ttViiHHHmHIHF 
 
 m 
 
6 . 2.6", /^. 
 
 « 
 
 •XK*^"^^ 
 
 ^X i\ie Ibfo^ogtaf » 
 
 J<Ji 
 
 %• 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. 
 
 BV 2060 .H9 1905 
 
 Hume, Robert Allen, 1847- 
 
 1929. 
 Missions from the modern 
 
MISSIONS FROM 
 THE MODERN VIEW 
 
MISSIONS FROM 
 THE MODERN VIEW 
 
 BY X 
 ROBERT A.^UME 
 
 OF 
 
 Ahmednagar, India 
 
 With an Introduction bt 
 CHARLES CUTHBERT HALL 
 
 New Youk Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1905, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York : 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue 
 Toronto : 27 Richmond Street, W. 
 London : 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
TO MY WIFE 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The lectures following contribute to the 
 solution of a problem at once intricate and 
 fascinating. That problem is the readjustment 
 of missionary ideals and methods to the modern 
 state of knowledge. To admit the need of read- 
 justment in the field of missions is to place that 
 field in the same honorable category with 
 every other field of lofty human enterprise. 
 Readjustment means growth, progress, aug- 
 mentation of power, as the effects of increased 
 knowledge and experience. It would be mis- 
 taken loyalty to great leaders of the past to 
 contend that their successors in work must 
 occupy the same point of view and practice the 
 same methods. The great leaders of the past, 
 could they speak to us, would protest against 
 such well-meant but erroneous conservatism. 
 They themselves were prophets, gazing beyond 
 the things they saw, and testifying beforetime 
 of a better day to come after them. William 
 Carey, of Serampore, was a statesman and a 
 prophet. None can stand in his Hbrary, or 
 look upon his buildings on the river bank, or 
 trace the outline of his missionary policy with- 
 out realizing that his mind anticipated and 
 
g INTRODUCTION 
 
 foresaw developments of opinion and method 
 that must in time reconstruct the thinking of 
 Christian missionaries in many particulars. The 
 prophecies of some of these early leaders are 
 being fulfilled. The literatures and religions of 
 the East are studied in the West. The 
 strategic posts of service in India and the Far 
 East are occupied by an increasing number of 
 men whose training, historically, philosophi- 
 cally, socially, qualifies them to see clearly and 
 to handle tactfully the most splendid problem 
 of modern times, the Christianization of the 
 Asiatic consciousness. 
 
 It is correct and necessary that in the read- 
 justment of missionary ideals and methods the 
 initiative shall be taken by missionaries them- 
 selves and not by their academic advisers and 
 critics at home. Without doubt there are 
 aspects of the situation that can best be real- 
 ized at long range, by those who are not involved 
 in the responsibilities and limitations of denom- 
 inational service abroad. Many missionaries 
 are disqualified, by unavoidable conditions, for 
 a judgment of authority upon the true policy 
 of the Church in erecting Christian institutions 
 in non-Christian lands. Stationed in remote 
 communities ; absorbed in local operations ; re- 
 stricted, perhaps, by the sectarian spirit of the 
 ecclesiastical body to which they are responsi- 
 
INTRODUCTION S 
 
 ble; 'deprived of opportunities for travel and 
 extensive generalization, not a few members of 
 the foreign missionary force are relatively 
 unacquainted with contemporary Eastern 
 opinion, in circles of influence. As compared 
 with the limited field of missionaries thus sit- 
 uated, it is probable that an intelligent and 
 sympathetic view is more readily attained at a 
 distance and under conditions absolved from 
 sectarian restraint. But the view thus obtained 
 is likely to be invalidated, in important particu- 
 lars, by lack of local knowledge. The arm- 
 chair theorists of the West may endeavor to 
 be fair, and may actually possess a substantial 
 basis of technical information. But without 
 first-hand knowledge of the Eastern land, the 
 Eastern atmosphere, the Eastern mind and 
 soul, all theory formulated in the West may be 
 fallacious. Hence the necessity that, in the 
 readjustment of missionary ideals and methods, 
 the initiative shall proceed from those whose ex- .J 
 perience in the field is co-ordinated with broad 
 theoretical training. It is one of many splendid 
 features of modern missionary activity that 
 persons are to be found at important posts of 
 foreign duty who join ripe experience with 
 thoroughgoing culture. These are they to 
 whom all parties in interest must look, for cor- 
 rect interpretations of existing conditions and 
 
