rejection of infant baptism ; nor even 
 to the denial of the magical sacramental efficacy of baptism : it 
 goes far deeper, and includes immeasurably more. The Baptist 
 Church sprang into being, as other Churches did in that day — not 
 from wild fanaticism ; not from excessive vanity ; not from ques- 
 tions of much or little water in a rite, but from unswerving 
 loyalty to God ; from a profoundly religious effort to form a 
 visible Christian Church after the idea and accordvng to the 
 teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. It was a real 
 human struggle for the realization of Divine ideas, born out 
 of the love of God and the desire for the establishment of His 
 reign upon earth. Baptist history is therefore a bush aflame 
 with the presence of God, and the ground it covers is not less 
 holy than that on which Moses, with bared feet, stood hopeful, 
 yet trembling, as near to the God of Israel. 
 
 (2) The story of the origin of the British Baptists is then a 
 fragment of the larger story, first of the Renaissance, and next 
 of what we call the Protestant Reformation; and takes rank 
 by the side of those thrilling chapters of our annals which 
 narrate the work of John Wycliffe and his preachers, of the 
 humanist Erasmus and Dean Colet, the separation of England 
 from Rome, the appearance and mission of the Puritans, the 
 rise and progress of the Separatists and Brownists, Independents 
 and Quakers. Erasmus, the most brilliant representative of 
 the humanistic culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 
 had issued, in 1502, his Enchiridion militia Christiani, "to 
 counteract the errors of those who place piety in ceremonies 
 and external observances, but neglect its very essence." To 
 that he had added, in 1516, the Greek New Testament, through 
 which men heard the Master Himself speaking as in the first 
 days. By these and other publications, by lectures and letters, 
 this unrivalled scholar and teacher was aiding in formulating 
 the answer of the intellect and conscience to the question of 
 the age, concerning Christ and the Church, in terms which 
 excluded at once the Pope and the Papacy, sacerdotalism and 
 ceremonialism, and all unreality. 
 
 Then came amongst us William Tyndall, fanning into a flame 
 the smouldering embers of Lollardism, rousing into new and 
 fuller life the recipients of the message of Wycliffe, by sending 
 forth the New Testament in an English version, which in 
 substance is still in use amongst us. It only needed that the 
 capacious, passionate, and irresistible soul of Luther should be 
 
BAPTISTS AND BRITISH CHBISTLANITY. 433 
 
 set on fire and peal forth witli its new energy through Europe 
 like thunder echoing amongst Alpine hills, and Protestantism 
 leaped forth, armed and weaponed for a war from which it can 
 only cease when its work for man is fully accomplished. 
 
 (3) But the answers to the questions of the ages come slowly, 
 and at the cost of much struggle, suffering, and blood. British 
 Protestantism was at first a very sickly child. Royal, ecclesi- 
 astic, and theological nurses were so timorous of change, and so 
 relucteint to part with the proved follies of the past, that they went 
 far to destroy it. Therefore it was not long before there grew 
 by the aide of it, if not actually from it, a second Protestantism, 
 with a sharper accent, a more decided ring, carrying the revolt 
 against the paganized Christianity of the Papacy to a further 
 extreme. The first protest was mainly against the Pope of 
 Rome and his jurisdiction in these realms. The second protest 
 was an endorsement of the first, but it went beyond it, and 
 protested with even a stronger vehemence against copes, stoles, 
 and altars, and the priestly dogmas, practices, and paraphernalia 
 of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Protestantism had inevitably 
 protested itself into Puritanism. It must be so. Protestantism 
 was essentially and centrally part of a return to the Divi/ne 
 Original of Christian faith and practice in the Scriptures ; and 
 once on that road. Protestantism could not be a finality. 
 PuEiTANiSM was the logical issue of the Protestant spirit, a 
 clearer and more adequate solution of the problem of the hour. 
 As Carlyle says, it was "one of the noblest heroisms ever 
 transacted on this earth," and owed its rise to the direct appeal 
 to the recovered literature of Paul and Peter ; and its surprising 
 energy and rapid progi'ess were also due to the tremendous 
 impulse given to the religious life of the nation, about the 
 middle of Elizabeth's reign, by the circulation of those same 
 Scriptures. The Bible became the chief literature of England ; 
 its fable and its history, its poetry and its philosophy, its manual 
 of practice, and its guide and inspiration to devotion — so that 
 Orotius said of this country, ten years after the Queen's death, 
 " Theology rules there ; " and Professor Green affirms that " the 
 whole nation had become, in fact, a ChurcL'" 
 
 (4) Is that the last answer to the question of the age ? Has 
 Puritanism, with its deep inwardness, strong idealism, and severe 
 discipline, reached finality ? No ! " the coming life-cry is always 
 on ; " the humanistic, biblical and spiritual forces at work in the 
 English nation, revolutionizing its religious ideas and practices, 
 could not stop there. As the first protest led on to the second, 
 fio the second led on a third. 
 
 '. HiMory of the Engliih People, 449. 
 
434 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 Puritanism advanced to Separatism. Bodies of men appeared 
 who were unwilling to admit that the Church of England, even 
 if reformed according to the Genevan pattern, was a true Church 
 of Christ. A deeper Reformation was requisite than a change of 
 dress and of ritual. Tlte terms of membership required alteration^ 
 " It is contrary," said the Separatists, " to the will of Christ that 
 the area of the Church should be fixed by the area of the land. 
 We ai"e profoundly convinced that the practical reform of the 
 spiritual life of England can never be realized in connection with 
 that parochial system of churches which considers all baptized 
 persons to be redeemed children of God, until excommunication 
 has furnished proof to the contrary." Thus a third form of 
 Protestantism arose, more advanced than the second, and in- 
 culcating the necessity of forming "particular churches." Led 
 by Robert Browne (an " erratic individual," according to Fuller 
 and Masson), Henry Barrowe, Francis Johnson, John Penry,. 
 John Greenwood, and Henry Jacob, such separated churches 
 grew exceedingly, and, according to Green, numbered 20,000- 
 souls in the middle of Elizabeth's reign.^ Some of these 
 churches were called Brownists, after Robert Browne, and sub- 
 sequently Independents, from their assertion of the sufficiency of 
 the Church to care for and govern itself, and their death-defying 
 insistence upon the principle that the Church of Christ ought 
 not to, and could not, consist of any but those who were really 
 believers in Him, and avowedly subject to His authority. They 
 vehemently opposed the pernicious doctrine of sponsorship,^ and 
 would not accept the theory of Whitgift and Hooker, that the 
 nation makes the Church, and that being bom in a parish of the 
 nation gives a right to be in the Church of Christ. Strongly^ 
 and even fiercely, they denounced the deed by which " in one 
 day, with the blast of Queen Elizabeth's trumpet," ignorant 
 papists and gross idolaters were made faithful Christians and 
 true professors.' The unit of the Church of Christ is, and 
 always must be, a Christian man. 
 
 (5) Now out of these Separatists, with their cardinal principle 
 that the members of a New Testament Church should be Chris- 
 tians, grew logically and inevitably the English Baptists. The 
 first protest was against Romanism as concentrated in a pope, 
 and subjecting the king of this land to his authority ; the second 
 protest was against all papal practices, and in favour of getting 
 rid of a prelacy and bringing in synodical authority ; the third 
 protest was against the inclusion of all the subjects of the king 
 
 '^ Green, History of the English People, 459. 
 
 - Dr. H. L. Dexter, Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, 77. 
 
 " Henry Barrowe's Brief Deseription of the False Church (1690), p. 10. 
 
BAPTISTS AND BRITISH CHRISTIANITr. 435 
 
 in the Church, irrespective of their spiritual character, and in 
 favour, ultimately, of the self-governing powers of each separate 
 Christian society ; but still, infants were included, at least the 
 infants of Christian parents, and yet how could they be person- 
 ally conscious Christians ? how could they aid in the government 
 of a Church ? what spiritual character had they to qualify them 
 for membership ? It was certain as to-morrow that a fourth 
 PROTEST should come. The forces of the living Word, and of 
 their own faith inpelled them to oppose the inclusion of any 
 persons in the Church of Christ Jesus, excepting such as intelli- 
 gently and consciously received Him, and were possessed of His 
 Divine life. That Fourth Protest was made by the English 
 Baptists, and is their Historical Root. To cite the language 
 of one of these, they reasoned thus: "The Separation must 
 either go back to England (i.e. the English Church), or forward 
 to true Baptism ; all that shall in time to come separate from 
 England must separate from the Baptism of England; and if 
 they will not separate from the Baptism of England, there is no 
 reason why they should separate from England as from a false 
 Church." Right as far as they went, yet the Separatists and 
 Independents did not go far enough to satisfy these root and 
 branch men. They had got firm grip of a principle, and they 
 were willing to go with it wherever it might take them. They 
 were contending for eternal realities. The battle was not about 
 words, but spiritual facts. Christ Jesus was central to His 
 Church, and a living personal and conscious relation to Him was 
 the fundamental condition of fellowship in His societies. Personal 
 faith in, and personal subjection to, the Lord Jesus, is all and in 
 alL But faith is a conscious act. It requires intelligence. It 
 involves will. It is not possible to a babe ; therefore babes have 
 no more right in the Church of the New Testament because they 
 are born in a Christian family, than Englishmen have perforce a 
 right in the Church because they are born in a Christian parish. 
 The principle which excludes the parishioner allows no place to 
 the babe. So they reasoned, so they felt and acted, and thus 
 English Baptists came into being as a vital and enduring product 
 of the great Protestant Reformation, and in fact advancing that 
 reform a stage further than it had before marched, but along its 
 own original lines of the pre-eminence of the Scriptures, and the 
 absolute necessity of a reaUy personal godliness. It was a logical 
 and conclusive application of the governing rules and controll- 
 ing spirit of Puritanism, carrying, if we may mathematically 
 express it. Protestantism up to its fifth power, as a denial of 
 the right of men to substitute any merely external condi- 
 tions and accidental circumstances,- for a living, sincere, and 
 
436 EELIGIOUS SYSTllMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 real faith in Christ, and a hearty personal subjection to His 
 august authority. 
 
 This, then, is demonstrated. Baptists are the last response but 
 one given to the question of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries, What is religion in its essence and spirit ? That last 
 answer being supplied by the " Friends " or Quakers who have 
 abolished all ordinances and insisted on the exclusively spiritual 
 nature of all religion and all worship. The genealogical tree of 
 the British Christianity of those centuries may be labelled, so far 
 as our present inquiry extends, Humanist in root, Protestant in 
 bole ; then the first branch is Puritan, the second Separatist, the 
 third Independent, the fourth Baptist. Thus history energetically 
 repudiates the dominant notion that the Baptist became a Baptist 
 because he made much of baptism. It was the reverse ; it was 
 because he made little of it, and fixed the supreme emphasis on 
 the inward and ethical qualification for the rite. It is not he, 
 but the Romanist, who makes much of the act when he says in 
 the language of the Council of Trent : " Whoever shall affirm 
 that baptism is indifferent — i.e. not necessary to salvation — let 
 him be accursed."* It is not he, but the Anglican, who makes 
 much of baptism when he declares that that prophet-statesman of 
 our age, John Bright, could not be a Christian because "he had 
 not been made one by the Sacrament of Baptism, and to treat an 
 unbaptized man as one who has been baptized is to regard that 
 Sacrament as a sham." It is not he, but the Prayer Book, which 
 says that baptism makes anybody " a member of Christ, the 
 cMld of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." The 
 Baptist comes to his place in British Christianity in a great and 
 sustained struggle for reality, sincerity, soul : for ridding religion 
 of all sham and pretence, by insisting on personal faith, personal 
 love, and mercy and justice, on pure aims and high ideals. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It is part of the irresistible logic of the spiritual life that those 
 who have been so resolute in the assertion of the inwardness of 
 religion, the inviolable sacredness of the human unit, and the 
 unlettered sovereignty of the soul, should also contend for that 
 soul's perfect freedom from all external authority, whether of 
 creeds or churches, synods or states. The few Baptists who had 
 taken their place in the " extreme left," and formed the beginning 
 of the " Radical " wing of the Protestant host, were therefore 
 in the likeliest position to catch first sight of the new conception 
 
 ' Canon. 5. Cf. also Canon 13. 
 
BAPTISTS AND BRITISH CHRISTIANITY. 437 
 
 of intellectual and religious liberty, swimming into the clearing 
 heavens of the dawning century like a new planet through the 
 stellar spaces. 
 
 It is the unequivocal testimony of historians, that Britain owes 
 to Baptists what has been called " the noblest innovation of 
 modern times," the idea of intellectual and spiritual freedom. 
 I do not forget the great scholar Abelard, who was one of the 
 earliest to maintain the principle of individualism against the 
 authority of the Church, nor his famous pupil Arnold of Brescia, 
 who in the twelfth century applied the principle of free inquiry 
 to the claims of popes and bishops to exercise power as secular 
 primces; nor the potent sway of those poet-humanists — Dante, 
 Petrarch, Boccaccio ; but that able and fair-minded student; 
 Dr. Gardiner, says in his recently published "History of the 
 GreatCivil War:"— 
 
 "Exposed as they were to contempt and persecution, the 
 Baptists early rallied to the doctrine of a complete separation 
 between Church and State. In 1612 or 1613, an English Baptist 
 Congregation at Amsterdam, declared its belief that, " the raagis- 
 trate is not to meddle with religion or matters of conscience, nor 
 compel men to this or that form of religion, because Christ is the 
 King and Lawgiver of the Chv/rch and conscience." This idea 
 firmly took root amongst the Baptists, and found expression 
 from time to time in petitions and pamphlets, which were far more 
 thorough in their claim that liberty of conscience was the right 
 of all men than those put forward by the ordinary Separatists." ^ 
 
 Professor Masson, in his Life of Milton, says, referring to the 
 above, this is " the first expression of the absolute principle of 
 liberty of conscience in the public articles of any body of Chris- 
 tians." Thomas Helwise, who had the chief hand in drawing 
 up this document, was John Smyth's successor, and he drew 
 around him some unforgetable men. Leonard Busher, who 
 published the first English tract on " Liberty of Conscience," in 
 1614, was one of his flock; and John Morton, who sent out a 
 tractate entitled, " Objections Answered by Way of Dialogue, 
 wherein is' proved by the Law of God, by the Law of our Land, 
 and by His Majesty's Many Testimonies, that no Man ought to 
 be Persecuted for his Religion, so he Testifie his Allegiance by 
 the Oath appointed by Law," was his assistant. 
 
 Thus, as Professor Masson says, " from a dingy meeting-house, 
 somewhere in Old London, there flashed out first in England 
 the absolute doctrine of Religious Liberty." And more decisively 
 he says, "Not to the Church of England, however, nor to Scottish 
 
 ' Dr. S. E. Gardiner, History of the Cheat dx-il War, 16i2-44, 
 336, 337. 
 
438 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Presbyterianism, nor to English Puritanism at large, does the 
 honour of the first perception of the full principle of liberty of 
 conscience, and its first assertion in English speech, belong. 
 That honour has to be assigned, I believe, to the Independents 
 generally, and to the Baptists in particular." There is no doubt, 
 then, that the General Baptists may, in the face of the present 
 evidence, keep their forward rank as the first promulgators of 
 the absolute doctrine of religious liberty.' 
 
 (2) But to assess that service at its exact value, we must recall 
 the ruling ideas and forces of parliaments and churches in 1612. 
 Vast and far-reaching as were the changes introduced by the 
 Renaissance and the Reformation, there was not a Protestant 
 Church in Europe that had nobleness and love enough to find 
 room for the principle of religious liberty or even of toleration 
 of differences in religious belief and practice. Man most reluct- 
 antly parts with his right as a brute to persecute so long as he 
 can. Somehow he will play the tyrant to the full length of his 
 power, and if in the mutations of the ages he grows ashamed 
 of the rack and thumbscrew, and the prison and the fire, he is 
 surprisingly inventive, and deftly prepares numberless disguises 
 for carrying out his inquisitorial tyranny. Even yet we have 
 little more than full liberty to be religious after the fashion of 
 the hour, and in accordance with the wish or whim of the 
 majority. Dissent is still costly, and if you venture towards 
 the dissidence of dissent, and the thorough-going practice of 
 freedom in judgment and faith, you may expect to be assi- 
 duously pursued with unrelenting bitterness and unscrupulous 
 hostility. 
 
 But in 1600 persecution rioted in all its brutal ferocity. Ger- 
 many and Switzerland, England and Scotland inflicted civil 
 ■disabilities on those who did not conform to the State-established 
 Church. The Inquisition was victorious in Spain ; the League in 
 France worked for the extirpation of unbelievers. In England 
 heresy was an oflfence punishable by death for 135 years after the 
 Reformation, and it was not till 1677 that an act was passed 
 abolishing the writ for burning heretics. Nor were the churches 
 more enlightened. Even those who flung off" the shackles of 
 ecclesiastical bondage for themselves were busy forging fetters 
 for others. The changes in religion were at first mainly changes 
 in tyrants: a substitution for the infallibility they opposed of 
 another not less self-willed, intrusive and persecuting ; the 
 
 ' " It is not only unmerciful, but unnatural and abominable ; yea monstrous 
 for one Christian to vex and destroy another for difference and questions of 
 religion." " Busfaer's BeliKious Peace ; or, a Plea for Liberty of Conscience.' 
 Eeprinted in Dr. Underhill's Tracts on " Liberty of Conscience, etc.," 1846, p. 24 
 
BAPTISTS AND BRITISH CHRISTIANITY. 439 
 
 Temoval of a pope and his cardinals to give room for a king and 
 his clergy. They did not battle for liberty as liberty, but only 
 for that liberty that enabled them to hold and teach what they 
 pleased, and to repress and punish all who dared to dissent. 
 Presbyterians shared the Romanist intolerance, and fought for 
 a domination not less exacting so that they might get rid of those 
 pestiferous people, the Papists and Baptists, the Quakers and 
 Socinians. Milton read and interpreted aright the signs of the 
 times when he said that " new presbyter was but old priest writ 
 large." Calvin, a man intrinsically noble, building his theological 
 system first, and interpreting his Bible afterwards, misses the 
 Divine revelation of liberty, and shares the blind intolerance of 
 the theologians and Christians of his day. Prynne embodies the 
 idea and feeling of his time when he teaches that parliament is 
 the creator of churches, and that a man is to be scorned who does 
 not "make it a point of conscience and of Christianity to submit" 
 to its authority.^ Indeed, excepting the Reformer Castalio, there 
 was hardly a public teacher who did not maintain that orthodoxy 
 conferred an absolute right to kill the body of the unfortunate 
 wight who was bold or foolish enough to question its infallible 
 affirmations. Therefore, to discover in such darkness the sublime 
 doctrine of spiritual liberty, and to promulgate it from the " little 
 dingy meeting-house in old London," was to render a service to 
 British Christianity and to the progress of man, not less opulent 
 in noble and beneficent issues than the discovery of America by 
 Columbus, or the invention of printing by Gutenberg, — it was 
 to build a Pharos for all distressed ecclesiastical and theological 
 mariners ; it was to give an impulse to the total development of 
 men by turning the stream of fresh and living thought on all the 
 stock ideas of the world; it was to promote the inwardness of 
 culture by the gift of a fitting atmosphere, and to add to the 
 fulness and variety and energy of the intellectual and ethical life 
 of mankind. 
 
 But Ma^gini reminds us that not only does every great revolu- 
 tion demand a great idea to be its centre of action, to furnish it 
 both lever and fulcrum for the work it has to do ; but " incarnation 
 in action" is also and equally necessary," or else the incorruptible 
 Word will not fructify in a large and nourishing harvest. Such 
 incarnations were appearing and increasing in the Baptists and 
 Independents of the time. John Smyth, the founder of the 
 "General Baptists" in 1608-11, was first a clergyman of the 
 Anglican Church, next a Separatist, then an Independent, and 
 lastly an Arminian Baptist. A brave soul, of noble make and of 
 
 ' Gardiner, HiMory of the Great Ciml War, ii. 3. 
 ^ Mtiayt on Faith and the Future, p. 24. 
 
440 EELIGIOCrS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 incorruptible sincerity, " broad as the charity of Almighty God, 
 narrow as His righteousness," he was ready to follow truth 
 wherever and to whatever of loss and suffering she might lead ; 
 and for him a joyous acceptance of that leadership meant life as 
 an exile for conscience sake in Holland, where, breathing an 
 atmosphere impregnated with the theological teaching of James 
 Arminius, and the doctrine of toleration taught by the celebrated 
 Dutch lawyer and statesman Grotius, he learnt in pain the truth 
 that Helwise and Busher and their friends were to teach. 
 Another Episcopalian, Roger Williams, infected with the " dingy 
 meeting-house " doctrines, embarked for America in 1630, there 
 founded the first Baptist Church in 1639, and was the first 
 legislator who provided for free and absolute liberty of conscience. 
 Dr. Gardiner, speaking of another hero of freedom, John Milton, 
 says " his love of liberty was a high intellectual persuasion, not 
 like that of Roger Williams which sprang from Biblical study 
 Tindertaken under stress of persecution." ^ Hugh Peters succeeded 
 Roger Williams as pastor of the church in Rhode Island, but 
 coming back to this country in the time of civil war he became 
 an army chaplain. He was a man entirely after the heart of that 
 great Independent and stern warrior for liberty, Oliver Cromwell. 
 He loved freedom "from the kindliness of a man of genial temper 
 to whom a minute theological study was repulsive, and who, 
 without disguising his own opinions, preferred goodness of heart 
 to rigidity of doctrine." " Truly it wounds my soul," he said, 
 " when I think Ireland would perish, and England continue her 
 misery through the disagreement of ten or twenty learned men. 
 . . . Could we but conquer each other's spirit, we should soon 
 befool the devil and his instruments; to which end I could wish 
 we that are ministers might pray together, eat and drink together, 
 because, if I mistake not, estrangement hath boiled us up to 
 jealousy and hatred." ^ Those were heroes who, like WiUiam 
 Sawtry, Sir James Bainham, Richard Woodman, Anne Askew, 
 Joan Boucher, Benjamin Hewling, and Elizabeth Gaunt, could die 
 and never yield, suffer but not flinch from their faithfulness ; fight 
 for ideas and impossibilities, but not dull the keen edge of their 
 enthusiasm, or dim the brightness of their hope. They were 
 possessed of that "intrinsic conviction" described by John Morley 
 as " the mainstay of human advancement," and like Bunyan were 
 ready to reply to the judge who threatened hanging if they con- 
 tinued preacMng, " If I were out of prison to-day, I should preach 
 to-morrow by the help of God." Consequences ! they cared not 
 a jot for those that reached themselves so long as they were true 
 
 ' Dr. Gardiner, ii., p. 301. 
 Ibid. 
 
BAPTISTS AND BRITISH CHRISTIANITY. 441 
 
 to their conscience and their King. Safety ! they scorned the 
 mean cowardice that put that before duty : — 
 
 " Bodies fall by wild sword-law ; 
 Butwho would force the soul, tilts with a straw 
 Against a champion cased in adamant." ' 
 
 "... Men they were who could not bend ; 
 Blest pilgrims, surely as they took for guide 
 A will by sovereign conscience sanctified ; 
 Blest while their spirits from the woods ascend 
 Along a galaxy that knows no end, 
 But in His glory who for sinners died."' 
 
 It is impossible for me to trace in all its fruitful issues this regal 
 idea. " Liberty of conscience " is not a phrase, but incarnate in 
 men it is a force, and one of the most efficient in history. It 
 springs from the value and possibilities of the individual man, 
 and cannot cease in its creative and reforming work till it per- 
 meates all life — individual, political, social, and international — 
 and fashions it in obedience to the great principle of soul-freedom. 
 The men who, in the language of Froude, " assisted in their deaths 
 to pay the purchase-money of England's freedom," did not foresee 
 the range and elevation of their acquisitions. The total extinction 
 of slavery of the body was in it; for if the higher faculties of 
 conscience and will are free, by what right do the chains still 
 hold the limbs ? Hence those who had entered into the heritage 
 of the Quakers and Baptists and Independents could not ranJc 
 behind the most chivalrous and devoted warriors on behalf of the 
 abolition of slavery in Jamaica, and all the colonies, and at last 
 in the United States. Political liberty was in it, — " one man one 
 vote," aye, and "one woman one vote;" the sovereignty of the 
 soul means personal obligation to promote the welfare of the body 
 politic in its widest interests and ramifications. Social emanci- 
 pation and social happiness were in it. Did not that Baptist, 
 Hugh Peters, foresee our day when he said he had ever sought 
 after three things : " First, that goodness which is really so, and 
 such religion might be highly advanced; secondly, that good 
 learning might have all countenance ; and thirdly, that there may 
 not be a beggar in Israel — in England "? Surely that last note in 
 the army chaplain's legacy gives him high rank amongst the 
 earliest British Christian socialists ! 
 
 (2) You will not imagine that I forget for a moment that 
 Baptists have only been one regiment of the soldiers fighting for 
 
 ' Mcolesiastical Sonnets, Wordsworth, Part III., No. 7, p. 63. 
 2 Ibid., No. 13, p. 67. 
 
 29 
 
442 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 these victories. I merely keep to my text, but with a deep sense 
 that the debt to our predecessors and allies is immeasurably 
 great; and specially to those nearest us — the stalwart and 
 aggressive Independents on the right and the quietly invincible 
 Quakers on the left. AH I have striven to show is that the place 
 of Baptists in the evolution of British Christianity is : — 
 
 First, that of fearless warriors in the struggle for reality and 
 personal responsibility in religion ; and that to that struggle they 
 owe their partial detachment from the religious organizations in 
 the midst of which they were living. 
 
 Secondly, that of leaders in the conception and promulgation 
 of the glad tidings of freedom from the interference and control of 
 state and ecclesiastical authorities. 
 
 Thirdly, that of fellow-workers for the emancipation of the 
 slave, the uplifting of the lower races, and the improvement of 
 the social condition of mankind. I have said nothing of the 
 contributions made to British Christianity by the theologian 
 Andrew Fuller,^ and by the re-creation of foreign missions by 
 William Carey in the last century ; nor yet of that superlative 
 wealth of character in the host of nameless saints, members of 
 Baptist churches, and heroic toilers for the redemption of men 
 and the destruction of all evil. 
 
 " The healing of the world 
 Is in its nameless saints. Each separate star 
 Seems nothing, but a myriad scattered stars 
 Break up the night and make it beautiful" 
 
 (3) Nor have I said anything about the future. I know little 
 about it. It is affirmed that all ecclesiasticisms, chemically 
 speaking, are in a state of decomposition, and I cannot deny it. 
 Fortunately, " the loudest beating of the drum will not check the 
 rising of the sun." The energy of the Renaissance is not yet 
 spent. The Reformation waits still for its completion. The 
 simple ideas of the Christianity of Christ are full of revolutionary 
 power, and need living application to the legislative, commercial, 
 and social life of the world. In that work Baptists ought to 
 have a large share, and the larger because our task, in so far as 
 it relates to the exposition of New Testament baptism, is nearly 
 done. Exegesis is wholly with us in teaching that baptism is 
 not more and not less than an outward and visible sign of the 
 inward and spiritual grace and loyalty to the Lord Jesus, a 
 loyalty of which the recipient of baptism himself is really and 
 dimly conscious. Priestism, apparently growing and nourished 
 by the materialistic and aesthetic fashions of the hour, has lost 
 for ever its basis on the Scriptures and the traditions of the 
 
 ' Contemporary Review, vol. liii., p. 610. 
 
BAPTISTS AND BRITISH CHRISTIANITY. 443 
 
 Eariy Church. The return to the Christ of the Testament is 
 delivering the Churches from the blinding doctrine of the magical 
 efficacy of sacraments and sapping the inward forces of sacer- 
 dotalism. Baptists to-day are as loyal as ever to the supremacy 
 of the spirit and to freedom of conscience ; as emphatic as of old 
 in proclaiming personal responsibility; more resolute in their 
 repudiation of ritualism, word and thing ; more emphatic in their 
 recognition of spiritual and ethical affinities as the basis of Church 
 fellowship ; more eager than ever to have their windows open 
 to all the dajdight, to secure perfect religious equality, and to 
 promote the true brotherhood and social well-being of men : — 
 
 " Spirit of Freedom, on, 
 
 And pause not in thy flight, 
 Till every clime be won 
 To worship in thy light I " 
 
444 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 THE QUAKEE EEFOEMATION. 
 
 BT WILLIAM POLLARD. 
 
 The Founders of the Society of Friends, in the seventeenth century, 
 were accustomed to say that the aim of the Reformation move- 
 ment in which they were engaged was the Revival of Primitive 
 Christianity. By this they did not mean a mere imitation of the 
 practices and arrangements of the Early Christians, but a revival 
 of that spirit of simple genuine unclerical religion that was so 
 characteristic of the first century. They felt that the Christian 
 Church had grievously lapsed from the pure and primitive faith. 
 The great Central Truth of Christianity — the Real Presence of the 
 Spirit of Christ in the hearts of His followers — had come to be 
 ilmost ignored. The free spiritual Republic that Christ had 
 instituted had been largely supplanted by the despotism and 
 tyranny of a human priesthood. Externals had taken the place 
 of spirituals. Forms had replaced realities. Observances had 
 been substituted for duties. Elaborate metaphysical creeds had 
 been gradually constructed and made the test of orthodoxy, 
 because it was more in accord with priestly aim and worldly 
 nature to profess faith in theological doctrines and outward 
 ceremonies, than to seek after and obey the Spirit of Christ. 
 Even the great upheaval of the Reformation in the sixteenth 
 century had, as they believed, by no means removed these evil 
 growths. Startling and wide-reaching as the Reforming movement 
 had been, both in Germany and England, it was of necessity very 
 imperfect. Even the Great Leaders of that movement were far 
 from seeing all the beautiful simplicity and breadth of spiritual 
 Truth, as it had been recognized in Primitive days. The times 
 were ripe for another advance toward the simple practical Religion 
 of Christ, and George Fox was manifestly called by God to lead 
 in the work. 
 
 Fox has been fittingly called "the last of the Reformers." 
 His aim was to complete what the earlier Reformers began : 
 what the Puritans had in some respects carried forward, but 
 which still remained unfinished ; — the Restoration of Primitive 
 Christianity. 
 
 George Fox was bom in 1624; so his youth was passed at a 
 
THE QUAKER REFORMATION. 445 
 
 most eventful time in English History, when it seemed doubtful 
 whether the Government would go on — as it had done for ages — 
 gradually developing into a limited and constitutional monarchy, 
 or would sink into a Despotism. 
 
 In his early boyhood there was for years no Parliament ; there 
 was no free speech. Heretics were remorselessly hunted in almost 
 every parish in the kingdom. Those were times to set men think- 
 ing ; and no doubt they helped in no small degree to ripen and 
 develop the character of young George Fox. We will glance briefly 
 at his after life and teaching, that we may sketch in outline his 
 ^ iew of what Primitive Christianity required. 
 
 Fox was a man of wonderful natural endowments ; and though 
 with no more scholastic instruction than the middle classes of his 
 day enjoyed, yet he had a mind of no ordinary powers, cultivated 
 too in a particular direction in a very remarkable manner. The 
 knowledge of God, not as a mere intellectual speculation, but as 
 the true solvent of that mystery, human life — the true Restorative 
 that would harmonize and guide and give spiritual power — was 
 the great object of his longing search from youth to manhood ; 
 and in this search his almost constant companion was the Bible. 
 
 But though the volume of inspiration was most precious to him, 
 he could not be satisfied, or rest with it alone. He loved it, 
 because it revealed the Divine Helper, — the Christ of God ;— - 
 to whom he longed most intensely to come, that he might have 
 Life, and might know both Truth and Duty. For this end he 
 agonized for months in solitude, — he read, — he prayed, — he made 
 earnest inquiries of men who were thought to have Christian 
 experience : but stiU no light came. As Spurgeon says, " Fox 
 was driven at last into the dreadful wilderness of self-despair, 
 and made to see the dark chambers of imagery of his own 
 natural heart." And then, in God's own time, the Revelation 
 came. Fox's own record of this momentous crisis in his life is 
 deeply touching and instructive. He says, — " When all my 
 hopes in men were gone, so that I had nothiiig outwardly to help 
 me, nor could I tell what to do, then, oh! then, I heard a voice 
 which said, ' There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to 
 thy condition ; ' and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy. 
 Then the Lord let me see why there was none else that could 
 speak to my condition, viz., that I might give Him all the glory ; 
 that Christ might have the pre-eminence, who enlightens and 
 gives Grace and Faith and Power." 
 
 The Divine Comforter who thus revealed Himself spoke to a 
 willing and longing heart ; and from that time forth — though his 
 discipline was by no means over — George Fox grew to have an 
 apostolic faith in the real Presence of Christ. 
 
446 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 This young man of nineteen became shortly so filled with his 
 new life, that he says he could have wept day and night with 
 tears of joy; — and he was soon called to proclaim his great 
 discovery to others. Thus, with the heavenly anointing manifestly 
 resting upon him, he entered upon his mission as a religious 
 Reformer ; — commissioned to bring back to the Church a long-lost 
 and forgotten Truth. "I was commanded," he says, "to turn 
 people to that inward Light, Spirit and Grace, by which all might 
 know their salvation, and their way to God; even that Divine 
 Spirit which would lead them into aU truth." 
 
 With persuasive eloquence Fox began now to call men from 
 " forms and shadows," to the Ufe, light, and power of Christ in 
 their own hearts. Numerous converts speedily imited with him 
 in the great [Reforming work, many of them as devoted as Fox ; 
 and it is important to note that their primary ground of union — 
 (as officially stated by the London Yearly Meeting) — was, " agree- 
 ment of sentiment in regard to Christ's inward teaching." 
 
 George Fox formulates still more definitely the nature of 
 His mission in the following words : — " By the power and Spirit 
 of Gtod, I was to bring people off from all their own ways, to 
 Christ the new and Living Way : and from the churches wldch 
 had been gathered in the wisdom of man, to the Church of God 
 of which Christ is the Head. And off from the world's teachers 
 made by men, to learn of Christ, of whom the Father said, ' This 
 is My beloved Son. Sear Him.' And off from the world's 
 worships, to know the Spirit of truth in the heart, and to be led 
 thereby. And I was to bring people off from Jewish ceremonies, 
 and from men's inventions, and worldly doctrines ; and from their 
 rudiments and creeds, — with their schools and colleges for making 
 men ministers of Christ. And from all their images, and crosses, 
 and sprinkling of infants ; and all their vain traditions, which 
 they had gotten up since the Apostles' days, which the Lord's 
 power was against. And against all who preached, and not freely, 
 as being such as had not received freely." 
 
 It would, however, be a mistake to suppose, from this statement, 
 that the Quaker Reformation was a mere protesting movement, 
 or a system of negatives. On the contrary, it began, as already 
 pointed out, with reviving a great fundamental but forgotten 
 Truth ; — that of the Real Presence of Christ by His Spirit. This 
 the Friends have happily kept in the forefront of those grand 
 " Advices," which are periodically read in their meetings. It is 
 the same truth so well expressed by William Penn, when he 
 said, — " The Light of Christ within us, as QocPs gift for man's 
 salvation, is the great Fundamental of ovi/r Religion." 
 
 We are therefore justified in saying that George Fox's procla- 
 
THE QUAKER REFORMATION. 447 
 
 mation of the Primitive Faith was based on the assertion of a 
 supreme and 'positive truth, and not on mere negations. 
 
 He found the religious world divided between High Church 
 professors, who based their faith largely on Church traditions — 
 and the Puritan and " Evangelical " parties, who believed in the 
 exclusive authority of Scripture. All these were making the 
 Death of Christ the central truth of Christianity, to the displace- 
 ment of a broader and more scriptural view. They were in fact 
 almost entirely ignoring a truth which Fox felt to be the main 
 Factor in the relations of man to God. Fox had discovered — 
 had had revealed to him — that it is the indwelling Spirit, the 
 Living Christ, and not the Church, nor the Bible only (or even 
 primarily), which is the real Restorer and Guide of Life, He 
 had reached out to a Living Person who is Divine, and he could 
 rest no longer on a Book, or a Creed. 
 
 Stephen Crisp — another of the founders of the Society — refers 
 to the same discovery when he says, — " There are two kinds of 
 Faith. The one says, 'I believe, because good men have told me, 
 and because I find it in my Catechism and Prayer Book.' The 
 other says, ' I believe, because God hath visited me by His Love, 
 and given me a personal assurance that He is my Deliverer.' " 
 
 Charles Kingsley proclaims the antiquity of this great Quaker 
 principle in the following words. He says : — " The doctrine of 
 Christ in every man, as the indwelling Word of God — the Light 
 who lights every one who comes into the world — is no peculiar 
 tenet of the Quakers ; — but one which runs through the whole 
 of the Old and New "restament ; and without which they would 
 both be unintelligible : just as the same doctrine runs through 
 the whole history of the Early Church for the first two centuries, 
 and is the only explanation of them." 
 
 The historian Bancroft says: — "The mind of George Fox 
 arrived at the conclusion that Truth is to be found by listening 
 to the Voice of God in the soul. This principle contained a moral 
 revolution. It established absolute freedom of mind (under the 
 rule of Christ) — treading idolatry and superstition under foot, and 
 entering the strongest protest against every form of hierarchy." 
 It is in this sense that we may say in the words of the poet — of 
 that bright dawn of spiritual truth and liberty of which we are 
 speaking — that 
 
 " Freedom reared in that august sunrise 
 Her beautiful bold brow : 
 When Kites and Forms before her burning eyes 
 Melted like snow." 
 
 But when we speak of this great doctrine of Primitive Chris- 
 
448 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 tianity and of Quakerism as fundamental truth, it is not to be 
 understood that it is the only truth of importance. On examina- 
 tion it will be found — when held in its true sense — really to 
 include or to lead on to all the great Facts referred to in the 
 Apostles' Creed : for, as promised by Christ, it leads into all , 
 truth. Our knowledge of God is progressive. Truth comes to 
 US by degrees : largely according to faith and faithfulness. This 
 was what George Fox meant, when he said he was called " to 
 bring people to Christ, and to leave them there." He knew that 
 when a man had come in faith to this living Christ, he would 
 seek more and more to learn of Christ, and to obey Christ, and to 
 promote the cause of Christ : — that he would honour and love the 
 Bible, which testified of Christ; — that he would rejoice exceed- 
 ingly and increasingly in the assurance he had, through God's 
 manifestation and sacrifice in Christ ; — that he would feel the 
 need and privilege of Prayer and of waiting on this gracious Lord 
 for fuller enlightenment in the truth, and for guidance and help in 
 all the concerns of life. 
 