4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 fertile suggestions of procedure. It is very 
 striking to observe that these modern leaders, 
 although allied ecclesiastically with Churches 
 of the West that perpetuate hereditary diver- 
 gences of doctrine and practice, are agreed in 
 certain fundamental positions. They are quite 
 at one in recognizing that the heart of the East 
 already contains the principle of religious 
 aspiration, and is hungering and thirsting for 
 God. They agree that the policy of Christian 
 Missions toward existing religious experience 
 must be that of Christ, Who came not to destroy 
 but to fulfill; to conserve the reality, however 
 dwarfed or perverted in mode of expression, and 
 to invest that deficient reality with the rich 
 content of the revelation of God in Christ 
 Jesus. They agree that the Christianization 
 of the Asiatic consciousness does not mean its 
 transformation into the likeness of the West; 
 and that the Mission of the Holy Ghost in the 
 East may be to produce an Oriental Christianity 
 different in institutional form and in tempera- 
 ment from the Christianity of Europe and 
 America. 
 
 Dr. Hume's lectures admirably illustrate the 
 readjustment of ideals and methods that has 
 taken place already in the most intelligent cir- 
 cles of foreign missionary workers. These 
 lectures are a gospel for the West. They show 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 how far beyond much of our relatively narrow 
 and provincial thinking many of our foremost 
 missionaries have advanced. They summon 
 the Church at home to rise to a higher plane of 
 thought ; to abandon the discussion of out-worn 
 points of controversy; to awake from the sleep 
 of luxury, formahsm, and self -centered religious 
 profession; to respect the aspirations and in- 
 terests of Eastern peoples ; to advance to an 
 adequate maintenance of scholarly and conse- 
 crated men who, by lives of purity and excel- 
 lence, have disarmed the suspicions and won 
 the respect of Orientals. These great mis- 
 sionary leaders know the situation as it exists. 
 They know how to reach, and they are reach- 
 ing, the religious consciousness of Asia. They 
 know how to conduct wise operations for the 
 propagation of Christianity in lands for which 
 the Son of God gave His very life. Those opera- 
 tions, conceived in wisdom, conducted in love, 
 are crippled in the most piteous manner by 
 lack of money to maintain them. The Christian 
 churches of the West include in their mem- 
 bership the possessors of enormous wealth. To 
 them may this book speak in tones that shall*' 
 instruct the intellect, admonish the conscience, 
 and enlarge the heart. 
 
 Chaeles Cuthbert Hall. 
 Ukioh Theological Seminaky, June, 1906, 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 The first six chapters of this book consist of 
 lectures which were delivered at Andover Theo- 
 logical Seminary, the University of Chicago, 
 the Chicago Theological Seminary, and Bangor 
 Theological Seminary. The last two chapters 
 are exact illustrations of how I have given the 
 Christian message to Indians. 
 
 R. A. Hume. 
 
 Sp&ikofield^ Mass., Maj, 1905. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Missions from the Modern View of 
 
 God and the World .... 11 
 
 II. The Historical Development of Hin- 
 
 duism 45 
 
 III. Missions and Psychology ... 88 
 
 IV. Missions and Sociology 118 
 
 V. A Comparison of Christianity and 
 
 Hinduism 150 
 
 VI. What Christianity Has to Gain 
 
 FROM Contact with the East 191 
 
 VII. The Simplicity of Christianity . . 222 
 
 VIII. How Gangaram Became Acquainted 
 
 WITH God 261 
 
MISSIONS FROM THE MODERN VIEW OF 
 GOD AND THE WORLD 
 
 THE modern view of God and the world is 
 profoundly affecting every other sphere 
 of thought and duty except missions. 
 But the world is one ; its solidarity is more and 
 more recognized. Thought and life in one de- 
 partment affect thought and life in other depart- 
 ments. In part, the modern view is a result of 
 foreign missions. Therefore, of course this 
 modern view must affect thought about missions 
 and work by missionaries. In fact, foreign mis- 
 sions ought to be, and truly are, the expression 
 by Christian people of their understanding of 
 their relations to God and the world, under the 
 inspiration of the Lord Jesus Christ and accord- 
 ing to His principles. The modern view of God 
 and the world is larger and more vital than the 
 old one. It brings God most near to every single 
 member of the world. The nearer view of almost 
 
 J 
 
U MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 everything gives a fuller and truer view. Every 
 modern poet and every modern commanding 
 thinker who believes in God at all emphasizes the 
 evidence of God in His world and His ceaseless 
 activity, not only in every part of the physical 
 world, but also in every part of the moral world 
 of men. 
 
 " Speak to Him, thou, for He heareth. 
 And spirit with spirit may meet; 
 Closer is He than breathing 
 And nearer than hands or feet." 
 
 This throbbing, vital recognition of God as 
 ceaselessly active in every man is the idea of 
 theistic evolution which is the formative principle 
 of modern thought. Law is no longer thought 
 of as an impersonal force, but as an expres- 
 sion of personal will. Just as laws of physical 
 nature, so laws of human nature, are considered 
 the expression of God's customary action. 
 Theistic evolution leaves no essential distinction 
 between the natural and the supernatural. They 
 are both alike divine. Therefore there is no 
 essential difference between revealed and natural 
 religion. God is light and therefore ever reveal- 
 ing Himself. Men are made in God's image and 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD 13 
 
 are fitted to know Him. But because men are 
 weak and erring, they very partially under- 
 stand God. The religion of any company 
 of men is their interpretation in thought 
 and in practice of what God is trying to 
 teach them. Because of their limitations and 
 their sins, they only partially, and often very 
 imperfectly, understand what He is trying to 
 teach. But there is no proper distinction be- 
 tween true and false religions. A more proper 
 term would be less perfect and more perfect 
 religions. Every religion has something of 
 truth in it, because it recognizes the existence 
 of God, the fact of His relation to men, and of 
 His activity toward them, and the importance 
 of men's relations to God being made right. Yet 
 every religion is still imperfect. According to 
 the definition of religion just given, even the 
 Christian religion has not yet attained to full- 
 orbed apprehension of all spiritual things in 
 their right proportions. This is exactly the 
 teaching of Jesus Christ, who said to His disci- 
 ples, " I have yet many things to say unto you, 
 but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, 
 the Spirit of truth is come, He shall guide you 
 
14 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW, ^ 
 
 into aU the truth." The apostle Paul wrote In 
 one of his letters, " I fed you with milk, not with 
 meat; for ye were not able to bear it; nay, not 
 even now are ye able." This is but another 
 way of saying that Christianity is a growing '^ 
 religion. The fundamental and sufficient evi- 
 dence that Islam cannot be the reHgion of think- 
 ing men in modern times is the fact that it 
 claims to be, and is, a religion full-grown, as it 
 is laid down in the Quran. Islam knows no doc- 
 trine of theistic evolution. If Christianity were 
 a religion full-grown and limited to such inter- 
 pretation of its principles as was known even by 
 the inspired writers of the Bible, it would not be 
 a growing religion, suited to the universal needs 
 of all men of all times. Just because it is a 
 growing religion, it has the possibilities of being 
 universal in its power to meet the religious needs 
 of mankind. Hence, the fullest interpretation 
 of spiritual needs at any time, though it be the 
 fullest up to that time, must of necessity be par- 
 tial. But this is no more discreditable to rehgion 
 than the same principle is to science. It is be- 
 cause science is growing knowledge that it is 
 able to modify the life of every generation. 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD 15 
 
 Science is nothing else than one witness to God's 
 infinite greatness and readiness to reveal Himself 
 and to communicate Himself to his children just 
 as fast and as far as by seeking and following 
 His laws they have developed capacity and will- 
 ingness to understand Him. As science is simply 
 God's revelation of Himself in one sphere to 
 patient and obedient men who seek to know and 
 do His will in one direction, so in another sphere 
 religion is the witness of His infinite greatness 
 and readiness to reveal Himself and to communi- 
 cate Himself to His children just as fast and as 
 far as they develop capacity and willingness to 
 hear Him and take His help in spiritual things. 
 The apostle Paul never uttered a more inspired 
 word than when he said, " I know only in part, 
 and I teach only in part ; but more and more the 
 perfect is going to come, and as perfection grad- 
 ually comes, that which is partial will be done 
 away. Now I know only in part, but then shall 
 I know fully." For substance that is only say- 
 ing that Paul's rehgion was a growing rehgion. 
 One of the most interesting features in the study 
 of his letters is to notice how he grew in his inter- 
 pretation of spiritual things. 
 
16 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 The modem view also emphasizes the fact 
 that salvation is not essentially a matter of 
 time and place, but is a matter of character. 
 Salvation is spiritual soundness. It is an 
 ethical condition. But this is exactly what 
 the Lord Jesus Christ most plainly taught. 
 He said very little about what would happen 
 to men when they had gone to heaven. 
 He said that He came that men might have 
 life and that they might have it abundantly, 
 and that men who take His help would have 
 eternal life now. " He that hath the Son hath 
 eternal hfe." 
 