 It was George Fox's faith in this principle of Christian growth 
 and development, that explains the well-known story about 
 William Penn and his sword. The incident may be briefly 
 recalled to memory, somewhat thus : — William Penn, in the 
 early days of his changed life, though full of zeal for the Gospel 
 as he then knew it, had not yet seen all the bearings of the great 
 Truth which he had embraced. He had thrown himself heart 
 and soul into the work of the Lord. He was preaching and 
 writing continually, and was fuU of Christian activity. But he 
 still wore his sword, after the fashion of the gentlemen of those 
 times ; and possibly thought little about it. The appearance of 
 the yovmg Christian soldier girt with a carnal weapon scandalized 
 some of his elder Friends, who remonstrated with him about it. 
 Penn, in his perplexity, sought counsel from his friend and leader, 
 George Fox ; and told him he had not seen the inconsistency of 
 the thing, and did not wish to take any step out of mere imita- 
 tion. Fox's advice was simple and courageous. He said, — " As 
 regards thy sword, wear it as long as thou feels easy with it." 
 He had faith in the meekness and gentleness of Christ, and in 
 the power of the Master to imbue His young disciple with His 
 own Spirit ; and he knew it was wise to leave growth and develop- 
 ment in the hands of Him who is patient and all-wise ; — ^who 
 alone sees the capabilities of His servants, and the right time for 
 leading them forward. 
 
 And so we find this great Fundamental Truth of a living and 
 present Saviour underlying all that the early Friends taught. 
 It was this that gave the unique character to their meetings for 
 
THE QUAKER REFORMATION. 449 
 
 worship. It shaped and guided their ministry. It was at the 
 root of all their testimonies, and their service for the Truth. It 
 was to them the Power and Reality of the Gospel. It was 
 "God's gift for man's salvation." And the reason is not far to 
 seek. It meant to them the one Foundation, on which prophets 
 and apostles and Primitive Christians had built : Jeaua Christ, 
 
 In view of this mighty fact, they might well ask, — " What need 
 is there of a human priest, or a professional pastor, at the head 
 of the congregation, when the Great High Priest — the Minister 
 of ministers — is Himself really present ? What need is there of 
 a symbolical washing by outward water, when the real cleansing 
 is applied direct to the soul by the Divine Baptizer Himself? 
 What need is there of a formal ceremonial with outward bread 
 and wine, when the soul is invited to the real table of the Lord, 
 to partake of the veritable Bread of Life ? " 
 
 It was well said of George Fox, that he did for Religion what 
 Lord Bacon had done for philosophy : — he rescued it out of the 
 hands of the school-men (in this case the theologians), and 
 showed it to be practical! Those who have looked much into 
 works on Systematic Theology — Calvinistic or other — must have 
 been struck by the contrast there presented, with the practical 
 and unsophisticated character of the old Quaker teaching. It 
 may be said of the early Friends — as Erasmus said of the Primi- 
 tive Christians — that they were afraid to pronounce anything 
 about God but what was plainly revealed in Scripture. The Bible 
 was their creed, interpreted by the Spirit of Christ, and they 
 owned no other. 
 
 But the teaching of Fox and his coadjutors was not only 
 practical. It was pre-eminently simple ; and it was broad ; — 
 and this simplicity and breadth reached to the very beginnings 
 of Religion. The Protestant Theology of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries — in which many of the early Friends had 
 been trained — had been accustomed to say, — " When you are 
 converted you will find God propitiated, and He will accept you 
 for Christ's sake." But the Quaker theology took a totally 
 different stand. It said, — " God is on your side before you start : 
 and He is, — by persuasion, — by the work of His Spirit, — seeking 
 to start you Himself; and Christ is the manifestation of His 
 love, and not the cause of it." 
 
 A recent writer, in treating of the Quaker Reformation, has 
 formulated the principles therein proclaimed, and has called them 
 the "Ten Talents of Quakerism." They may be summarized 
 somewhat thus : — 
 
 1. God's Spiritual Light that lighteth every man. 
 
 2. The indwelling of the Spirit with the disciple. 
 
450 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 3. The Headship of Christ in His Church. 
 
 4. The priesthood of all believers. 
 
 5. The freedom of the Gospel Ministry. 
 
 6. The spiritual equaUty of the Sexes. 
 
 7. Spiritual Baptism, and Spiritual Communion. 
 
 8. The unlawfulness of war to the Christian. 
 
 9. The unlawfulness of oaths. 
 
 10. The duty of brotherly love ; and of simplicity of life. 
 
 The list even in its bareness indicates the striking resemblance 
 that existed between the Primitive Church and that of the early 
 Friends, — as to their creed, — the character of their religious meet- 
 ings, — the basis of their ministry, and their views on Church 
 Government. They both accepted in all its fulness the truth 
 of the Real Presence and Headship of Christ : they were both free 
 from the burden of Ritualism and Ceremonialism, and from the 
 bondage and hindrance, in any form, of an order of clergy. They 
 were both remarkable for their brotherly love, and for their care of 
 the poor, the suffering, and the unfortunate. 
 
 The religious meetings in Apostolic times, though held on the 
 same spiritual and free basis, took doubtless a somewhat different 
 shape from the Quaker meetings — for reasons that are obvious. 
 They were composed mainly of people just gathered out of 
 heathenism, who had had practically no religious training; and 
 the meetings had, therefore, of necessity, to be largely devoted to 
 the work of " teaching." That is, they sought in various ways, 
 under the power of the Spirit, to remind and inform one another 
 of the great Facts of Religion, and of God's dealings and revela- 
 tions to men in the past : and this teaching-meeting was generally 
 followed by a social gathering or "Love Feast," for spiritiial 
 edification and devotion. 
 
 We miay mention another point of comparison. There were 
 some of the teachings of the early Friends, which, while really 
 constituting part of the Quaker Reformation, were more of the 
 nature of testimonies, specially belonging to that particular age. 
 Such were doubtless based upon true principles into which these 
 faithful disciples were led by the Spirit of Christ. But we have 
 to remember that the application of principles may and does vary 
 under the same Divine guidance. It had been so with the Primi- 
 tive Christians. They had their strong testimony to bear about 
 meats offered to Idols ; — against the use of blood ; and so on. But 
 these expressions of a true principle have long passed away, with 
 the need of them. Though the injunction on these subjects was 
 given to Gentile Christians, in the most solemn and unqualified 
 terms (Acts xv. 28), no believer. Gentile or otherwise, feels any 
 longer bound by it. 
 
THE QUAKER REFORMATION. 451 
 
 So with the early Friends. Admitting that there may have been 
 in their protests against certain evils and extravagances of the time 
 some degree of crudeness and exaggeration — for instance, in the 
 use^ of what they called plain and truthful language ; on the 
 subject of dress, and personal demeanour ; — and in respect to some 
 recreations ; — still they testified in their seventeenth-century style 
 to some important truths that may now be upheld in other ways. 
 In these things we have our own responsibility ; which is not met 
 by mere imitation. 
 
 We sometimes hear Quakerism described as if it were identical 
 with what is known as " Evangelicalism," plus a few specialities 
 about the Ordinances, War, and Oaths. On this point we may 
 appeal both to the early Friends, and to their contemporaries the 
 " Evangelicals " of the seventeenth century ; — and we shall find 
 the answer from each clear and unmistakable. Leaders of the 
 " Evangelical " sects in those days — such as Baxter and Bunyan — 
 never would admit that the fathers of Quakerism were in harmony 
 with themselves as regards even primary Christian doctrine. 
 They stigmatized them as one-sided, — as tending to Socinianiam 
 — as undervaluing the Bible, and so on ; — charges which one still 
 hears at times applied by " Evangelicals " to old-fashioned 
 ■Quakerism : though more unfounded statements as regards each 
 particular, both then and now, could hardly be made. So far 
 from being one-sided, they proclaimed afresh the central truth 
 of Christianity. Their testimony to Christ, as Almighty and 
 Divine, was a practical testimony ; — and as such it was more 
 •definite and unequivocal than that of any other religious com- 
 munity. And their reverence and love for the Bible were so 
 marked, that its plain teachings were accepted by them at great 
 ■cost and suffering, on points respecting which other churches 
 seem still " halting as between two opinions." 
 
 The Friends themselves — on this question of agreement in what 
 were regarded as Fundamentals — were equally uncompromising. 
 While they gladly avowed that they did not differ materially from 
 many other religious communities, in what William Penn called 
 " the common doctrines of Christianity," they did not hesitate to 
 assert that they differed almost radically in the definition — 
 the understanding — and even in the place of some of these 
 teachings. 
 
 The " Evangelical " sects — as we have already pointed out — de- 
 clared, and still declare, their central truth to be the Death of Christ. 
 The early Friends, going wider and deeper, proclaimed the great 
 central and foundation truth to be Christ Himself; — the Living 
 Saviour — the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. They ignored 
 no revealed truth; — the human life of Christ — His death — His 
 
452 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 resurrection — His ascension — all for our sakes — they thankfully 
 accepted and believed. But Christ the Living — ^the Indivisible, — 
 He who had been God manifest in the flesh, and now is God 
 manifest in the Spirit, — was their foundation Eock. And on 
 that Rock they built, and found safety and rest. 
 
 One characteristic achievement of the Quaker movement which 
 is of primary importance was the rousing impulse it gave to 
 individual Conscience. Christ— as these Reformers preached 
 Him — was not only present in the Church as its Head, but He was 
 present in the heart of each disciple. Therefore the Conscience — 
 that wonderful organ or indicator, by which the Divine Presence 
 is noted and its purpose revealed — was not to be a mere collective 
 Church Instrument, interpreted and controlled by the priest or 
 pastor, or even by the congregation ; but a personal indicator, 
 under Christ's direction, planted in the secret of each heart. Under 
 this Divine Guidance, people were to think for themselves — seek 
 for themselves — and act for themselves. And yet not as mere 
 detached and isolated units. The one Supreme Guide who dwelt 
 in each soul, and understood and loved each soul, became — as He 
 was trusted — the true bond of union to His people. This practical 
 faith in Christ's direct revelation of Himself to each believer — as 
 it is held in humility and charity — is still found — even amidst 
 great diversities of operations — to give true unity of purpose and 
 an aggregate of wisdom ; and so enables the Brotherhood to work 
 harmoniously together for mutual help, and for the promotion 
 of the truth. Here we have the true constitution of that union of 
 many diverse spiritual natures, under the Headship and control of 
 one Lord, — which we recognize as a Divine institution, and which 
 we call the Church. 
 
 A Church that felt itself so constituted would naturally be con- 
 tinually saying to its members — (in other words, the members 
 would be continually saying to one another) — "Christ is your 
 Master : — take heed to Him : — take heed to His invisible and 
 unsearchable influence, — the convictions of the Spirit, — the 
 guidance and teaching of the Spirit, — the restraints of the Spirit." 
 And the early Quaker Church did constantly reiterate this teaching. 
 George Fox's epistles, and the addresses of his compatriots, are 
 full of such injunctions. The supremacy of Conscience, con- 
 trolled and enlightened by the Spirit of Christ, was in fact their 
 prominent theme. 
 
 Personal Conscience was the rudder which, in the Divine hand, 
 steered their bark through the stormy sea which these brave men 
 had to traverse. In obedience to it they went forth as Preachers ; 
 — they held meetings ; — they organized communities for promoting^ 
 God's truth ;--T-they went to prison ; — they laid down their lives ; 
 
THE QUAKER REFORMATION. 453 
 
 proving faithful to this Light of Christ in the Lamp of Conscience, 
 even unto Death. 
 
 But further than that, they did their duty, and were seen to do 
 their duty, in the petty details of every-day life. Perhaps this is 
 as great a test of a tender and active conscience as can be found. 
 George Fox tells us, — " When people came to have experience of 
 Friends' honesty and faithfiilness, — that they kept to a word in 
 their dealings, and would not cheat them ; but that if they sent a 
 child to their shops for anything, they were as well used as if 
 they had come themselves, — the lives of Friends did preach, and 
 reached the witnesa of God in the people. Then the inquiry was, 
 ' Where is there a draper, or shopkeeper, or tailor, or shoemaker, 
 or any other tradesman, that is a Quaker ? ' " 
 
 Another quiet, but invaluable characteristic, springing from the 
 same root, and which has already borne good fruit, — but which 
 needs to be much more cultivated in the world of politics and 
 daily life, — is the absence, or at least the diminished power, of 
 the spirit of self-seeking and of mere personal ambition. Oliver 
 Cromwell testified to it as something unusual, when he said of 
 the Friends, — " Here is a people whom I cannot win with gifts, 
 honours, oflBce, or place." John Bright once referred to the same 
 characteristics when he said, — " I am a member of a small but 
 somewhat remarkable sect, — a religious body which had a remark- 
 able origin, and in its early days at least a somewhat remarkable 
 history. It is, of all the religious sects, the one that has most 
 taught the equality and equal rights of man. And I venture to 
 say it is remarkable for another thing ; — that, probably more than 
 any other body, within its borders and in its service, personal 
 ambition is practically unknown." John Bright adds, — " I think 
 much of my opinions, and much of my course, have been deter- 
 mined or at least greatly influenced by the training I received in 
 that body." 
 
 This active personal Conscience, which leads to a true self- 
 reliance based on the assurance of Christ's presence and help, 
 was the root of that sturdy independence of character which was 
 once (and which is still, to some extent, let us hope) a distin- 
 guishing feature of Quaker people. It has been through this true 
 staying power so much needed in the battle of life, that the 
 individual conscience has come to tell upon the whole community. 
 Probably when George Fox spoke of one true Quaker shaking the 
 country for ten miles round, he had in view not merely or mainly 
 preaching, or other public efforts ; but rather this integrity and 
 uprightness — this unswerving fidelity to the truth however 
 manifest in the soul, — this conspicuous loyalty to Christ, which 
 brought about the whole movement. We read that some Scotch 
 
454 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 earl, who had been dealing with certain of these uncompromising 
 Friends, said, — " The Quakers' loyalty is a qualified loyalty : it 
 smells of Rebellion." To which one of them calmly replied, 
 " We understand not loyalty that is not qualified : qualified that 
 is, with the fear of God, rather than of man." 
 
 And so this individuality — this unqualified loyalty to Christ, — 
 told upon the Church and the nation in many important ways. 
 For the Church the Quaker movement did much, by its broad teach- 
 ing, to dissipate or at least to moderate the narrow Calvinism that 
 prevailed in most of the Protestant communities. For the nation 
 it won for us all Liberty of Conscience. " The struggle to secure 
 this was carried on through forty years of bitter suffering, marked 
 with many cruel martyrdoms, and the early Friends ultimately 
 triumphed by the might of passive resistance wearying out per- 
 secution ; and so they purchased for England the priceless jewel 
 of religious liberty." 
 
 To the brave and good soldiers who fought in this long and 
 arduous struggle, we may apply the words of an eminent writer, 
 and say : " They were true patriots. They developed another 
 kind of deliverance for their country, founded on the authority 
 of Truth. They stood up against Tyrant and Priest. They 
 witnessed against false social maxims, against superstitions, 
 against all that was enslaving the soul. They proclaimed a 
 living God ; and they sought in all things to be faithful to their 
 King." 
 
455 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS. 
 
 BY THE SBV. DAVID F0THERIN6HAM 
 
 (Of St. John'$ Prabgterian Church iff England, TaUtnkcm). 
 
 On entering the Firth of Forth, with the view of landing at Leith 
 or Granton, which are the seaports of Edinburgh, a passenger on 
 board a steamer may easily observe, on the low-lying coast of Fife, 
 a small town named Anstruther. Though it was once a royal 
 burgh of considerable magnitude, it has now fallen into decay, and 
 the memory of its former importance is chiefly perpetuated by a 
 Corporation that is out of aU proportion to the number of inhabi- 
 tants over whom it exercises jurisdiction. In the year 1831 there 
 was a public functionary for every six houses in Western Anstruther, 
 yet it was sarcastically remarked that instead of such magistrates 
 being a terror to evil-doers, evil-doers were a terror to them, and 
 that their authority might be transferred, with advantage to the 
 public, to a couple of cons£ables. 
 
 The burgh is, however, redeemed from obscurity by a variety of 
 circumstances which some people might attribute to the chapter 
 of accidents. It was the abode of a character whose exploits are 
 narrated in a popular ballad, composed in the Scotch dialect, and 
 described by Burns as "a precious model of imitation, — sly, 
 sprightly, and forcibly expressive." 
 
 It was also the birthplace of a distinguished Oriental linguist, 
 who, in the early part of this century, gave it celebrity in a poem 
 of considerable merit, called " Anster Fair." But the chief glory 
 of Anstruther now is that it was the native town of the man whose 
 life forms the subject of this lecture. 
 
 Thomas Chalmers was descended from a family of great respect- 
 ability, which had been connected with the county of Fife during 
 several generations. His own father was a dyer, shipowner, and 
 general merchant, and the character of the man appears from the 
 style in which he intimated the birth of the child, who afterwards 
 shed lustre on his name, to a brother-in-law then living in London. 
 This was in the month of March, 1780: '.'I convey to you the 
 agreeable intelligence of my dear Elizabeth being safely delivered 
 of a fine boy on the morning of Friday, the 17th. The little 
 fellow is named Tom — I wish him as good a man as his name- 
 
456 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 father. I hope the Almighty will recover the mother to serve 
 Him, and be helpful to bring up her own children to be His 
 servants, after we have served our generation according to His 
 will, which will may it be the rule of yours and mine, and all 
 belonging to us, to live agreeably thereunto." In these sentences 
 we detect the genuine ring of an ardent Puritan. It was the 
 desire of the good man's heart to order his life according to the 
 will of God, and in his prayer that the youthful Tom should 
 emulate his godfather there was the wish that he should prove to 
 be a sincere Christian, adorning the doctrine of God in all things. 
 The gentleman in question was Mr. Thomas Ballardie, a man of 
 deep but unaffected piety, with whom the father frequently took 
 counsel in divine things, and who passed to heaven some years 
 afterwards, while upon his knees in prayer. 
 
 In the home of his early days young Chalmers found religion 
 commended by example as well as by precept, and it was no doubt 
 from the impressions made on his mind at this time that he ulti- 
 mately decided to enter the ministry of the Gospel. 
 
 As a boy Tom was noted for his love of fun, and, as he was 
 courageous to the last degree, he was frequently the leader of his 
 companions in games and exploits which depended for their success 
 on strength or daring. It is mentioned, however, to his credit 
 that his fun never degenerated into the mischief by which others 
 suffer, and that he was absolutely free from the twin vices of 
 falsehood and blasphemy. 
 
 From the early age of three he attended the Burgh School, but 
 unfortunately the chief teacher was a man past his prime, and the 
 scholars did not derive great benefit from his instruction. Under 
 the las discipline of this seminary, Tom acquired careless habits 
 of preparing his home lessons, and was frequently incarcerated in 
 a dark coal-hole for his indolence. It was observed, however, that 
 when he did apply himself to any task he mastered it with a celerity 
 and a thoroughness which none in his class could approach. 
 
 In this way the happy days glided by till he attained his 
 eleventh year, and then he was withdrawn from the care of the 
 master from whom he derived so little benefit, to be entered as a 
 student of St. Andrews University. 
 
 It sounds strange in our ears to hear that a boy between eleven 
 and twelve should join a University, but in those days there was 
 no entrance examination at St. Andrews, and consequently many 
 youths, fresh from the Parochial Schools, joined the Arts Classes, 
 and had to be instructed in the very rudiments of the Greek 
 and Latin tongues. During his first and second sessions young 
 Chalmers made no figure as a student. His time was chiefly 
 spent in boyish amusements, in some of which he maintained a 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 457 
 
 superiority over his companions from the fact that he was left- 
 handed. 
 
 During his third year at College he began the study of 
 Mathematics, and by this subject, usually regarded as dry and 
 uninteresting, his youthful mind was completely fascinated. 
 From this time, instead of being regarded, as formerly, as one 
 of the idlest and dullest of students, he applied himself with 
 ardour to the work of his classes, and soon gained the foremost 
 rank among his competitors. 
 
 Like sunrise in a southern clime his intellectual birth had not 
 been heralded by any previous dawn, but when the new life 
 awoke it shone iwith a power and a brilliancy which could not 
 escape observation. Chalmers remained five years longer at the 
 University, attending the classes required to qualify him for the 
 Ministry of the Established Church of Scotland, and in all these 
 he gained more or less distinction, but his love for Geometry and 
 cognate branches never grew cold. As it was in this field he first 
 reaped his laurels, so it was by constant devotion to the same 
 subject he maintained his high reputation for industry and ability. 
 The esteem in which he was held appeared when he applied to 
 the Presbytery of St. Andrews for licence to become a preacher 
 of the Grospel. It was not the practice to grant this authority to 
 anyone under twenty-one, whereas the youthful aspirant for the 
 honour on this occasion was only nineteen. Some of the grave 
 divines doubted the expediency of admitting one so young to the 
 solemn oflBce of pjreaching, but a friend in the Court pleaded that 
 he was " a lad o' pregnant pairts," and, as this character could not 
 be disputed, a concession was made in his favour. 
 
 It was not, however, from the love of proclaiming the unsearch- 
 able riches of Christ that Chalmers was so eager to become a 
 Licentiate of the National Church. He coveted this distinction 
 rather that he might use it as a stepping-stone to an appointment, 
 as a Professor of his favourite science, in one of the National Univer- 
 sities. Though he made several attempts in this direction, his 
 efforts were not crowned with success till he had reached his 
 twenty-second year. At this period he had a double favour from 
 his Alma Mater. The church of Kilmany, a parish only about 
 nine miles distant from St. Andrews, became vacant, and, as the 
 presentation to the living rested with the Principal and Professors 
 of the University, they unanimously conferred it upon him. At 
 the same time, as the Professor of Mathematics was unable, from 
 ill health, to perform the duties of his office, he appointed Mr. 
 Chalmers to act as his assistant. The dream of years was now, 
 therefore, fulfilled. The Academic Halls were open to him as an 
 instructor of youth in a science which he dearly loved ; and, as 
 
 30 
 
458 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD, 
 
 lie possessed the art in an eminent degree of drawing the students 
 into sympathy with himself, in the work of the class, they were 
 roused to an enthusiasm equal to his own, and made unprece- 
 dented progress under his care. His qualifications for professional 
 duties were thus clearly indicated, and though, from jealousy on 
 the part of his superior, he was not continued in the subordinate 
 position, in which he had first made trial of his gifts, yet the 
 Teputation which he acquired was fully sustained by a private 
 enterprise which he conducted at a later period outside the College 
 walls, and in spite of the University dignitaries. 
 
 Mr. Chalmers was ordained to be minister of the parish of 
 Kilmany, in 1803. Notwithstanding his great intellectual ability 
 he was in many respects poorly furnished for the duties of his 
 spiritual office. The work itself was not congenial, and, besides, 
 though he had attended the prescribed course of study at the 
 Divinity classes to qualify himself for the Presbyterian pulpit, he 
 had been too absorbed in his scientific pursuits to give the subject 
 much attention. 
 
 He had not, however, shunned it altogether. He had 
 approached Theology on its philosophical side, and had speculated 
 deeply on some of the grand problems which it presents for 
 consideration. At one time he was carried away by the gorgeous 
 generalizations, as he afterwards described them, of Baron 
 d'Holbach, and narrowly escaped being landed in a slough of 
 scepticism — doubting both the being of a Grod, and the founda- 
 tion of morality amongst men. From this forlorn fate he was 
 saved, but for several years his views on Theology were restricted 
 to the sublime idea which he caught from Edwards' book on the 
 Freedom of the Will — the magnificence of the Grodhead and the 
 universal subordination of all things to the one great purpose 
 for which He evolved and was supporting creation. 
 
 Though his sermons were not greatly relished by his plain 
 parishioners, he was much esteemed for his personal worth, and, in 
 consideration of his scientific attainments, was regarded by them 
 as a kind of wonder. He lectured familiarly to them on Chemistry, 
 showing, among other things, the powers of the bleaching liquids. 
 On this one old lady was heard remarking to another: "Our 
 Minister is nothing short o' a warlock ; he was teaching the folk 
 to wash clothes without soap," which provoked the retort : " Aye, 
 woman, I wish he wad teach me to mak' parritch without meal. ' 
 
 Towards Mr. Chalmers' thirtieth year a series of events occurred 
 -which produced a profound impression on his mind, and ultimately 
 led to that great change in his life and character which he never 
 hesitated to describe as a conversion. One of these was a severe 
 illness, which brought him to the very brink of the grave ; 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 459 
 
 another arose from the deaths of several relatives, which induced 
 the belief that he would soon follow them to the silent tomb; 
 and the third was an engagement to contribute an article to an 
 «ncyclopaedia on the "Evidences of Christianity." While occupied 
 "with this work he became so deeply convinced of the Divine 
 origin of the Holy Scriptures, that he began to read them for his 
 personal profit, and learned the claims which the Heavenly Father 
 had on his love and services. In these solemn circumstances he 
 subjected his former life to a careful review, and the result was 
 pre-eminently mortifying. Whether tried by the standard of his 
 own conscience, or the Word of God, he found, in the language 
 of the Prayer Book, he had done many things which he ought to 
 have left undone, and he had left imdone many things which he 
 ought to have done. 
 
 In the case of a man of his decision of character to be convinced 
 of error led to an immediate attempt at amendment. Accord- 
 ingly he set a watch alike on all his thoughts and actions, keeping 
 a record of his falls with the view of walking more uprightly in 
 the future. Soon the register reached proportions of which he 
 had never dreamt, and in consequence the truth gradually 
 ■dawned on his mind that it was his nature itself which was 
 corrupt and needed amendment, and not merely the fruits which 
 it produced. His own description of his mental struggles is thus 
 ;given : " For upwards of a year he had striven with all his might 
 to meet the high requirements of the Divine law ; but that law 
 rose in its demands as he rose in his endeavours, and it still kept 
 ahead of him with a kind of overmatching superiority to all his 
 ■efforts. His attempt to scale the heights of perfection, to quell 
 the remonstrances of a challenging and not yet appeased com- 
 mandment was like the laborious ascent of him who, having so 
 wasted his strength that he can do no more, finds that some 
 precipice still remains to be overcome, some mountain-brow that 
 scorns his enterprise, and threatens to overwhelm him." Con- 
 tinuing this narrative, his chief biographer adds : " He struggled 
 hard to recover his immeasurable distance from that high and 
 heavenly morality which the law required, and, after all, he found 
 himself ' a helpless defaulter from the first and greatest of its 
 ■commandments.' He repaired to the atonement to eke out his 
 deficiencies, and as the ground of assurance that God would look 
 upon him with a propitious eye ; but, notwithstanding, an unap- 
 peasable disquietude hung heavy upon his heart, and he walked 
 among the elements of uncertainty and distrust till at last he 
 -came to see that the Saviour had already and completely done 
 for him what with so much seriousness, but with so little success, 
 he had been striving to do for himself." 
 
460 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 The book which, next to the Word of God, was instrumental 
 in guiding Chahners in the way of peace, was Wilberforce'8 
 Practical View. He writes regarding it : "I remember that, 
 somewhere about the year 1811, 1 had Wilberforce's View put into 
 my hands, and, as I got on in reading it, felt myself on the eve 
 of a great revolution in all my opinions about Christianity. I am 
 now most thoroughly of opinion, and it is an opinion founded on 
 experience, that on the system of ' Do this and live,' no peace, 
 and even no true and worthy obedience, can ever be attained. 
 It is ' Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' 
 When this belief enters the heart, joy and confidence enter along 
 with it. The righteousness, which we try to work out for our- 
 selves, eludes our impotent grasp, and never can a soul arrive at 
 true or permanent rest in the pursuit of this object. The righ- 
 teousness, which by faith we put on, secures our acceptance with 
 God, and secures our interest in His promises, and gives us a 
 part in those sanctifying influences by which we are enabled to 
 do with aid from on high what we never can do without it. We 
 look to God in a new light ; we see Him as a reconciled Father ; 
 that love to Him, which terror scares away, re-enters the heart, 
 and, with a new principle and a new power, we become new 
 creatures in Jesus Christ our Lord." 
 
 From these extracts it appears that Chalmers now heartily 
 embraced all the truths peculiar to the Evangelical faith. The 
 cardinal doctrine of this creed is — Salvation by the grace of God 
 alone through faith in Jesus Christ. The centre of its Theology 
 is contained in the testimony of our Lord : " God so loved the 
 world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
 in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God 
 sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world ; but that 
 the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on 
 Him is not condemned : but he that believeth not is condemned 
 already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only 
 begotten Son of God." From this vantage-ground the Evangelical 
 divine surveys the whole sweep of things — ^past, present, and 
 future ; and observing the adaptation of this plan of redemption 
 to sinfiil and suffering men, proclaims it as God's Gospel to the 
 world. 
 
 Jesus Christ, the God-Man, in taking our nature, identifies 
 Himself with the human family in such a way that He has infinite 
 sympathy with them in their sufferings, and makes Himself 
 answerable for their transgressions. In His Ufe He has left them 
 a noble example, and by His death He delivers them from 
 condemnation on account of their sins. Nevertheless, to reap the 
 full benefit of His life and work they must be brought into union 
 
THOMAS CHALMEES. 461 
 
 with Him as a living and personal Saviour. The golden links by 
 which this connection is formed are twofold. On His part it is 
 established by the gift of the Holy Ghost, and on theirs by simple 
 trust in His name. Through this union they are conformed to 
 the Divine image, and are entitled to all the privileges of the 
 children of God. This is also the true basis of their Christian 
 activity and philanthropy. They abide in Him as the branch in 
 the vine ; their spiritual life is nourished by His grace ; they are 
 filled by His Spirit; they are constrained by His love; and, 
 relying on His help, they order their own lives in accordance with 
 His wUl, and do good to others as they have opportunity. 
 
 To some, this theory of reconciling earth and heaven, or even 
 of raising men from the degradation into which they have fallen 
 to a purer and nobler life, may appear narrow-minded and con- 
 tracted. It may be some excuse for those who take exception to 
 this system, that Chalmers was at one time strongly opposed to it 
 himself. The burden of his early discourses was morality, and he 
 did not conceal his dislike to the works in which the doctrines of 
 grace were expounded. Bending over the pulpit, as a mark of 
 emphasis, he remarked to the parishioners of Kilmany : " Many 
 books are favourites with you which I am sorry to say are no 
 favourites of mine. When you are reading Newton's Sermons, 
 and Baxter's Saints' Beat, and Doddridge's Rise and Progress, 
 where do Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John go to ? " It was 
 different, however, when he came to study these Divines under the 
 shadow of an unsatisfactory life, or in the light of a near eternity. 
 Finding no solid ground of peace himself in the ethics which he 
 had strongly commended to others, he was driven of necessity 
 to plant Ms foot on the rock which is Christ. Nevertheless it 
 was only by slow degrees that he accepted the Evangelical faith 
 as infallible truth. Accustomed by his scientific training to 
 require proof for every proposition submitted to his judgment, he 
 did not yield to the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel from mere 
 traditional authority, but searched for the evidence on which 
 their claims rested. He began his examination, as we have seen, 
 with a prejudice rather inconsistent with a philosophical cast of 
 mind, but by degrees it was dispelled, and then he discovered 
 that the temple, which he imagined to be a baseless fabric, had 
 foundations which could not be shaken. This was enough for a 
 man with a broken spirit. It was here he found refuge for 
 his troubled mind, for, in resting simply on Jesus as his all-suffi- 
 cient Saviour he entered into a peace, as well as joy, passing all 
 understanding. 
 
 But the Evangelical feith which revealed Christ to him did 
 more than heal his bruised heart. He found the doctrines 
 
462 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 could be compacted into a system as harmonious as any of the 
 sciences intended to explain the operations and laws of nature ; 
 and, therefore, since in its speculative, as well as in its practical, 
 aspect it fuUy met all the demands of reason and conscience, he 
 embraced it with all his soul and strength. 
 
 This was the turning-point in his career. He had now a centre 
 from which to operate, and an object for which to live. Walking 
 in fellowship with his newly-found Saviour, his genius, his elo- 
 quence, his energies, and his learning, were all consecrated to His 
 service. 
 
 From this period his spiritual work absorbed his chief attention, 
 and the fruit became at once apparent in the extraordinary 
 popularity of his ministrations. He had now reached the vigour 
 of manhood, and had an easy command of a style well suited to 
 the massive cast of his thoughts. It appears to us to be turbid 
 and cumbrous, but it possesses the cadence requisite for rhetorical 
 effect, and he wielded it as an instrument of singular potency. 
 His mode of reasoning was of the cumulative order. He delighted 
 to seize the main point of an argument, and as he presented it in 
 different lights, but always with fresh wealth of statement and 
 illustration, it glowed with ever increasing brilliancy, and carried 
 persuasion to every mind. His oratory may indeed be fitly com- 
 pared to a mountain stream of his native land, — now foaming in 
 a ravine or dashing over a precipice, but with the mighty rush of 
 its waters, sweeping every obstacle before it, and then majestically 
 flowing towards its destination. 
 
 Lord Jeffrey, the celebrated Edinburgh reviewer, remarked : 
 " His speaking reminds me more of what one reads as the effect 
 of- the eloquence of Demosthenes than anything I ever heard." 
 Another competent critic, relating his own experience of Chalmers' 
 preaching, says: "It was a transcendently grand — a glorious 
 burst. Intense emotion beamed from his countenance. I cannot 
 describe the appearance of his face better than by saying it was 
 lighted up almost into a glare. The congregation, in so far as 
 the spell under which I was [held] allowed me to observe, were 
 intensely excited, leaning forward in the pews, like a forest 
 bending under the power of a hurricane, looking steadfestly at 
 the preacher, and listening in breathless amazement," 
 
 The first effects of his Evangelical sermons were felt by the 
 parishioners of Kilmany. As he now laboiured among them with 
 apostolic zeal their apathy to Divine things passed away, and 
 there was a visitation, on a minor scale, like the Pentecost of the 
 Early Church. Stricken in heart by a conviction of sin they came to 
 Him crying, " What must we do to be saved ? " Chalmers would 
 have been well content to spend his days in this secluded parish, 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 463 
 
 guidiDg anxious inquirers in the ways of peace and holiness, but his 
 fame was now noised abroad, and it was certain that sooner or later 
 he would have to enter on a wider field of usefulness. He accord- 
 ingly accepted an invitation to take the oversight of one of the 
 parishes of Glasgow, and he removed to that city in the year 1814. 
 The reputation which he had acquired in his rural parish did 
 not wane in the commercial metropolis of Scotland. Doctors 
 and lawyers, merchants and University professors, flocked to his 
 ministry, and every Sunday he preached to a densely packed 
 congregation, which hung upon his lips and drank in every word 
 he uttered. 
 
 Besides the direct spiritual good which he accomplished, one 
 effort of his ministry deserves special notice. It lifted up the 
 Gospel of the grace of God and compelled all men — gentle and 
 simple, learned and illiterate, to do it homage. This was the 
 case especially with the philosophers of his day. In this respect 
 he was a genuine representative of the Presbyterian Ministers 
 whose ranks he adorned ; and they are indebted to him for showing 
 the attitude which they generally assume towards Science. 
 Regarding Eeligion not only as supernatural, but also as the 
 product of human experience, he contended that it rested on data 
 as carefully observed as any of the facts on which the systems of 
 Natural Science are built up. To man, indeed, nothing can be 
 more certain than the operations of his own mind ; and Chalmers' 
 religion was the outcome of a mental transition of which he was 
 no less conscious than of his own existence. He was not ashamed, 
 therefore, to declare it, and he called on every Scientist who was 
 loyal to the principles of the Inductive Philosophy to give him 
 credit for sense and sincerity. In the same spirit he respected 
 their conclusions. He honoured them as fellow-labourers in the 
 search after truth, and rebuked those who, in the name of 
 Eeligion, disparaged their honest speculations. It was in this 
 spirit he addressed the students of St. Andrews regarding Geology. 
 He said : " There is a prejudice against the speculations of the 
 Geologist which I am anxious to remove. It has been said that 
 they nurture infidel propensities. By referring the origin of the 
 globe to a higher antiquity than is assigned to it by the writings 
 of Moses, it has been said that Geology undermines our faith in 
 the inspiration of the Bible, and in all the animating prospects of 
 immortality which it imfolds. This ie a false alarm. The 
 writings of Moses do not fix the antiquity of the globe. If they 
 fix anything at all it is only the antiquity of the species. It is 
 not the interest of Christianity to repress liberty of discussion. 
 It has nothing to fear from the attacks of infidelity. It should 
 stand to receive her in the proudest of attitudes — the attitude of 
 
464 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 confidence in its own strength, and, animated by the remembrance 
 of the triumphs which it has already gained in the battles of 
 controversy. God knows we have little to fear on the side of in- 
 fidelity. It is not here that we are to seek for the point of 
 alarm. What Christianity has most to fear firom is — the bigotry 
 of those who have brought religion into contempt by throwing over 
 it the deformity of an illiberal and contracted superstition." 
 
 And just as he approved of the speculations of those Geologists 
 who confined themselves to their proper sphere of observation and 
 induction, he also welcomed the researches of the Astronomer. 
 He even preached a series of discourses on the connection between 
 the discoveries of Astronomy and the Christian Religion, and when 
 they were afterwards published they were as eagerly read as the 
 most popular novel of the day. 
 
 Resolved to attend to all the duties of a Parish Minister with 
 as much care as the Incumbent of a sparsely peopled District, his 
 life in Glasgow was an unusually busy one. He visited the 
 families one by one and collected statistics on their social, moral, 
 and spiritual condition. He had also meetings with them in 
 their homes, and established Sunday Schools for the instruction 
 of their children. But the work by which he is now chiefly 
 remembered as a Parish Minister is associated with the efforts 
 which he put forth for the economical support of the poor. He 
 was much dissatisfied with the method of relieving indigence 
 firom the public rates. It was his firm conviction that it not only 
 destroyed a spirit of self-respect on the part of the poor themselves 
 but also deprived the Church of the exercise of one of its spiritual 
 functions. He contended that it was the duty of the Church to 
 take this work in hand, and expressed his belief that a sufficient 
 number of voluntary helpers could be found to carry it out with 
 efficiency. 
 
 To enable him to try his experiment he was transferred at his 
 own request to one of the most densely populated parishes in 
 Glasgow, with liberty to bring his plan into operation at his own 
 pleasure. It is gratifying to know that his predictions were 
 amply fulfilled. For every fifty families he had a competent 
 visitor, and such was the success attending their labours that 
 whereas an annual outlay of £1,400 had been required from the 
 rates for relief, £280 of voluntary aid were found sufficient for 
 the same purpose. This was not only a triumphant achievement : 
 it was also a great practical demonstration. It showed the way 
 by which legal machinery and rates for relief might be dispensed 
 with all over the kingdom, and it was a loud call to every 
 clergyman to go and do likewise. But ministers were apathetic, 
 and as statesmen also scoffed at the Christian scheme as a Utopia 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 465 
 
 never to be realized, proviBion from the rates for this object has 
 now been made obligatory by Act of Parliament, and all the 
 •evils which the sagacity of Chalmers foresaw, and which he strove 
 to avoid, have followed in its train. 
 
 Chalmers resigned his charge in Glasgow in the year 1823. All 
 ranks and classes in the city loved and honoured him. The 
 Senatus of the University had conferred on him the degree of 
 D.D. ; the merchant princes had supported his philanthropic and 
 missionary enterprises ; and the common people, revering him for 
 his condescension and benevolence, had listened to his counsels, 
 and, in many instances, by his persuasion had turned from the 
 error of their ways. They could scarcely believe that he would 
 forsake them. But his resolution was unshaken. In the hidden 
 depths of his mind there lay a desire to fill a Professor's chair, 
 and the opportunity now occurred of accepting an appointment 
 to teach Moral Philosophy to the students of his Alma Mater, 
 St. Andrews University. 
 
 Many thought he was making a sacrifice, both in dignity and use- 
 fulness, by descending from the pulpit to be an instructor of youth, 
 but he had a nobler conception of the importance of the post than 
 his critics, and therefore resisted their endeavours to retain him 
 in the active duties of the ministry. His own view of the case 
 was put in a homely way to Alexander Paterson, his first convert 
 -at Kilmany. Sandy, as the Doctor familiarly called him, was 
 grieved to think that the pulpit was to lose so much eloquence 
 and spiritual power, and plainly stated his mind to his former 
 ■minister. Sandy was well acquainted with the process of pro- 
 ducing salt, and so, coming down to his level, the Doctor said, 
 " Sandy, is it the man that makes the salt, or the man that sells 
 it that is the more important ? " Sandy hesitated an instant, 
 .and then cautiously replied, " I suppose it is the man that makes 
 it." "Well," added the Doctor, "I am to be the man that will 
 make the salt, and others will sell it." Feeling discomfited, 
 "Sandy rejoined, " In that case the sooner you are in the saltpans 
 :the better." 
 
 Dr. Chalmers only held this appointment for five years, exchang- 
 ing it for another more after his own heart — the Professorship of 
 Theology in the University of Edinburgh. 
 
 Here he was in his proper sphere. He was surrounded with 
 young men who flocked to him not only from all parts of Scotland 
 but from many distant countries. They admired his genius, they 
 were swayed by his eloquence, they reverenced him as a father, 
 they imbibed his spirit, and they were indoctrinated into his 
 views. Hence, when they were sent forth as ministers they 
 preached the Gospel of the grace of God with an unction and a 
 
466 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 power which revealed the stamp their teacher had left upon their 
 minds. For eighteen years he was employed in that work, and 
 during the whole of that period his classroom could be fitly 
 compared to a fountain from which streams of blessing issued 
 for the healing of the nations. 
 
 This was the labour most congenial to his own tastes, but his 
 mind was frequently distracted by other duties assigned to him 
 by the Church of which he was a devoted servant. 
 
 For awakening enthusiasm among the masses and concentrating 
 their combined efforts for some purpose of practical utility there 
 is no organization to be compared to a Presbyterian Church. It 
 possesses a pure form of Republican Government, and as the mem- 
 bers of its Supreme Court are generally in touch with the people 
 it legislates in harmony with their views. The Chief Court of the 
 Church of Scotland is styled the General Assembly, and of this 
 body Dr. Chalmers was invariably a member. It does not appear 
 that he was ambitious of any office, but there were occasions on 
 which he addressed the House, and the weight of his counsels was 
 generally acknowledged. One subject that lay near to his heart 
 was Church Extension. Though the population of Scotland had 
 more than doubled during the eighteenth century there had only 
 been sixty-two new places of worship added to the National Esta- 
 blishment, and this increase was totally inadequate to meet the 
 needs of the people. In the large towns there were many who had. 
 fallen away from Church ordinances, and their number was rapidly 
 increasing. According to the views which were then prevalent it 
 was the duty of the State to provide and endow new churches 
 from the National Exchequer, and a Committee which the Church 
 of Scotland had appointed to prosecute this work had approached 
 various Ministries to solicit aid for their scheme, but were always 
 doomed to disappointment. Of this Committee Dr. Chalmers was 
 appointed chairman in the year 1834, and, being in earnest him- 
 seijf, he infused new life and vigour into aU their movements. He 
 also approached the Legislature, asking aid, that his Church 
 might be better equipped for her spiritual work, but finding he 
 coidd not get it except on condition of surrendering the Church's 
 independence, he turned scomfuUy away, and made his appeal in 
 a qiuirter where it was listened to with respect. As yet the liber- 
 ality of the people had scarcely been evoked in favour of a spiritual 
 enterprise. It was like a mine of virgin ore waiting for the touch 
 of the magician's wand to bring it into view, and the man that 
 first discovered it and brought it into play on a large scale was 
 Dr. Chalmers. He fully availed himself of the machinery of the 
 Presbyterian Church Courts, through which a pulsation issuing 
 from the centre, like blood from the heart, ultimately reaches 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 467 
 
 every member of the community, but in addition he traversed 
 the greater part of the country in person, speaking at public 
 meetings and preaching on behalf of his scheme as he had 
 opportunity. The result was an astonishment to himself. He 
 tried this appeal as an experiment, and in less than seven years 
 a sum of £300,000 was contributed for the object he had in view. 
 With this amount two hundred and twenty-two new churches 
 were added to the National Establishment, and they remain to 
 this day as monuments of his love, his wisdom, and his self- 
 sacrificing labours. This splendid success inspired him with new 
 faith in the Christian people, and paved the way for a greater 
 enterprise, which was even then looming in the future. 
 
 It has been already explained that fi'om the democratic character 
 of the Presbyterian form of Government there was generally a 
 deep feeling of sympathy between the leaders of the Church of 
 Scotland, and the communicants within her pale. In this respect 
 she differed very much from the Sister Establishment in England. 
 This divergence does not arise from accident, but from a radical 
 difference of opinion as to the origin and rights of the Christian 
 Minister. According to the Episcopalian theory every man who 
 receives ordination from a Bishop, in the true line of Apostolic 
 succession, ceases by that act to be a layman and becomes a Priest, 
 with a right to accept a living and administer ordinances to the 
 people under his spiritual care. Hence the distinction between 
 the clergy and the laity, and the contention that there can be no 
 Church where there is not an episcopally ordained Priest. 
 
 According to the Presbyterian theory this order is completely 
 reversed. Our principle is that wherever there is a company of 
 sincere believers there is a true Church, and wherever there is a 
 true Church it is the privilege of the members to choose any 
 brother, duly trained and accredited for the office, to be their 
 guide in spiritual things. The invitation thus addressed to him 
 is technically styled a Call, and lies at the basis of any rights 
 which may afterwards be accorded to him. In all regularly con- 
 stituted churches the Call is followed by the laying on of the 
 hands of the Presbytery, but this ordination is not regarded as 
 constituting a new order, or conferring any special grace. It 
 is rather held to be a solemn designation to a spiritual office, and 
 a public admission to functions which the people had previously 
 invited the brother to perform. 
 
 It will thus be seen that the Call formed a vital part of every 
 ministerial settlement, and that any attack made on it was sub- 
 versive of one of the cardinal principles of the Presbyterian polity. 
 Nevertheless, on the restoration of Patronage in the reign of Queen 
 Anne, there arose a party in the Church known in history as the 
 
468 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Moderates, who affected to regard the presentation by the patron 
 as the essential condition of ordination, and treated the Call as a 
 mere formality. The effect of this policy was a series of conflicts 
 between patrons and congregations, through which the cause of 
 religion was greatly injured, and there were also secessions by 
 which the Church was much weakened. The tide turned in 1834, 
 when the Moderates were found to be in a minority, and the 
 Evangelicals, with Chalmers as their most prominent representa- 
 tive, came to the front. The Church was really groaning at this 
 time under the yoke of patronage, and the new leaders immediately 
 devised measures to give the congregations relief. They might 
 have agitated for a repeal of the Patronage Act, or they might 
 have forbidden Presbyteries to ordain any man who had not received 
 a legitimate Call, but desirous of dealing with extreme cases, in 
 the first instance, they decreed that ordination should only be 
 withheld when the majority of male heads of families in a Parish 
 took the strong step of formally objecting to the Presentee. 
 Notwithstanding the mild character of this change, which was 
 called the Veto Act, it brought the Church immediately into 
 collision with the Civil Courts. The Presentees against whom the 
 congregations revolted were generally unscrupulous men who 
 did not hesitate, when Presbyteries declined to ordain them to 
 vacant walls, to invoke the arm of the State to compel them to 
 go through this farce. The highest civil tribunal in Scotland 
 at that time consisted of twelve judges, and was called the Court 
 of Session. By a majority of two it declared against the necessity 
 of a Call previous to ordination and ordered the Presbyteries, under 
 heavy pains and penalties to proceed with this solemn ordinance 
 simply on the ground of the Patron s presentation. 
 
 Now, as ordination is not a civil duty, but a religious privilege, 
 the command to administer it by a Civil Court was clearly an 
 encroachment on the spiritual independence of the Church, and 
 this gave occasion for controversy directly between the Church and 
 the State. The Court of Session proceeded with great violence 
 in the exercise of its claims, — even going the length of casting one of 
 the most eminent Evangelical Ministers into prison for disregarding 
 its mandates, — and as it was upheld in its arbitrary measures by 
 the Houses of Parliament, to which an appeal had been made for 
 redress, it became plain that the Church had either to sacrifice 
 the independence which was dear to her, or sever her connection 
 with the State altogether. It was a stirring time, and Scotland 
 resounded with the din of controversy from one end to the other, 
 but as the crisis became acute all eyes were turned to Chalmers as 
 the one man capable of leading his followers to victory. He was 
 by this time venerable from his years, and still more so from his 
 
THOMAS CHALMEES. 469 
 
 white hair and grave appearance, but his eye was not dim nor was 
 his natural force abated. As usual he had been slow in making up 
 his mind, but as he looked at the question on all sides the issue 
 became abundantly clear. It was not a petty squabble between 
 this presentee and that congregation, like air-bells floating on the 
 surface of the stream, but it was a great principle that was at 
 stake. It was nothing less than the spiritual independence of the 
 Church which he dearly loved. For that principle patriots had 
 bled and martyrs died ; for it, too, the best ministers of Scotland 
 of a former generation had relinquished their homes and died in 
 obscurity and poverty in foreign lands, and he felt that he would be 
 a traitor to truth and to God were he not to defend it in the hour 
 of peril. For this reason he girded on his armour and joined in the 
 conflict. His speeches produced a tremendous impression. His 
 enemies were discomfited, his supporters were encouraged, and 
 many of the neutral host, halting between two opinions, abandoned 
 their reserve and arrayed themselves on his side. 
 
 But while he reasoned and persuaded, he did not forget that 
 some wise method should be adopted to bind together and support 
 the men likely to follow him into the wilderness. It had been 
 cynically declared that when the crisis arrived there would not be 
 more than half a dozen found to relinquish their livings and their 
 homes for conscience' sake. But he had confidence in men as well 
 as faith in God, and he was not disappointed. To provide from 
 four hundred to five hundred places of worship, to support the 
 Ministers who were to occupy them, and, at the same time, ta 
 find salaries for teachers and stipends for missionaries, every man 
 of whom was an evangelist, was a herculean task. But the leader 
 was equal to the emergency. He planned that system of ecclesi- 
 astical finance now well known over the world as the Sustentation 
 Fund, by means of which contributions are gathered iirom the area 
 of the whole Church into a central bureau, and thence distributed 
 in equal proportions to all the Ministers ; and its machinery was 
 ready for action whenever it might be required. The house was 
 therefore prepared, but it was a question with some whether any- 
 one would come to occupy it. The State had been inflexible in 
 binding the yoke of Erastianism on the neck of the Church ; would 
 the Church be equally resolute in throwing it off? The hour 
 struck. It was on the morning of the 18th of May, 1843. The 
 General Assembly was convened. Amid intense excitement the 
 members took their seats, and the church in which they met 
 was densely packed with spectators. The retiring President, or 
 Moderator as he is styled in Presbyterian circles, after devotional 
 exercises, read a lengthy document containing reasons for dis- 
 solving the connection between the Church and the State ; and 
 
470 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 when he had laid the same on the Clerk's tahle, and bowed to the 
 Queen's Commissioner, he moved with calm dignity from the chair, 
 and the Fathers of the Church, who were its strength and glory, 
 followed him. " The immense audience looked on, thrilled with 
 feeUngs which it is impossible to describe, but not a voice, not a 
 whisper, was heard. The sensation was too deep for utterance ; 
 but at last it found vent, not among females, but among strong- 
 minded men, in tears." The example of the Fathers was followed 
 in quiet succession by the rank and file of the Evangelical Party, 
 "One entire side of the Assembly and the whole of the cross- 
 benches were left untenanted ; and those who remained gazed 
 upon the empty space as if they had been looking into open graves." 
 This was the Church of Scotland's farewell to Patronage and State 
 coercion. Meanwhile, how fared it with those who had shaken the 
 dust off their feet as a testimony against their oppressors ? In a 
 slow and solemn procession, headed by Chalmers, they were 
 wending their way, amid the shouts of an admiring crowd, to a 
 commodious hall in another part of the town, and there in the na/me, 
 and by authority alone of the Lord Jesus Christ, the first Assembly 
 of the Free Church of Scotland was constituted. As was meet, Dr. 
 Chalmers was chosen Moderator, and he materially assisted in com- 
 pleting the organization on which he had been engaged months 
 before. It was found that four hundred and seventy-four Ministers 
 had resigned their livings to east in their lot with the Free Church ; 
 and for their support, during the first year, the new fund which 
 Chalmers had created yielded £366,719. To this Sustentation 
 Fund, originated to take the place of a State Endowment for the 
 maintenance of the Clergy, were added schemes for the support of 
 Foreign Missionaries, the erection of Churches, and the spread of 
 Education. His hopes were not altogether realized, but, con- 
 sidering the times, the response to his calls was marvellous. The 
 money flowed in at the rate of £1,000 per day ; and from the 
 central exchequer a modest competence was paid, even the first 
 year, to every labourer who had cast in his lot with the Free Church. 
 In this respect that Church was like a mighty river even at its 
 birth. It had no knowledge of a day of small things. Chalmers 
 foresaw all its wants, and for its needs he made ample provision. 
 Nor was it in any narrow spirit that he laid the foundations of a 
 fitructure on which others would be required to build. He did 
 not sacrifice to party an iota that would benefit mankind. His 
 plans were consequently of a comprehensive character, sufficiently 
 elastic to be adjusted to changing circumstances, and capable 
 of indefinite expansion. And the result has amply justified the 
 wisdom of his arrangements. Half a century has not yet elapsed 
 since the memorable Di.=iruption, but the congregations of the 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 471 
 
 Free Church have in that time been more than doubled, and her 
 annual revenue has been trebled. She has now over eleven 
 hundred places of worship, and the freewill ofiferings of her 
 people exceed £600,000 per annum. 
 
 But it is not in Scotland alone that the triumph of his schemes 
 to maintain the spiritual independence of the Church is so com- 
 pletely vindicated. In their success lies the true solution of one 
 of the burning questions of the day — the possibility of maintain- 
 ing a free Church in a free State. When the cry against State 
 Churches was first raised, Chalmers was the champion that was 
 summoned to the rescue, and the irony that sometimes attends 
 fate was shown in his case also, inasmuch as it was from his hand 
 that they received the blow from which they are staggering to 
 their fall. On the day of the Disruption, the death-knell of all 
 Established Churches was rung, and their severance from the State 
 is now only a question of time. 
 
 Dr. Chalmers did not long survive the Disruption in which he 
 had borne such a distinguished part. It was in the month of 
 May, in the year 1847, while the General Assembly of the Free 
 Church was holding its Annual Meeting in Edinburgh that he 
 entered into his rest. Some time in the still hours between the 
 Sabbath evening and Monday morning death overtook him while 
 he. slept. When he was called there was no response ; and, on 
 an attendant entering his bedroom, his hand was found to be 
 heavy and his brow cold, but otherwise the body bore the expres- 
 sion of perfect peace and quiet rest. Apparently without either 
 pain or conflict his spirit departed, returning unto God who 
 gave it. 
 
 Great was the shock, and still greater was the sorrow, with 
 which the melancholy news was received in all parts of the 
 Christian world; but in Edinburgh, where so many Ministers 
 were at the time convened, and where he was peculiarly revered, 
 the grief was inexpressible. At his funeral there was no pageantry 
 to dazzle the spectators, yet it was estimated that more than a 
 hundred thousand persons joined in the procession, and it was 
 amidst their tears that his remains were conveyed to the Grange 
 Cemetery, and there committed to their kindred dust. It was 
 thus that the men of his own generation showed their estimate of 
 his eminent services, his great abilities, and his personal good- 
 ness ; and on a calm review of his life we cordially confirm their 
 testimony. 
 
 By the aid of the statuary and the artist the lineaments of his 
 grave face and manly figure have been traced in a variety of 
 forms, but it is not thus only his memory will be preserved. 
 His spirit breathes in the new age of which he was a distinguished 
 
472 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 pioneer; his name is associated with great movements which 
 have extended to the remotest parts of the habitable globe, and 
 the stamp of his genius has been indelibly engraven on institu- 
 tions which are closely interwoven with the best type of the 
 Christian Church, and are likely to endure so long as truth needs 
 to be preached and men require to be saved. 
 
473 
 
 THEISM. 
 
 Sr THE REV. CHARLES VOYSEY, B.A. 
 
 I HAVE been courteously invited, as the minister of the Theistic 
 Church in London, to set forth and explain the principles and beliefs 
 of Theism. In order to enlist your sympathy with the subject at 
 the outset, and to inform those of my hearers who know nothing 
 about it what it is they are now asked to look at and to exam- 
 ine, I will as briefly as possible give a summary of the Theistic 
 principles and beliefs. 
 
 The Leading Canon is : That it is the right and duty of every 
 man to think for himself on matters of religion. 
 
 No other man, however illustrious ; no book, however venerable 
 or precious ; no Church or sect, however ancient, dominant, or 
 arrogant, may be used as an authority, binding in any degree 
 upon the individual mind or conscience. 
 
 The Second Canon is : That while all professed knowledge of God 
 is partial, defective, and comparatively very small, such knowledge 
 may be increased, corrected, and refined by the proper use of our 
 faculties ; and that as generations to come may successively advance 
 in intelligence, enlightenment, and virtue, they will make progress 
 likewise in the knowledge of Grod. 
 
 The Third Canon is : That all knowledge of God whatever must 
 be based on natural facts — on certain indisputable facts in the 
 outer and physical phenomena of Nature, and on certain indis- 
 putable facts in the nature and faculties of man ; on these latter 
 as the interpreters of the former. Under this Canon, the corollary 
 is drawn that no beliefs of Theism can ever be at variance with 
 the exact and demonstrated conclusions of true Science. Between 
 true Science and true Theism there can be no collision. 
 
 These are the main principles of Theism, by which as a system 
 of religious belief it must be always guided and controlled. 
 
 The beliefs are very simple and few : — 
 
 1. A belief in one only God, who is Supreme over all the universe 
 in power, wisdom, and goodness. 
 
 2. A belief that everything is now ordered and working for the 
 best, and that the final issue will be entirely good, to the satisfac- 
 tion of every creature capable of sensation and thought. 
 
 31 
 
474 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 3. A belief that as our having life at all here is the result of 
 the love of God towards us, that life will be continued for ever in 
 such other conditions as God may see to be best for us. 
 
 4. The belief in a God like this is no barren opinion or intel- 
 lectual conviction, but a very powerful and constant stimulant to 
 the highest virtue and to brotherly love among men. Whenever 
 it takes hold on the heart, it gives patience and fortitude under 
 the trials and perplexities of the world, it purifies all our pleasures, 
 and fills us with a joyful hope. 
 
 Theism is, then, a belief in a God whom we can thoroughly 
 trust and love, and whom to obey is a delight; a belief based 
 on indisputable facts, and capable of expansion and elevation with 
 every addition to our knowledge and with every rise in our moral 
 nature. 
 
 You now have before you, I hope stated with clearness, the 
 subject we have to consider this afternoon. 
 
 P'irst, a few words in reference to the name Theism. In some 
 respects it is unfortunate, because it is only intelligible to persons 
 who have a certain amount of education. It is not at once clear 
 and definite to the ignorant, as the English equivalent " Belief in 
 God " would have been ; but I am not responsible for its adoption. 
 I found the word already established in literature for the very 
 ideas and beliefs which I had come to hold on quite independent 
 grounds. 
 
 The earliest use of the term Theism which I have been able to 
 discover, is in the works of Lord Bolingbroke, although he and 
 kindred writers in his day were called " Deists " not Theists : a 
 most fortunate fact for us, because our Theism difi'ers from some 
 of their Deism even more strikingly than the Deists differ fix)m 
 each other. 
 
 In the present century Francis William Newman was the first 
 writer in England to give to the term " Theism " a definite and 
 formal signification. He published an elaborate treatise in rhythmic 
 prose under the title of Theism, Doctrinal and Practical, in 1858. 
 Soon after, in 1863 or 1864, Miss Frances P. Cobbe issued her 
 Broken Lights, in which we find the term Theism freely applied to 
 the religious beliefs of which I am speaking. But some years 
 before either of those two works appeared, I think in 1834, 
 Theodore Parker had published in America his celebrated Dis- 
 course of Religion, in which he very often uses the term " Theism " 
 in the same way, but not with such uniform and definite regularity 
 as did F. W. Newman. For "Theism" Parker sometimes used 
 the terms "The Absolute Eeligion," "Spiritualism,'" and even 
 " Christianity." On the whole, then, I think Professor Newman 
 is entitled to be regarded as the originator of the name Theism 
 
THEISM. 4T5 
 
 in its application to the principles and beliefs of the Theistic 
 Church. 
 
 For my own part, I had no choice but to follow an example so 
 worthy of reverence, and to adopt the title which was already 
 recognized, stamped and current amongst educated persons. All 
 the three writers I have mentioned, Parker, Newman, and Miss 
 Cobbe, alike repudiated the authority and infallibility of all 
 so-called supernatural revelation, all alike regarded the knowledge 
 of God as attainable only through the native faculties of man 
 — Reason, Conscience, Love, and Eeligion. 
 
 It was necessary that the new teaching should be antagonistic : 
 on one side to Christian dogmas, and on the other to Atheism, 
 Pantheism, and Positivism. 
 
 Miss Cobbe is, perhaps, the most distinguished for her antagon- 
 ism to the latter three forms of thought, and while she attacked 
 also the Christian dogmas, she stopped short of criticizing Jesus. 
 Parker in his Discourse of Religion dealt fairly but severely with 
 the errors of Jesus, yet occasionally neutralized his criticism by 
 recurring to the sentimental talk fashionable among Unitarians, 
 and even wrote a glowing hymn addressed to Jesus himself. 
 
 Professor Newman stands pre-eminent among the three for 
 his unsparing, unequivocal opposition to the prevailing senti- 
 ment and idolatry, and he sees to this day the dire necessity for 
 such an uncompromising attitude. I need hardly say that, 
 although I do not concur with him in every detail of his criticism, 
 I am heart and soul with him in the integrity of his principles on 
 this matter of antagonism to the supremacy of Christ. 
 
 Theism, in this age and under present conditions is, therefore, 
 both positive and negative, constructive and destructive, practical 
 and militant. 
 
 All the chief religions of the world are believed by their respec- 
 tive votaries to have been revealed authoritatively by God to men, 
 and the tales of such revelation and the subject-matter revealed 
 are contained in so-called sacred books or in some mysterious way 
 entrusted to an individual or to a Church, which, on that ground, 
 claims absolute submission of mind and will, as to a God or living 
 representative of God. Theists, on the other hand, declare that 
 none of these alleged revelations can be genuine, because they 
 contain ideas and beliefs which are contrary to the reason, or the 
 conscience, or the affections, or the religious instinct of man, or to 
 all four together, or to any of them in combination. The Theist 
 will say, to one and all : " You appeal to my reason by every intel- 
 ligible proposition you utter; if it concerns a matter of ethics 
 you appeal to my conscience ; if a matter of beneficence or the 
 contrary, you appeal to my native human love ; and if on a matter 
 
476 EELIGIOtrS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 of the Divine dealings, you appeal also to my native religious 
 instinct. Your revelation must appeal thus to my native faculties, 
 or else it might as well be brought to me in a foreign language 
 which I do not understand. 1 am absolutely bound by the neces- 
 sity of things to use these faculties before I can understand even 
 what you say. But some of you. Christians most of all, do your 
 utmost to hamper and paralyze my faculties by bribes and threats, 
 80 that my power of perception is blurred, my judgment is biassed, 
 and my discernment of truth from falsehood considerably weakened. 
 You tell me that your revelation is the actual word of the God 
 who made me and has a right to my prompt belief and obedience. 
 You tell me that if I believe your message I shall have infinite 
 and endless happiness, and that if I believe it not I shall be doomed 
 to infinite and endless woe. Thus, while you apparently appeal 
 to my God-given faculties for distinguishing truth from error, you 
 really are appealing to my selfish hopes or to my debasing fears. 
 This process of itself arouses my suspicions and sets me on my 
 guard; makes me more sceptical than, ever, and therefore I at 
 once, if I can, bring all my energies to look carefully at what you 
 declare to be God's truth and God's revelation to me. I bring to 
 bear on this inquiry my native faculties. I ask in turn — Is this 
 rational ? Is it probable ? Is it credible ? Does it tally with 
 experience and with the known order of natural events ? I then 
 use my conscience, and I ask : Is this or that statement consistent 
 with right ? Would it be just ? Ought I to trust, love, or obey 
 the Being to whom such and such conduct is imputed? I go 
 farther, and ask my heart : Should I treat my own children in this 
 way ? Would I demean myself to torment any fellow-man or do 
 any wanton harm even to my enemy ? Could I be so brutal to a 
 dog or to a venomous reptile ? " 
 
 The Theist is essentially involved in such inquiries whenever 
 any alleged Divine revelation is put before him claiming his belief 
 and submission. He tests every statement by an appeal to what 
 is highest and best within himself. He cannot, of course, pretend 
 to solve every problem and to explain every detail of the marvellous 
 cosmos, but it is always within his range and within his rights to 
 submit all alleged revelations to the scrutiny of his reason, con- 
 science, and noblest affections. And the answer hitherto given 
 by the Theist, e.g., to the Christian revelation by the Bible, by the 
 Church, or by Christ is this : I find some of your statements to be 
 childish, irrational, and palpably untrue. I find other of your 
 statements to be morally objectionable — ascribing to God dealings 
 which our conscience condemns. Nothing can dislodge the Theist 
 from his position or shake his conviction of the wisdom, righteous- 
 ness, and good will of God, because that conviction is based on the 
 
THEISM. 177 
 
 fiacts of human nature, the nobler part of which consists, in its 
 own small degree, of wisdom, righteousness, and goodwill or love. 
 If there be a God at all, it is only commonsense to say, He must 
 be at least as good as the best of men. Logically, you can over- 
 throw the Theist by denying God and proving that there is no 
 God at all. But so long as this is unproved, so long as ever it is 
 doubtful whether there be a God or not, Theism stands absolutely 
 secure. 
 
 That form of mere Agnosticism which says there may be a God, 
 but we can never know anything about Him, is quite untenable 
 while man retains his present faculties of reason, conscience, and 
 affection. For to admit that there is a God, and yet He may be 
 neither intelligent, nor righteous, nor loving is to deny that there 
 is a God, but to admit that there may be a devil or an idiot at the 
 source of things. Such foolishness is too transparent. 
 
 Here, however, it is needful, even if it be somewhat out of the 
 order of my argument, to say distinctly that the claim we Theists 
 make, to know by the world and by ourselves some little of the 
 truth about God, is combined with a most profound and reverent 
 kind of Agnosticism which confesses that at best we can only 
 know a very little, and that but partially and defectively as com- 
 pared with the actual and full truth. It is in our power to say. 
 He must be as good as the best of His creatures. It is not in our 
 power to say how infinitely better and higher He is. And this 
 power of limited affirmation, enables us to discern whatever of 
 truth and moral beauty may be found in all so-called revela- 
 tions, and to accept heartily every word which may commend 
 itself to our reason, conscience, and heart. This is why Theists 
 have retained in their worship some of the old forms of the 
 Christian Church, and use to great advantage many parts of 
 the Bible, especially of the Psalms, and the Prophets, and the 
 moral precepts of the New Testament, But you already know 
 that we do not accept them on the score of any alleged super- 
 natural authority ; only on the ground of their intrinsic truth 
 and value. We do the same with the Sacred Books of other 
 religions likewise. 
 
 We never cease to proclaim that every man carries within him 
 his own revelation, his own powers of seeing and knowing some 
 truth about God, and that it is not only our right, but our para- 
 mount duty, to exercise our faculties in that search. Now, let me 
 simply state what we Theists believe concerning God, as taught 
 us by those three faculties of Eeason, Conscience, and Affection. 
 In the first place, Eeason warns us that a knowledge of God as 
 He is, and of the mode of His revelation to the material world, 
 is impossible. We do not even yet know what our own souls are. 
 
478 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 or how they are related to our bodies. But as we can clearly 
 discern the distinction between soul and body, we reasonably 
 infer that there is an infinitely greater Soul than ours behind 
 all the phenomena of the visible universe. Chance being no 
 longer tolerated as an explanation of what we see, the only alter- 
 native is that which Science herself affirms, namely, that order, 
 and law, and purpose, mark every step in the course of what we 
 call Nature. And if anywhere, even in a single instance, a true 
 purpose can be seen, it is a proof of -the existence of some power 
 corresponding to what we call " mind" in ourselves. 
 
 Every discovery which we can make of law or purpose involves 
 the conception of a mind capable of originating and working it out. 
 It is no answer to say that mind as we know it in ourselves is always 
 found in conjunction with a living and healthy brain, and that there- 
 fore there is no such thing as a Divine mind. For what is proved 
 is not a mere postulate, but an accomplished fact. Here, before 
 our eyes is the result of mind or reason in the most stupendous 
 form. The fact teaches us something we could not otherwise 
 know ; viz. that mind is not necessarily dependent on a human 
 brain ; but does exist and work on a scale infinitely beyond our 
 highest brain-power, and therefore is of necessity not dependent 
 on brain as ours may be. Having got this proof of the Divine 
 intelligence, our reason tells us that God must be true; that 
 truth only can emanate from Him, and that only truth can, so to 
 speak, please or satisfy His mind. Thus we get the idea of His 
 trustworthiness out of our reason alone. But reason by itself is 
 not sufficient ; for men equally wise and equally intent on search- 
 ing for truth, have arrived at opposite conclusions respecting the 
 power or powers that rule in Nature. Some have insisted that 
 there can only be one such power ; others that there are many* 
 or at least two — one evil and one good. Science has helped us 
 in this region of inquiry very much indeed by discovering innu- 
 merable tokens of the absolute unity of the whole cosmos, and 
 by teaching that if there be a God at all, there can be only one. 
 
 Polarity there may be, but no antagonism. Science sides rather 
 with the text, " I the Lord create good, and I create evil," and 
 not with the Persian belief in the eternal war between Ormuzd 
 and Ahriman. 
 
 Reason by itself will not solve the great problems of good and 
 evil, life and growth, decay and destruction, which are everywhere 
 manifest. So we turn to another faculty of our nature in order 
 to know more of Him whom we call God. We have within us 
 the moral sense, the sense of duty, the absolutely pure feeling : 
 " I ought to do this, I ought not to do the other, no matter what 
 the consequences to myself may be. I ought to do what I think 
 
THEISM. 479 
 
 to be right. I ought to try vrith the utmost pains to find out 
 what is right." This sense, for brevity, we call Conscience. It is 
 often loosely confounded with moral codes, and put in place of the 
 list of things we ought to do and ought not to do. These things 
 the conscience does not tell us, they are taught by reason and 
 experience and artificial education. The conscience is only the 
 uniform voice telling us to do what we think or know to be right — 
 because it is right, and not because we shall be rewarded — and to 
 avoid doing what we think or know to be wrong, because it is 
 wrong, and not because we shall be punished. 
 
 This sense of right is always associated in a religious mind with 
 the idea of God. When we say " I ought " we really say " I owe 
 it to my Maker to do this," or " I owe it to my fellow-man to do 
 this, because duty is part of my obligation to the God who gave 
 me life and powers, and put me into relation with other men." 
 
 Now, of course, it stands to reason, it is nothing more than 
 plain common sense, to infer that the conscience could only have 
 been implanted in man by a Being who was Himself good, 
 and on the side of right and against wrong ; and who wanted to 
 provide that men should act from a sense of duty to one another, 
 and also from the best motives. For I should have noted before, 
 that the conscience demands not only right action, but pure 
 motives, and demands from us secret goodness as well as good 
 behaviour. 
 
 A God who caused us to feel all this must be Himself righteous, 
 utterly true and faithful and trustworthy, pure in His purposes, 
 and steadfast in their fulfilment. We thus simply and reasonably 
 reach the conception of a Good God. 
 
 I am not here to-day to answer every objection that could be 
 brought against Theism, only to state what it is. Nevertheless 
 it will occur to a hundred doubters to point at once to what goes 
 on in the world of pain and moral evil, and ask how one can 
 reconcile these things with a belief in a good God. You will 
 own with me that the question is too vast to be entirely answered 
 now ; but I affirm that we Theists have given a better answer to 
 it than any which has been made by the other great religions of 
 the world. 
 
 If that answer can be summarized at all I will try to give it 
 now : — 
 
 Pain and death are not evils in themselves. They are essential 
 to the progress and happiness of all sentient creatures. Take 
 away the possibility of pain, and there could be no more physical 
 enjoyment. 
 
 Pain likewise ministers constantly to the well-being and im- 
 provement of the outward lot of men and still more to the elevation 
 
480 EEUGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 and progress of his nobler faculties. Without pain, some of our 
 highest virtues would be unknown and impossible. As for death, 
 if there were no such thing as dying, the world would become 
 indeed a hfell. When it is also believed that death, for man at 
 least, is only the passage into a higher state of life, death is no 
 longer considered as an evil at all. Moral evil is also a blessing 
 in disguise ; for it is produced not by any acts which we now call 
 wicked, but by having a conscience which makes us see that when 
 we do such and such acts they are wicked and wrong. Moral 
 evil is the result not of a fall from perfection, but of a rise from 
 sheer animalism and brutal unconsciousness of right and wrong. 
 Moral evil is also the chief factor of our highest virtues in dealing 
 with it. 
 
 I grant you, if death makes an end of us, this moral discipline 
 is frustrated ; but if we are to live for ever, our moral discipline 
 here will have its fruition hereafter, and all souls will come to be 
 righteous and fulfil the evident purpose for which they were 
 created. 
 
 I fear, — nay, I'know — how fragmentary and perhaps useless this 
 answer- may be. All I can say is, that we have devoted more 
 attt ntion to these subjects of pain and sin because they are the 
 chief obstacles to a belief in a good Grod, and we have been 
 rewarded for patient research by seeing in these very so-called 
 evils the greatest tokens of His faithful goodness. The Atheist 
 can only howl at them as the cursed conditions of a godless world. 
 The Christian makes of creation a blunder, infinite and inexcusable, 
 and a Grod defeated by a devil, while He stands by hopelessly help- 
 less and sees the millions of lost souls streaming into endless hell. 
 The Theist sees all things in the light of steps upward into light 
 and glory and goodness and blessedness, marks of Divine wisdom 
 and Divine power. Divine patience and Divine love. Anyway, 
 the conscience tells us that God must be good, and will make all 
 things come right at last, even if there is much that we cannot 
 explain. If everything we call evil is not to issue in good, then 
 man is more righteous than His Maker. 
 
 The conscience in man demands as well as expects that the 
 course and destiny of the world should, before all things, be 
 right. 
 
 But Keason and Conscience do not stand alone in our nature. 
 They teach us much, yet there is more to learn ; and a still higher 
 teacher is within us. This is Love ; which, thank God, everyone 
 knows something of by experience. In spite of all the inferior 
 and even foul meanings which have been given to the term, it is 
 known as the impulse to do good, and only good, and the highest 
 good, to its object. It is an emotion distinct from the Reason and 
 
THEISM. 481 
 
 Conscience, yet whenever it is true Love it acts in harmony with 
 both. 
 
 Its presence in the heart is a source of joy, its exercise is an 
 ecstasy, our highest bliss on earth, and the success of its endea- 
 vours the richest reward. It is absolutely unselfish, every self- 
 denial for love is so much gain ; every sacrifice, even to life itself, 
 is an indulgence of supreme desire. True love is the only perfect 
 and infallible faculty which belongs to us, and nothing raises and 
 ennobles us so much, or wins for us the homage of mankind. We 
 know how it surpasses the achievements of the grandest genius, the 
 most perfect skill, the greatest eflforts of intellect. We know too, 
 how true love excels even the rarest conscientiousness, and how far 
 nobler it is to be impelled by love than by a cold sense of duty. 
 
 We need not to be told that if true love ruled all our actions, 
 and was the motive of all our lives, all sin would disappear, and a 
 multitude of sorrows would be heard of no more. We see, day by 
 day, how love is destroying, one by one, the enemies of human 
 happiness, and how it takes away the sting of those troubles 
 which we have not yet learned to extirpate. Love is evidently 
 bestowed upon us in order to arm us against the foes of pain and 
 sin, which we have to fight. Love is the mighty conqueror of the 
 world's evil. God has put love into our hearts in order that we 
 may do our duty to each other, that everyone shall have, not 
 only his rights, but a wealth of happiness into the bargain ; that 
 envy, and jealousy, and strife, shall cease ; that we may live for 
 each other and not for ourselves. He has given us love in order 
 that the fulfilment of our natural duties may be a delight to 
 us ; that we may choose it ireely, and not be driven to it like slaves ; 
 that in the most pure and unselfish devotion to others we may 
 find our highest happiness. We all know more or less of this 
 love which we may well call Divine, because it is so supreme over 
 all else that is human. And shall we be so blind, so silly, as to 
 suppose that our Maker is lacking in this — the noblest quality of 
 our nature ? While we attribute to Him intelligence by proof of 
 our reason, and righteousness by the testimony of our conscience, 
 shall we doubt that He has love which even we poor worms of the 
 earth feel and enjoy ? If God have no love, then indeed is He 
 sunk below the level of man ; and the vastness of His cosmos, and 
 the order and beauty of it all count for nothing beside the love 
 which flows from the human heart. The idea is too absurd to 
 dwell upon. If there be a God, He must be infinitely more loving 
 to us than a mother to her babe, and will always seek our good 
 and only good, and our highest good ; and to Him the exercise of 
 His Fatherly love must ever be the unspeakable joy in which He 
 lives and reigns. 
 