 A great deal of modern Christian thought, 
 while not denying the metaphysical divinity of 
 Christ, dwells principally upon His ethical 
 divinity, which is just what would naturally 
 follow when the salvation which He came to give 
 to men was ethical soundness of character. 
 Jesus Christ is the human expression of God. 
 God is like Jesus Christ. From this follows the 
 further consideration which Jesus Christ most 
 plainly and most helpfully taught: that God is 
 in a true sense like men. When the Lord Jesus 
 Christ wanted to help men to understand how 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD 17 
 
 simple, how real, how vital is God's relation to 
 every man, and how anxious God is to have every 
 human child of His come to Him in simplicity 
 with every thought and need. He said for sub- 
 stance. This is the way to think of God in rela- 
 tion to you. You may be sure that He will do 
 to you even better than you would do to your own 
 son. If your son were hungry and asked you 
 for bread, would you not give him bread? And 
 if he asked you also for fish, would you not give 
 him a fish.'* You would not give him a serpent, 
 would you ? Well, if you, with your limitations 
 and your sins, if you, being evil, do as well as 
 you can by your own children, how much more 
 shall your Heavenly Father do the best that He 
 can by every one of His human children ; and the 
 best that He can do is to give His Holy Spirit 
 to make you holy. 
 
 Modem Christian thought is rightly making 
 the Holy Spirit truly universal in His presence 
 and activity. Christian thought has always em- 
 phasized the divinity of the Holy Spirit, but it 
 failed to recognize His omnipresence and His 
 universal activity. In no respect does the 
 modern doctrine of the immanence of God so 
 
18 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 largely and so helpfully enrich modern thought 
 and life as in recognition of the omnipresent 
 activity of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit 
 is truly God, then He is God in the heart of 
 every man trying to make him holy. 
 
 Modem Christian thought rightly emphasizes 
 historicity as very important in the considera- 
 tion of all religious matters, for exact history is 
 a statement and interpretation of facts with 
 which God has been connected as well as with 
 which man has been connected. It is one of the 
 principal excellences of the Christian religion 
 that it seeks to know the exact facts of history, 
 whether those facts are according to the tradi- 
 tional explanation or different from that ex- 
 planation. History is and ever will be one door 
 and way to the life of God. But modem Chris- 
 tian thought is coming more and more to recog- 
 nize that even historicity is not the complete or 
 the chief evidence in spiritual things. History 
 is only the story of the past. It cannot give the 
 ideal of the future. But the ideal is an impor- 
 tant part of religion, both as a system of 
 thought and as a life, because it is the future 
 that draws spirits onward and upward more than 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD 19 
 
 the past that drives them on. The lowest grades 
 of life have an outlook simply upon the past and 
 recognize only the possibility and compulsion of 
 the past. One fundamental weakness in the doc- 
 trine of transmigration and of reincarnation, 
 which are the principal forces in Hinduism, is 
 that it is wholly, or mainly, the past that con- 
 trols the future. But poets and seers and all 
 lovers know that the present and the future are 
 more than the past. Therefore, while not ignor- 
 ing the past or the present, they care for the 
 past principally because it is the door into a 
 greater future. That is, the lure of the ideal is 
 the formative influence in the Hfe of the poet 
 and the seer and the lover. It is the hope of 
 greater and better things that makes men climb 
 mountains and cross oceans and suffer difficulties 
 with patience and with delight, because there is 
 more hght and life and joy in the ideal which is 
 luring them on. It is the ideal which makes the 
 patriot, the teacher, the parent, the lover. 
 
 Proportion is more and more coming to be 
 seen to be the important thing in religion, as in 
 every other sphere of life. Good cooking is 
 largely a matter of proportion. Too much or 
 
20 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 too little of an Ingredient, over-baking or under- 
 baking, injures any meal. In the matter of 
 amusements sanity and proper results depend 
 mainly upon the proportion of time, strength, 
 and money given to any one amusement, or to 
 amusements as a part of strenuous life. Pro- 
 portion is the principal thing in any wise use of 
 money. Modern life makes the study and prac- 
 tice of proportion almost its chief business. The 
 same thing applies in religion. Every religion 
 and every denomination in the Christian religion 
 has its weakness in over-emphasizing some phase 
 of truth and under-emphasizing others. But 
 Jesus Christ is the explanation of the riddle of 
 religion, as of all life. He gave all religious 
 principles in right proportion. He grew just as 
 we grow. But He was God manifest in the 
 flesh in the fullest measure possible for God to 
 reveal Himself through men. Yet even He said, 
 " I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you 
 that I go away, for if I go not away, the Com- 
 forter will not come unto you ; but if I go, I will 
 send Him unto you. When He, the Spirit of 
 truth is come. He shall guide you into all truth." 
 The marvel is that no one has ever gone beyond 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD SI 
 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. No one has appeared 
 who has the slightest possibility of going beyond 
 Him. And most, if not all, of the great spirit- 
 ual seers say that they get their inspiration and 
 their light largely from Jesus Christ. They 
 reverently acknowledge their dependence upon 
 Him and their obligation to Him. Even now 
 He is rising still higher and higher in the spirit- 
 ual firmament of the whole world. He is still 
 the Light of the World. 
 