482 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD, 
 
 Thus is the Theist taught by what is best in himBelf to think 
 more grandly and nobly of God, than has been hitherto taught 
 by any other religion in the world save one. That one is the 
 Theism which we find embedded in some of the writings of 
 the Hebrew Psalmists and Prophets, who, protesting against the 
 Levitical and popular creeds of their day, as we protest against 
 the Christian and popular creeds of our own, discovered for 
 themselves these simple and sublime truths about God by the 
 exercise of their own native faculties. And if we go through the 
 world we shall find the same beautiful truths everywhere revealed 
 to men, nominally of all creeds, who have surrendered themselves 
 to the guidance of Reason, Conscience, and Love within them. 
 Theism, then, is a belief in a wise, righteous, and loving Father, in 
 whose wisdom, righteousness, and everlasting love we can entirely 
 trust with an absolute certainty, that all the past, present, and 
 future are working oat issues that shall be only good — good 
 for all, and good for each ; good for every soul which He has 
 begotten ; so that there will come a time when every creature 
 endowed with consciousness, memory, and aspiration, shall be 
 satisfied and give Him thanks for all that they have been, and 
 for all that they are. This is a belief against which no human 
 heart can recoil. Every man would wish it to be true ; only the 
 whisper of doubt and fear mutters, "It is too good to be true." 
 The Theist says, " Nothing is too good to be true." Man, at his 
 best, cannot rise so high as the height to which God's greater 
 love will carry him. 
 
 And now I ask you to . turn and look at the natural and 
 reasonable consequences of such a belief. First, it draws our 
 hearts towards God in trust and love. We are made patient by it, 
 and willing to hear what happens, because it is of God's sending. 
 If it be conquerable we do our utmost to get rid of it, seeing 
 it is God's will that we should resist it. All trouble is given to 
 us to fight with and to reduce to its lowest power of injury. 
 Only when we see the trouble to be incurable and inevitable, 
 then we must bear it patiently and manfully. But whatever it 
 be, we see that it is sent in love, and is designed to do us good, 
 and is sure to do us good and be the best for us in the end. 
 Thus we conquer all the troubles and ills of life through trusting 
 in a righteous and loving God. More important still is the fact 
 that knowing God to be to us all a loving Father, our hearts are 
 drawn towards Him in filial affection and earnest desire to do only 
 what He wishes us to do, and forsake all that we feel to be wrong. 
 This trust in and love of God therefore ensures our faithful duty 
 to each other, and we try to cultivate both conscientiousness 
 and brotherly love. By our love to God we are stirred up to 
 
THEISM. 483 
 
 •desire intensely purity of heart and motives, to be true and 
 good where no eye can see, no human voice applaud, no human 
 judgment can condemn. The man who prays to God to give him 
 a clean heart and a right spirit is far more likely to serve well as a 
 man and a brother than he who has no such desires at all. 
 
 Again, the love of God as a Father teaches that we are all 
 brethren, and that all alike are His dear children, those we call the 
 bad as well as those we call the good, and therefore we must be, 
 like Him, loving unto all and turn our backs on none. All will 
 have to be cured of their evil at last. And so this teaches the 
 true nature of the Divine punishments. No sin is ever passed 
 •over with impunity, but strictly meets with its due penalty — 
 never for vengeance, but always for correction and cleansing. 
 The true Theist is the last man to say or to feel that because all 
 men are safe in God's hands, therefore we may do as we like 
 and sin with impunity. We say God's punishment is never to 
 be evaded, as it is said to be, by atonement and the Christian 
 scheme of salvation. We make our own roads of bliss or woe 
 longer or shorter, more painful or more blissful, by every thought, 
 word, or deed. But Theism gives what God has given a right 
 to all to have and to enjoy — undying hope of being cleansed and 
 made righteous and loving at the last. Some day in God's good 
 time His work will be perfected in us. 
 
 It is fitting that I should bring these remarks to a close by 
 stating the grounds on which the Theist believes in immortality. 
 We pass by all the commonplaces of ground for the hope to 
 which so many cling, such as the universal aspiration for life after 
 •death and the tender affections which are so grievously wounded 
 by the separation from those we love. We pass by also the 
 ridiculous nonsense about " the resurrection of the body through 
 the Lord Jesus Christ." Our sole ground of hope that we cannot 
 •die is in the Fatherly love of God towards us all. If He loves us 
 He will never consent to part with us. If He will part with us, 
 if He wants us no more, He cannot love us, and there is an end 
 of our love and trust. I might reverently say an end to Him, 
 too, for man's heart can only love a loving God. This is enough 
 on which to base the hope of immortality — simply the love of 
 ■God towards us, as great as, nay, infinitely greater than, our love 
 to each other. It is a hope only because we have not been behind 
 the veil of mortal death. But it is a hope amounting to a cer- 
 tainty, for it is a definite corollary from our belief in God Himself. 
 It is also a hope without any anxiety or necessity to know any of 
 the conditions of that future life. We trust God's love so entirely 
 and with such perfect peace that we do not want to know before- 
 hand anything which He is not willing to tell us. Whatever it 
 
484 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 be, it will be the best for us ; and what His wisdom and love devise 
 is sure to satisfy us. But we rmist have it. We must live again, 
 unless there be no God to love and to live for, in which case, 
 speaking for myself, I would rather not try so dangerous an 
 experiment. I would prefer to be extinguished. 
 
 I hope I have not taxed your patience too severely. My object 
 will have been attained if you go away with a clear idea that 
 Theists believe in one (absolutely undefined, non-material) Being 
 who, in our poor language, is the Author of our lives and the 
 lather of our souls — so wise, so capable, so righteous, and so 
 loving that all the sons of men may put their trust in Him 
 without one spark of doubt or fear ; that He is known to us as 
 this trustworthy loving God by the highest faculties of our own 
 nature, which, as Father, He has transmitted to us in order that 
 we might know sufficient of what He is, and so come to love 
 Him, and willingly out of love fulfil our duties to each other, and 
 love them with a pure heart fervently. 
 
 This belief — a practical religion and not a mere intellectual 
 conception-;-will alone enable us to explain the great problems of 
 life and help us to bear its troubles, while it ennobles all our 
 pleasures and heightens all our joys, gives patience and fortitude 
 in life, and sweet peace and brightest hope in the hour of death. 
 It is a Gospel worthy of the song of angels and archangels : — 
 
 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will 
 toward man." 
 
485 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 SY SIM FREDERICK POLLOCK. 
 
 Some twelve years ago I was concerned in a movement for 
 obtaining adherents in this country towards the erection of a 
 monument to Benedict Spinoza at the Hague, where he spent the 
 latter years of his life ; and I received a good many interesting 
 letters on that occasion from various persons. One of the shortest, 
 and also one of the most interesting, was from a great man of 
 letters whom this country has lately lost, Matthew Arnold. 
 " After all," he said, " it seems rather absurd to treat Benedict 
 Spinoza as an eminent Dutchman ; the right thing to do would be 
 to build him a statue and altar at the top of Pisgah, and to 
 sacrifice on it seven bullocks like Louis Veuillot and seven rams 
 
 like ." I must not say to whom the seven rams were likened, 
 
 for the name was that of a dignitary of the Church of England 
 still living. 
 
 There is another modem testimony I should like to cite, as 
 showing that Spinoza was by no means merely an eminent 
 systematic philosopher. It is the testimony of Flaubert, one of 
 the greatest of recent French writers. Flaubert, writing in 1872 
 to Georges Sand, tells her what he had been doing lately, and he 
 says, amongst other things : — 
 
 " I shall get back to work on my St. Anthony in a week's time, 
 when I have done with Kant and Hegel, two great men who make 
 me feel stupid. When I take leave of them I fall to, like one 
 famished, on my old Spinoza, who is worth them all. What genius ! 
 What a piece of work is his Ethics ! " 
 
 This is useful for two purposes : to show that Flaubert was not 
 merely a frivolous French novelist ; and that in modern France 
 the best people do not find Spinoza by any means obsolete. 
 
 It would be altogether out of place to enter here at length on 
 the facts of Spinoza's life, but it may be well to remind you very 
 shortly of what was his origin, and where and how he lived. 
 Spinoza belonged to a family of Spanish^ Jews, one of the many 
 
 ' See Dr. Martineau's Study of Spinoza, chap. i. 
 
486 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 families driven into exile by the revival of persecution against 
 the Jews which took place in the Spanish Peninsula towards 
 the end of the sixteenth century. It is matter of general 
 history how the Spaniards, having attained a very great place 
 in the world, set themselves systematically to lose it by driving 
 out of the country nearly all the best elements within it. Not 
 content with having reconquered the part of Spain which had 
 been occupied by the Arabs, they expelled first the Arabs 
 and then the Jews, and having reduced Spain to an admirable 
 standard of orthodoxy, they proceeded to make Spain what she is 
 now, a third-rate power, with no literature to speak of, and with 
 absolutely no influence on European thought. So Spain ultimately 
 had her reward. The immediate efiect was that a considerable 
 number of Spanish and Portuguese Jews migrated to the Nether- 
 lands — at that time the only country in Europe where free thought 
 could be said really to exist, or where a colony of Jews could hope 
 to settle with tolerable freedom from disturbance. Even there it 
 was an experiment. However, the experiment succeeded. The 
 Israelite colony soon attracted more settlers when it was found 
 that they were sure of an asylum. They became prosperous, and 
 you may see amongst the Eembrandts in the National Gallery 
 his admirable portraits of some of the great Jewish merchants of 
 his own time. In one of these Jewish families of Amsterdam 
 Spinoza was bom in the winter of 1632. At a very early age he 
 became learned in the law of his people, and in the theology of 
 the Rabbis, and showed symptoms of beginning to think for 
 himself. The stories that are told of this part of his life are very 
 fragmentary, and not altogether consistent, and we are left a great 
 deal to conjecture as to what really took place. Something he 
 certainly did, perhaps in the way of trying to form a circle of 
 young men like-minded with himself, which caused the authorities 
 of the synagogue to treat him as a dangerous person. It was not 
 merely a matter of speculative orthodoxy ; the Jewish synagogue 
 existed wholly on sufferance in Amsterdam. The leaders of the 
 synagogue evidently thought that -they were tolerated only on 
 condition of being as orthodox as it was possible for Jews to be, 
 and that if any sort of heterodoxy were suffered amongst them 
 they might lose the sufferance on which they had so far counted. 
 As men of business, they may well have thought rightly enough. 
 The result was that Spinoza received strong hints to keep his 
 opinions to himself. It seems he even received offers of substantial 
 reward on those terms. But he was found inflexible, and at length 
 was solemnly excommunicated. This was in 1650, when he was 
 not quite twenty-four years of age. 
 
 He took the excommunication as a natural and inevitable 
 
SPINOZA. 487 
 
 consequence of his resolution, and having been in this way shut 
 out from obtaining, as he easily might have done, a position of 
 prosperity and honour among his own people, he betook himself 
 to making a living by grinding glasses for optical instruments. 
 His work, it appears, was of special excellence. In the year 1670 
 he removed to the Hague, where he completed his principal works ; 
 his greatest work, the Ethics, was in hand, as we know from his 
 letters, during the greater part of his active life, but was printed 
 only after his death. 
 
 In 1663 he had a tempting offer of the Chair of Philosophy at 
 Heidelberg, and the conditions were such as appeared to give him 
 great liberty to say whatever he pleased, but there was a saving 
 clause to the effect of not teaching anything contrary to the 
 established religion, and Spinoza, although he was a poor man, 
 preferred philosophizing in his own way to holding a chair of 
 philosophy even under the most honourable conditions with any 
 such obligation attached to it. Therefore he declined the Elector's 
 offer in a very courteous letter, but with unmistakable decision. 
 
 He was not only a poor man, but a weakly man; he was of 
 consumptive habit, and died at the age, which may be called early 
 for a philosopher, of forty-four, in the year 1677. The event 
 excited very little notice at the time, but his posthumous works, 
 published shortly afterwards, raised a storm of controversy which 
 gave the first indication of his coming renown. 
 
 Spinoza had, to some extent, special relations with this country 
 through his friend Oldenburg, a learned German who migrated to 
 England, and was the first Secretary to the Eoyal Society. Many 
 of Spinoza's most interesting letters were written to Oldenburg, 
 and the originals of some of them are preserved in the Royal 
 Society's library. But there is no evidence that English philo- 
 sophers had any notion of Spinoza's importance either in his 
 lifetime or for a considerable time afterwards. 
 
 I have mentioned that Spinoza was cast out of the synagogue 
 with all solemn forms, and it is well known that he never joined any 
 other religious body. He was outside all forms of religious bodies 
 existing in the Netherlands, and although he made no attempt 
 to dissuade anyone from a belief which satisfied him, he certainly 
 had no attachment of his own to any recognized creed. It seems, 
 therefore, a curious thing that a perfectly solitary and indepen- 
 dent philosopher, living as Spinoza did, should count among the 
 people who have had a decided influence on the religion of modern 
 Europe ; yet such is the fact, and it is a fact that sets one think- 
 ing in many ways. Such a thing could not have happened in the 
 case of any Asiatic religion. For example, one cannot imagine a 
 Mahometan, or a Buddhist, being seriously influenced by a holy 
 
488 JRELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 man who did not belong to his own religion, or to any other 
 religion in particular, and who wholly declined to be bound by 
 Mahometan or Buddhist formulas. Still less can we imagine 
 Spinoza's own people admitting anything of the kind to be 
 possible among them. I think it is only in Christendom — and 
 in Western Christendom — that such a thing could be even fairly 
 probable. 
 
 Let us consider for a moment what this means. It means that 
 Christianity, at all events Western Christianity, differs from the 
 other great religions in the world in having a certain expansive 
 and elastic quality. By this quality it is constantly taking up 
 new elements into itself, and if not transforming, yet seriously 
 modifying in efifect, its earlier dogmas and the practical con- 
 clusions drawn from them. How Christianity comes to have this 
 expansive quality, which I think it clearly has, is a very curious 
 historical question. A still more curious question, perhaps, is 
 how Christianity did become the religion of imperial Rome at all ; 
 how it made its great leap in the hands of St. Paul from the 
 Eastern to the Western world. When Christianity had once begun 
 to take up the elements of Greek thought, then it becomes less 
 surprising that the expansive and elastic quality of the old Greek 
 philosophy should have continued to manifest itself under the 
 new form. When we think of the history of the early Church, 
 we are sometimes apt to forget how many things it saved. It 
 may not have saved them in the exact fashion in which we should 
 have liked to have them, but in what we call the dark ages the 
 question was whether the remembrance of Greek and Roman 
 civilization should be saved at all. Some thinkers have held that 
 Christianity was an agent in destroying the Roman Empire, but 
 it seems to me to have been rather the other way. The Roman 
 «mpire was effete, and was already in a course of breaking lip ; 
 and the Church of Rome, being the strongest thing that was 
 left in the world, took to itself such fragments of the ancient 
 Roman civilization and of the ancient Greek thought as it could 
 assimilate consistently with its own fundamental ideas. It is, 
 perhaps, too little to sa,y fragments of Roman civilization, for, the 
 order and discipline of the Roman Church have preserved to this 
 day a great deal of the old order of the Roman Empire. Hobbes'a 
 epigram on the papacy, itself imperial among epigrams, contains 
 much of the truth of the matter. It is " the ghost of the Roman 
 Empire, sitting crowned on the grave thereof.'" 
 
 We also have to remember that Rome had taken up (more or 
 less imperfectly, but still it had taken up) the enlightening in- 
 fluences of Greek thought. And the expansiveness of modem 
 Western Christianity is perhaps due to the Greek spirit which 
 
SPINOZA. 489 
 
 was first absorbed by Eoman civilization and institutions, and 
 then taken up into the framework of the Church, amid the general 
 ruin wrought by the barbarian conquests. This process, I need 
 hardly say, has gone much farther than most official expounders 
 of Christian doctrine are at liberty to admit. As my friend and 
 master. Sir Henry Maine, once said : " Except the blind forces of 
 Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its 
 •origin," and to this Greek origin, I think, we may fairly refer the 
 vitality of Western Christianity, which has prevented it from 
 standing still, and has enabled it to take up such new influences 
 as that of Spinoza. 
 
 We have to consider then in what way Spinoza can be said to 
 have influenced modem religious ideas. In the first place we 
 have the example of his life, which was almost a singular one 
 among modem philosophers. Secondly, we have the actual con- 
 tribution made by Spinoza to the dogmatic and historical criticism 
 of the documents on which the Christian religion is externally 
 based. Lastly (and this is, after all, much the most important), 
 we have the general .spirit and temper of Spinoza's philosophy as 
 to the relations of man to the universe he lives in. 
 
 In the first place, as to Spinoza's life, it was one of the most 
 blameless lives ever led by a philosopher. That alone does not 
 prove his philosophy to be true ; we can hardly say that it even 
 tends to prove its truth. It tends only to prove the sincerity 
 with which the man's beliefs, whether more or less right in them- 
 selves, were formed and held. But the practical effect of such a 
 character as Spinoza's is very great. It has secured a fair hearing 
 for his philosophy in quarters where otherwise there would have 
 been, and indeed there was, much prejudice against it. Spinoza's 
 philosophy, and the form in which he put it, were altogether dis- 
 tasteful to everything orthodox. Even when Spinoza meant to be 
 conciliatory, there was something about his uncompromising way 
 of stating his results which gave peculiar offence to orthodox 
 theologians of all sects and denominations. But Spinoza's life 
 was such that even his enemies could find nothing to say against 
 it ; for we need not count a few idle tales which were in circulation 
 only for a sbort time, and are now deservedly forgotten except by 
 minute investigators of Spinoza's biography. 
 
 The principal authority for Spinoza's life is a little book written 
 by a Lutheran minister at the Hague, — a good man, who from his 
 soul detested Spinoza's doctrines, but who also was a kindly and 
 veracious sort of man, and who took some trouble to ascertain the 
 facts as they really were. He evidently took great interest in 
 Spinoza's character, notwithstanding the wicked and abominable na- 
 ture of his writings, and was at some pains to refute the calumnies 
 
 32 
 
490 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 which were being spread about Spinoza some few years after his 
 dealih. Now he tells us about Spinoza's life that it was of the 
 most quiet and peaceable kind. He was of a very even temper j 
 nobody ever saw him either very sad or very merry. (One could 
 hardly expect high animal spirits of a man in Spinoza's state of 
 health.) He was always courteous and civil, considerate to the 
 people of the house, especially when any of them were ill. He 
 used to talk to the children of the house, and told them to mind 
 what their elders said, and not to forget to go to church. When 
 they came back from the congregation he would ask them what 
 they had heard from the preacher. "In particular," says this 
 
 good minister, Colerus, " my predecessor, Dr. C. , of blessed 
 
 memory, being a really learned man, was much honoured by 
 Spinoza." Indeed, he sometimes went to hear him himself^ 
 praised his learned exposition of Scripture, and the appropriate 
 applications ; and he advised the landlord and his fellow-lodger» 
 by no means to miss his sermons. Once he was asked by the 
 landlady whether, in his opinion, "she might be saved by her 
 religion." It was a curious thing for a good Protestant to ask an 
 excommunicated Jew, but it shows the sort of personal impression 
 that Spinoza had made on those he lived with. He answered her 
 thus : " Your religion is very well ; you have no need to seek 
 another for your salvation so long as you hold yourself to a peace- 
 able and pious life." Spinoza was much too sensible a man to 
 interfere with simple folk who were not capable of understanding 
 his philosophy, and who were content in their own way of life ;. 
 I do not think he had much sympathy with the sort of people 
 who not only must have formulas, but must be always tinkering 
 them. In short the good Lutheran minister's biography is a 
 constant panegyric of Spinoza's character, intermixed with violent 
 denunciations of his writings, and praises of the many worthy 
 persons who refuted them. Those worthy persons are not much 
 read at this day. I have tried to read some of them, but I cannot 
 say I have thoroughly succeeded. 
 
 So much as to Spinoza's life. In recent times I think no one 
 of any account has spoken of Spinoza's personal character save with 
 respect and even reverence. I may instance amongst others 
 Heine, the greatest Hebrew since Spinoza, one of the greatest of 
 modem writers, and also one of the least reverent. But Heine, 
 when he came to speak of Spinoza, said his life was only to be 
 compared to that of his great predecessor, Jesus Christ. 
 
 Now we come to Spinoza's contributions to the criticism of 
 Scripture. The work in which these are contained is the Theo- 
 logico-Political Treatise. I will give you the title of it from an 
 old English translation which was published as early as 1689. It is 
 
SPINOZA. 491 
 
 called " A Treatise partly theological and partly political, contain- 
 ing some few discourses to prove that the Liberty of Philosophizing 
 (that is, making use of Natural Eeason) may be allowed without 
 any prejudice to piety, or to the peace of any Commonwealth, and 
 that the loss of public peace and religion itself must necessarily 
 follow where such a liberty of reasoning is taken away." It was 
 already much to publish such a title-page in the year 1670, in a 
 community that professed to hold the orthodox principles of 
 Calvinism. Further, this Theologico-Political Treatise has two 
 striking characters. It was the first, or almost the first, compre- 
 hensive plea for toleration published in modern Europe. In that 
 respect, no doubt, it only took up the work of those whom we call 
 Humanists, — the great scholars of the sixteenth century, who 
 spread abroad the study of Grreek, and the intelligent study of 
 antiquity in general, and whose work was sadly interrupted by 
 the Reformation. We may all think what we please about the 
 Eeformation, but for my own part I am apt to think that the way 
 in which it happened was a misfortune for European civilization. 
 At all events the century succeeding the Keformation was occupied 
 with religious wars and controversies, and the genial learning of a 
 Hmnanist like Erasmus could hardly find place for a time. To 
 a certain extent Spinoza may be said, in the Theologico-Political 
 Treatise, to take up the burden of Erasmus and his fellows. In 
 the second place, this book was the great forerunner of modem 
 biblical criticism. For the first time the learned world had forced 
 upon it a work by a writer who professed to take Scripture as its 
 own witness, and from the witness of Scripture alone showed that, 
 if construed rationally, it would not bear the sense required by 
 the ordinary advocates of the Church. Spinoza sets out to argue 
 with the orthodox upholders of Scripture on their own premises. 
 He does not criticize the Scriptures from external history or 
 philosophy. He says, in effect : " I will not argue with you on 
 philosophical grounds ; I take the Scriptures, and show from the 
 Scriptures themselves that your way of interpreting them is 
 absurd, and that your conclusion about the duty of believing the 
 letter of the Scripture are absolutely inconsistent with Scripture 
 itself." But in the course of doing that, Spinoza was led to the 
 most remarkable anticipations of a great deal of what we now call 
 modern criticism. For example, Spinoza points out (as indeed 
 certain learned Jews had earlier pointed out, but with designed 
 obscurity), that we cannot imagine Moses sitting down to write 
 the account of his own death which is contained in the so-called 
 Books of Moses ; and, in like manner, that a man who wrote " the 
 Canaanite was then in the land," must have been writing at a 
 time long after the Jews had occupied Canaan. This, and othei 
 
492 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 such matters, are now regarded as the elements of intelligent 
 criticism of the Scripture narrative, but two hundred years ago 
 they were exceedingly bold things for anybody to print and pub- 
 lish. Probably it was for such opinions as these that Spinoza 
 was put out of the synagogue. As regards the influence of the 
 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus in this country in particular, it 
 was translated as early as 1689. Some years earlier the chapter 
 about miracles was taken out of the book and printed by itself, 
 but without any acknowledgment of its authorship, and in a sort 
 of fragmentary way. And at various times in the eighteenth 
 century Freethinkers and Deists drew a great deal on the 
 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus for arguments against the more 
 orthodox divines. 
 
 To sum up the main points of this treatise : it gives us, for one 
 thing, the rational treatment of what is called the inspiration 
 of Scripture. As Spinoza points out in a sufficiently clear and 
 uncompromising way, we must read the Bible as a book written 
 by men, who were writing for men, and who not only were not 
 free from prejudice and sources of error themselves, but adapted 
 themselves to the prejudices of their readers. Then there is the 
 chapter on miracles, which I have just mentioned, where Spinoza 
 demolishes the vulgar idea of miracles as conclusively as Hume 
 did after him, and I think in a larger spirit and with more 
 permanent results. Spinoza points out that — 
 
 ■"the vulgar notion is that God's power and providence do 
 most plainly appear when they see anything strange and unusual 
 happen in Nature, contrary to the customary notions they have 
 of Nature, especially when that which happens is for their 
 benefit and advantage. So that they conclude that those men 
 deny the being and providence of God who endeavour to explain 
 and understand what they call miracles by their natural causes. 
 They, indeed, think that while Nature goes on in her wonted 
 course God doth nothing, and on the contrary, when God acts, 
 the power of Nature and natural causes are idle and at a stand ; 
 so that they imagine the power of God and the power of Nature 
 to be two distinct and almost opposite things, neither do they 
 think the power of God at any time so wonderful as when, 
 according to their fancy, it conquers and subdues the power of 
 Nature." 
 
 He then proceeds to show, on the contrary, that nothing can 
 really happen contrary to Nature, and to explain his own position, 
 that we cannot know the existence, nor consequently the provi- 
 dence of God, by miracles, but they more manifestly appear in the 
 constant and unchangeable order of Nature. He goes on to show 
 
SPINOZA. 493 
 
 in detail how the passages of Scripture relied on for the current 
 view of miracles are more intelligible when explained as examples 
 of common Oriental rhetoric, or in other non-miraculous ways. In 
 most of these cases Spinoza is perfectly right; in some few he 
 draws inferences which modem scholarship would hardly recognize. 
 You must remember that he sets out with admitting the autho- 
 rity of Scriptmre in some sense, so that he is sometimes driven 
 to forced interpretations. I will quote the summing up of his 
 position : — 
 
 " When the Scripture saith, that for the sins of men the earth 
 is barren, or that blind men are recovered to sight by feith, it 
 sigpiifies no more than do those other sayings, that God is 
 angry, or grieved with our sins, that He repents of the good He 
 hath done, or intended, and that God by seeing a sign called to 
 mind His promise : all which expressions are spoken poetically, or 
 according to the opinion and prejudice of the writer. So that we 
 absolutely conclude that all things which Scripture relates to have 
 happened, did happen, as all things do, according to the laws of 
 Nature ; and if in Scripture there be anything recorded which by 
 plain and evident demonstration can be proved to be repugnant 
 to the laws of Nature, or impossible to follow from them, we ought 
 to believe it was inserted by sacrilegious men, for whatever is 
 against Nature is against Reason, and whatever is against Reason 
 ought to be rejected as absurd." 
 
 Spinoza holds, in short, that God's works are not something 
 contrary to Nature, but are the order of Nature itself 
 
 Another point considered in the Theologico-Political Treatise 
 is the relation of the fundamental and practical portion of religion, 
 as a guide for the conduct of life, to matters of speculative opinion. 
 Here, again, Spinoza is very plain-spoken. He says that the root 
 of the matter is not in correct opinions, but in obedience to the 
 moral law. There are two chapters of this book, the 13th and 
 I4th, in which Spinoza's position as to the relation of faith to 
 philosophy is worked out. Spinoza's point is that faith, as he 
 calls it — that is, the essentials of practical religion — is a very 
 simple thing, and does not require any particular speculative 
 opinions at all. He says that " it follows, even from the words 
 of Scripture, that they are anti-Christs who persecute the opinions 
 of just men who differ from them in opinion, and do not maintain 
 their doctrines. They that love justice and charity are thereby 
 only found to be believers, and whoever persecutes such believers 
 is anti-Christ. Lastly, it follows that faith does not require 
 opinions that are in themselves true, but such only as shall best 
 incline a man's heart to obedience." Spinoza does not mean that 
 
494 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 it is absolutely indifferent to a man's salvation what he thinks, 
 but only that it does not concern the civil power what his 
 opinions are, so long as they are not opinions which manifestly 
 lead to a dangerous or immoral life. And then he goes on to 
 enumerate those doctrines of universal faith, as he calls them, 
 which are the most that can be reasonably regarded as necessary 
 in a well-ordered commonwealth ; viz. : 
 
 "That there is a God, or Supreme Being, who is most just and 
 merciful, by whose example every man ought to regulate his life ; 
 secondly, that this God is One, which opinion is absolutely necessary 
 to make a man adore, admire, and love God — for devotion, admira- 
 tion, and love, are caused by that excellency which is in one above 
 all others ; thirdly; that He is everywhere present, or that all things 
 are known to Him, for if anything were hidden from Him, or if 
 men did not think that He seeth all things, we might doubt of 
 His equity and justice, whereby He govemeth all things ; fourthly, 
 that He hath supreme power and dominion over all things, that 
 He doth nothing by compulsion, but of His own good will and 
 pleasure ; fifthly, that the worship, of God, and obedience to Him, 
 consists only in justice and charity towards our neighbours ; 
 sixthly, that only they who obey God by such a course of life 
 wiU be saved ; and others, who are slaves to their lusts and 
 pleasures, will be condemned ; lastly, that God pardoneth the 
 sins of those that repent, because there is no man living without 
 sin ; therefore, if this were not an article of faith, all would 
 despair of salvation." 
 
 You must not suppose that these positions are statements of 
 Spinoza's own philosophy, at any rate in his own way ; they are 
 such as indeed Spinoza might adopt, but after an explanation 
 of the terms which would bring out a result very different from 
 any form of popular religion. Spinoza is considering the precepts 
 of religion from the practical point of view of the statesman, as 
 guarantees of civil order. In the last chapter of treatise he points 
 out, rising almost to eloquence, although writing in an artificial 
 language, that the liberty of honest opinion is not a danger to 
 the commonwealth, but is rather a safeguard. One passage which 
 is often quoted evidently had reference to the religious wars 
 which had lately been going on : — 
 
 " Can anything be more pernicious than to treat persons of a 
 free, ingenuous disposition as enemies, and for no crime or wicked- 
 ness put them to death, making the scaffold, which frights none 
 but villains, a public theatre, whereon such innocent persons give 
 such examples of courage and patience, as turn to the shame and 
 reproach of the supreme magistrate's majesty ? " 
 
SPINOZA. 496 
 
 Again : — 
 
 " Schisms proceed not from the study of truth, that fountain 
 of meekness and moderation, but from an imperious humour of 
 prescribing to others ; and therefore they are rather to be ac- 
 counted schismatics who damn other men's writings, and stir up 
 the waspish multitude against them, than those that write to 
 learned men, and call nothing but reason to their aid ; for they 
 are truly disturbers of pubHe peace who in a free commonwealth 
 would take away the liberty of men's judgment, which ought not 
 to be suppressed." 
 
 And he sums up by saying that a Commonwealth's greatest 
 safety is to place religion and piety in the practice of justice and 
 charity, and to make things sacred as much subject to the Supreme 
 Power as things civil, and to take cognizance of nothing but men's 
 actions suffering every man to think what he will, and speak 
 what he thinks. 
 
 The treatise had no apparent practical effect at the time, but it 
 was largely read. It appeared in various issues with false title- 
 pages and other precautions against the printers being prosecuted, 
 and within a short time it was also circulated in translations. 
 
 I have already mentioned that during the eighteenth century 
 it was a sort of arsenal for freethinkers, although the value of the 
 the principal part of Spinoza's philosophy was certainly not 
 recognized by those who thus used it. 
 
 But we must come to the real centre of Spinoza's philosophy 
 to find that which, after all, has given vitality to his work. A 
 man does not live as a great philosopher merely by happy antici- 
 pations of modem historical criticism, nor even by showing a more 
 enlightened view of the relation of Church and State than was 
 common in his time. When Spinoza deals with philosophy for 
 its own sake, he distinguishes the precepts which are needful for 
 the outward conduct of life, from the inner wisdom by which a man 
 attains happiness for himself. A man may be a very good citizen 
 without being at all happy, or at peace in his own mind. Still 
 more may he be a good citizen without being a philosopher, or 
 even without having given any serious thought to the ultimate 
 problems of the world. Now Spinoza points out emphatically that 
 spiritual happiness does not consist in obeying any rules whatever, 
 even the best of rules ; not that rules are not good and necessary, 
 but happiness will not come by obedience alone. In this he 
 agrees, I think, with the great moralists of all persuasions. 
 
 He started as many philosophers have done, and as the founders 
 of the great Asiatic religions have done, from the futility of 
 the common objects of human ambition and desire. These may 
 
496 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 be satisfied, but after they are satisfied, if a man gives himself 
 time to think, he finds, as the Preacher did long ago, that all is 
 vanity. Deliverance from vanity is the object of Spinoza's 
 philosophy as much as it had been the object of the great religions 
 of the world. Spinoza's way, however, is absolutely opposed to 
 the Eastern way, which is still nominally supreme, I suppose, 
 over a majority of the human beings who have attained the 
 stage of thinlang seriously at all. The Eastern way is to say' 
 that not only the common objects of desire, regarded as an end 
 in themselves, are vanity, but that all finite life is vanity ; the 
 world is a bad thing ; life is a bad thing ; let us escape from it 
 altogether and be delivered. Such is the avowed object of the 
 great Asiatic religions, with the one exception of the religion 
 of the Jews. The Jewish point of view, which is, of course, 
 what Spinoza had to work upon, is on the contrary, that life 
 is good; life is a gift of God and to be enjoyed, and it is to 
 be made the most of. But the philosophy of orthodox Judaism, 
 such as it was down to Spinoza's day, had very little foundation to 
 build upon. The common belief that virtue was always rewarded 
 in this world, and vice always punished, was evidently insufi&cient. 
 Its insufficiency had been seen by the prophets and by the name- 
 less poet of the Book of Job. A new base had to be found. I 
 shall not attempt here to explain Spinoza's philosophy, having 
 already made, in a published work, such contribution as I could 
 to that very difficult undertaking. The central idea, however, is 
 the union of man with the order of the world. In so far as a man 
 can understand that he is part of the order of the world, and can 
 consciously reahze this with cheerful acquiescence, he has the 
 wisdom which delivers him from vanity and earthly desires and the 
 vicissitudes of life. This is a hard thing to accept at first sight, 
 and Spinoza does not pretend that it is easy. " You tell me — " 
 so one may abridge the gist of several of his remarks—" this 
 way is hard, certainly it is so. If it were not hard everybody 
 would attain to it ; all things worth having are hard." Spinoza's 
 view involves a great demolition of prejudice. It involves par- 
 ticularly the demolition of the great prejudice that the world and 
 all that therein is was made for man and exists for his benefit ; in 
 short, of the whole doctrine of so-called Final Causes. 
 
 The Appendix to the first part of Spinoza's Ethics contains his 
 opinion of the current doctrine. He says that men being accus- 
 tomed to make various instruments for their own use, and finding 
 that many parts of Nature which they did not make are useful to 
 them, conclude that this must be so because these natural con- 
 veniences were made for the use of man by somebody else. From 
 the example of the instruments they are accustomed to provide 
 
SPINOZA. 497 
 
 for themselves, they conclude that there must be one or more 
 rulers of Nature, having a free will like man's ; who have provided 
 all these things for thena and made them for their use. Then 
 they proceed to consider what the designs and temper of the 
 gods are like, and they set about propitiating the gods, so that 
 the gods may love them better than their neighbours. But then 
 they find many things which are not convenient, but the reverse ; 
 earthquakes, pestilences, storms, and the like, and these they 
 account for by supposing that the gods are angry for some wrong 
 that men have done them ; or for sins committed in the observance 
 of their worship ; and although experience showed them every day 
 that good and ill happen to the just and the unjust alike, yet 
 they did not cease from the ingrained prejudice ; for it was easier 
 to relegate this among the many other things they did not know, 
 and so to keep their present and inborn condition of ignorance, 
 than to destroy all that fantastic building they had made, and set 
 about thinking out a new one. Wherefore they made sure that 
 the judgments of the gods were altogether above the capacity of 
 man. This, Spinoza says in a singularly caustic passage, would 
 have been enough to prevent all true philosophy from ever being 
 discovered, if it had not been for the mathematics which showed 
 the way to a clear and intelligible manner of thinking. 
 
 I need not tell you that Spinoza does not clear up the world-old 
 problem of the origin of evil. Still, he has his own way of looking 
 at it. He says that people are accustomed to argue thus: — If 
 everything is a consequence of the absolutely perfect nature of 
 Grod, why are there so many imperfect things in Nature ? But 
 the perfection of things is to be measured only by their own 
 nature and power, and things are not more or less perfect because 
 they are agreeable or the reverse to the senses of mankind ; or 
 because they are helpful to our nature or repugnant to it. " As 
 for those who ask why Grod did not make all men in such sort that 
 they should be led solely by the command of reason, I have no 
 other answer than that it was because matter was not wanting for 
 Him to create everything from the greatest degree of perfection 
 even to the least." That is not a pleasant answer to human 
 pride, but I think it is a great deal nearer the truth than any of 
 the popular ones, and not the less so because it is specially 
 obnoxious to the ordinary assumption of orthodox theologians. 
 Many theologians have deserved the respect, some have deserved 
 the reverence and love, of all good men. But there is also a kind 
 of professional theology which may be described as a pretended 
 science of teaching God Almighty his own business. Accordingly 
 Spinoza, having insisted that God Almighty knew his own busi- 
 ness best, was denounced as a blasphemer of the most wicked and 
 
498 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 insidious kind, and the Ethics called forth a storm of condemnation 
 almost greater than had been excited before by the Theologico- 
 Political Treatise. 
 
 Spinoza's method of arriving at the union of man with the order 
 of things, or -with God — (for in Spinoza these expressions are 
 either synonymous, or distinguished only by refined metaphysical 
 differences)— ^is by a purely intellectual process. In this he is like 
 the old Greek philosophers. In fact parts of Spinoza's dialectic 
 are very like the reasoning of the followers of Aristotle. I do not 
 mean his earliest followers, but those who developed the doctrine 
 in the Arabic schools. 
 
 This is another curious point of contact between Spinoza and 
 the better part of Western Christianity. Spinoza's results are 
 arrived at in a purely philosophic way, but they are essentially 
 like the views which one finds in those Christian philosophers 
 who are commonly called Mystics. There is an anonymous 
 fourteenth-century book, which resembles Spinoza in so far as 
 its author had no intention of founding a school, and did not even 
 wish his work to pass by his name. He was more successful than 
 Spinoza, for we do not really know at all who he was. His book is 
 known as the German Theology, and I think it is aboat as 
 certain as anything in the history of letters can be that Spinoza 
 had never read or heard of it ; and if he had read or heard of it, 
 he probably would have paid no attention to it. But it is 
 important to see how very far this fourteenth-century German, 
 who, for anything one knows, may have been a monk, was removed 
 from the vulgar machinery of practical theology. He says that a 
 man who has attained a real sense of religion loves the good only 
 for its own sake. These men, he says, are in a state of freedom, 
 because they have lost the fear of pain or hell, and the hope of 
 reward or heaven, and are living in pure submission to eternal 
 goodness, in the perfect freedom of fervent love. This mind was 
 in Christ in perfection, and is also in His followers — ^in some more, 
 in some less. And again he says : " Mark : that when true love 
 and true light are in a man, good is known and loved for itself, 
 and as itself." And he says again : " In this sense the saying is 
 true that God loveth not Himself ; that if there were aught better 
 than God, God would love it, and not Himself." And much 
 more, which is well worth seeing at large in the book. These 
 passages and several others might almost have come out of the last 
 part of the Ethics of Spinoza. So far as I know there is absolutely 
 no trace of historical connection, but it is important to see that a 
 fourteenth-century Catholic, living in a time when the doctrines 
 of the Church of Rome would not generally lend themselves to 
 such views, could write down this, and apparently without any 
 
SPINOZA. 499 
 
 ■consciousness that he was in any way offending against orthodoxy. 
 I do not mean you to suppose that the author of this book would 
 have been what we call a reformer, but 1 think he would probably 
 have told you that what the Church commanded was no doubt 
 right, but that all these ceremonies and details of dogma were 
 as nothing compared to a man having the, true light. 
 
 Spinoza's work fell, at the time, quite flat, not only on the 
 orthodox, but on most of the unorthodox, until towards the end 
 ■of the eighteenth century. It was a time when people cared very 
 little for anything they could not put into definite propositions, and 
 all through the eighteenth century you will find that the higher 
 side of Spinoza's teaching was absolutely ignored. I think there 
 is not a single writer in the eighteenth century who can be said 
 to grapple with Spinoza seriously. His orthodox opponents picked 
 logical holes in one or more of his propositions, which was not a 
 very difficult feat, although I am bound to say that they did it ill 
 rather than well. Freethinkers, on the other hand, got hold of the 
 Theologico-PoUtical Treatise, and picked out its arguments against 
 ■miracles, and so forth, as controversial weapons ; whereas it is 
 i-really a little matter whether a man believes in miracles or not, 
 but an infinitely greater matter in what spirit he believes or 
 disbelieves them. The first man, so hx as I know, in modem 
 Europe who really took hold of Spinoza in the right way was 
 Jjessing, the great restorer of literature and criticism in Germany. 
 Then the spirit of Spinoza, which was first awakened in Lessing, 
 took hold of Goethe. To say that it took hold of Goethe is to say 
 that it was established in the centre of the European movement 
 of letters and civilization. I need hardly tell those of you whom 
 it interests to know it that the spirit of Spinoza has been actively 
 at work ever since in the whole development of modem German 
 philosophy. 
 
 His influence then came to England through Coleridge, wlio was 
 a man of genius in many directions : in poetry, in religion, and 
 almost, although not quite, in philosophy. Coleridge learned to 
 know Spinoza firom the Germans, and taught much of what he 
 knew to Wordsworth. There is an odd story in Coleridge's auto- 
 biography, of how he roamed about with Wordsworth on the 
 Quantocks, where he was living during the early period of the 
 great French war. There was an alarm about Jaoobins and 
 ■ corresponding societies, and so a disguised police officer was sent 
 to watch the movements of Coleridge and Wordsworth as being 
 more or less suspected persons. Coleridge heard afterwards what 
 this man had reported of the fragments of conversation he had 
 picked up. " At first he fancied that we were aware of our danger, 
 for he often heard me talk of ' Spy Nozy ; ' which he was inclined 
 
500 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 to interpret of himself and of a remarkable feature belonging to 
 him ; but he was speedily convinced that it was the name of a 
 man who had made a book and lived long ago." Coleridge was 
 accordingly left unmolested. Perhaps it is not too fanciful to 
 suppose that something of Coleridge's talk about Spinoza found 
 its way into Wordsworth's poetry, and from thence into what, 
 for want of a better word, we call Nature- Worship — an element 
 which has certainly been an influence for the better in nearly all 
 English literature since. 
 
 But there were also theologians and philosophers who learnt 
 much from Coleridge in due time, and amongst others one whose 
 name I can never mention otherwise than with reverence — and I 
 think it would have been the same even if I had not had the 
 privilege of knowing him — I mean the late Mr. Maurice, one of 
 the most enlightened and large-hearted men the Church of England 
 ever had. He wrote a book on Modem Philosophy, in which he 
 gave many pages to Spinoza, and treated him as you would expect 
 a man of his nature to do (although evidently dissenting from his 
 conclusions), with the utmost respect and moral sympathy. 1 
 think Maurice must have taught a great many people to think 
 better of Spinoza than the popular theology does ; and what 
 Maurice's influence was on liberal English theology I need not 
 say here. So that I think one may say that Spinoza has been a 
 living power not only in modern philosophy and theology, but in 
 the best life of modem English theology. I am quite aware that 
 there are still sections in the Church of England, and for anything 
 I know in other Churches in England, which refuse to have any- 
 thing to do with modem criticism, and regard men like Maurice 
 and Kingsley as dangerous. From their own point of view those 
 sections are doubtless right, and they have their reward. 
 
 I am not here (need I say it ?) to endeavour to persuade you 
 that everything Spinoza said is right ; or that you may not find 
 serious logical defects in his work. That is one of the great 
 misapprehensions that have grown up about Spinoza ; because 
 he put some of his work into the form of demonstration in the 
 manner of his time, it is supposed to be an absolutely logical 
 system which must all stand or fall together. That is an entire 
 mistake. And it would be a mistake even if Spinoza had thought 
 that he had made an absolutely logical demonstration. The living 
 power of a philosopher does not depend on his finding the whole 
 truth, a thing which certainly no man has yet found. But Spinoza 
 did that on a great scale which all of us on some scale, be it small 
 or great, can certainly do. He sought truth with an open heart ; 
 he never feared to face it, however unexpected its appearance 
 might be ; and he never turned back from the consequences of 
 
SPINOZA. 501 
 
 that of which he was once fully persuaded. He is, perhaps, the 
 great ezample in modem Europe of one who worked as the true 
 philosopher should work. He built (to borrow the words used by 
 Mr. Browning for a different purpose in one of his noblest poems) 
 " broad on the roots of things."' 
 
 I have not thought it necessary so far to give out a text for this 
 discourse, but I propose now to give you a text for the end. It 
 is from William Blake, who, with the possible exception of 
 Coleridge, is, in my judgment, the man of the greatest religious 
 genius whom we have had in England in recent generations. I 
 need hardly tell you that William Blake was also a madman, a 
 dangerous heretic in both letters and art, and altogether unac- 
 counted for by orthodox canons of poetry and painting. In other 
 words, he was a great and original artist, endowed, moreover, with 
 that pecuHar kind of philosophical temper which we call religious 
 insight as distinguished from pure intellectual speculation. Blake 
 did not care much, I suppose, about the literal acceptation of his 
 own words, and if any one construes them literally it is entirely 
 on his own responsibility. But I think that in the words of Blake 
 there is a good deal of the spirit of Spinoza, notwithstanding that 
 Blake probably never heard of him : — 
 
 " The worship of God is honouring his gifts in other men, each 
 according to his genius, and loving the greatest men best. Those 
 who envy or calumniate great men bate God, for there is no 
 other God." 
 
502 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 HUMANITY. 
 
 BY FREDERIC HARRISON. 
 
 A VERY large audience assembled at South Place to hear the 
 lecture of the well-known leader of the Positivists, Mr. Frederic 
 Harrison, on the subject of " Humanity as a Eeligious Centre." 
 The lecturer stated that his position was different from that 
 of the speakers who had preceded him, and also of those who 
 were to follow him. All these rested on the Bible as, in some 
 degree the word of God. He recognized only the revelation 
 that is in the earth ; Science was his revelation. His heaven 
 was earth. How, then, could they claim a place amongst 
 religionists at all ? How can they be said to represent spiritual 
 activities ? That question he would try to answer. They do 
 feel in sympathy with the aim of other churches, for " the 
 object of all religions is alike." Men seek in religion the highest 
 ideal of life, and this ideal, he beheves, is to be found in 
 the world. That which marks out the Positivist system from 
 other religions is that it rejects every kind of doctrine which 
 cannot be proved by scientific argument. Eeligion and science 
 have hitherto stood in hopeless antagonism ; Comte, however, said 
 that the two were to be reconciled. In the light of this new 
 centre of belief and duty, science found its creed in religion, and 
 religion found its crown in science. They think that the future 
 of religion will be hopeless unless it can find its basis in science. 
 Turning to the other side of the picture, it will be seen how 
 unsocial science must be unless it can do something in the way 
 of moral elevation. 
 
 Objection has been made to their using the terms " religion," 
 " soul," etc. It has been said to them, that the soul means an 
 immaterial entity, and that " worship " means adoration of God. 
 Positivism makes it clear that worship does not necessarily mean 
 adoration of a supernatural Being. Eeligion properly means 
 veneration for the power which exercises a dominant influence 
 over our life. This power, by religionists, is called " God," but 
 it need not mean God. The religion of China is a sort of nature- 
 worship ; in various parts of the world there has been sun-worship. 
 
HUMANITY. 503 
 
 Buddhism was not a worship of God. All these different forms 
 of religion were without a belief in God as a creator, but held 
 belief in a power. Only the Jew, Christian, and Mohammedan 
 have believed in a single creator. Such terms as " religion " and 
 " soul " and " spiritual life " must not be cut down to meet the 
 requirements of modem creeds. The objections referred to were 
 merely verbal ones. He would consider (1) what Positivists 
 mean by spiritual life, and (2) whether spiritual life has a 
 prominent place in man's nature. Scientific creeds deal with 
 man's spiritual life in an uncertain way. Atheists, on the other 
 hand, go dead against the religious sentiment. Most people say 
 nothing about spiritual life unless they belong to some religious 
 sect. Many philosophers say that religion is no business of theirs, 
 and what such think about God and the future is left in the 
 dark. But surely these things must concern these philosophers 
 and everyone else. It is impossible permanently to ignore this 
 element. The question must be answered whether man needs 
 any religion, and if so, how he is to find it. A philosophy which 
 does not answer these questions will have no firm hold on human 
 Ufe. 
 
 What is the source of spiritual life ? Their widest thoughts 
 of hvmia/n life bring them to this : they are in this world distinct 
 &om the environment of circumstances with which they are sur- 
 rounded. What is our relation to this environment ? Their 
 deepest thoughts return to this : What is the relation of man to 
 the world ? Is the grave the end of man's work ? Is life worth 
 living ? Is work worth doing? One day the world seems a cosmos; 
 on another it seems a maze. Man's heart runs through all the 
 scale of emotions — gratitude for nature's bounty ; despair when it 
 crushes some one dearer than life itself. This is the perennial 
 source of spiritual life. The question is perpetually asked : What 
 is the relation of the world to man, and man to the world? Human 
 life depends on some power outside it. All possibility of morality 
 depends on this: that a man feels the pressure of his surroundings. 
 A man who leaves religion an open question is a source of 
 danger to society. Positivism can join almost in the same words 
 as other religions in regard to the folly and danger of stifling 
 the religious instinct. To say that there can be no religion 
 without God is as vain as to say there can be no belief unless 
 based on the Apostles' Creed. The worship of God is but 09ie 
 phase of religion. The union of conviction with feeling in con^ 
 nection with that power which controls human life — that is 
 religion. Comte said it was a metaphysical assumption that 
 there was a supreme power over all things in the universe. 
 Individuals have a power over many things. Mankind has a vast 
 
504 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OP THE WORLD. 
 
 power over individuals. One can feel gratitude to the sum of 
 human kind in a way that is impossible to the outer world. 
 
 Humanity is more akin to us than the material world. The 
 supreme power which man has searched for in the sky is beside 
 him ; it is heard in the whisper of husband and wife and child ; 
 it is in every true deed and feeling, and is heard in the Btill 
 small voice within. Nevertheless it is not almighty, all vrise, 
 or all good. It does not control the world ; humanity is dependent 
 on the world, but it can adjust itself to the forces of nature. 
 We know positively of no Supreme Being, i.e. Science gives no 
 proof of such a thing as a Being Supreme in the whole moral 
 and physical spheres. There may be such a Being. The sun 
 may be such an intelligent Being ; but we cannot determine it. 
 Desist from the search for a Supreme Power, and recognize that 
 there stand two great facts — (1) the world, and (2) man ; the 
 former imposing fixed and unalterable conditions on man ; the 
 latter submitting to this power, and exerting a glorious intelligence 
 in controlling it — benevolent, beneficent, yet not all-wise, all- 
 powerful, or all good. Humanity is a kind of father and mother 
 to us all. This in short is the answer of Positivism : " The 
 Kingdom of God is within you ; " there it has been throughout 
 our life; and true dignity consists in ordering one's life in ac- 
 cordance with humanity. What is the will of humanity? It 
 is the fall expression of the law of our own being — living in 
 accordance with the moral and intellectual laws of humanity. 
 Thus the revelation, the inspiration passionately dreamed of 
 through such a long vista of ages, is practically realized at last. 
 Science is that inspiration. The sum of demonstrated law is 
 the Gospel The Bible of the Hebrews becomes but a mere 
 subsidiary part of the Gospel. All great workers have been in 
 the true sense inspired. There is no single incarnation in the 
 Son of the Carpenter. Humanity is incarnate in every son of 
 humanity who may be a Messiah at least to some. Every 
 daughter of humanity is the sister of Christ, and is a type of 
 humanity itself. 
 
 The question has been asked whether " humanity " is real. He 
 (the lecturer) would ask : Is the family real ? Is the English 
 nation an abstraction ? In one sense " humanity " is more real 
 than anything, because it is permanent ; we have no reason to think 
 it is mortal. Humanity is more real than any individual ; it has 
 a life of its own. He could not understand the state of mind which 
 rejects humanity as an " abstraction," and conceives the idea of 
 God as not an abstraction. What more than this is required as 
 an object for religion ? If it can be shown that man can live and 
 die for humanity that is enough. It had been objected that man 
 
HUMANITY. 506 
 
 requires a person to live and die for. But, as a matter of fact, 
 men have lived and died for their country, their people ; they 
 have exhibited great devotion for a cause, which is not a person, 
 neither embodied in a person. Such is seen in the history of 
 ■every cause. This is a new conception of the old object of religious 
 earnestness. Theology is, in a great measure, visionary and 
 unreal, and appeals to one's love of self. All religions try to 
 counteract this tendency. The new idea of religion is as social 
 as it is real. It finds its object in its fellow-man ; the society of 
 mankind is its creed. That which is anti-social is, of its very 
 nature, anti-religious. In their religion, is a church, a priest, 
 or a form of worship necessary ? These terms will still be used 
 by them, but in a dififerent way than by ordinary sects. 
 
 Do the soul and the spirit exist apart from the body? Who 
 can say? How is it possible to have any opinion about any 
 immaterial life, seeing that all our knowledge comes through the 
 channels of the senses ? Do men live after death ? Of course 
 they do. Their lives continue, though their bodies do not. We 
 cannot understand that there can be consciousness in the absence 
 of a nervous system. In that sense we do not know what it is to 
 live consciously after death. Life is not a nervous system. They 
 live in places where they have never been. We are not as the 
 beasts that perish; their death ends their activity — so far as is 
 known. But the social nature of man is not bestial. It is a 
 subtle faculty of uniting itself with other souls. 
 
 The organism of mankind is immortal. Such is the subtle 
 condition of human existence, that the good life becomes incor- 
 porated with the immortal humanity. Not a thought is wasted ; 
 it develops man in proportion as it is strong or noble; it is 
 continually pulsating. Every good life, every kind word, every 
 good deed, every clear thought, lives. Therefore, man lives, and 
 lives for ever, 
 
 [Note. — Copied from The Inquirer of February llth, 1888.] 
 
 33 
 
606 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 MYSTICISM.' 
 
 BY W. S. LILLY. 
 
 I PROPOSE this afternoon to talk to you a little about Mysticism. 
 Many people in the world, perhaps most, would regard this as 
 equivalent to an announcement that I am going to talk nonsense. 
 Mr. Carlyle has somewhere remarked that when a man speaks to 
 us about a matter which is foreign from our usual thoughts, we 
 are apt, in self-defence as it were, to label him a mystic, by which 
 we mean privately, even if we are too polite to say so openly — a 
 dunce. Should there be any here who, at the outset, are inclined 
 to regard me with this sort of suspicion, let me beg of them to be 
 patient awhile. I shall hope to show them before I have done 
 that Mysticism, so far from being nonsense, is the highest and 
 best sense. 
 
 Now we English like to go by the facts. To do so, we are 
 assured on all hands, is the one path of safety. I am not disposed 
 to deny that ; only I claim to take in all the facts and not one class 
 only arbitrarily selected. Let us go by experience by all means. 
 But we must take the totality of experience. Let us consider then 
 a little the facts of life — of everyday life — as we all lead it. I 
 remember some verses of Matthew Arnold — they come from his 
 very beautiful poem Rugby Chapel — which give a striking picture 
 of that everyday life : 
 
 " What is the course of the life 
 Of mortal men on the earth 1 
 Most men eddy about 
 Here and there — eat and drink, 
 Chatter and love and hate, 
 
 ' When I was asked to address the South Place Institute on Mysticism, I was 
 not aware that it was intended to publish my words, and so I did not reduce to 
 writing what I proposed to say. The following pages, dictated from memory sub- 
 sequently to the delivery of my lecture, give, 1 believe, a tolerably close account 
 of it. I ought to remark that I employ the term Mysticism, not in the proper 
 theological sense, but in the popular sense, put upon it, as, I suppose, by those who 
 invited me to speak : the sense, namely, of supersensnous knowledge. No one can 
 regret more than I the confusion of tongues which prevails here, as elsewhere, in 
 the terminology of the present day. A feeling of the Infinite is one thing : a 
 cognition is another. 
 
MYSTICISM. 507 
 
 Gather and squander, are raised 
 Aloft, are hurled in the dust, 
 Striving blindly, achieving 
 Nothing ; and then they die — 
 Perish I and no one asks 
 Who or what they have been ; 
 More than he asks what waves 
 In the moonlit solitudes wild 
 Of the midmost ocean have swelled, 
 Foamed for a moment, and gone." 
 
 How true a picture it is of the lives of most ! How true, in 
 different degrees, of the lives of all ! What " a poor play," as 
 another poet of a different order has told us, life is, if we look 
 upon it in its merely material aspects. " Doth not our life con- 
 sist of the four elements ? " asks Sir Toby, in Twelfth Night. 
 " Nay," replies Sir Andrew Aguecheek, " I think it consists rather 
 of eating and drinking." This witness is true. Deeply corporeal- 
 ized, imprisoned by the senses, we resemble those unhappy men 
 of whom Plato tells us in his famous Apologue, which I dare say 
 many of you remember. There they sit, and have sat since child- 
 hood, those miserable captives, in their underground cavernous 
 prison, with no opening save on6 above towards the light, fast 
 bound in misery and iron, not able so much as to turn their heads 
 round, and so seeing nothing but what is straight before them. 
 At a distance above and behind them a bright fire bums, and 
 between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way, with a 
 low wall built along it, like the screens which the marionette players 
 in ancient Greece put up in front of their audiences, and above 
 which they were wont to display their puppets. Behind this 
 wall walk a number of persons bearing vessels and images of wood 
 and stone and various other materials, talking as they go ; and 
 the captives, sitting without the power of turning their heads, 
 see their own shadows — which is all they see of themselves and 
 each other — and the shadows cast by these objects upon the part 
 of the cavern facing them, and hear the voices thence reverberated, 
 for there is an echo in their prison-house. And they refer these 
 voices, not to the unseen passers-by, of whom they have no know- 
 ledge, but to the passing shadows, which they take for realities. 
 Strange and weird conception ! But how true an image of human 
 life until we are enfranchised from the chains of sense. Yes ; 
 Emerson has well said, in words which may fitly serve as the 
 interpretation of tliis Platonic parable : " Indeed we are but 
 shadows. We are not endowed with real hfe ; and all that seems 
 most real about us, is but the thinnest substance of a dream, till 
 the heart be touched. That touch creates us : then we begin to 
 be ; thereby we are beings of reality and inheritors of Eternity." 
 " Until the heart be touched." It is that touch that sets us free ; 
 
508 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 •which rids us of illusions about the make and matter of the phe- 
 nomenal world; which reveals to us what I may call the ideal 
 — the real being of a thing which causes it to be what it is. 
 
 Now this touch of the heart may come to us in many ways. 
 I remember vividly how, in an autumn which seems as I speak 
 to rise before me across the gulf of years, in all its sadness and 
 sweetness, nature was first revealed to me as a living reality ; a 
 spirit speaking to my spirit ; " a presence that is not to be put 
 by." I can see now those magnificent woods through which I 
 wandered, finding for the first time " tongues in the trees, books 
 in the running brooks ; " hearing for the first time in the moaning 
 of the winds the elegy of the dying year — nay, the burial hymn 
 of the world ; reading for the first time the high moralities, the 
 "thoughts that do lie too deep for tears" inscribed on the 
 falling leaves and the fading flowers. I dare say many in this 
 room can remember a like awakening of their own inner life ; and 
 can enter into what Amiel has expressed in a very fine passage, 
 which came into my mind as I was sitting this morning in my 
 library, thinking about what I should say to you this afternoon. 
 Writing at Lancy, in the early spring of 1852, he exclaims: 
 " How are all things transfigured at a moment like this ! The 
 world is an allegory ; the ideal is more real than any fact. Fairy 
 tales and legends are as true as natural history ; nay, truer, for as 
 emblems they are more transparent. The only substance is the 
 soul. What are all other things ? Shadow, pretence, figure, 
 symbol, and dream. Consciousness alone is immortal, objective, 
 utterly real. The world is but a pyrotechnic display, a sublime 
 panorama, intended to delight and educate the soul. Conscious- 
 ness is a universe of which the soul is love." 
 
 Let me in this connection turn to a great English poet — great 
 not only in his inspiration but in his sobriety — who more perhaps 
 than any other poet has realized the occult sympathy between the 
 human soul and external nature. There is a fine passage in hiir 
 Excuiaion, which I must take leave to quote : — 
 
 " Such was the boy — but for the growing youth 
 What soul was his, when, from the naked top 
 Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun 
 Rise up, and bathe the world in light I He looked — 
 Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth 
 And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay 
 Beneath him. — Far and wide the olonds were touched, 
 And in their silent faces could he read 
 Unutterable love. Sound needed none. 
 Nor any voice of joy ; his spirit drank 
 The spectacle : sensation, soul, and form. 
 All melted into him ; they swallowed up 
 His animal being ; in them did he live, 
 And by them did he live ; they were his life. 
 
MYSTICISM. 509 
 
 In such access of mind, in such high hour 
 Of visitation from the living God, 
 Thought was not ; in enjojment it expired. 
 No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ; 
 Bapt into still communion that transcends 
 The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, 
 His mind was a thanksgiving to the power 
 That made him : it was blessedness and love ! " 
 
 So much for External Nature as an instrument potent to touch 
 the heart, as a revealing agency, as a path into the transcendental, 
 " as a means through which the Deity who works unseen behind 
 it, pours trust and love which transform our own capabilities into 
 realities." And now let us turn to Art, for which I claim the same 
 high function. We rightly talk of artistic inspiration. The true 
 artist is a seer. He is the man whose eyes are opened. The aim 
 of the artist is to body forth, whatever be the instrument with 
 which he works — be it the brush, the chisel, "the concord of 
 sweet sounds," or "ordered words" — to body forth something 
 which he discerns in the " high reason of his fancies " more 
 clearly than other men. I do not know who has better brought 
 out this truth than Schopenhauer — one of the finest and subtlest 
 thinkers of the age, however much his system, as a whole, may 
 repel us. The function of Art he considers is the deliverance of 
 men from the chain of vulgar realities which binds us to the 
 phenomenal world, by presenting the things that have veritable 
 being, the permanent essential forms, immutable, and ever true. 
 Thus do I account of Art in general, and of its high function in the 
 life of man. I can but glance at the subject and pass on. But 
 let me, before I do pass on, read to you the august words in which 
 the greatest living master of our language has expressed this view 
 about one of the Arts — Music: — 
 
 " Let us take another instance," says Cardinal Newman, " of an 
 outward and earthly form, or economy, under which great wonders 
 unknown seem to be typified ; I mean musical sounds, as they are 
 exhibited most perfectly in instrumental harmony. There are 
 seven notes in the scale, make them fourteen, yet what a slender 
 outfit for so vast an enterprise ! MTiat science brings so much 
 out of so little ? Out of what poor elements does some great 
 master in it create his new world ! Shall we say that all this 
 exuberant inventiveness is a mere ingenuity or trick of art, like 
 some game or fashion of the day, without reality and without 
 meaning ? We may do so. To many men the very names which 
 the science employs are utterly incomprehensible. To speak ol 
 an idea or a subject seems to be fanciful or trifling, to speak of the 
 views which it opens upon us to be childish extravagance ; yet is 
 
510 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 it possible that that ines;haustible evolution and disposition of 
 notes, so rich yet so simple, so intricate yet so regulated, so various 
 yet so majestic, should be a mere sound, which is gone and 
 perishes ? 
 
 " Can it be that those mysterious stirrings of heart, and keen 
 emotions, and strange yearnings after we know not what, and 
 awful impressions from we know not whence, should be wrought in 
 us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and goes, and begins and 
 ends, in itself? It is not so ; it cannot be. No, they have escaped 
 from some higher sphere; they are the outpourings of eternal 
 harmony in the medium of created sound ; they are echoes from 
 our home; they are the voice of angels, or the Magnificat of 
 saints, or the living laws of Divine governance, or the Divine 
 attributes; something are they besides themselves which we 
 cannot compass, which we cannot utter." 
 
 I goon to another instrument of our emancipation — Philosophy. 
 Now the very object of all Philosophy worthy of that august name 
 is the supersensuous. A mere system of speculative physics — 
 like, let me say, Mr. Herbert Spencer's — however ingenious and 
 interesting, I cannot account of as Philosophy at all. Philosophy 
 is a theory of being, of speculative thought : its proper object to 
 contemplate the world as a manifestation of spirit. As Von Hart- 
 mann truly says, it is essentially concerned with the one feeling 
 only to be mystically apprehended, namely, the relation of the 
 individual with the Absolute. Its very function is to raise man 
 above the self of the senses and animal nature, to approximate 
 him to the Divine. Hence Aristotle, in speaking the praises of 
 the life philosophic is led to say : " If the gods in any way concern 
 themselves with human affairs, as is indeed held to be the case, it 
 is but reasonable to suppose that they should take pleasure in that 
 which is of all things the highest and the most akin to the divine 
 nature ; that is to say, the reason ; and that to those who give all 
 their love to this, and hold it in the highest honour, they should 
 make some return of kindness, upon the ground that such men 
 bestow their care upon that which they themsielves hold dear, 
 and that they act rightly herein and nobly. Now that it is of 
 the .philosopher that all this is pre-eminently true is almost 
 self-evident." 
 
 I must not dwell further upon this high mattfer. Let me go 
 on to another portal into the transcendental : those Emotions and 
 Sentiments of Human Nature which are really symbols of some- 
 thing deeper ; according to that fine saying of St. Bernard, " The 
 more I know of myself the more I know of God." Take the 
 passion of love, for example, the most masterful and the most 
 
MYSTICISM. 511 
 
 universal of all. I do not speak of that merely animal impulse 
 which man has in common with moths and mollusca : but of love, 
 as it actually exists among civilized men and women, transformed 
 in a greater or less degree, by the imaginative faculty. Well, 
 what an instrument of emancipation from the senses love is ! 
 
 "... for indeed I know 
 Of no more subtle master under heaven, 
 Than is the maiden passion for a maid ; 
 IJot only to keep down the base in man 
 But teach high thoughts and amiable words, 
 And love of truth and all that makes a man." 
 
 " To keep down the base, to teach high thoughts." Yes. Love 
 lifts us abovei self. It opens for us the gates of the transcen- 
 dental world. And so of other human emotions. Terror like love 
 lets us into infinity. The effect of tragedy, the Greek philo- 
 sophers held, was thus to work an intellectual purgation. " The 
 dramatist shows us some elemental force of humanity, stripped of 
 the accidents of time and place, working itself out in free conflict 
 with other forces, and finally breaking itself against the eternal 
 fact that no man can gain the world without losing himself. It 
 is this catastrophe which makes the real tragedy of life ; it is this 
 that the tragic poet has the eye to see and the words to portray ; 
 and in proportion as we follow him in imagination, we come away 
 from the spectacle with our hearts broken and purged, strength- 
 ened to fiEice the fact and obey the law." I may affirm the same 
 even more strongly of sorrow, " 'Tis said that sorrow makes us 
 wise." It is a great sacrament : the outward visible sign of an 
 inward spiritual grace whereby we are taken — if but for a moment 
 — ^beyond the veU. When we are led to submit our will to the 
 Divine Groodness, trusting it in the dark, we break through into 
 Eternity ; we are at one with the Secret Power which dwells 
 there, and holds up and disposes all things, sweetly and strongly. 
 This is the core of nature which, as Goethe says, must be looked 
 for in a man's heart. This is the Everlasting Yea. 
 
 But of course the most universal instrument to touch the heart, 
 and to awaken in us the life of the spirit, is Eeligion. Cardinal 
 Newman has said with much happiness that there is no such 
 thing as a false religion, whatever the amount of error which may 
 be mixed up with any. All religions have done something to lift 
 man above the senses, to idealize life. Is it possible to conceive 
 of anything more distasteful to the thoughtful and cultivated 
 than the blood-and-fire gospel which the Salvationists howl 
 through the streets of our cities, making day hideous ? Yet I, 
 for my part, wish these noisy fanatics God-speed, although I 
 should be glad if they could do their work more melodiously. 
 
512 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD, 
 
 They touch the hearts of thousands who else would live merely 
 animal lives — nay, lives below the level of the animals. They 
 open for them the world of Spirit and Deity however coarse 
 and grimy their keys. It seems to me that the proper attitude 
 to what we deem popular superstition is well indicated by 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer. " Through the great body of dogmas, 
 traditions, and rites, a soul of truth is always visible, clearly or 
 dimly as the case may be. . . . Though from higher perceptions 
 they hide the abstract verity within them, yet to lower percep- 
 tions they render this verity more appreciable than it would 
 otherwise be. They serve to make real and influential over men 
 that which would otherwise be unreal and uninfluential. Or we 
 may call them the protective envelopes, without which the con- 
 tained truth would die ; • . . modes of the manifestation of The 
 Unknowable, and as having this for their warrant." Zeal against 
 superstition ! Good, if usually a trifle ridiculous. But super- 
 stition is not the worst of errors. Take care that while you root 
 up the tares you do not root up the wheat also ; that in trying to 
 purify the popular belief you do not destroy it. There is in the 
 Mesnevi Sheriif of Jelalu-d'-Din, the illustrious Saint and Doctor 
 of Islam, a striking and pathetic story, in which this great lesson, 
 so little apprehended by the sectaries, whether of Puritanism or 
 of Physics, is powerfully inculcated. " Moses," we read, " in his 
 wanderings in the wilderness, came upon a shepherd, who was 
 praying to God in the fervour of his soul, and saying, ' Oh, my 
 Master, my Lord, would that I knew where I might find Thee, 
 and become Thy servant. Would that I might tie thy shoe- 
 latchet, and comb Thy hair, and wash Thy robes, and kiss Thy 
 beautiful feet, and sweep Thy chamber, and serve the milk of my 
 goats to Thee for whom my heart crieth out.' And the anger of 
 Moses was kindled, and he said to the shepherd, 'Thou blas- 
 phemest. The Most High has no body, and no need of clothing, 
 nor of nourishment, nor of a chamber, nor of a domestic ; thou 
 art an infidel.' And the heart of the shepherd was darkened, for 
 he could make to himself no image of one without bodily form 
 and corporal wants : and he gave himself up to despair and ceased 
 to serve God. And God spake unto Moses and said, ' Why hast 
 thou driven My servant away from Me ? Every man has received 
 from Me his mode of being, his way of speech. What is evil in 
 thee is good in another. "VSTiat is poison to thee is honey to him. 
 Words are nothing to Me. I regard the heart. The compass 
 serves only to direct the prayers of those who are without the 
 Kebeh. Within, no one knows the use of it.' " Such is the 
 apologue of the great SM, and surely it is well worth pondering. 
 We are too apt to undervalue that exceeding great multitude of 
 
MYSTICISM. 513 
 
 people who are simply good and religious-minded, wholly un- 
 disturbed by the anxious questionings which shake the world. 
 They are not intellectually considerable ; mostly fools, perhaps. 
 Yes. But diviner lips than Carlyle's have said, " Take heed that 
 ye despise not one of these little ones." " Babes and sucklings ! " 
 1 grant it. But to them are revealed things hidden from the 
 wise and prudent. In the house of the Father of spirits are many 
 mansions. And let not him who dwells in the templa serena of 
 elevated thought despise the fetish- worshippers before their 
 shrines, the Peculiar People in their tabernacles, the Salvationists 
 in their " barracks." Unconsciously, passively, they, it may well be, 
 possess that higher synthesis after which we so passionately toil, 
 where the problems which perplex us melt into floating clouds, as 
 we stand for a moment above them in sunshine and serene air. 
 
 I have spoken to you of External Nature, of Art, of Philosophy, 
 of Human Emotions, of Eeligion, as all instruments potent to 
 touch the heart, to open the portals of the transcendental world. 
 Now what is the issue of all this ? The issue is the undoubted 
 fact on which Mysticism is built : this, namely, that the spirit of 
 man comes in contact with a higher spirit, whose manifestations 
 carry with them their own proof and are moral in their nature, 
 out of time and place, enlightening, purifying, and therefore, in a 
 true sense, ascetic. And this is the universal mystic element in 
 religion, in the true sense of the word. For what is that sense ? 
 Not a concatenation of formulas, or a tissue of speculations ; not 
 pulpit eloquence, hierarchical domination, the greatest happiness 
 of the greatest number, or any other idol of the den or the market 
 place ; but the true tie between our spirit and the Father of our 
 spirits — a transcendental mode of the soul, by which it soars into 
 the Empyrean and is brought back to its eternal beginning. This 
 Theism of the natural order, if you like so to call it, has ten 
 thousand sacraments, infinite and ever new symbols, and each 
 man may minister at its altar. This is what I mean by Mysticism ; 
 heart-religion John Wesley called it. In this heart-religion every 
 great faith in the world has originated. By this heart-religion 
 every great faith Uves. When this heart-religion dies out of it, 
 its work is done, and its days are numbered ; it petrifies into mere 
 formalism. And then it falls to pieces, and its place knows it no 
 more. Of- course we have this treasure in earthen vessels. But 
 the treasure is there, however poor the shrine. Or, to change the 
 metaphor : in all those higher faiths which perform so important 
 a part in mystical philosophy and theology, there is a true light — 
 the light of life. Earthborn clouds may arise and obscure or 
 distort it. But it is there, that kindly light, guiding men on 
 amid the encircling gloom. 
 
514 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 So much may suffice, then, to vindicate the position with which 
 I set out — that Mysticism is not nonsense but good sense ; nay, 
 the best. And now the clock warns me that I have already tres- 
 passed sufficiently upon your patience. There are, however, just 
 a very few practical words which I should like to say in conclusion 
 about the abuse and the use of Mysticism. The abuse is obvious. 
 Mysticism is an experience of the Infinite as real as that experience 
 which we found upon the knowledge of the sensible and finite. 
 It is subject to the same laws and conditions also, to the limita- 
 tions of our nature; and therefore may issue in utter madness 
 or gross sensuality, precisely as an exclusive study of material 
 phenomena may issue in degradation of the intellect. I need not 
 enlarge upon what is so clear in itself, and is so sadly illustrated by 
 many pages of history. My present object is to dwell upon it in 
 its normal and healthy aspect as "human nature's daily food." 
 My view of Mysticism, then, as I have at length brought out, is 
 that it is an opening of the eyes of the soul, — a deliverance from 
 that worst captivity when the mind darkened by sense becomes 
 "the dungeon of itself." Whatever be the instrument of our 
 emancipation, the eflfect is to let " us pent-up creatures through, 
 into Eternity — our due." I may observe in passing that one 
 naturally uses the words of the poets in speaking of this subject, 
 and with reason, for truth has two languages — the language of 
 poetry and the language of prose ; but the language of poetry is 
 the most august and the better fitted for the expression of the 
 higher verities. But to return. I take the office of Mysticism to 
 be this : to conduct us from the phenomenal to the noumenal, 
 from that which seems to that which is. Now what is that which 
 is but truth, justice, love, freedom, all different aspects of one 
 thing; nay, I venture to say of One Person — the Absolute and 
 Eternal, who is the Supreme Reason ? This is the office, then, of 
 Mysticism, to enable us to discern that Reason which is at the 
 heart of things and which is in our hearts, to realize that we are 
 one with that Transcendent Ideal, which is the Supremely Real ; 
 not bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, but — far closer union — 
 reason of His reason and spirit of His spirit. This is the light of 
 life ; and in that light should we walk — as children of the light. 
 The supremacy of that Divine gift within us, speaking to our 
 heart, through our conscience — this is the conclusion of the whole 
 matter. It is the conclusion of Philosophy, which finds reason the 
 highest principle in the universe. It is the conclusion of Poetry, 
 which finds the world the expression of reason. It is the con- 
 clusion of Jurisprudence, which finds in reason the regulating 
 principle of social life. Now not all of us are called to be 
 philosophers, or poets, or lawgivers ; but we are all men endowed 
 
MYSTICISM, 515 
 
 with "this capability and Godlike reason." Let it not "fust in 
 us unused." Est Deus in nobis. We all have that Divine gift. 
 Marcus Aurelius calls it the daimon — the deity — vrithin us. Let 
 me end with the admirable lesson of that imperial sage who has 
 shown us that "even in a palace life may be well led." "Live 
 with the gods. And he does live with the gods who constantly 
 shows to them that his own soul is satisfied with that which is 
 assigned to him, and that he does all that the daimon wishes 
 which Zeus has assigned to every man for his guardian and 
 guidance — a portion of himself. And this daimon is every man's 
 understanding and reason." 
 
516 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ESOTEEIC BUDDHISM. 
 
 BY A. P. SIKNETT. 
 