 The modem view of God is largely the modem 
 view of the world. The world is larger because 
 God is larger. It is not now only or mainly 
 physical nature which is thought of as revealing 
 God. Men are considered as His chief revela- 
 tion. This is simply in accordance with the 
 teachings of Christ and true Christianity. It 
 is the natural inference from the whole doctrine 
 of incarnation. God was manifest in supremest 
 human form in Jesus Christ in order that He 
 might manifest Himself also in every other man. 
 Probably the finest word in the Apocalypse is 
 this: "And I heard a great voice out of the 
 throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is 
 with men, and He shall dwell with them and they 
 
n MISSIONS from the IMODERN VIEW 
 
 shall be his people, and God himself shall be 
 with them, and be their God ; and He shall wipe 
 away every tear from their eyes." Therefore, 
 in stating the modem view of God I have already 
 stated the modern view of God and the world. 
 God is in His world. Men are made in His 
 image. They are His children. He is ever try- 
 ing to do His very, very best by every one of 
 them. They are very imperfect. They very par- 
 tially and imperfectly understand Him. They 
 very often fail to take His help. In this way 
 they sin against Him and fail to do their duty. 
 They grieve Him, but He is so patient, so 
 patient. 
 
 "Take all in a word, the trust in God's breast 
 Lies trace for trace, on ours impressed. 
 Though He is so bright and we are so dim. 
 We are made in His image, we witness Him." 
 
 Now how does this modern view of God and of 
 the world affect missions? Of course, the main 
 thought and impulse of Christian missions is the 
 desire to help in bringing the world of men into 
 that conscious relation to their Father God, 
 which He desires, and which Christ came to 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD £3 
 
 secure. With the view-point of God and the 
 world here expressed missions would naturally be 
 the very first sphere of thought and activity to 
 be changed. So the modem view does two things 
 for missions. 
 
 «^ First: It brings into nobler light the Christ- 
 likeness which has characterized foreign missions 
 from apostolic times to the present, in the actual 
 going out of Christian men and women at self- 
 sacrifice and with enthusiastic love to make 
 known to brother-men and sister-women that 
 knowledge and love of God which Jesus Christ 
 had revealed to the missionaries themselves. It 
 was a narrower view of God and of the world 
 than the modem -v^iew which inspired those mis- 
 sionaries, but it is the more honorable to those 
 heroic men and women that they went with the 
 motive which they had; that they proved the 
 sincerity and intensity of their sense of brother- 
 hood and fellowship and their filial relation to 
 their Heavenly Father by going and loving and 
 sufi'ering as they did. It iU becomes the critics 
 of those men and women, who plume themselves 
 on their larger thought, to criticise those who, 
 from a narrower view, went as missionaries of the 
 
24 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 Cross; whereas all that many of those critics 
 have done for their f ellowmen has been to sit at 
 ease at home and to throw stones at the men who 
 proved their sense of brotherhood by going to 
 the front and helping men as they could. 
 
 Secondly: This modern view vastly increases 
 the hopefulness and the importance of missions. 
 Since God is at work on every man; since most 
 men, with their limitations and their sins, fail to 
 apprehend God as He wishes them to apprehend 
 Him; since the Lord Jesus Christ is the fullest 
 revelation of God; and since the Holy Spirit 
 uses the Lord Jesus Christ and His revelation of 
 spiritual truth as His best instrument in bring- 
 ing men into conscious filial relations with their 
 Heavenly Father, how inspiring the opportunity 
 and how imperative the duty of taking to those 
 who do not know Christ the inspiration and the 
 power which He longs to give them ! The larger 
 and nearer view of God brings encouragement 
 to every child of His who tries to bring this 
 larger view into the horizon of every other man. 
 The universality of rehgion which is now recog- 
 nized is a new illustration of God's activity in 
 every man. The universality of the Holy 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD 25 
 
 Spirit's work is a call to give to the Holy Spirit 
 that instrument which He especially needs in 
 enabling God to make men come into fuller and 
 fuller light, and thus to grow in holiness. The 
 Lord Jesus Christ truly said, " When the Com- 
 forter is come. He will convict the world in 
 respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judg- 
 ment: of sin because they believe not on me.'* 
 " He shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto 
 you." 
 