 The system of thought which has been described as "Esoteric 
 Buddhism" deals with a highly practical, matter — the leading con- 
 clusions of a living science closely associated with the welfare of 
 the human race at the present day — in Europe as well as in Asia. 
 The science to which I refer is Theosophy ; — literally, Divine 
 Wisdom — the science of spiritual things; and that science is closely 
 associated in one of its aspects with the study of the essential 
 principles of religious belief. Theosophists have no preconceived 
 attachment to one presentation or form of religious belief rather 
 than to another. They are in pursuit of truth pure and simple^ 
 convinced that there must be a real state of the facts in regard 
 to such problems as the origin and destiny of the soul, as well 
 as in reference to the chemical affinities of the elements, or 
 the relations of heat and electricity. And they find that the 
 comparison of various religious beliefs will often enable them to 
 eliminate the superficial corruptions of each, so that the residual 
 doctrines, reduced to their lowest terms, their most abstract 
 expression, will then be found practically identical, even when 
 the first glance at their esoteric aspects seemed to reveal great 
 discrepancies. In this way the study of any great religion in 
 its esoteric aspect is a theosophical undertaking. But some 
 religions may be better adapted than others for such study ;. 
 and special opportunities may present themselves to special 
 groups of theosophical students which facilitate special lines of 
 inquiry. In this way I have found one religion in particular 
 especially instructive when examined in the spirit just described, 
 and that religion is Buddhism. 
 
 Ours has been an age of invention and discovery, and powers 
 latent in those regions of Nature that used to be called the 
 elements — ^in earth, air, fire, and water — have been called out of 
 their hiding-places and trained to apply their energies to the 
 daily service of man. They were all there long before we 
 suspected their existence. Water must always have been con- 
 verted into steam whenever it felt the influence of heat, long 
 
ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 517 
 
 before mechanicians had perceived that light wreaths of vapours 
 properly manipulated might drive machinery and ships. Every 
 girl in the middle ages whose hair crackled in dry weather when 
 she combed it, developed a certain ambunt of electricity, without 
 having the faintest idea that the sparkles of light she drew forth 
 could be made to travel thousands of miles in a second and carry 
 messages. Now, however, our eyes have been opened, and we see 
 a good deal more in the world than was seen by our ancestors. 
 We see, not merely the mechanism which is our own handiwork, 
 but laws of incomparable sublimity asserting themselves in the 
 inter-action of matter. We have grown used to working with 
 ideas that are altogether intangible, — with such ideas as the 
 conservation of energy, the principle of evolution, the molecular 
 constitution of matter. These conceptions are great beams of 
 light cast upon the immensity of Nature, by means of which 
 we may come to understand, to some extent, mysteries that are 
 being enacted within, around, and above us. 
 
 And surely the promise of such past achievement may 
 encourage us to expect the expansion of exact scientific know- 
 ledge into that still superior region of nature which has to 
 do with the phenomena of human consciousness. People wedded 
 to ecclesiastical systems are, it is true, generally opposed to 
 inquiries in this direction. The Church has always resisted the 
 growth of knowledge, from the days when it imprisoned Galileo 
 to these, in which it is powerless to do more than avert its gaze, 
 with an ofifended air, from the testimony of the rocks. Again, at 
 the other end of the scale, other persons have so violently resented 
 the superstitions and crimes of the churches that they have some- 
 how come to dislike the whole subject of the future life, and to 
 feel insulted if you talk to them about the soul. But, midway 
 between them, stand some observers of Nature who have become 
 aware of the fact — perhaps by personal contact with some 
 secluded phenomena — that it is possible to leam a good deal 
 more about the Soul and the laws of its evolution than popular 
 science has yet suspected. Such persons come to realise the 
 stupendous importance of the knowledge they find themselves 
 acquiring, and if they see the advantage of availing themselves not 
 merely of their own opportunities, whatever these may be, but of 
 the accumulated discoveries stored up, though guarded from rash 
 intruders, in the past, they become theosophists, whether calling 
 themselves by that name or by any other, and students perhaps, 
 among other subjects, of " Esoteric Buddhism." 
 
 There have been theosophists in the world for long ages before 
 that phrase was coined ; but they knew it was quite useless to 
 attempt the wide diffusion of their knowledge as long as ecclesi- 
 
518 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 astical authority reigned supreme, torturing and killing all who 
 were even a little in advance of their generation. So the true 
 philosophers of olden times wrote only, in obscure symbolical 
 or allegorical language, for the service of students abnormally 
 developed like themselves, and for that, perhaps, of this later 
 age, when we are in a position to unravel a good deal of their 
 writing, finding it in exact harmony with our own latest dis- 
 coveries in the psychic constitution of man. But now circum- 
 stances have changed. Modern adepts in theosophic wisdom show 
 a more confiding spirit than their predecessors. Hence the sudden 
 burst of infonnation as to what the ancient wisdom teaches, 
 which has been associated with the growth and development of 
 the Theosophical Society, and has coloured modem literature in 
 so remarkable a way that great numbers of people have become 
 familiar with its leading ideas without stopping to inquire from 
 what fountain they flow. 
 
 The science of theosophy, therefore — the highly practical science 
 of theosophy, as I have already called it — ^is that which seeks to 
 push our knowledge of Nature's laws on in advance of the finest 
 discoveries of modem civilization, keeping hand-in-hand with 
 these, but ever pressing onward into the region of consciousness 
 and super-material existence, guided by the light already in the 
 world ; — which has been in the world from the first beginnings of 
 that union between divinity and matter which constitutes the 
 sentient universe. The laws of divinity are the subject of the 
 research, and in the essential principles of religion we must follow 
 the suggestions of their working ; not in creeds compiled by 
 political priests, but in the fiindamental beliefs of humanity. The 
 soul of man is the phenomenon we have to investigate — the " first 
 matter " of the alchemist — and the newest experiments in psychic 
 sensibility may subserve the study. 
 
 Foremost among the conceptions to which the study thus 
 conducted will bring us may be placed the doctrine or principle 
 of re-incarnation, a law the discovery of which is as important to 
 the student of spiritual science as that of the correlation of forces 
 in the physical world. This doctrine has been caricatured by 
 ignorant or profane writers in former ages — or perhaps disguised 
 by those who knew better — in the shape in which it is commonly 
 spoken of as the Transmigration of Souls. To' this day non- 
 theosophic persons will be found who imagine it to imply, for 
 Oriental believers — the idea expressed by the latter phrase — 
 namely, the passage after death of human souls into animal 
 bodies. Nor am I asserting that 7V0 Easterns of the lower class 
 are so ignorant as to take it in this significatioa But the belief 
 of all cultivated Buddhists or Hindoos is identical with the 
 
ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 519 
 
 doctrine as understood by theosophists — namely, the doctrine of 
 the evolution of the human soul through a long series of human 
 lives. In re-incarnation we recognize the method adopted by 
 Nature for growing a human being, — for growing that which is 
 the human being as distinct from the organism of flesh and blood 
 through which it manifests on the plane of physical phenomena. 
 The life-history of a human being is Ttot supposed by theosophists 
 to consist of a miraculous commencement ex nihilo at birth, a 
 short run of physical existence for a handful of years, followed 
 by an unalterable eternity of personal consciousness in heaven. 
 The analogies of Nature are discerned by esoteric science to assert 
 themselves in the growth of a soul, in the growth of vegetable 
 organism, and in the growth of a solar system. The soul of a 
 Papuan savage is seen to be as true a human entity as the soul of 
 a Newton or a Shakespeare. But the laws of the evolutionary 
 process on which it is launched provide for its gradual acquisition 
 by an almost awfully protracted series of life experiences on the 
 physical plane, of the intellectual capacities manifest in the more 
 advanced types of humanity. From few of his earlier lives can 
 the slowly evolving soul or ego gather a great deal of knowledge 
 or experience ; from some it may scarcely gather any. But as 
 the dropping water in the limestone cavern gradually builds up 
 the basaltic column the successive life experiences of primitive 
 man gradually mould his psychic consciousness and capacity. 
 
 But the modem critic of re-incarnation, bewildered and in- 
 credulous, objects, " We never remember any of these former 
 lives." Of course we do not. If we did the system would fail 
 in its operation, and would find itself bereft of the qualifications 
 which render it endurable to the gradually evolving entity. For 
 each successive life of the physical series is separated from its 
 preceding and succeeding lives by intervals of spiritual conscious- 
 ness on a plane of nature wholly imperceptible to ordinary senses. 
 The personal consciousness of man is not annihilated by the death 
 of the body. It passes on into a condition of consciousness which 
 is vaguely foreshadowed by the conception of heaven entertained 
 by conventional theology. The similar conceptions of hell with 
 which those of heaven are balanced in popular religion have 
 realities behind them too ; but though it may be (fifficult to 
 enter the kingdom of heaven, it is happily impossible for the 
 purblind humanity of our epoch to acquire a lasting tenancy of 
 the supreme realm of spiritual evil. Ee-incamation itself provides 
 the punishment, or consequence appropriate to all commonplace 
 forms of evil-doing ; and the exquisitely scientific adjustment of 
 moral cause and effect in this respect will be apparent as we 
 go on. 
 
520 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 For in most lives, it will be seen on reflection, there are some 
 impulses of a spiritual character, however heavily loaded these 
 may be, as a rule, with earthly desires and with sinful sacrifices 
 on the altar of self. If there is nothing more in a life to associate 
 it with spiritual conditions than some affection for other human 
 beings, aoTne unselfish admiration for the beauty of Nature, some 
 passing aspiration in the direction of self-improvement, that would 
 be enough to colour a human consciousness with thoughts and 
 feelings capable of vibrating on the plane of spiritual existence. 
 And, forgetting the grovelling needs of the body, when these 
 should be no longer emphasized for him by the union of his con- 
 sciousness with a fleshly organism, the man released from the 
 physical plane by death, will find these higher thoughts and 
 emotions, be they few or many, feeble or intense, filling the area 
 of his new existence. There are, it is true, some intervening 
 phases of purification through which he must pass before the old 
 clinging to the habits of life — which beset the soul still when it 
 first leaves the earth-life — can be fully shaken ofi". And these 
 phases of purification are profoundly interesting to all serious 
 students of psychic phenomena. They have a great deal to do 
 with the explanation of such phenomena, and the passage of an 
 emancipated soul through these intervening states may be almost 
 immeasurably brief or exceedingly protracted. But that is a 
 branch of the subject which may be conveniently put aside while 
 we are first studying the general principles of re-incarnation, 
 associated as they are with the intervening periods of spiritual 
 oonsciousness. 
 
 The soul, launched after death on its metaphysical period of 
 consciousness, is existing in a condition of Nature in which there 
 is no room for the play of the lower passions and desires belong- 
 ing to the earth-life. The change that has taken place involves a 
 forgetfulness of these for the time being ; but it does not involve 
 a forgetfulness of any personal emotion of a suflSciently elevated 
 character to have free play on the conditions by which the soul- 
 ego is then surrounded. The soul in heaven is never troubled 
 with the thought of having died. It is simply filled with a 
 blissful consciousness of the full iruition of its higher emotions. 
 There may be human beings for whom even the fiill fruition of 
 the higher emotions, supposing these to have been meagre or rare 
 in earth-life, is but a colourless existence compared to others ; but 
 whatever there is of it, so to speak, is blissful in its character ; 
 while for others, in whom love has been a powerful factor of life, 
 or in whom the upward aspirations, which make piety so beautiful 
 an emotion, even when it is but little illuminated by an accurate 
 comprehension of spiritual science, have been persistent and 
 
ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 521 
 
 intense, will find the full fruition of their higher thoughts and 
 feelings a gloriously vivid and intense existence. They may have 
 done wrong, as most of us do, more or less, during life ; they may 
 have set in motion causes which must operate eventually to bring 
 about an eflFect of suffering ; but these causes may be only adapted 
 to find their expression on the earth plane of existence, and will 
 therefore await the next re-incarnation of the soul before they 
 are developed. The spiritual period — the " devachanic " period, to 
 give it the convenient Eastern name, which is passing into common 
 use with most modem theosophists — is a period of rest and refresh- 
 ment and enjoyment in the highest sense of the term. 
 
 And it will be seen that, just because its intensity and character 
 are due to the spiritual forces which have been set in activity 
 during the earth life of the ego, so also its duration depends upon 
 the energy expended in providing for it. The "person" in 
 question remains the same person that he was on earth as long as 
 the capacity for personal consciousness, that he has developed as 
 such, continues in operation. He can only be drawn back to the 
 earth life — to re-incarnation — when the force which has carried 
 him into the spiritual plane of Nature — into heaven — has ex- 
 hausted itself. And when we are talking of the exhaustion of a 
 great human love, for example, we are talking of a process which 
 necessarily takes a long time. There are people who, with 
 pardonable enthusiasm, imagine such a feeling must last "for 
 ever." But effects are proportionate to causes ; and though we 
 need not even dispute the position as an abstract possibility, — 
 that love may last for ever, — it is destined in that case to undergo 
 exaltations of character corresponding to the vast possibilities of 
 cosmic progress which Nature reserves for humanity. Without 
 going fully into these, we may recognize that in the majority of 
 cases the personal relationships of any given individual resolve 
 themselves into mysterious spiritual abstractions, no longer re- 
 quiring for their expression the persistence of the personal 
 consciousness out of which they may have taken their rise. And 
 when this change is complete, the soul-ego has forgotten its last 
 earth-life. It is ready for re-incarnation, and it re-incarnates 
 under the attraction of its latent affinities, as regards the physical 
 plane of existence, carried over, though completely divorced from 
 specific memories, — from the life it spent last on earth. 
 
 In this statement of the doctrine of re-incarnation, I have not 
 paused to set forth the considerations which may almost be re- 
 garded as proving it to be in accordance with the real course of 
 events. These proofs are elaborate and intricate, and claim the 
 application of acute metaphysical insight to the phenomena of 
 psychic experimentation. It is enough for the moment to say 
 
 34 
 
622 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 that the study of theosophy is one from which adequately qualified 
 inquirers rise with a conviction as to the reality of the evolution- 
 ary process before us, as complete as those which relate to the 
 inductions of physical science. 
 
 But the statement itself — from which in a brief treatise of this 
 nature the long processes of demonstration must be omitted — 
 would be incomplete as such if it were not fortified by an explana- 
 tion of the theosophic theory, or rather of the system of law on 
 which re-incarnation depends, — that, namely, which is known to 
 modem inquiry in connection with these subjects by the Oriental 
 term " karma." Like re-incarnation itself, karma is the subject 
 of gross misrepresentation by the esoteric students of Oriental 
 religions. Karma is often described as a Buddhist idea, according 
 to which one person dies and perishes outright, while later on 
 some other person is bom who becomes the unconscious heir of 
 the former person's " karma " or " doing." The notion so defined 
 is grotesque and ridiculous ; but as with so many caricatures there 
 is a truth behind it. To apprehend the true operation of the law 
 we must realize the difference between the two ideas most con- 
 veniently defined in English speech by the terms " personality " 
 and "individuality." By individuality we, mean the persistent 
 self-consciousness of a true soul-ego. That consciousness is some- 
 thing quite independent of any specific adventures which may 
 befall the individual during any limited period of its existence. 
 Take any commonplace illustration from the experience of daily 
 life. Five years ago let any one of us select, for example, in 
 imagination, some single, uneventful, unremarkable day that he 
 may have spent. During that day his consciousness may have 
 been pretty completely concentrated on the, trivial incidents of 
 the moment. The newspaper he read, the work he did, the meals 
 he ate, may have engaged his attention at the time, to the exclu- 
 sion of loftier thoughts and pursuits. For the purpose of our 
 hypothesis let us say they did. But underneath the consciousness 
 of these there lay a potentiality of other phases of consciousness. 
 Years revolve, and the man undergoes many serious changes of 
 character and surroundings. But the inner ego, the centre of 
 consciousness, the true individuality, is the same at the later period 
 as during the former day, which by the hypothesis he will com- 
 pletely have forgotten. For the purposes of this rough illustration 
 let us put aside possibilities concerning latent memory, though 
 they would strengthen rather than weaken the analogy if we went 
 into them fully. All I wish to enforce for the moment is that just 
 what the single forgotten day is to the whole life, our complete 
 physical life may be to the whole individuality. The one life is 
 " personality "—in its true etymological sense, ther mask,— which 
 
ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 523 
 
 the individuality, the real ego, puts on for the time being. And 
 it is the man himself and no "other," who is bom again, -when after 
 a period of devachanic rest, in the course of which he has worked 
 out and fully exhaled his last personality, he is invested by the 
 operation of karma with a new one. 
 
 Now karma is the law of cause and effect in the moral world, 
 as applied to life. It may be called, by rather a base degradation 
 of the idea, a system of rewards and punishments ; but a truly 
 philosophical view of Nature prefers to regard suffering as a conse- 
 quence of, rather than a punishment of, evildoing, and happiness 
 as a consequence in the other direction. Either way, in its opera- 
 tion on the processes of re-incarnation it constitutes the whole 
 mass of affinities which cause the birth of each re-incarnating indi- 
 vidual in such and such conditions of life, with such and such 
 parents, destinies, organism, and so forth. It provides the 
 apparently entangled web of opportunities, joys, and sorrows, 
 which the human being has earned or merited during his last 
 physical life, by all that other no less complicated entanglement 
 of his deeds, good and evil, which had reference to the earth-life. 
 In the blissful repose of the devachanic period he may have ex- 
 hausted some of his good karma, but natural law, which has been 
 in no hurry to punish him when he died, must, nevertheless, exact 
 its full due in the long run ; and when his consciousness returns 
 to the plane of its former physical misdeeds, it is in presence of 
 conditions but too well adapted to bear their harvest of suffering. 
 Not unjustly, therefore, may the earth-Ufe be described as the 
 vale of tears, but it is none the less the sphere of beneficent 
 causation, and from the midst of its tribulation, karma may be 
 engendered that may lead to immeasurably more exalted condi- 
 tions of consciousness and existence. 
 
 Or, to put the idea in more truly theosophic language, karma 
 may be exhausted by an adequately sustained effort, and then 
 re-incarnation itself may come to an end for the individual con- 
 cerned. This is the true meaning of that aspiration towards 
 non-existence on the physical plane which is a leading character- 
 istic of Buddhistic literature, and which many ill-informed critics 
 of Buddhism so absurdly misrepresent as equivalent to a craving 
 for annihilation. When bad karma ceases to load the individual, 
 it is no more drawn back into the physical earth-life ; but that, 
 spiritual condition which has been already described, as enjoyed for 
 limited periods by each human soul between its periods of physical 
 existence, becomes at once permanent for the enfranchised ego. 
 End correspondingly exalted in character. It is towards this result, 
 as the supreme achievement of his evolution, that the Buddhist 
 is taught to strive. 
 
524 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 In order that this hasty survey of the great esoteric doctrine may 
 afford all necessary aids to reflection concerning its wonderfully 
 comprehensive and harmonious character, it is necessary that I 
 should say a few words in conclusion on one all-important point. 
 
 The human ego, as manifested in the flesh, is, after all, the 
 expression of only one phase of its being. Concurrently with its 
 existence as an incarnate person, it is capable of an existence 
 and of ponsciousness — alternating with its waking consciousness 
 in the body — on higher planes of nature. The consciousness of 
 the lower or physical phase of its existence does not embrace the 
 higher or spiritual phase, but the higher does in a large degree 
 embrace the consciousness of the physical personality. It is, 
 therefore, — relatively to the more restricted personality, — the 
 real ego, the inner man, or the " higher self," as it has most 
 generally been described in recent theosophic writings. The 
 consideration of all the characteristics and inherent possibilities 
 connected with this higher self would claim very prolonged 
 treatment. The full comprehension of the laws which govern 
 its existence and progress, and of its capacity when func- 
 tioning in the higher regions of nature to which it properly 
 belongs, would, indeed, involve an amount of knowledge concern- 
 ing spiritual conditions which could not be expressed in lan- 
 guage, or condensed, so to speak, within a physical brain. But 
 at the same time some knowledge concerning the higher self is 
 essential to a correct appreciation of any problems connected 
 with re-incarnation, devachanic existence, or spiritual evolution. 
 
 And the clue to the real identity of the individual through all 
 the long series of physical lives, which from the point of view of 
 each in turn he thinks he has forgotten, is to be found in reflec- 
 tions on the nature of the higher self, and on the insufficiency of 
 the ordinary waking consciousness of a physical human being 
 to reflect the whole consciousness of the real spiritual being which 
 lies behind, within, or above the mask of personality. 
 
525 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF SECULAEISM. 
 
 BY Q. IF. FOOTE. 
 
 The old faiths ruin and rend, and the air is vocal with the 
 clamour of new systems, each protesting itself the Religion of 
 the . Future. Sweet sentimental Deism claims first attention, 
 because it retains what is thought to be the essence of old beliefs 
 after discarding their reality. Next comes Positivism, far nobler 
 and more vital, which manages to make itself well heard, having 
 a few strong and skilful pleaders, who never lose sight of their 
 creed whatever subject they happen to be treating. But Secularism, 
 which, in England at least, is numerically far more important 
 than Positivism, although gladly heard by thousands of common 
 people, is scarcely known at all in circles of highest education 
 where its principles are most powerfnlly operant. 
 
 Yet the word secular is entering more and more into our 
 general vocabulary, and in especial has become associated with 
 that view of national education which denies the propriety of 
 religious teaching in Board Schools. This use of the word points 
 to the principle on which Secularism is based. The interests of 
 this world and life are secular, and can be estimated and furthered 
 by our unaided intellects ; the interests of another life and world 
 can be dealt with only by appealing to Revelation. Secularism 
 proposes to cultivate the splendid provinces of Time, leaving the 
 theologians to care for the realms of Eternity, and meaning to 
 interfere with them only while their pursuit of salvation in 
 another life hinders the attainment of real welfare in this. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's conception of Secularism, derived of course 
 from its literature, may here be cited. After describing the 
 Sceptic, the Atheist, and the Agnostic he proceeds : — 
 
 " Then comes the Secularist. Him I understand to stop short 
 of the three former schools in that he does not of necessity assert 
 anything but the positive and exclusive claims of the purposes, 
 the enjoyments, and the needs presented to us in the world of 
 sight and experience. He does not require in principle even the 
 universal suspense of Scepticism ; but, putting the two worlds 
 into two scales of value, he finds that the one weighs much, the 
 other either nothing or nothing that can be appreciated. At the 
 
526 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 utmost he is like a chemist, who, in a testing analysis, after 
 putting into percentage all that he can measure, if he finds some- 
 thing behind so minute as to refuse any quantitative estimate, 
 calls it by the name of ' trace.' " ' 
 
 This account of Secularism is on the whole very fair, but 
 evidently it requires much amplification before it can be perfectly 
 understood by those who have not, like Mr. Gladstone, read secular 
 literature for themselves. 
 
 Were I obliged to give an approximate definition of Secularism 
 in one sentence, I should say that it is naturalism in morals as 
 distinguished from supernaturalism ; meaning by this that the 
 criterion of morality is derivable from reason and experience, and 
 that its ground and guarantee exist in human nature independently 
 of any theological belief. Mr. G. J. Holyoake, whose name is 
 inseparably associated with Secularism, says : " Secularism relates 
 to the present existence of man and to actions the issue of which 
 can be tested by the experience of life." And again : " Secularism 
 means the moral duty of man deduced from considerations which 
 pertain to this life alone. Secularism purposes to regulate 
 human affairs by considerations purely human." The second of 
 these quotations is clearly more comprehensive than the first, 
 and is certainly a better expression of the view entertained by 
 the vast majority of Secularists. It dismisses theology from all 
 control over the practical affairs of this life, and banishes it to 
 the region of speculation. The commonest intelligence may see 
 that this doctrine, however innocent it looks on paper, is in 
 essence and practice revolutionary. It makes a clean sweep of 
 all that theologians regard as most significant and precious. 
 Dr. Newman in his Grammar of Assent, writes : " By Religion 
 I mean the knowledge of God, of His will, of our duties 
 towards Him ; " and he adds that the channels which nature 
 furnishes for our acquiring this knowledge, " teach us the Being 
 and Attributes of God, our responsibility to Him, our dependence 
 upon Him, our prospect of reward or punishment, to be somehow 
 brought about, according as we obey or disobey Him." A better 
 definition of what is generally deemed religion could not be 
 found, and such religion as this Secularism will have no concern 
 with. From their point of view orthodox teaphers are justified 
 in calling it irreligious ; but those Secularists who agree with 
 Carlyle that whoever believes in the infinite nature of Duty has 
 a religion, repudiate the epithet irreligious just as they repudiate 
 the epithet infidel, for the popular connotation of both includes 
 something utterly inapplicable to Secularism as they understand 
 
 ■ Contemporary Review, Jvine 1876. 
 
!rsi; Gtosl-liL OF stectrLARisM. 62? 
 
 it. Properly speaking, they assert, Secularism is not irreligious, 
 but untheological ; yet, as it entirely excludes from the sphere 
 of human duty what most people regard as religion, it must 
 explain and justify itself. 
 
 Secularism rejects theology as a guide and authority in the 
 affairs of this life, because its pretensions are not warranted by 
 its evidence. Natural Theology, to use a common but half para- 
 doxical phrase, never has been nor can be aught but a body of 
 speculation, admirable enough in its way, perhaps, but quite 
 irreducible to the level of experience. Indeed; one's strongest 
 impression in reading treatises on that branch of metaphysics is, 
 that they are not so much proofs as excuses of faith, and would 
 never have been written if the ideas sought to be verified had not 
 already been enounced in Revelation. As for Revenled Religion, 
 it is based upon miracles, and these to the scientific mind are 
 altogether inadmissible, being trebly discredited. In the first 
 place, they are at variance with the general fact of order in 
 nature, the largest vessel or conception into which all our ex- 
 periences flow ; adverse to the law of Universal Causation which 
 underlies all scientific theories, and guides all scientific research. 
 Next, the natural history of miracles shows us how they arise, 
 and makes us view them as phenomena of superstition, manifesting 
 a certain coherence and order because the human imagination 
 which gave birth to them is subject to laws, however baffling and 
 subtle. All miracles had their origin from one and the same 
 natural source. The belief in their occurrence invariably charac- 
 terizes certain stages of mental development, and gradually fades 
 away as these are left farther and farther behind. They are not 
 historical but psychological phenomena, not actual but merely 
 mental, not proofs but results of faith. The miracles of Chris- 
 tianity are no exception to this rule ; they stand in the same 
 category as all others. As Mr. Arnold aptly observes : " The 
 time has come when the minds of men no longer put as a matter 
 of course the Bible miracles in a class by themselves. Now, 
 from the moment this time commences, from the moment that 
 the comparative history of all miracles is a conception entertained, 
 and a study admitted, the conclusion is certain, the reign of the 
 Bible miracles is doomed." Lastly, miracles are discredited for 
 the reason insisted on by Mr. Greg, namely, that if we admit 
 thenl, they prove nothing but the fact of their occurrence. If 
 God is our Author, He has endowed us with reason, and to the bar 
 of that reason the utterances of the most astounding miracle- 
 workers must ultimately come ; if condemned there, the miracles 
 will afford them no aid ; if approved there, the miracles will be 
 to them useless. 
 
528 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Miracles, then, are fatally discredited in every way. Yet upon 
 them all Revelations are founded, and even Christianity, as Dr. 
 Newman urged against the orators of the Tamworth Reading 
 Room, " is a history supernatural, and almost scenic." Thus, if 
 Natural Theology is merely speculative, and irreducible to the 
 level of experience, Revealed Religion, though more substantial, is 
 erected upon a basis which modern science and criticism have 
 hopelessly undermined. 
 
 Now, if we relinquish belief in miracles, we cannot retain belief 
 in Special Providence, and the Efficacy of Prayer, for these are 
 simply aspects of the miraculous. Good-natured Adolf Naumann, 
 the young German artist in Middlemarck, was not inaccurate, 
 though facetious, in assuring Will Ladislaw that through him, 
 as through a particular hook or claw, the universe was straining 
 towards a certain picture yet to be painted ; for every present 
 phenomenon, whether trivial or important, occurs here and now, 
 rather than elsewhere and at some other time, by virtue of the 
 whole universal past. All the forces of nature have conspired to 
 place where it is the smallest grain of sand on the seashore, just 
 as much as their interplay has strewed the eether-floated con- 
 stellations of illimitable space. The slightest interference with 
 natural sequence implies a disruption of the whole economy of 
 things. Who suspends one law of nature suspends them all. 
 The pious supplicator for just a little rain in time of drought 
 really asks for a worldwide revolution in meteorology. And the 
 dullest intellects, even of the clerical order, are beginning to see 
 this. As a consequence, prayers for rain in fine weather, or for 
 fine weather in time of rain, have fallen almost entirely into disuse ; 
 and the most orthodox can now enjoy that joke about the clerk 
 who asked his rector what was the good of praying for rain with 
 the wind in that quarter I Nay, more, so far has the belief in the 
 efficacy of prayer died out, that misguided simpletons, who persist 
 in conforming to apostolic injunction and practice, and in taking 
 very explicit passages in the gospels to mean what the words 
 express, are regarded as Peculiar People in the fullest sense of 
 the term ; and if through their primitive pathology children 
 should die under their hands, they run a serious risk of imprison- 
 ment for manslaughter, notwithstanding that the book which has 
 misled them is declared to be God's Word by the law of the land. 
 Occasionally, indeed, old habits assert themselves, and the nation 
 suffers a recrudescence of superstition. When the life of the 
 Prince of Wales was threatened by a malignant fever, prayers for 
 his recovery were publicly offered up, and the wildest religions 
 excitement mingled with the most loyal anxiety. Bat the 
 newspapers were largely responsible for this ; they fanned the 
 
THE GOSPEL OF SECULARISM. 529 
 
 excitement daily, until many people grew almost as feverish as 
 the Prince himself, and " irreligious " persons who preserved 
 their sanity intact smiled when they read in the most unblush- 
 ingly mendacious of those papers exclamations of piety, and 
 saintly allusions to the great national wave of prayer surging 
 against the Throne of Grace. The Prince's life was spared, 
 thanks to a good constitution and the highest medical skill, and 
 a national thanksgiving was offered up in St. Paul's. Yet the 
 doctors were not forgotten ; the chief of them was made a kniglit, 
 and the nation demanded a rectification of the drainage in the 
 Prince's palace, probably thinking that although prayer had been 
 found efficacious, there might be danger in tempting Providence 
 a second time. 
 
 Soon after that interesting event Mr. Spurgeon modestly 
 observed that the philosophers were noisy enough in peaceful 
 times, but shrank into their holes like mice when imminent 
 calamity threatened the nation ; which may be true without 
 derogation to the philosophers who, like wise men, do not bawl 
 against popular madness, but reserve their admonitions until the 
 heated multitude is caJm and repentant. Professor Tyndall has 
 invited the religious world to test the alleged efficacy of prayer 
 by practical experiment, such as allotting a ward in some hospital 
 to be specially prayed for, and inquiring whether more cures are 
 recorded in it than elsewhere. But this invitation has not been 
 and never will be accepted. Superstitions always dislike contact 
 with science and fact ; they prefer to float about in the vague of 
 sentiment, where pursuit is hopeless, and no obstacles impede. 
 If there is any efficacy in prayer, how can we account for the 
 disastrous and repeated failure of righteous causes, and the 
 triumph of bad ? The thoughtful poor have sought appease- 
 ment of their terrible hunger, for some nobler life than is possible 
 while poverty deadens every fine impulse, and frustrates every 
 unselfish thought, but whenever did prayer bring them aid ? The 
 miserable have cried for comfort, sufferers for some mitigation of 
 their pain, captives for deliverance, the oppressed for freedom, 
 and those who have fought the great fight of good against ill, for 
 some ray of hope to lighten despair ; but what answer has been 
 vouchsafed ? 
 
 The dying words of Tennyson's Arthur — " More things are 
 wrought by prayer than this world dreams of" — are a weak 
 solace to those who recognize its futility, and find life too stern 
 for optimistic dreams. Salvation, in this life at least, cometh 
 not by prayer, but by valiant effort under the guidance of wisdom, 
 and the inspiration of love. Knowledge alone is power. Ignorant 
 of nature's laws, we are broken to pieces and ground to dust; 
 
530 RELIGIOUS sySTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 kuowiDg them we ■win an empire of enduring civilization within 
 her borders. Recognizing the universal reign of law, and the 
 vanity of supplicating its reversal, and finding no special law 
 in the statutes of the universe for man's behoof. Secularism 
 dismisses as merely superstitious the idea of an arbitrary special 
 providence, and affirms Science to be the only available Provi- 
 dence of man. 
 
 Thus theological conceptions obtruded upon the sphere of 
 secular interests are one by one expelled. We now come to the 
 last, and, as the majority of people think, the most serious and 
 important — namely, the doctrine of a Future Life and of Future 
 Heward and Punishment. Mr. Gladstone says that, putting this 
 world and the next into two scales of value, the Secularist finds 
 that the one weighs much, the other either nothing, or nothing 
 that can be appreciated. This is very near the truth. Secularism, 
 as such, neither affirms nor denies a future life ; it simply 
 professes no knowledge of such a state, no information respecting 
 it which might serve as a guide in the affairs of this life. The 
 first question to be asked concerning the alleged life beyond the 
 grave is. Do we Imow aught about it ? If there were indisputably 
 a future life in store for us all, and that life immortal, and if we 
 could obtain precise information of its actualities and require- 
 ments, then indeed the transcendence of eternal over temporal 
 interests would impel us to live here with a view to the great 
 Hereafter. But have we any knowledge of this future life? 
 Mere conjectures will not suffice ; they may be true, but more 
 probably false, and we cannot sacrifice the certain to the uncertain, 
 or forego the smallest present happiness for the sake of an 
 imagined future compensation. Have we any knowledge of a life 
 beyond the grave ? The Secularist answers, decisively, No. 
 
 Whatever the progress of science or philosophy may hereafter 
 reveal, at present we know nothing of personal immortality. 
 The mysteiy of Death, if such there be, is yet unveiled, and 
 inviolate still are the secrets of the grave. Science knows 
 nothing of another life than this; when we are dead she sees but 
 decomposing matter, and while we live she regards ns but as the 
 highest order of animal life, differentiated from other orders by 
 clearly defined characteristics, but separated from them by no 
 infinite impassable chasm. Neither can Philosophy enlighten 
 us. She reveals to us the laws of what we call mind, but cannot 
 acquaint us with any second entity called soul. Even if we 
 accept Schopenhauer's theory of will, and regard man as a 
 conscious manifestation of the one supreme force, we are no 
 nearer to personal immortality ; for, if our soul emerged at birth 
 from the unconscious infinite, it will probably immerge therein 
 
THE GOSPEL OP SECULARISM. 531 
 
 at death, just as a wave rises and flashes foam-crested in the 
 sun, and plunges back into the ocean for ever. Indeed, the 
 doctrine of man's natural immortality is so incapable of proof 
 that many eminent Christians even are abandoning it in favour 
 of the doctrine that everlasting life is a gift specially conferred 
 by God upon the faithful elect. Their appeal is to Revelation, 
 by which they mean the New Testament, all other scriptures 
 being to them gross impositions. But can Revelation satisfy the 
 critical modern spirits ? When we interrogate her discord deafens 
 us. Every religion — nay, every sect of religion — draws from 
 Revelation its own peculiar answer, and accepts it as infallibly 
 true, although widely at variance with others derived from the 
 same source. These answers cannot all be true, and their very 
 discord discredits each. The voice of God should give forth no such 
 uncertain tidings. If He had indeed spoken, the universe would 
 surely be convinced, and the same conviction fill every breast. 
 Even, however, if Revelation proclaimed but one message con- 
 cerning the future, and that message were similarly interpreted by 
 all religions, we could not admit it as quite trustworthy, although 
 we might regard it as a vague foreshadowing of truth. For 
 Revelation, unless every genius be considered an instrument 
 through which eternal music is conveyed, must ultimately rely 
 on miracles, and these the modern spirit has derisively rejected. 
 Thus, then, it appears that neither Science, Philosophy, nor 
 Revelation, affords us any knowledge of a future life ; yet, in 
 order to guide our present life with a view to the future, such 
 knowledge is indispensable. In the absence of it we must live 
 in the light of the present, basing our conduct on Secular 
 reason, and working for Secular ends. How far this is compatible 
 with elevated morality and noble idealism we shall presently 
 inquire and decide. Intellectually, Secularism is at one with the 
 most advanced thought of our age, and no immutable dogmas 
 preclude it from accepting and incorporating any new truth. 
 Science being the only providence it recognizes, it is ever 
 desirous to see and to welcome fresh developments thereof, 
 assured that new knowledge must harmonize with the old, 
 and deepen and broaden the civilization of our race. 
 
 In morals Secularism is utilitarian. In this world only two 
 ethical methods are possible. Either we must take some 
 supposed revelation of God's will as the measure of our duties, 
 or we must determine our actions with a view to the general 
 good. The former course may be very pious, but it is assuredly 
 unphilosophical. As Feuerbach insists, to derive morality from 
 God "is nothing more than to withdraw it from the test of 
 reason, to institute it as indubitable, unassailable, sacred, without 
 
532 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 rendering an account why." Stout old Chapman's protest 
 against confounding the inherent nature of good is also 
 memorable: — 
 
 " Should heaven turn hell 
 For deeds well done, I would do ever well." 
 
 Secularism adopts the latter course. Were it necessary, a 
 defence of utilitarian morality against theological abuse might 
 here be made ; but an ethical syetem which can boast so many 
 noble and illustrious adherents may well be excused from 
 vindicating its right to recognition and respect. Nevertheless, 
 it may be observed that, however fervid are theoretical objections 
 to utilitarianism, its criterion of morality is the only one 
 admitted in practice. Our jurisprudence is not required to 
 justify itself before any theological bar, nor to show its con- 
 formity with the maxims uttered by Jesus and his disciples ; 
 and he would be thought a strange legislator who should insist 
 on testing the value of a Parliamentary Bill by appealing to the 
 New Testament. Secularism holds that whatever actions conduce 
 to the general good are right, and that whatever have an 
 opposite tendency are wrong. Manifold objections are urged 
 against this simple rule on the ground of its impracticability ; 
 but as all of them apply with equal force to every conceivable 
 rule, they may be peremptorily dismissed. The imperfections 
 of human nature must affect the practicability of any moral law, 
 however conceived or expressed. Christians who wrote before 
 Secularism had to be combated, never thought of maintaining 
 that reason and experience are ineflScient guides, although they 
 did sometimes impugn the efficacy of natural motives to good. 
 So thoughtful and cautious a preacher as Barrow, whom Mr. 
 Arnold accounts the best moral divine of our English Church, 
 says that " wisdom is, in effect, the genuine parent of all 
 moral and political virtue, justice, and honesty." But some 
 theologically-minded persons, whose appearance betrays no 
 remarkable signs of asceticism, wax eloquent in reprobar 
 tion of happiness as a sanction of morality at all. Duty, 
 say they, is what all should strive after. Good; but the 
 Secularist conceives it his duty to promote the general welfare. 
 Happiness is not a degrading thing, but a source of elevation. 
 We have all enjoyed the wonderful catechism of Pig-Philosophy 
 in Latter-day Pamphlets. What a scathing satire on the 
 wretched Jesuitism abounding within and without the churches, 
 and bearing such malign and malodorous fruit ! But it is not 
 the necessary antithesis to the Eeligion of Sorrow. It is the 
 mongrel makeshift of those " whose gospel is their maw," whose 
 
THE GOSPEL OF SECULAEISM. 533 
 
 swinishness makes them contemplate nature as a universal swine's- 
 trough, with plenty of pig'swash for those who can thrust their 
 fellows aside and get their paw in it. The Eeligion of Gladness 
 is a different thing from this. Let us hear its great prophet 
 Spinoza, one of the purest and noblest of modern minds : 
 " Joy is the passage from a less to a greater perfection ; 
 sorrow is the passage from a greater to a less perfection." No, 
 suffering only tries, it does not nourish us ; it proves our capacity, 
 but does not produce it. What, after all, is happiness? It 
 consists in the fullest healthy exercise of all our faculties, and 
 is as various as they. Far from ignoble, it implies the highest 
 normal development of our nature, the dream of Utopists from 
 Plato downwards. And therefore, in affirming happiness to be 
 the great purpose of social life. Secularism makes its moral law 
 coincident with the law of man's progress towards attainable 
 perfection. 
 