 A new confidence and joy in God's eternal love 
 is always awakened in every land by that revela- 
 tion of God's own yearning for the love of His 
 weak and erring human children which was made 
 by the life and sacrifice of His well-beloved Son 
 Jesus Christ. The Christian missionary now 
 goes to the non-Christian world under the inspi- 
 ration of the thought that not only are men miss- 
 ing the love and confidence and intelligent fel- 
 lowship with their Father which they need, but 
 that the Heavenly Father himself craves, with 
 infinite longing and love, the intelligent fellow- 
 ship and love and confidence of each child of His. 
 So that God is suffering for lack of returning 
 love from His children, just as human parents 
 
26 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 suffer from the sins of their heedless and willful 
 children perhaps more than those heedless and 
 willful children suffer from their neglect of 
 parental love. It was this thought of the suf- 
 fering of God on account of His children being 
 unreconciled to Him that led the apostle to the 
 Gentiles to say, " We are ambassadors on behalf 
 of Christ, as though God were entreating by 
 us; we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye 
 reconciled to God." 
 
 This modern view and more spiritual inter- 
 pretation of the work of Christ also gives a new 
 glory and urgency to foreign missions from the 
 thought that just as Jesus Christ came to " ful- 
 fill " the partial view of the Judaic system, so 
 also He came to " fulfill " the partial interpreta- 
 tion of God which men in other religions have 
 made. To " fulfill " means to " fill full." That is 
 what Jesus Christ did to the Judaic system. With 
 spiritual principle He filled full the partial and 
 limited views of the earlier prophets of Israel. 
 The Jews of His time did not adequately under- 
 stand Him. But herein is the unique character 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ. Herein is He shown 
 to be the Saviour of the world that by His teach- 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD S7 
 
 ings and life and sacrifice and death and resur- 
 rection He gave such a revelation of God as 
 even now men have only partially understood. 
 And He not only gave the revelation, but He 
 gives power to live according to that revelation. 
 The modern view shows that God has always 
 been at work on other peoples besides the ancient 
 children of Israel ; and that just as " in the full- 
 ness of time " Jesus Christ came to fulfill the 
 limited interpretations of the Judaic system, so 
 Christ is the fulfiller of earlier and more par- 
 tial teachings of God which have been current 
 in His human children in any land and at any 
 time. That phrase, " fullness of time," is one 
 of the finest in the literature of mankind, and one 
 of the most illuminating words of the apostle 
 Paul. It is a thought essential to modern theis- 
 tic evolution. It expresses something like the 
 modern phrase, " the psychological moment." 
 Jesus Christ is the fulfillment and the fulfiller of 
 all spiritual truth. What a new inspiration to 
 foreign missions, that, since the light of the 
 glorious gospel of the blessed God has been com- 
 mitted to our trust, we should let it sliine through 
 us upon all the world; that those who have not 
 
28 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 seen this light, might see and walk and rejoice 
 in it, as many of those who live in Christian lands 
 now do. It is an inspiration to foreign missions 
 that through our holding forth Christ to those 
 who do not know Him He may see of the travail 
 of His soul and be satisfied. For He said, 
 " Other sheep I have which are not of this fold : 
 them also I must bring and they shall hear my 
 voice; and they shall become one flock, one 
 shepherd." 
 
 This modern view of God and the world affects 
 the assumptions of the missionary in other ways. 
 It emphasizes the fact that some of the weak- 
 nesses of the non-Christian world which have 
 been thought to be sinful, are rather more 
 phases of ignorance than sin, and it makes some 
 phases of sin more prominent and heinous than 
 they have been previously thought to be. For 
 example: Whereas the older view made idolatry 
 one of the worst sins of non-Christians, the new 
 view makes idolatry more ignorance than sin. 
 It is not because the idolater knows that idols 
 are not the proper symbol of God, and, know^ 
 ing this, still makes and worships them, but be- 
 cause he is feeling after God, and having no such 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD 29 
 
 spiritual revelation of Him as the Christian has 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ, through idols he igno- 
 rantly gropes after the real God whom he can 
 approach. But this modern view Is really the 
 Christian view. It is the view which the apostle 
 Paul preached when he said on Mars Hill to the 
 Athenians, who were using idols, " What ye 
 worship in ignorance^ this I set forth unto you.'* 
 Similarly, caste in India is now seen to have 
 grown out of social institutions such as the 
 color line, trade guilds, differences In education, 
 property, and locality, in a way not intention- 
 ally wrongful or unkind, though the final re- 
 sult of that system has been to develop some of 
 the most unlovely and unbrotherly character- 
 istics In the relations of men, and though it 
 would be an awful sin if persisted in under the 
 light of the Christian Gospel. But, on the con- 
 trary, this modern view of God and the world 
 emphasizes in a new and unexpected light the 
 sin and the selfishness of the dweller in Christian 
 lands who has had the fuller revelation of God 
 which comes through Jesus Christ and the 
 countless privileges of Christian civilization, in 
 not caring for his non-Christian brother enough 
 