 Motives to righteousness Secularism finds in human nature. 
 Since the evolution of morality has been traced by scientific 
 thinkers, the idea of our moral sense having had a supernatural 
 origin has vanished into the limbo of superstitions. Our social 
 sympathies are a natural growth, and may be indefinitely de- 
 veloped in the future by the same means which have developed 
 them in the past. Morality and theology are essentially distinct. 
 The ground and guarantee of morality are independent of any 
 theological belief. When we are in earnest aboxtt-.thji right we 
 need no incitement from above. Morality has its natural ground 
 in experience and reason, in the common nature and common 
 wants of mankind. Wherever sentient beings live together in a 
 social state, simple or complex, laws of morality must arise, for 
 they are simply the permanent conditions of social health ; and 
 even if men entertained no belief in any supernatural power, they 
 would still recognize and submit to the laws upon which societary 
 welfare depends. " Even — " says Dr. Martineau — " though we 
 came out of nothing, and returned to nothing, we should be subject 
 to the claim of righteousness so long as we are what we are : 
 morals have their own base and are second to nothing." Emerson, 
 a religious transcendentalist, also admits that " truth, frankness, 
 courage, love, humility, and all the virtiles range themselves on 
 the side of prudence, on the art of securing a present well-being." 
 The love professed by piety to God is the same feeling, though 
 differently directed, which prompts the commonest generosities 
 and succours of daily life. All moral appeals must ultimately be 
 made to our human sympathies. Theological appeals are essen- 
 tially not moral, but immoral. The hope of heaven and the fear 
 of hell are motives purely personal and selfish. Their tendency 
 
534 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 is rather to make men worse than better. They may secure a 
 grudging compliance with prescribed rules, but they must depress 
 character instead of elevating it. They tend to concentrate a 
 man's whole attention on himself, and thus to develop and 
 intensify his selfish propensities. No man, as Dr. Martineau 
 many years ago observed, can faithfully follow his highest moral 
 conceptions who is continually casting side -glances at the 
 prospects of his own soul. Secularism appeals to no lust after 
 posthumous rewards or dread of posthumous terrors, but to that 
 fraternal feeling which is the vital essence of all true religion, 
 and has prompted heroic self-sacrifice in all ages and climes. It 
 removes moral causation from the next world to this. It teaches 
 tiiat the harvest of our sowing will be reaped here, and to the 
 last grain eaten, by ourselves or others. Every act of our lives 
 affects the whole subsequent history of our race. Our mental 
 and moral like our bodily lungs have their appropriate atmospheres, 
 of which every thought, word, and act, becomes a constituent 
 atom. Incessantly around us goes on the conflict of good and 
 evil, which a word, a gesture, a look of ours changes. And we 
 cannot tell how great may be the influence of the least of these, 
 for in nature all things hang together, and the greatest efl'ects 
 may flow from causes seemingly slight and inconsiderable. 
 When we thoroughly lay this to heart, and reflect that no 
 contrition or remorse can undo the past or efface the slightest 
 record from the everlasting Book of Fate, we shall be more 
 strongly restrained from evil and impelled to good than we 
 could be by supernatural promises or threats. The promises 
 may be mistrusted, the threats nullified by a late repentance; 
 but the natural issues of conduct are inevitable, and must be 
 faced. Whatever the future may hold in store. Secularism bids 
 us be true to ourselves and our opportunities now. It does not 
 undertake to determine the vexed question of God's existence, 
 which it leaves each to decide for himself according to what light 
 he has ; nor does it dogmatically deny the possibility of a future 
 life. But it insists on utilizing to the highest the possibilities 
 that lie before us, and realizing as far as maj' be by practical 
 agencies that Earthly Paradise which would now be less remote 
 if one tithe of the time, the energy, the ability, the enthusiasm, 
 and the wealth devoted to making men fit candidates for another 
 life had been devoted to making them fit citizens of this. If 
 there be a future life this must be the best preparation for it ; 
 and if not, the consciousness of humane work achieved and duty 
 done, will tint with rainbow and orient colours the mists of death 
 more surely than expected glories from the vague and mystic 
 land of dreams. 
 
THE GOSPEL OF SECULARISM. 535 
 
 There are those who cannot believe in any effective morality, 
 muck less any devotion to disinterested aims, without the positive 
 certainty of immortal life. Under a pretence of piety they cloak 
 the most grovelling estimate of human nature, which, with all 
 its faults, is infinitely better than their conception of it. Even 
 their love and reverence of God would seem foolishness unless 
 they were assured of living for ever. Withdraw posthumous 
 hopes and fears, say they ; and " let us eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow we die," would be the sanest philosophy. In his grave 
 way Spinoza satirizes this " vulgar opinion " which enjoins a 
 regulation of life according to the passions of those who have 
 " persuaded themselves that the souls perish with the bodies, 
 and that there is not a second life for the miserable who hate 
 borne the crushing weight of piety^ " A conduct," he adds, 
 " as absurd, in my opinion, as that of a man who should fill 
 his body with poisons and deadly food for the fine reason that 
 he had no hope to enjoy wholesome nourishment for all eternity ; 
 or who, seeing that the soul is not eternal or immortal, should 
 renounce his reason, and wish to become insane : things so 
 preposterous that they are scarcely worth mention." 
 
 Others, again, deny that a philosophy which ignores the Infinite 
 can have any grand ideal capable of lifting us above the petty 
 tumults and sordid passions of life. But surely the idea of 
 service to the great Humanity, whose past and future are to us 
 practically infinite, is a conception vast enough for our finite 
 minds. The instincts of Love, Reverence, and Service, may be 
 fully exercised and satisfied by devotion to a purely human ideal, 
 without resort to unverifiable dogmas and inscrutable mysteries. 
 And Secularism, which bids us think and act so that the great 
 Human Family may profit by our lives; which exhorts us to labour 
 for human progress and elevation here on earth, where effort may 
 be effective and sacrifices must be real ; is more profoundly noble 
 than any supernatural creed, and holds the promise of a wider 
 and loftier beneficence. 
 
 Secularism is often said to be atheistic. It is, however, neither 
 atheistic nor theistic. It ignores the problem of God's existence, 
 which seems insoluble to finite intellects, and confines itself to 
 the practical world of experience, without commending or for- 
 bidding speculation on matters that transcend it. Unquestionably 
 many Secularists are Atheists, but others are Theists, and this 
 shows the compatibility of Secularism, with either a positive 
 or a negative attitude towards the hypothesis of a supreme 
 universal intelligence. There is no atheistic declaration in 
 the principles of any existing secular society, although all 
 are unanimous in opposing theology — which is at best an 
 
53G RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 elaborate conjecture, and at the worst an elaborate and pernicious 
 imposture. 
 
 Educated humanity has now arrived at the positive stage of 
 culture. Imagination, it is true, will ever hold its legitimate 
 province ; but it is the kindling and not the guiding element in 
 our nature. When exercising its proper influence it invests all 
 things with " a light that never was on sea or land ; " it trans- 
 forms lust into love, it creates the ideal, it nurtures enthusiasm, 
 it produces heroism, it suggests all the glories of art, and even 
 leuds wings to the intellect of the scientist. But when it is 
 substituted for knowledge, when it aims at becoming the leader 
 instead of the kindler, it becomes a Phaethon who drives to 
 disaster and ruin. It is degrading, or at any rate perilous, 
 to be the dupe of fancy, however beautiful or magnificent. 
 Reason should always hold sovereign sway in our minds, and 
 reason tells us that we live in a universe of cause and effect, 
 where ends must be accomplished by means, and where man 
 himself is largely fashioned by circumstances. Reason tells us 
 that our faculties are limited, and that our knowledge is relative ; 
 it enjoins us to believe what is ascertained, to give assent to no 
 proposition of whose truth we are not assured, and to walk in the 
 light of facts. This may seem a humble philosophy, but it is 
 sound, and not uncheerfnl, and it stands the wear and tear of 
 life when prouder philosophies are often reduced to rags and 
 tatters. Nor is it just to call this philosophy " negative." Every 
 system, indeed, is negative to every other system which it in any 
 wise contradicts ; but in what other sense can a system be called 
 negative which leaves men all science to study, all art to pursue 
 and enjoy, and all humanity to love and serve? It declines to 
 traffic in supernatural hopes and fears, but it preserves all the 
 sacred things of civilization, and gives a deeper meaning to such 
 words as husband and wife, father and mother, brother and sister, 
 lover and friend. 
 
 Incidentally, however. Secularism has what some will always 
 persist in regarding as negative. It finds noxious superstitions 
 impeding its path, and must oppose them. It cannot ignore 
 orthodoxy, although it would be glad to do so, for the dogmas 
 and pretensions of the popular creed hinder its progress and 
 thwart secular improvement at every step. Favoured, and 
 privileged, and largely supported by the State, they usurp a 
 fictitious dignity over less popular ideas. They thrust themselves 
 into education, insist on teaching supernaturalism with the 
 multiplication table, dose the scholars with Jewisn mythology 
 as though it were actual history, and assist their moral develop- 
 ment with pictures of Daniel in the lions' den, and Jesus walking 
 
THE GOSPEL OF SECTJLAEISM. 537 
 
 on the sea. They employ vast wealth in preparing for another 
 world which might be more profitably employed in bettering this. 
 They prevent us from spending our Sunday rationally, refusing us 
 any alternative but the church or the public-house. They deprive 
 honest sceptics, as far as possible, of the common rights of citizen- 
 ship. They retard a host of reforms, and still do their utmost 
 to suppress or curtail freedom of thought and speech. While 
 all this continues. Secularism must actively oppose the popular 
 creed. Nor is it just on the pait of the Christians to stigmatize 
 this aggressive attitude. They forget that their faith was vigor- 
 ously aud persistently aggressive against Paganism. Secularism 
 may surely imitate that example, although it neither intends nor 
 desires to demolish the temples of Christianity, as the early 
 Christians, headed by their bishops, destroyed the temples of 
 Paganism, and desecrated its shrines. 
 
 Properly speaking, Secularism is doing a positive, not a 
 negative, work in destroying superstition. Every error removed 
 makes room for truth ; and if superstition is a kind of mental 
 disease, he who expels it is a mental physician. His work is no 
 more negative than the doctor's who combats a bodily malady, 
 drives it out of the system, and leaves his patient in the full 
 possession of health. 
 
 Secularism, like all new systems, appealing to the dissatisfied 
 rather than the contented, its stannchest adherents are found 
 among the elite of the working classes. Inquire closely into the 
 personnel of advanced movements, and you will find Secularists 
 there out of all proportion to their numerical strength. They 
 are obliged to work in this individual manner, for the bigotry 
 against Secularism is still so strong that few dare to recognize 
 its organizations. They have always assisted the cause of 
 National Education, and now it is carried they are getting their 
 members on School Boards, and doing their utmost to improve 
 the quality of the instruction given to children, as well as to 
 preserve them from the nefarious influence of the priests. They 
 promote Sunday freedom, they are advocates of international 
 peace, they are sturdy friends of justice, they are firm supporters 
 of the emancipation of women, they are lovers of mental and 
 personal liberty, and they are actively on the side of every 
 political and social reform. "Where Christians may be they are 
 sure to be ; not because they necessarily have better hearts than 
 their orthodox neighbours, but because their principles impel 
 them to fight for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, irrespective 
 of nationality, race, sex, or creed ; and prompt them to exclaim 
 in the sublime language of Thomas Paine : " The world is my 
 country, and to do good is my religion." 
 
 35 
 
538 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT DEFINED. 
 
 BY DR. STANTON COIT. 
 
 The aims and principles of the Ethical Movement are so very 
 simple that anyone, although with no philosophical education, may 
 both understand and sit in judgment upon them. I need not 
 speak in parables, or use symboUc language ; but there is need 
 of explanation. People are so accustomed, when religion is 
 spoken of, to look for mystical and transcendental ideas, 
 which are remote from men's common every-day thoughts, that 
 when the whole nature of the Ethical Movement has been 
 explained, they still look for something further. Its very sim- 
 plicity makes them fail to understand it, or, if they understand, 
 they fail to appreciate it. " Is that all ? " they are apt to exclaim. 
 But we count it no defect in our Ethical Movement that it is 
 thus simple and close to the working thoughts of every-day 
 life. This simplicity is one reason for the hope that it will some 
 day reorganize the spiritual life of civilized nations. Let me now 
 set forth our main doctrines. 
 
 The first of these is, that the bond of religious union should be 
 solely devotion to the good in the world. By " the good " is meant 
 simply a certain quality of human character and conduct: the 
 quality which we have in mind when we say that a judge is good 
 because he is impartial ; that a father is good because he looks 
 out for the lasting welfare of his children ; that a brother is good, 
 because he causes his sister no pain if he can help it; that a 
 citizen is good because he is willing to sacrifice personal gain to 
 the prosperity of the whole people. The desire to spread more 
 and more this quality of conduct and character, and to root out 
 badness from human life is, we affirm, the true bond of religious 
 union among men. Nothing could be clearer and more definite 
 than this doctrine ; we aim to preach it everywhere. We believe 
 that by declaring devotion to the good in the world to be the bond, 
 and the whole bond, of religious union we shall ultimately induce 
 men to remove all other qualifications for membership in churches • 
 and that, immediately, men who are now outside of all religious 
 fellowship, or who chafe under the dogmatic restraint of the Church, 
 
THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT DEFINED. 539 
 
 will form themselves into societies for the spread of goodness, and 
 that such fellowships will be the means of thorough and permanent 
 social reforms in politics, in education, and in family and 
 industrial life. This idea of forming societies in devotion to good 
 character and right conduct we believe stands equal in dignity and 
 power with Christ's conception of a kingdom of God on earth, and 
 that it comes to-day with all the freshness and vigour of a new 
 social revelation, for which, however, the ages of Christian develop- 
 ment have been preparing men's hearts and intellects. Not only 
 is the idea clear and definite in itself, but when embodied in a 
 society we have a social institution distinct from every other 
 now existing. An Ethical Society, a fellowship solely in devotion 
 to the good in the world, is wholly distinct from every Christian 
 Church, whether Orthodox or Unitarian ; for the Church, besides 
 devotion to the spread of goodness in the world, demands allegiance 
 to a personal Creator of the Universe. An Ethical Society, there- 
 fore, differs from every Christian Church in that its basis in the 
 first place is clearer and simpler, is capable of being understood by 
 the most ignorant man of ordinary intelligence, because all men 
 know at least sufficiently well for practical judgment what good- 
 ness in human character is. But the idea of a personal Creator of 
 the Universe has baffled the speculative efforts of the best dis- 
 ciplined and philosophic minds. In simpUcity, therefore, an 
 Ethical Society may claim precedence over any Christian Church, 
 and from this it follows that an Ethical Society is in its very 
 nature more suited to men of average intelligence and of busy life. 
 But it also differs from Christian Churches in being broader in its 
 fellowship. It excludes no one because of scepticism as to the 
 existence and personality of God or the divinity of Christ. But, 
 on the other hand, let it be distinctly known that we are not, as a 
 society. Agnostic. We do not deny the possibility of knowing 
 the existence of God. We do not request or exact that a man 
 shall first give up his belief in a personal God and immortality 
 before he shall become a member of our societies. We simply ask , 
 that he have a direct desire to plant good conduct and root out 
 evil. As a society we are not pledged to any theory as to the 
 origin of the Universe, or of conscience itself, nor to any theory as 
 to the limits of human knowledge. We are not an Agnostic 
 Society ; we have no theory at all, as a society, concerning the 
 limits of knowledge, therefore the charge which has been made 
 against us that we are Agnostic is due to a misunderstanding. 
 
 When, on the other hand, it is brought as an objection against 
 us that we have no theory which accounts for the moral enthusiasm 
 which we possess and manifest, we point out the following 
 distinction : as a society we have no such theory, but each 
 
540 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 individual member may entertain whatever theory addresses itself 
 to his reason as true. One may be a Theist, another a Materialist, 
 another an Atheist. We simply maintain that no one shall make 
 his theory a barrier between himself and his fellow-men. And 
 yet let no one infer from our emphasis of goodness in human 
 conduct that we set it up in the place of Grod as an object to 
 worship. We recognize that goodness is purely an abstraction ; 
 that unless it exist in concrete acts and dispositions of the human 
 will it has no reality or value for us. We make no fetish of it ; it 
 does not exist except as we are good ; we cannot say, therefore, 
 that in our view of life and the universe it takes the place which 
 God or Christ holds in the Christian view, except simply that it is 
 the bond of human fellowship and brotherhood. We demand that 
 no one shall make the ideas of God and immortality the bond of 
 religious union, that no one shall place any moral blame or stigma 
 upon any other man for not holding them. 
 
 But although thus different from all Christian Churches, it does 
 not follow that we approach any nearer to non-Christian religious 
 fellowships which have recently sprung up, than we do to the 
 Christian Churches. We are quite as distinct from Positivism, 
 Secularism, and Socialism. 
 
 The Positivists set up the worship of Humanity, adoration 
 of the great and good men of the past regarded as constituting 
 an organic being, as the bond of religious fellowship. We 
 do not condemn in itself the adoration of Humanity so long 
 as it be not made the bond of fellowship ; but when set up as the 
 foundation of a new Church we count it as unjust and unwise. It 
 is unjust to every man who cannot naturally cast his motives 
 for doing good chiefly into a sense of gratitude for the good which 
 he has received from humanity. Many a man has a feeling that 
 although he had derived no good and perfect gifts from humanity, 
 still that he should and would serve his fellowmen ; in short, the 
 love of mankind is in many a heart deeper than the conscious 
 debt of gratitude. We are, furthermore, distinguished from 
 Positivists in not exacting special recognition of Auguste Comte 
 and his services. Nor do we, like the Positivists, recognize for a 
 moment that the basis of reHgious fellowship is the sum total 
 of all the positive sciences constituting the philosophic doctrine of 
 the universe. We believe that science becomes an unjust dogma, 
 the moment it is made the basis of a Church. The worship of 
 Humanity and the doctrines of positive sciences are the Positivist 
 bond, while ours is simply the furtherance of good character and 
 right conduct. 
 
 Equally distinct are we also from the Secularists. The Secularists, 
 as their very name implies, are reactionists against theology ; 
 
THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT DEFINED. 541 
 
 whereas we demand simply that theology be n ot made the 
 condition ^ipiritu al teiiow snip. Moreover, the Becuiaftstfe, Vh'ire 
 afErmingthe dignity and worth of this world, and attempting 
 to reconstruct society, do not lay down good character and right 
 conduct as the starting-point of all social reform ; in this we are 
 more definite than they ; they are in danger of incoherence — now 
 setting up political power and now industrial revolution as the true 
 means of making society happy and just; whereas we would start 
 from the moral sentiment and recognize that mechanical changes 
 in institutions and the execution of better laws must be supported 
 by the moral consciousness of the community. Environment and 
 law also afifect character ; but the impetus toward the doing away 
 with evil conditions of life must arise in men who are bound 
 together for the spread of goodness in the world. 
 
 We are also distinguished from the Socialists. I for one never 
 met a sincere Socialist who did not, like ourselves, have the good 
 of the world at heart ; but, as the Church condemns anyone who 
 does not believe in a personal God by excluding him from fellow- 
 ship, so the Socialists, by the very fact that they name themselves 
 Socialists, condemn all who do not believe in the transference of 
 the ownership of land and capital from private citizens to the 
 state. Whether the Socialistic policy is in itself right or not is 
 not the question on which we can take issue with them. We 
 simply say that their doctrine of reform should not be the basis 
 of spiritual fellowship among men. An Ethical Society would 
 include both Socialists and IndiWdualists, permitting each group 
 to work in its own way for the elevation of society ; but would not 
 allow either for the sake of his special remedy to break the bond 
 of human brotherhood with those who differ from them. The 
 Ethical Society Movement believes that it will draw to itself many 
 men and women from all. kinds of Christian Churches and from all 
 non-Christian fellowships. It believes, further, that its influence 
 will afifect even those who remain in old fellowships until they will 
 transform these into Ethical Societies ; and if devotion to the good 
 in the world be the right bond of religious fellowship it would be 
 strange if this movement of ours did not tend to conciliate all 
 conflicting groups of earnest men. Thus without swerving from 
 the straight line of our conviction we feel sure that we shall draw 
 all men into brotherhood. We are not a new Church, as Church- 
 men themselves define a Church ; and we do not pretend to be ; 
 we have no desire to destroy the old Church, but to vivify it until 
 it shall throw off all except the vital element of fellowship, 
 devotion to the good in the world. Our first and main doctrine, 
 then, is this which I have been stating. We would go about 
 everywhere, but especially among the poor and the down-trodden. 
 
542 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 urging men into this higher fellowship which we believe will prove 
 the salvation of the world from misery and from moral evil. 
 
 Our second doctrine is that each man must bestow the highest 
 reverence of his heart, the feeling of absolute sacredness and 
 inviolability upon the doing of every individual duty as it presents 
 itself to him. In fervour of devotion, in the sense of absolute and 
 supreme worth and dignity, each duty is to be done ; and, so far as 
 the feeling of inviolability has been an element in religion, we 
 affirm that the doing of duty is religion : with us every attack upon 
 iniquity is a religious crusade. In this respect we are like the 
 Salvation Army, which goes forth to fight sin. Every individual 
 social reform which we take up becomes to us, in sacredness at 
 least, a religious task. For us goodness must exist in human 
 hearts and institutions; and to bring it into existence is 
 the highest that we know. We preach that right conduct is 
 of supreme importance, more important than doctrine, more 
 important than ritual, aye, more important than the worship of 
 God or Christ in the heart. We believe that right conduct is 
 the way, and the only way, of a joyful, peaceful, inspiring, life. 
 We believe that it is the way to attain a life of perfect selfless- 
 ness, which has no anxiety about the future either before or 
 after death, which is willing to become annihilated at death, if 
 such is the lot in store for us. Devotion to right conduct is, we 
 believe, the way, and the only way of freedom from the haunting 
 presence of our own past transgressions. Complete devotion to the 
 right is the only act of atonement by which we can become 
 reconciled with our past selves. Thus conduct, because it is the 
 way of life to the individual and of gladness to society, is of supreme 
 importance ; every other attempt at self-reconciliation or to attain 
 joy and self-confidence is folly and evil. What food is to the hungry 
 man, what water to the parched lips, what the sun in spring- 
 time is to the trees and flowers, such is right conduct to the 
 inner spiritual life of man. We preach this devotion to the good 
 not only as the bond of fellowship, but as the way of inward peace 
 and life. 
 
 Akin to this doctrine of the supreme importance of right 
 conduct, is our affirmation that this human life of ours — even 
 though we have no outlook toward an immortal existence — still 
 contains adequate motive, more than sufficient incentive, to work 
 and to sufi"er for mankind, and to carry out the severest injunctions 
 of duty. We maintain that the grandeur of the motive to be 
 upright and just is not diminished one whit by omitting the 
 ideas of personal immortality, and of a personal God. There are 
 persons who affirm that if these ideas be taken away, although 
 morality would remain, nevertheless the motive to right action 
 
THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT DEFINED. 543 
 
 would be deprived of its grandeur ; but in saying this they simply 
 declare that for them the grandeur is gone, that in their experience 
 they find themselves lacking motive. And as this statement is 
 based on their personal experience, there is no wisdom in bringing 
 against it logical arguments. We can only set over against it the 
 testimony of our own moral experience — which is, that the motive 
 for right conduct which remains, although we have no thought 
 of Grod and immortality, is still so sublime — nay, so overpowering, 
 that there is no room in human imagination tx> admit any ad- 
 ditional incentive. If we fancy that there is, it is because we 
 have not yet realized the significance of morality in reference to 
 our individual and social life, however limited, here on earth. 
 What we must do is to train our imagination until we are able to 
 comprehend better the beauty and social significance of holiness. 
 Our doctrine is, that the motive to right conduct, when its signi- 
 ficance for our earthly life is fully appreciated, becomes practically 
 infinite in grandeur, and that anyone who affirms the contrary is 
 false to moral experience. 
 
 When anyone asks us, " Why should I do right ? " as men 
 sometimes do who think they need the hope of immortality to 
 inspire them to duty, we may find it difficult to give an answer 
 that will satisfy them ; as when a blind man asks us what we 
 mean by the sun and the glory of his beams we cannot tell him ; 
 and yet it is not because we do not know the sun and his light 
 but because the man is blind. And when a man deaf from his 
 birth asks us what we mean by music and what feelings it stirs in 
 us, we cannot tell. There is such a thing as a defect of moral 
 perception. The unworthiness, the perversion of the moral nature, 
 implied in the question, "Why should I do right?" becomes 
 evident if we make this question more specific and ask : " Why 
 should I care for and watch ov6r my child ? Why should I refrain 
 from beating my wife ? Why should I not murder my brother ? 
 Why should I not delight in cruelty ? " When anyone asks us 
 such questions, it is becoming in us to pity and, perhaps, to 
 condemn, but not to argue or reason. Men have asked us : " Why 
 should a man suffer and sacrifice, even his life, if there be no 
 hereafter for him ? Why should Jesus go to the Cross if that was 
 to be the end of Jesus ? " It is easy to tell why Jesus would go to 
 the Cross : he would because he loved his fellow-men, and saw that 
 he could best serve them by dying for them. And it is also easy 
 to tell to a man who loves his fellow-men why Jesus should go to 
 the Cross : it is the same reason for which he did go. He ought 
 or should go because it would serve his fellow-men. If anyone 
 asks : " Why should I love my fellow-men ? " we must say: " Stop ! 
 This is blasphemy against mankind, and we will not tolerate it 
 
544 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 without a protest against such degrading scepticism." Love for 
 mankind we see and feel in our own experience to be inviolable ; 
 it is final. Love knows no ulterior motive beyond itself, and will 
 permit no doubt as to the fact that it is its own justification. 
 
 And yet let no one imagine that we are mere visionaries and 
 weak-minded idealists as to the moral worth of man. Although 
 we emphasize and believe in a direct appeal to the moral senti- 
 ments in man, nevertheless we recognize that belief in a personal 
 God, and the hope of immortality, have helped to keep men up to 
 the line of duty ; and if we had nothing to fall back upon but the 
 direct love of righteousness we should count our movement weak 
 indeed. But we recognize that besides love for mankind and 
 conscience there are many other motives to which we could 
 appeal as supports to the moral life. These motives are lower ; 
 but nevertheless are necessary, and serve the cause of goodness. 
 Besides the inward moral sanction to right action, we would set 
 before men the four other sanctions : first, we recognize that nine 
 times out of ten among the uneducated classes of society wrong- 
 doing is due to ignorance of the natural consequences of the 
 wrong act upon the bodies and minds and fortunes of the doers. 
 We would aim to remove this ignorance, thus bringing home to 
 men's imagination the evils to which they unwillingly or thought- 
 lessly expose themselves. The natural consequences, which we 
 call the natural sanction of conduct, thus furnish us with a 
 powerful appeal to enlightened self-interest. But to the natural 
 sanction may be added the legal sanction which attaches in 
 society to the coarser forms of wrong- doing ; and to both these 
 the social sanction, the praise and blame of one's neighbours, may 
 come in as a powerful supplement. The love of approbation and 
 the fear of disgrace may be made a thousandfold more eflfective. 
 than they are to-day. Besides this we can develop sympathyj^ 
 and thus bring to our aid the desire to avoid the pain of seeing 
 others suffer, and to gain the pleasure of seeing others happy. 
 
 But to teach these aids to character and conduct is only a part 
 of our undertaking as an Ethical Movement. Preaching is not 
 our chief means of furthering the spread of goodness throughout 
 society. We shall also attempt, so far as Ues in our power, to 
 change the physical and social environment of men, so that it 
 shall be more favourable to a truly human life. We expect the 
 members of our society to do more for the community than the 
 current morality of the day demands. We recognize that work 
 for mankind of every wise sort is the most eloquent preaching. 
 There is no way to convince people that one believes in brother- 
 hood like proving oneself a brother. 
 
545 
 
 A NATIONAL CHUECH. 
 
 ST ARTHUR W. SUTTON, M.A. 
 
 The subject on which I am to address you this afternoon may 
 seem somewhat unconnected with that general series which has 
 been carried on here during the past winter with so much success. 
 I think, however, that I shall be able to show you that this is not 
 really the case. If there is one impression more likely than any 
 other to remain fixed in the minds of those who have attended 
 any considerable number of these lectures, it is this : That religion 
 is an immensely important thing ; that national welfare, and indeed 
 human civilization and progress, have been intimately associated 
 with religion throughout the whole period of human history ; 
 that while particular religions have sprung into existence here or 
 there, have grown to maturity, and then have slowly died out or 
 have left but flickering embers to commemorate their past im- 
 portance, the religious spirit itself seems to be immortal, and 
 men seem always to need a field for the exercise of their religious 
 emotions, as much as they always need food, and drink, and 
 clothing. 
 
 Now all the lectures of this course hitherto delivered have 
 dealt with religions of the past or religions of the present. Next 
 Sunday week. Dr. Stanton Coit is to speak on what may fairly be 
 termed the religion of the future. It is true that he does not 
 claim for ethical culture the name of religion — he holds that the 
 use of the word in that connection might prove misleading. But 
 since the essence of all that is best in all religions, past or present, 
 lies in their inculcation of duty, in their advocacy of the paramount 
 importance of righteousness, of morality, of ethics — for all mean the 
 same thing ; I do not think we need trouble much about the word, 
 one way or the other. And before I go further, it may serve to 
 remove any possible misconceptions as to what I am driving at, 
 when I proceed to state my views on the subject of a National 
 Church, if I say at once that I profess myself to be a disciple of 
 this religion of the future, a student in the school of ethical 
 culture, a believer in the supreme law of righteousness ; and if 
 I do not add a disciple of Dr. Coit personally, it is partly because 
 
546 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 I claim to have played the part of his John the Baptist here at 
 South Place ; for, more than four years ago (before I had the 
 pleasure of hearing his name or of learning anything about 
 the movement for ethical culture in America), in a lecture 
 delivered in this hall one Sunday morning, on the moral training 
 of children, I followed — crudely perhaps, but definitely — the same 
 general lines that are now so ably enforced here, week after 
 week. 
 
 My business, however, this afternoon, is not to speak on ethical 
 culture, but on a National Church ; and I shall place before you 
 my grounds for holding that, in view of the transition, slow but 
 inevitable, from the old to the new, an organization such as we in 
 England possess in our National Church, is of immense value ; and 
 that instead of being destroyed — supposing its destruction to be 
 possible — or, instead of being handed over to what would thence- 
 forward be a narrow and powerful sect, it should remain a depart- 
 ment of the State, and be popularized, liberalized, nationalized, 
 so as to provide a home, as free as may be from pettiness and 
 obscurantism, in which the national religious sentiment may 
 develop naturally. 
 
 Starting, then, from the point of view that rehgion is the highest 
 form of education, that its inculcation and its practice mean the 
 training of the moral sense ; and leaving out of sight for the 
 moment the fact that popular reUgion invariably associates a great 
 deal of superstition with this system of ethical training ; we are 
 pointed towards the conclusion that, on principles which may be 
 described as socialistic, there is nothing inconsistent with justice 
 in the abstract idea of an Established Church. On the contrary, 
 if it be right that the community should combine for elementary 
 education, and for technical education, it cannot be wrong that it 
 should further combine for ethical education. And if it were 
 possible to establish religion in this sense of promoting the 
 highest intellectual and moral cultivation of the individual, 
 whether youthful or mature, it would, I take it, be the duty 
 everywhere of the State to establish reUgion. It is only because 
 religion is so confused in men's minds with Ecclesiasticism and 
 Clericalism that this common-sense view of the matter is neglected 
 or forgotten. But the case we have before us is not an abstract 
 one ; and while I shall have to admit that some aspects of it render 
 it less favourable to my contention, I hope to be able to point 
 out that on various grounds the reasons for retaining an existing 
 Establishment, such as we have in the Church of England, are 
 weightier than the more abstract reasons by which a State 
 maintenance of religion in general would be defended. 
 
 Now in order to clear the ground, I vdll first indicate certain 
 
A NATIONAL CHUECH. 547 
 
 questions, partly political and partly ecclesiastical, with which I 
 have nothing to do. 
 
 The Disestablishment, twenty years ago, of the Protestant Epis- 
 copal Church of Ireland has no bearing on the case before us. 
 That was not a popular Church, but a garrison Church. It repre- 
 sented the English conquest of Ireland, and very little else. In 
 my sense of the term it was not a State Church, for it was a 
 foreign State Church ; and on the principle of popular supremacy 
 it was bound in justice to be deprived of its ascendancy. None 
 of us regret its Disestablishment ; some of us, however, do regret 
 the far too partial Disendowment to which it was subjected. Those 
 funds, of which it had the administration as an Established Church, 
 were national funds, bequeathed originally by pious Irishmen in 
 olden times for the maintenance of the Catholic religion, and 
 diverted from their original intention at the time of the Eeforma- 
 tion. You may say they should have been restored to the existing 
 Roman Catholic Church in Ireland ; and at the first hearing this 
 sounds most plausible. But on reflection we see the justice of 
 the contention that the national welfare is to be preferred to all 
 else ; and since no living Catholic in Ireland could be said to be 
 wronged by not having these funds transferred back to his Church 
 after three centuries of misappropriation, we are allowed to conclude 
 that what was originally intended for the benefit of the nation, 
 and especially of the poor, is best devoted to the service of the 
 whole nation, in such matters as education, which concern its 
 social welfare, and that apart from the narrowing guidance of 
 conflicting Churches. I do not say that Ireland ought not to 
 have an Established Church — that would be in conflict with the 
 general principle I am advocating ; but an Established Church in 
 my view should be the popular Church ; and in Ireland, as things 
 are now, that would be the Catholic Church ; and on its own 
 principles the Catholic Church could not associate itself with the 
 State and submit to popular government on those terms which 
 alone are in my judgment admissible — viz. the acknowledgment 
 of the supremacy of the State : of the Irish State that is, of course, 
 in the present case, as representing the Irish people. But in any 
 case, so large a share of these endowments ought not to have been 
 wasted, as they were, in pensioning off worthless clergymen, who 
 never had any duties worthy the name to perform ; and who, as 
 soon as they were sure of their money, retired to idle away the 
 remainder of their aimless lives at various fashionable watering- 
 places. 
 
 Then, again, as to the case of Scotland. Here, it appears, a 
 majority of the people are in favour of Disestablishment ; and if 
 they continue to be of that mind, of course Disestablishment must 
 
548. RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 come. The case differs considerably from that of Ireland ; but it 
 is equally a theological prejudice which makes a liberal Establish- 
 ment of the kind I have in view impossible in Scotland at the 
 present time. Two-thirds of the population of Scotland are con- 
 vinced that an alliance between Church and State is prohibited 
 by the words of Christ, when He said " My kingdom is not of this 
 world." Of course with such transcendental reasoning as this you 
 and I have nothing to do. Our religious kingdom belongs to this 
 world, and to no other ; it is the reign of righteousness on earth 
 that we seek to establish. Such it would seem was also the aim 
 of Christ ; but if two-thirds of the Scottish nation, sincerely hold- 
 ing Him as their Master, are of opinion that He condemns 
 Established Churches, but looks with favour on the United Presby- 
 terians and the Free Kirk, they must on liberal principles have 
 their own way ; and certainly if Disestablishment brings about, as 
 some think it will, the fusion of the three Scotch Kirks, which do 
 not differ from each other on theological grounds, none of us will 
 regret that it has been accomplished. 
 
 The case of Wales must also, I think, be dissociated from that of 
 England, on account of the intense unpopularity of the Anglican 
 Church there. It is a striking example of the folly of attempting 
 to maintain a State Church on any other than a popular basis ; 
 and Prime Ministers in their appointments of unsuitable bishops 
 have been as much to blame as bishops in their appointments of 
 unsuitable clergymen ; and both are responsible for the existing 
 state of things. Now that Disestablishment in Wales has found a 
 place on the political programme, it must, I suppose, sooner or 
 later come ; but after it has come, and when the term " liberal " 
 has come to mean in Wales more what it means with us in London, 
 I think it will be seen that the local population has suffered by 
 surrendering buildings, that were really national property, to an 
 ecclesiastical sect, together with a portion of national endowments 
 — ^the remainder having passed to the central government, and so 
 ceasing to be under local control. That at least is what is meant 
 by Disestablishment and Disendowment as now proposed. 
 