30 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 to give him the same hfe and help, even at the 
 cost of self-sacrifice. It has given a new illus- 
 tration of the parable of the Good Samaritan. 
 No intelligent visitor to non-Christian lands 
 like India and Burma and China and Africa and 
 the islands of the seas, but knows that polythe- 
 ism, pantheism, idolatry, caste, ignorance, child- 
 marriage, poverty, and other ills from which 
 millions upon millions in those lands are suffer- 
 ing are like blows from which the man fell 
 bleeding on the way from Jerusalem to Jericho. 
 So those who, dwelling in Christian lands, smugly 
 comfort themselves on their superior enlighten- 
 ment and sneer at the missionary as narrow and 
 fanatical, are truly like the Levite and the priest 
 who passed by on the other side, while the mis- 
 sionary is the good Samaritan who goes to the 
 bleeding man, and binds up his wounds, and 
 puts him on his own beast, and takes him to an 
 inn, and provides for him. The truth that men 
 in non-Christian lands, as much as those in Chris- 
 tian lands, really need the revelation of God 
 which comes through Christ and the inspiration 
 and power which He gives, is shown by the rest- 
 lessness of non-Christian peoples, by their vague. 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD ^1 
 
 mistaken efforts to relieve themselves from 
 spiritual burdens through austerities and pil- 
 grimages and gifts to idols. Captain Cornelius 
 was indeed " a devout man and one that feared 
 God with all his house, who gave much alms to 
 the poor and prayed to God always." But with 
 all his devoutness he was not satisfied, and when 
 the apostle Peter told him about the Lord 
 Jesus Christ and frankly admitted that he him- 
 self was now finding out more and more than 
 he had previously understood, since " God is no 
 respecter of persons : but in every nation he that 
 feareth Him and worketh righteousness is ac- 
 ceptable to Him," that devout non-Christian, 
 instead of saying, " Very well, if that is so, 
 then I do not see any need of my becoming a 
 Christian," said just the opposite. He said, 
 That is just the revelation of God which I 
 have been longing for and need, and I wish 
 this very hour with all my household, to enroll 
 myself as His humble disciple; and he and his 
 family were then baptized and entered the Chris- 
 tian fold. So now this larger view of God as 
 trying to reveal Himself to every man, and of 
 his Spirit's universal activity in the hearts of 
 
S2 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW] 
 
 men, instead of leading non-Christians who hear 
 this call to think that they do not need the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, would naturally have and 
 does have the opposite effect when the Christian 
 evangel is preached to them in this large way. 
 
 With this view of God and the world, in loy- 
 alty to the Lord Jesus Christ and under His 
 inspiration, the aims of the modern missionary 
 are not really very unlike what the aims of the 
 missionary were under a more contracted view. 
 Yet the way of conceiving and stating those 
 aims is different. A statement of those aims 
 might be put in modem language somewhat like 
 this: First, the Christian missionary now aims 
 to create a new Christian climate, somewhat as 
 the Lord Jesus Christ sought to create it ; as the 
 apostle Paul and the apostle Peter sought to 
 create it ; L e., so to shed abroad the light of the 
 gospel that men in non-Christian lands shall 
 make the same assumptions which men in Chris- 
 tian lands now make. Those assumptions are 
 something Hke these : That there is only one God, 
 who is the Father of the spirits as well as of 
 the bodies of all men; that He is ever present 
 mth every human child and trying to do His best 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD 33 
 
 for tlie spirit of every child; that because God 
 is thus the Father of us all, we are all brothers 
 and sisters of one another; that, therefore, we 
 should realize the mutual interest of each human 
 being in every other human being; and that it 
 is both the privilege and the duty of every man 
 to do his best, as for the body, so for the 
 spirit of every fellowman. And the aim is that 
 men, growing up in these assumptions, shall live 
 as sons of God. With these assumptions and 
 trying to live according to them, whether men 
 join the Christian church or not, they are in the 
 kingdom of God; and just so far as the Church 
 becomes co-terminous with the kingdom of God, 
 they will sooner or later become members of the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 Second: the missionary aims to make better 
 men and women, and so to make a better world. 
 He does not talk much about men's going to 
 a safe place called heaven because Jesus Christ 
 died, whether men take His help and become 
 saved into good character in this world or not. 
 Over the door of the room in which I meet men 
 who come to talk with me I have placed, in spirit, 
 though not in words, the sign, " R. A. Hume, 
 