 In the case of England, however, it is less clear which way the 
 popular will inclines ; and while that is so, it is the duty of every- 
 one who thinks he sees a more excellent way than that usually 
 advocated, to point out what he believes to be the dangers of the 
 one scheme and what the advantages of the other. Now the 
 great mass of Englishmen who are not members of the Established 
 Church, in the sense that they do not believe the doctrines con- 
 tained in its Creeds and Articles, and do not attend its services — 
 that is to say, about iive-sixths of the adult population — are rather 
 indifferent to the Church than hostile to it. I cannot deny that 
 
A NATIONAL CHURCH. 549 
 
 there are various reasons which might fairly make the Church 
 unpopular. Its clergy are mostly out of sympathy with liberal 
 movements. They are in many cases in receipt of incomes 
 altogether excessive in proportion to the amount of work they do. 
 They do not hold that honourable position in regard to learning 
 and intelligence which the clergy in other countries and at other 
 times have done. Occasionally we hear of grave scandals in the 
 ecclesiastical world, and the ridiculous complexity of the exist- 
 ing ecclesiastical law renders the adequate punishment of the 
 ofifender difficult, if not impossible. Still, when all has been 
 said, I do not think that the clergy of the Church of England 
 are on the whole unpopular. In the towns especially you will 
 often find earnest, hard-working men — such as Mr. Bamett, 
 of St. Jude's, Whitechapel — who in no patronizing or phari- 
 saical spirit have really the interests of the people at heart ; 
 and, what is to my purpose this afternoon, this spirit seems 
 now to he the growing one, while many of the old ecclesiastical 
 pretensions are silently being laid aside. I will give you 
 an illustration of what I mean : A few months ago I was 
 invited to attend a lecture to the London clergy, given at 
 Sion College by Mr. Henry Greorge, and I went. Now you know 
 what kind of a lecture Mr. George would give, so I need not 
 describe that. But the striking thing was the sympathy and 
 enthusiasm which his lecture evoked. It is true there was one old 
 clergyman who listened sadly for a short time, and then, shaking 
 his head, gathered together his umbrella and great coat, and 
 walked out. But there were over a hundred present, and the 
 great mass of them cheered Mr. George over and over again. A 
 few years ago this would have been quite impossible ; and what is 
 the reflection that it suggests ? Why, that if the Church, in spite 
 of the iron bars and gates and bolts with which it has been fenced 
 about, thus shows signs of becoming liberalized from within, it is 
 no small encouragement to those •of us who would seek to accelerate 
 that liberalizing process from without. And now, without further 
 preface, I will give you a sketch of what I think the main features 
 of that process should be. 
 
 On the one hand it would be a process of freeing the Church 
 from theological and ritual bonds, a matter which would simply 
 be accomplished by the repeal of the Act of LTniformity. I 
 suppose it is not popularly known that the authority which the 
 Prayer Book possesses in the Church is in virtue of its being the 
 schedule to an Act of Parliament passed nearly two hundred and 
 thirty years ago by the royalist lords and country gentlemen who 
 brought about the restoration of King Charles II. I will not deny 
 these men their merits in their own time ; but it is obvious that 
 
550 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 a body of reactionaries, such as they were, have nothing whatever 
 in common with the progressive religious spirit of the nineteenth 
 century ; and yet it is solely in virtue of an enactment approved 
 by them that the Church has become the exclusive body that it 
 is. It was their doing, for example, that none but episcopally 
 ordained clergymen can hold oflBce in the Church. I do not 
 suppose that the full liberty which this simple repeal would 
 secure would at once be realized in practice ; nor, indeed, do I 
 think it desirable that it should be. It is right that the system 
 in possession, which long use has endeared to thousands of 
 devout and susceptible people, should be tenderly dealt with. 
 It is only gradually, therefore, that the old order would change, 
 giving place to new — the new being ultimately that a rational 
 religious service (if service it be rightly called), such as that held 
 here on Sunday mornings, or something better in the same line, 
 could be held (say) in St. Paul's Cathedral, followed by a sermon 
 (if sermon it be rightly called), in which human effort would be 
 invoked to bring about some amelioration in the intellectual, 
 social, or moral condition of those who most stand in need of such 
 aid. In a word, the resources of the Established Church would 
 be devoted to the service of humanity. I say that the mere 
 repeal of Charles II.'s Act of Uniformity would open the way 
 for this desirable consummation — desirable, that is, from the 
 point of view of liberal religious thinkers — but it would not by 
 itself accomplish it. The repeal would free the Church from the 
 cold grasp of the seventeenth century, but the warm touch of 
 the living nineteenth century would be required to bring it 
 abreast of the modem world. How is this to be accomplished ? 
 Simply by bringing it under popular control. In theory it is 
 so already ; but the control is so very indirect that it is hardly 
 perceptible in its effects — ^indeed it must, of necessity, be in- 
 effectual as long as the Act of Uniformity is retained, which 
 is absolutely prohibitory of any liberal growth or movement. 
 Still, in theory, the Church is at this moment under popular 
 control ; for it is subject to the Royal Supremacy, which is exer- 
 cised through the Ministry, which comes into power by the 
 presence of a majority in the House of Commons, which is elected 
 by the people. The Queen nominally appoints the Archbishops 
 and Bishops and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, who in their turn 
 appoint to most other clerical ofiSces; but the Prime Minister 
 really makes the appointments ; and he is what he is in virtue 
 of the popular voice ; so that the Church is really at this moment 
 under popular control, though the fact is but little appreciated, 
 ^ the popular action being so very indirect. It is important, how- 
 ever, to keep the feet in mind, for two reasons. First, when this 
 
A NATIONAL CHTJRCH. 551 
 
 control is made, as I hope it will be, more direct and efficient, 
 it will be a reply to such of the clergy as will wish to repudiate 
 their responsibility to the people, asserting that the Church was 
 independent before, whereas it is now strictly subject to the State. 
 And secondly, it is well that our friends who desire Disestablish- 
 ment should see how their scheme would hand over to an inde- 
 pendent ecclesiastical corporation rights of considerable national 
 importance which at present belong to the people. 
 
 You will say that the people do not value these rights ; know 
 nothing whatever, in fact, about them; and that they may just 
 as well be alienated and handed over to those who would value 
 them, and would exercise them with a due sense of responsibility. 
 I cannot at all accept that view of the matter, though I admit 
 that the people know little, and so care little, about the whole 
 concern. They would care more if they knew more, and realized 
 what interests for themselves and for their children are at stake. 
 This increased interest and knowledge would undoubtedly follow 
 if the popular control became more direct, if it were associated 
 (as I think it should be) with the new system of Local Govern- 
 ment. That system is itself as yet only in its infancy ; but it 
 has made a good beginning, and doubtless ere long we shall see 
 District Councils as well as County Councils working under the 
 general direction of the Local Government Board, and controlling, 
 among other things, the local administration of education and of 
 the police. It would all be on the same lines if to these same 
 councils were entrusted the local administration of Church 
 affairs. The alternative to DisestabUshment which I am advo- 
 cating would become, in its main features, an accomplished 
 fact, if Parliament entrusted Church patronage and the control 
 of Church property to these representative bodies. That is my 
 main principle — ^that, together with the repeal of the Act of 
 Uniformity ; and now to make my meaning clearer, I must go a 
 little more into detail. 
 
 But first I should like to say a word as to what I believe would 
 be the probable results of Disestablishment, so that we may see 
 some of the dangers that we seek to avoid. What would happen 
 if Parliament should disestablish and disendow the Church ? Now 
 all schemes hitherto proposed have gone on the principle that the 
 ecclesiastical buildings, the churches and parsonage houses, shall 
 be handed over to the Chiirch, and that vested rights shall be 
 scrupulously respected. Accordingly, as each bishop or incumbent 
 dies the Act would come into operation in respect of the income 
 of his successor ; but his church and house would have become the 
 property of the Church body. What then would be the immediate 
 and visible result of Disestablishment ? Nothing, so far as I can 
 
552 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 see, but the exclusion of the Bishops from the House of Lords. 
 Now this exclusion some years back used to be regarded as a most 
 desirable consummation. People imagined all kinds of good con- 
 sequences if it could only be brought about. But who shares 
 those anticipations now ? Many of us think it would be well to 
 be rid of a second chamber altogether ; others hold that a second 
 I elective chamber would be good for the country. But the Bishops 
 jare at any rate among the most respectable members of the Upper 
 House ; they enter there by merit, and not by the mere fact of 
 birth ; and if their appointment were more directly popular than 
 it is at present I imagine that few men would be better fitted for 
 a place in an Upper Chamber, assuming that the country decides 
 to keep an Upper Chamber at all. 
 
 But let us look a little further into this matter of vested rights. 
 A young man of thirdrate ability, but with good family connections, 
 gets through the easy preliminaries to ordination, and at the age of 
 twenty-five is given, we will suppose, a rich family living in the 
 country, a year before the Disestablishment Act is passed. For forty 
 or fifty years he may occupy that position with complete indepen- 
 dence, although both in character and in teaching he may be 
 altogether objectionable to the people over whom he is placed. I 
 would ask whether his parishioners have no vested rights or interests 
 as well as he ? Whether they have not already too long been de- 
 prived of the administration of the funds which supply his handsome 
 income ? whether they might notclaim some part in the management 
 of the church and churchyard — the ornament, perhaps, of the neigh- 
 bourhood — which will remain this young man's freehold for life. 
 To ask these questions is to answer them ; but I have not stated 
 the whole case yet. The advocates of Disestablishment admit that 
 Westminster Abbey, and perhaps the cathedrals, or some of them, 
 must be retained as national monuments, and must not be handed 
 over to the Disestablished Church ; but they forget that in some 
 ten or fifteen thousand parishes the old parish church is the only 
 national monument that exists ; and that though the villagers may 
 set but little value on their church now, that would not be the 
 case when they find they have a hand in its management, and 
 when improved education shows them its true beauty and use. 
 Let these buildings be handed over to the DisestabUshed Church, 
 or, more accurately, to the newly-founded episcopal sect, and they 
 cease to be the people's property thenceforth ; they will become, 
 presumably, strongholds planted everywhere in the country for 
 the dissemination of a sacerdotal theology which the educated 
 intelligence of the nation has entirely outgrown. 
 
 And what benefit will the people receive from the accumulation 
 of funds in the hands of a central government —a process which 
 
A NATIONAL CHURCH. 553 
 
 will begin so soon as the Disestablishment Act has been passed ? 
 It is very doubtful whether they will receive any benefit at all. 
 A good deal will depend on the temper of the times. Should 
 there be a war panic about, very likely the whole sum that Dis- 
 establishment is expected ultimately to realize will be squandered 
 on fortifications or on an increase of the navy. Perhaps something 
 might be voted for education — that is for elementary education ; 
 but we should remember that this is already provided for by law ; 
 while that higher education, which I take religion to be, has no 
 provision for its maintenance on a liberal platform, and so becomes 
 the property of sects, who, in the struggle for existence continually 
 narrow its field. 
 
 We can, I think, make a tolerable forecast of what the spiritual 
 character of the Disestablished Church would become. It is 
 already accused of a tendency to sacerdotalism, and justly too, so 
 far as I can see ; but we must remember that ji acerdotalism tern - 1 
 p ered by State control is less dangerous th anit woul d be witho ut 
 it. A oiate Church is, on the whole, nlOfS "llb6i"al than what" is 
 cfflled a voluntary one. It was tljg. Free Kirk of Scotland which ' 
 deprived Professor Robertson Smith of his post at the University 
 on account of heresy ; while the EstabHshed Kirk retained Prin- 
 cipal Tulloch, who was a heretic noless. To give another example: 
 Two Canons of the Church of England have lectured here on 
 Sunday afternoons without rebuke fro'm' their ecclesiastical supe- 
 riors, while the President of the Baptist Union was censured 
 by The Baptist for doing the same thing. And it is a ne- 
 cessity of the times that this distinction should become more 
 pronounced. Modem criticism tends more and more to leave no 
 tangible authority but that of the State ; and ecclesiastical bodies 
 not connected with the State are more and more driven into those 
 transcendental regions where the eye of faith alone can find a 
 basis for the authority of the Church. This authority must at 
 all hazards be established by them, else they cease to have any 
 raiaon d'etre ; and hence the growth of sacerdotal and obscurantist 
 doctrines. Starting therefore, as it would, with a majority of 
 High Church Bishops — for, unfortunately, both Lord Salisbury 
 and the only possible alternative, Mr. Gladstone, are High Church- 
 men — the Church of England when disestablished would certainly 
 develop its hierarchical pretensions as its ground for claiming 
 authority ; and since bold assertions always gain disciples, it is by 
 no means improbable that the Church might become a formidable 
 rival of the State, and that we might suffer here in England, as 
 Italy, France, Germany, and Belgium are suffering, from that 
 detestable conflict between Clericalism and Liberalism — a conflict 
 whose peculiar bitterness is that it frequently divides husband 
 
 36 
 
554 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 and mfe, and makes a man's foes to be those of his own household. 
 It may be urged that the proposed nationalization of the Church 
 would not avert this evil, since the process would be so very 
 unacceptable to the High Church clergy that they would secede 
 and form an independent body outside the National Church. 
 Now, of course, it must be clearly understood that the rights of 
 conscience are sacred on liberal principles, and that there must 
 be no coercion in this matter either physical or spiritual. I take 
 for granted that a variety of minor sects, as well as the Soman 
 Catholic Church, will for a time, or perhaps permanently, refuse 
 to associate themselves with the National Establishment of religion. 
 Their exclusion will, however, be their own doing ; for, of course, 
 the ideal we have before us is that of inclusion as far as possible ; 
 and I do not doubt but that the more liberal-minded among the 
 Dissenting congregations — ^the Unitarians, for example, and many 
 of the Independents — ^will at once claim to be admitted, and will 
 promptly be welcomed within the National Church. Still, sects 
 with peculiar theological views, and most of all such as have ideas 
 about the special sacredness of their own little Bethel, will decline 
 to be incorporated, and we must not dream of interfering with 
 their liberty. Sooner or later they will die out, while the mere 
 semblance of persecution would only serve to prolong their exist- 
 ence. And to these sects already existing it is quite possible that 
 a secession of some of the .High Church clergy might add a new 
 one ; but I do not believe it would be a big affair. There would 
 really be no occasion for it; for the changes I am advocating 
 would not alter fundamentally the constitution of the Established 
 Church, though they would doubtless alter its character and give 
 it freedom. Already it is the creation of the State, and subject 
 to the will of an elected Parliament ; already it contains within 
 itself men of the most divergent theological views ; the only 
 change would be that these differences would hereafter exist with 
 the most perfect honesty, while now men inside the Church have to 
 strain the interpretation of the Articles and Formularies to which 
 they are legally bound, so as to silence the protests of their own 
 consciences. And I believe the great mass of the clergy would 
 recognize this when the nationalization I have in view has become 
 an accomplished fact; though before its accomplishment they 
 would move heaven and earth to prevent it, and would declare 
 that they would never, never accept any such subjection of the 
 Church to direct popular control. I have myself watched the 
 course of similar ecclesiastical controversies for more than twenty 
 years, and others could testify that the same thing has continued 
 for a very much longer period. It was in 1 865 that I was first 
 shown how intolerable was the position of the Church of England, 
 
A NATIONAL CHURCH. 555 
 
 in that her final Cotirt of Appeal was a secular one — ^the Queen 
 in Council ; and I was assured that in no long time, unless the 
 grievance were removed, there would be an exodus irom the Esta- 
 blished Church compared with which the Disruption of the Scottish 
 Kirk would seem insignificant. But what has happened? The 
 grievance has not been removed, it is there to-day precisely as it 
 was in 1865 and previously ; a handful of consistent men, but a 
 mere handfial, have gone -over to the Roman Catholic Church, 
 which acknowledges no Royal Supremacy ; but the vast majority 
 have remained where they were, sending from time to time 
 strongly-worded letters to the Church newspapers, still threatening 
 us with the disaster of their secession, which I, for one, do not 
 believe will ever become an accomplished fact. Some of the men 
 with whom I used to talk on these subjects in former years are 
 now bishops, deans, canons, or, at any rate, beneficed clergymen ; 
 and it takes a good deal to make such men move : they seem well 
 content with the safety-valve of the so-called Religious Press. 
 And the same thing would doubtless occur again. A great deal 
 of strong language would be used, with the trifling result of a few 
 secessions ; while the bulk of the clergy would soon accommodate 
 themselves to the new order of things ; and many of them, to do 
 them justice, would be intensely relieved by their emancipation 
 from theological tests, and would find an immense accession of 
 moral strength and influence in thus being brought into contact 
 with the people among whom they live. Indeed, as I said a few 
 moments ago, although an Act of Parliament could at once entrust 
 the control of Church patronage and ecclesiastical endowments 
 to the local Council, it is not likely that the new authority would 
 exercise its powers in any offensive or tyrannical manner. If, for 
 example, you ask me what I think would be the immediate result 
 if the London County Council were entrusted with the appoint- 
 ment of the next Bishop of London, I should say they would 
 choose Mr. Bamett, of Whitechapel ; that is to say, while the 
 repeal of the Act of Uniformity would leave them absolutely 
 unfettered in their choice, so that anyone — clergyman or layman, 
 of whatever theological views — might be appointed, they would 
 feel bound to select a man having the technical qualifications 
 which the majority of those interested would regard as indis- 
 pensable, while they would be careful to find one whose religion 
 it is to serve the people's cause. 
 
 Perhaps I have put it rather too broadly in saying that their 
 choice would be "absolutely unfettered." I mean only that 
 the existing restrictions, which require the formalities of an 
 episcopal ordination or consecration, together with subscription to 
 the Thirty-nine Articles, and a promise to use ao services but 
 
556 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 those of the Prayer Book in public worship — all these would have 
 been removed ; but certain qualifications would, of course, be 
 necessary — moral and intellectual qualifications ; and these should, 
 I think, be insisted upon far more seriously than they are at 
 present. What is especially required in the liberal clergyman of 
 the future is what we call " character ; " and it is just this which 
 the present method of selection leaves out of account, if it does not 
 go far to exclude it. The superstition which represents the cere- 
 mony of Ordination as having an efi'ect in moralizing or spiritualiz- 
 ing a man is partly responsible for this. Bishops are content to 
 accept men intellectually and morally weak, believing that Ordi- 
 nation will somehow set matters right. Anyone who is at all 
 familiar with the life of our Universities in recent years knows 
 how few comparatively of the " strong " men now become can- 
 didates for Ordination. They may have the best qualifications 
 for discharging the best kind of clerical duties ; but, unless they 
 have some transcendental theory as to the authoritative basis of 
 theological systems, they cannot accommodate their consciences 
 to the required declarations of assent and consent to all that the 
 Bible and Prayer Book contain. And so they turn their thoughts 
 in quite other directions ; and the great and pressing work of 
 moral education, of ethical culture, gets no help from them. But 
 who are the men who find little or no difficulty in getting 
 ordained, and in so becoming qualified for office in the National 
 Church? Until recently it was a pre- requisite, very seldom 
 dispensed with, that they should have taken a University Degree. 
 That, of course, is not difficult when it is merely a pass without 
 honours. But very little else is wanted. A certificate of having 
 attended a course of twelve lectures ; an easy examination in what 
 is called theology, involving only a superficial acquaintance with 
 a few books of no scientific, and of third-rate literary, value; a 
 testimonial as to character from three clergymen, who need know 
 but very little about the man — and that is all ; while of these few 
 and easy conditions, the most important one, the University Degree, 
 is now dispensed with as frequently as it is demanded, because 
 the obsoleteness of the required theology makes it necessary that 
 the bishops should put up with the lack of academical training. 
 They would not get half as many men as they want if they 
 insisted on it. Popular control would here, I am confident, bring 
 about a much needed reform. It would insist on intellectual 
 ability and cultivation ; it would not require a declaration of 
 assent to theological dogmas ; it would demand men of tried 
 moral strength, it would not rely upon an antique ceremony to 
 provide them with spiritual power and character. 
 
 I do not sfiy that the change would come at once. It is a 
 
A NATIONAL CHURCH. 557 
 
 necessity of the case that it should be gradual. But sooner or 
 later we should have a national clergy, abreast of the intellectual 
 and moral progress of the times, no longer a separate caste, 
 wearing a peculiar dress, as if they claimed to be a dififerent 
 species from the rest of their fellow men, but owing their claim 
 to spiritual leadership to their superior culture, enlightenment, 
 character; and I do not believe the time will ever come when 
 there will be no need of such men. The National Church, when 
 it has passed through the process of this new reformation, might 
 be described as a great society for the extension of University 
 teaching, only it would be considerably more than that phrase at 
 present implies. For not only would its clergy be the authorized 
 agents for conveying the best knowledge of the times in literature, 
 science, and art, into all parts of the country ; but they would 
 similarly be commissioned to deal with ethical and spiritual 
 questions — a field which is as yet untouched, as near as may be, by 
 any such society at present existing. 
 
 I am, of course, aware that a thousand practical difficulties may 
 be urged as proving the scheme I am advocating to be hopeless 
 and visionary, however admirable in its general idea. No doubt 
 grave problems would arise, some of them hard to solve ; but what 
 great reform worthy the name has not been carried out in the 
 face of great difficulties ? Some of these problems have already 
 been anticipated and considered in a little volume called Church 
 Reform, one of the " Imperial Parliament Series," published by 
 Messrs. Sonnenschein ; and I hope that such of you as are interested 
 in this question will read what is there contained — it is the work 
 of several writers ; for though I think some of the proposals are 
 inadequate, I am in general sympathy with it, and I should be 
 sorry for any of you to carry away the impression that what I am 
 advocating is the mere creation of my brain. An increasing 
 number of thoughtful men and women have, for some years 
 past, been looking in this direction for the best solution of the 
 Church Establishment question. We are all agreed that things 
 cannot remain as they are ; but it is not in liberation from State 
 control, so much as in making that control a reality, that we think 
 the true answer will be found. State control, as it exists, leaves 
 the clergy independent of the people whom they serve ; and so it 
 has, during the last forty years, done more that anything else to 
 foster the growth of what I must call sacerdotal arrogance — for 
 the thing exists, though I do not like using what sounds like 
 abusive language ; but State control in the sense of popular control 
 would soon change all that. The Church of England does not 
 need a liberation which would really give freer play only to ecclesi- 
 astical despotism ; it is the people who need liberation from that 
 
558 EELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 But it does need freeing from dogmatic fetters forged in an age 
 when modern historical criticism and modem ideas of toleration 
 were yet unknown. And from personal knowledge I can aflfirm 
 that from the Archbishop of Canterbury downwards there are 
 hundreds and thousands of Churchmen who would be glad to have 
 these fetters lightened, though I admit they are not yet prepared 
 to abandon them altogether. Presumably, on the repeal of the 
 Act of Uniformity, while prosecutions on account of unorthodoxy 
 would become impossible, I take it that the various congregations, 
 or parishes, would elect councils whose business it would be to see 
 to the conduct of the Church services, in such a manner as is best 
 suited to the peculiar circumstances of each place ; and this would 
 hinder any sudden and violent breach with the past, while it 
 would leave the door open for progressive modifications. The 
 question of the appointment or removal of clergymen presents 
 greater diflBculties ; and perhaps it would be best to have no 
 uniform method everywhere. In regard to the removal of unsuit- 
 able men, doubtless the opinion of the congregation ought to 
 have the greatest weight ; but it should be understood that this 
 applies to moral and intellectual disqualifications, and not to a 
 mere disapproval of a man's more liberal views. For it must be 
 borne in mind that a congregation is not infrequently less en- 
 lightened than its minister — ^indeed, the whole idea of the Church 
 as an educational institution implies that this is the normal case 
 — and it would be intolerable if a well-read and conscientious 
 clergyman should be deprived of his post because he tells his 
 people, for example, the truth about the Bible ; while we must 
 not forget the case, far commoner than is supposed, especially 
 among Dissenting communities, where the _minister preaches down 
 to the ^ leve l of his flock, and afi'ects an orthodoxy to which -his 
 
 intellijjence does not as sent, for tear of offending hi s deacons 
 And the same considerations i 
 
 othe r church o fficials. And the same considerations applyto the 
 question of clerical appointments. Leave the appointments abso- 
 lutely in the hands of the congregation, whose knowledge of the 
 clerical world hardly extends beyond their own particular church, 
 and you are in danger of encouraging that very narrowness which 
 popular control ought to prevent. I confess that I am all against 
 the direct election of a clergyman by the congregation ; I think 
 it bad for both sides. I should like to see the appointments in 
 the hands of a body whose horizon is wider — say, a Committee of 
 the local District or County Council, subject no doubt to a veto of 
 the congregation affected with the grounds definitely stated in 
 writing. But it is a difficult question, and I only throw out these 
 ideas as suggestions. The fact, however, that the Church of 
 England has on the whole been widened by the existence of a 
 
A NATIONAL CHTJRCH. 559 
 
 considerable amount of lay patronage, even when placed in irre- 
 sponsible hands, is in favour of my contention that the spiritual 
 freedom of the Church would be best served in the future by a 
 continuance of this method of lay patronage exercised by repre- 
 sentative bodies. Of course it is hardly necessary to add that any 
 form of Disestablishment would put an end to this kind of lay 
 patronage. All appointments to posts in our cathedrals and parish 
 churches would be made by the bishops or the clergy, or else by 
 those little cliques of devout laymen who are often more clerical 
 than the most reverend of the clergy themselves. 
 
 I have said perhaps enough to lay this subject before you for 
 consideration ; but now that I am concluding, I see how much 
 more might be adduced to illustrate and enforce my argument. 
 Take, for example, the contemptible condition of theological and 
 Biblical criticism in England as compared with what we see in 
 France, Germany, and even in Holland. Our endowments in , 
 aid of these studies are magnificent compared with those in the 
 countries I have named ; but the professorships can only be held, 
 in virtue of Act of Parliament, by men in Priests' Orders who have 
 solemnly sworn that they believe about the Bible and Prayer Book 
 much the same that was believed bv the divines of the seventeenth 
 century ; and if their studies should cause them to abandon this 
 belief, they are bound in conscience (so it seems to me) to resign 
 their posts. T he result is th at the Established Church has becom e 
 a kind of endow ed conspiracvto hush t^p all th at ^0^^ iTiHpnpriHpTit. 
 st uflenl aJH ^Jfli't}!^ co iia trigs have done taih row lighton tEe dark 
 pl aces of th eology. ""^ 
 
 Jlor must we forget how this obscurantism of the Established 
 Church affects the smaller voluntary Churches by its side. It sets 
 the fashion, and they follow. The Unitarians themselves, in spite 
 of their far more rational position, are hardly an exception to this 
 rule in England, though in the United States they are less 
 hampered by conservative traditions. But the Church of Eng- 
 land's obscurantist influence extends even to America and the 
 colonies, while a widening of its intellectual life at home 
 would doubtless have a corresponding influence across the seas. 
 In truth this National Establishment of Eeligion, which we have 
 inherited from our fathers, is a great trust, not only in its power 
 for good or for evil at home, but in the part that it is competent 
 to play in the widening of the religious life of English-speaking 
 people all over the world. I think that most of us do not suffi- ' 
 ciently realize that, while this Church remains a State institution, ; 
 we hold its future in our hands. We can, of course, in impatience 
 at its obvious faults, refuse to recognize our responsibility ; we can 
 listlessly allow our responsibility to lapse into the hands of others 
 
560 RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WOELD. 
 
 who will know the worth of what we are giving away. But I 
 would ask you to remember the value of all existing organiza- 
 tions ; to remember that the worst use we can make of an 
 institution is to destroy it. It is a fine saying of Burke's : 
 " Wisdom cannot create materials ; her pride is in their use." 
 Before many years are gone the people of England will be called 
 upon seriously to consider whether they are able and willing to 
 use, in the light of modern science and criticism, the materials 
 for religious, spiritual, and ethical culture, which the piety of 
 past centuries has created for them ; or whether they prefer to let 
 their inheritance pass into sectarian hands. If our considera- 
 tion of this subject this afternoon has done anything to better 
 the prospects of the former alternative, I do not think that you 
 will complain that I have wasted your time. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 COEEIGENDA AND ADDENDA 
 "THE CHUECH CATHOLIC," p. 307; and "THE MASS," p. 329. 
 
 The Church Catholic. 
 Page 307, (in foot note) for " This address " read " This as well as the next 
 ■address." 
 „ 312, line 6, for " patent circumstance that " read " question how far the 
 
 perils of the time and." 
 „ 312, „ 26,/or "historic" read "historical." 
 „ 313, „ 15, omit comma after the word " Too." 
 „ 316, „ 37,/or" perfection "read "imperfection." 
 „ 317, „ 44, /or "so-called "reod" what they call a." 
 „ 318, „ 28and29,/or"Lo"re<w/"So." 
 „ 318, „ 30, /or " A heart " rearf " O heart." 
 „ 319, „ 27, omit comma after the word " precisely." 
 „ 320, „ 3, for " derivative " read " distinctive." 
 
 The Mass. 
 
 „ 330, „ 14, after " confusion " delete " in." 
 
 „ 332, „ 36, /or " €ujfap«rr^(rar" read " evxapi(TT^«ror." 
 
 „ 335, „ 16, o/Ker" This" tTwert" is." 
 
 „ 336, „ 27, for " antitype " read " archetype." 
 
 „ 336, „ 3-36, for " I alluded in my former address " doion to " very 
 strongly to the apostolic age " stibstitute the following : — 
 
 In my former address, when I could not foresee that I should be asked 
 to deliver a special lecture on " The Mass," I referred to some part of the 
 remarkable evidence for the "Isapostolic " character of the office as a whole, 
 which is afforded by a comparison of the most ancient variants of the Liturgy 
 among themselves, and by the concurrent testiinony of the earliest writings, 
 Christian or Pagan, which deal with the nmtter. Before I revert to that 
 branch of the subject now, it will be well that I should try to state to you 
 in a few words what the office of the Mass in fact contains. 
 
562 APPENDIX. 
 
 The Liturgies, in spite of wide apparent variation, proceed upon a scheme 
 ■which is common, speaking broadly, to them all ; and in describing that, I 
 shall be describing with sufficient accuracy the Mass which is celebrated in 
 every Catholic Church to-day. We may say that it consists, if we reduce 
 the Liturgies to their simplest terms, of the actual Commemoration, called 
 the " Canon of the Mass," preceded by a double introduction, of which the 
 first part is known as the " Mass of the Catechumens," as distinguished from 
 the " Mass of the Faithful." The central and essential rite was called the 
 Canon because of its invariablenesa. It is in substance, and even in much 
 of its diction, alike in all the varying Liturgies. The other sections, being 
 far less important, were to some extent subject to the discretion of Bishops, 
 and have undergone local variation and substitution, though even in them 
 we find a wonderful conformity. 
 
 The Office of the Catechumens (called " Missa " because it ended in 
 their dismissal) is a public service, not especially eucharistic in its character. 
 It begins with the " Introit " — the Solemn Entrance of the officiating Bishop 
 or Priest with his attendants, who chant an introductory Psalm. Then 
 come certain very ancient hymns. In the West, they are that triple cry 
 for mercy called the " Kyrie Eleison," and the " Gloria," or Hymn of the 
 Nativity, first peculiar to Christmas Day (but so used before 139 A.D., as 
 it is said), and then extended to ordinary Sundays. In the East, you 
 have the equally ancient " Trisagion." Next come the public prayers — the 
 " gathered-up " petitions of the Church — which were named " CoUeota " 
 in the West, and 2vvdim] in the East, and have come to be variable 
 with us according to the day. Then the Priest reads portions of the 
 Scripture — an Epistle or Lesson symbolic of the Old Law, and the Gospel 
 setting forth the New. Between these, as the procession carrying with joy 
 the Sacred Book passed along the steps of the altar, a processional chant called 
 a "Tract," "Sequence," or "Gradual," was sung, which is the origin of 
 many of those great Latin hymns that all the ages have borrowed. After 
 the Beading comes the Sermon, upon the close of which the Catechumens 
 were dismissed (as St. Augustine expressly tells us), and the " Mass of the 
 Faithful" began. That was, of course, the " mysterium " which the Romans 
 of the third century jested at — the rite at which the " initiated " only might 
 be present. 
 
 This secondary introduction has undergone more changes than any other 
 part of the service. So far as we have gone, you can trace a distinct 
 parallelism between the common Roman Mass or " Western Bite," and the 
 Liturgies of the East. Every Church took leave to add and amplify and 
 modify to some extent, yet we can see very clearly through the whole the 
 outlines of an original common plan^-developed, as we cannot doubt, from 
 the simple use, whatever it was, which led up to the long sermon that 
 Paul preached at Troas. Though the coincidences are obviously not acci- 
 dental, there is in the scheme itself a simplicity which argues strongly for 
 its antiquity. The Solemn Entrance, the Traditional Hyions, the Collects, 
 the Beading from the Old Testament, the Procession of the Book and the 
 
APPENDIX. 563 
 
 Beading of the Gospel, the Expository Sermon, and then the Dismissal of 
 the TJninstructed, — what could be a more natural rite ? 
 
 In the following section there is still a correspondence, though the original 
 scheme has, for reasons unknown, become obscured by frequent transpo- 
 sitions. It probably began with a second " Entrance " of the ofSciating 
 clergy, bringing in the bread and wine, which they presented forthwith, in 
 what we still call the " Offertory," at the altar. A survival of this solemnity 
 may be seen in the full Boman ritual at the chanting of the Creed. This, 
 the public profession of faith by the baptized Christians who remained, is 
 a common use in all the Churches. As is well known, it was made more 
 exact in its wording about 326 A.D., but it is understood that the simple 
 " Apostles' Creed " was the original formula used in this place, and received 
 its name from that fact. After the Offertory — which is now only a short 
 extract from the Psalms — follows the preparation by the^'Priest of the 
 vessels he is about to use in the Canon, which is closed by the public 
 washing of his hands, at the psalm "Lavabo." How old even the bare 
 ceremonial is may be gathered from the fact that this very rite is accurately 
 described by Cyril of Jerusalem, and is explained ,by him, as by all of us 
 to-day, as a symbol of the purity requisite for the performance of the act 
 that is to follow. Then after certain variable prayers, which are similar to 
 Collects, but from being said in a low voice are called " Secreta," we reach 
 that which has always been known as the " Preface " of the Commemoration 
 itself. There is, however, another observanceil should first mention, though 
 it comes much later in the Boman ritual. That is the " Kiss of Peace " 
 which was anciently exchanged by all the faithful in token of reconciliation, 
 before they should " offer their gift at the altar," as Cyril says. In his use 
 it followed the Lavabo— in others it followed or preceded the Creed — in 
 ours it is exchanged at the singing of the " Agnus Dei " between the 
 attendants at the altar immediately before the Communion. In every 
 variant, its presence attests^the constancy of the liturgical tradition and 
 links us not only with Cyril in 347, but with Justin who described it before 
 150, if not as Cyril himself believed, with the closing words of the First 
 Epistle to the Corinthians. 
 
 More remarkable, however, is the formula which comprises the so-called 
 " Preface,'' the Besponses which introduce it, and the " Triumphal Hymn " 
 into which it breaks at the close. This singular and most striking group is 
 to be found in all the liturgical famihes, and in all at the same point, as 
 the immediate prelude of the commemorative office, technically known as the 
 " Anaphora." Justin refers to it ; Cyril describes it in minute and earnest 
 detail, and preserves for us the starthng fact that the very words of the 
 Besponses, which you may hear chanted in this connection at any Catholic 
 Mass, on any Sunday, were so chanted in Jerusalem between 300 and 360 a.d. 
 " &iMrmm eorda : " — " Lift up your hearts ; We have lifted them up to the 
 Lord ; Let us give thanks to the Lord our Grod ; It is meet and right." 
 So runs the ancient interchange, and the Priest, taking the word from the 
 people's answer, goes on : " It is truly meet and just, right and available 
 
564 APPENDIX. 
 
 unto salvation that we should always give thanks to Thee.'' What follows 
 — and here again the various Liturgies agree with one another and with 
 Cyril — is a hjmin of the Glory of God, which ends by making mention of the 
 Angels and Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, and of the heavenly song 
 they sing, wherein we humbly join — " Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God 
 and blessed is He who oometh in the name of the Lord " — cometh, in very 
 deed, in that sacramental commemoration of His sacrifice, which is about to 
 begin. 
 
 The Canon itself may be divided into three parts — the Great Litercession 
 for the Living and the Dead, the Eucharistic Commemoration itself, and the 
 Communion. The tenour of the important words is preserved with astonish- 
 ing fidelity here, although even here there is a curious difference in the way 
 in which the Intercession is combined with the Commemoration. This 
 variance is, in fact, the distinguishing test by which the critical scholar can 
 say to which of the great families a particular local use belongs. In the 
 Alexandrine the great prayer is before the consecration ; in others after it ; 
 in our own, partly before and partly after. 
 
 Of the central Commemoration itself — the Sacramental words- -and the 
 Elevation, there is little that I can here say, except that in erery rite they 
 testify, beyond cavil, to the doctrine of the Real Presence. It is but a simple 
 recital of the facts of the Supper at which the Mass was instituted, and of 
 the command then given ; and as the Church has always believed, the 
 mystery of the Divine Presence comes to pass, and the miracle Christ 
 wrought is wrought again, when the solemn words are uttered. Therefore 
 we bow down, and adore. 
 
 It is this act of the Mass which the Church from the first century onward 
 has styled the " Sacrifice''— the repetition that is by the providential 
 ordinance of the great offering once made upon the Cross. But there 
 remains the Sacrament ; and when, after the " Agnus Dei," a bell rings 
 again, the Priest, having made his private preparation, receives that " Holy 
 Communion," and with him any or all the people, if they will. With this 
 the ofi&ce is completed, except for the prayers of thanksgiving, and the final 
 blessing. In our usage, however, there is read the introduction of St. John's 
 Gospel, as a final theme of meditation. Other prayers, English or Latin, 
 may be added at the end, or at the beginning, or before the sermon ; but with 
 these exceptions, the stated course of the ritual is followed by the ofliciating 
 Priest, the people being free to use their own prayers, so long as they in 
 spirit and intention " assist at " or follow the action. 
 
 In reverting, after this description, to the historical question, I need not 
 refer further to the internal evidence afforded by the consensus of the early 
 rites. The force of that line of argument will already be apparent, and any 
 candid critic can easily follow it out. As to the external evidence to be 
 drawn from the writers of the first four centuries (including Justin and 
 Cyril), my proposition is that, differing as they do in race, character, and 
 subject, no fair-minded reader can collate the numerous utterances which 
 bear on the central oflSce of the Christian Church as they knew it, without 
 
APPENDIX. 565 
 
 admitting that it was in its essentials such a service as the Mass I have 
 described. 
 
 It ■would be impossible, within any practicable limits, to marshal these 
 testimonies. By way of illustration, however, I may be allowed to direct 
 attention to one or two indications of detail — internal and external — which 
 point very strongly to the Apostolic age. 
 
 {Then proceed : — ) It is known that the liturgical texts were not committed 
 to writing till the fourth century. St. Basil ... (as at foot of p. 33G and 
 onwards). 
 
 Page 337, line 25, omit comma after " not long after." 
 „ 338, „ 9, /or "350 "read" 347-8 A.D." 
 „ 338, „ 29, for " wrote " read " is given as the author of." 
 „ 338, „ 31, after " probably " add " so far as they are genuine.'' 
 „ 338, „ 32, for " certain fragments of one of these which was lost " 
 
 read "certain hitherto unknown fragments of an 
 
 evidently genuine epistle.'' 
 „ 339, „ 43, for "religion of intellectual life" read "region of 
 
 intellectual life." 
 „ 343, „ 12, /or "our "read "any." 
 „ 346, „ 6, for " whenever " read " wherever." 
 „ 346, „ 25, far " Son of God " read " Love of God." 
 
 Printed ty HaieU, WaUon, 4 Tiney, Ld., London and AyleBbnry.