34 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 maker and mender of men and boys on the 
 Jesus Christ pattern by the help of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ." If helping non-Christians to 
 become Christians does not make better men and 
 women, better husbands and wives, better fathers 
 and mothers, better children, better neighbors, 
 better citizens, and better friends, then the mis- 
 sionary of the modern view would not have ac- 
 complished what he aims to accomplish. It is 
 because under the older and more contracted view 
 there had been some who professed the name of 
 Christian, but who did not become better men 
 and women, yet who in ignorance or sin made the 
 Christian profession, and thus were a dishonor to 
 the Lord Jesus whose name they took, and to 
 the missionary who meant to do them good, that 
 travelers and others have, in some places, with 
 some degree of reason, thought missions were 
 doing no good and were even doing harm. But 
 in very truth among men in every land about 
 which I am informed the majority of those who 
 have come into the vision of the Lord Jesus 
 and who have confessed themselves His disciples, 
 have through His help become better men and 
 women, with a larger and fuller life. 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD 55 
 
 Third: The missionary aims to ascertain so 
 far as he can, and to thank God for, every truth 
 which He has taught to any man in any form 
 and in any degree. Then with thoughtful 
 recognition of this work of God the mission- 
 ary seeks to adapt from the Christian inter- 
 pretation of things that which will supple- 
 ment and fulfill and bring into rightness the 
 truth which God has in part revealed to the non- 
 Christian. In other words, under the modem 
 view of God and the world the modern mission- 
 ary believes that, in the fullness of time, God 
 through Jesus Christ is fulfilling that which He 
 had previously taught any men in part. 
 
 Fourth: The modern missionary realizes that 
 since Jesus Christ has come that all men might 
 have life and might have it more abundantly, it 
 is his privilege and duty to help them in every- 
 thing that would enrich their life. In this the 
 modern missionary is practically doing simply 
 what all missionaries have more or less done from 
 the first. With a different view of God and the 
 world they wrought better than they knew. 
 From the first the missionary in India has been 
 a pioneer in all that enriches life. He was a 
 
S6 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 pioneer in higher English education; in pri- 
 mary education among the ignorant masses; in 
 education for women, and in all that upbuilds 
 and ennobles women; in medical work of all 
 kinds; and now by common consent the mis- 
 sionary is the pioneer in the most successful and 
 useful lines of industrial training and develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Missionaries like Livingston and Cyrus Ham- 
 lin may or may not have had any idea of 
 theistic evolution, but at heart they had the 
 modern view of God and the world, and they 
 did the kind of work which is bringing about 
 that modern view. It now gives justification to 
 a matter which was long a source of doubt and 
 debate, and which in some missionary circles 
 brought even condemnation to certain lines of 
 missionary activity. In the narrow conception 
 that all that the missionary ought to do is to 
 tell men that Christ died for their sins and that 
 if they believed in Him He would forgive them 
 and take them to heaven, there was no adequate 
 justification for the missionary's spending 
 strength and time in educating people in schools, 
 in carrying on medical work except to a very 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD 67 
 
 limited extent, and certainly no justification for 
 efforts to improve the social and economic 
 condition of peoples in other lands. Never- 
 theless, most missionaries have always felt 
 moved to do something in these directions, and 
 this has led to frequent and often acrimonious 
 discussions in some circles as to whether the 
 efforts of medical missionaries were quite legiti- 
 mate. But what the logic of the heart and of 
 the situation led most missionaries to do, even 
 despite the then prevailing theory of missions, 
 can now find joyous acceptance, because these 
 more philanthropic efforts are seen to be entirely 
 consistent with the true spirit of Christ, There- 
 fore, now some people in the spirit of Jesus are 
 well pleased to give money and effort for medical 
 and industrial missons, even when through nar- 
 row and mistaken conceptions they are unwil- 
 ling to do anything for the more fundamental 
 and more important work of giving to non- 
 Christians that knowledge of God the Father of 
 our spirits, and of the consequent brotherhood of 
 men, which are unquestionably the chief things 
 in the Christian religion and the most important 
 benefits which this religion imparts to mankind. 
 
58 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 Hence, this modem view is making missionary 
 work not so much ecclesiastical as personal, and 
 is making the betterment of the social and eco- 
 nomic conditions of brother-men and sister- 
 women in non-Christian lands the duty and the 
 privilege of their more favored fellowmen in 
 Christendom. In other words, the largest and 
 most promising missionary activity is now con- 
 sidered to be the all round work of spiritual, sj 
 mental, and physical betterment, because such 
 three-fold comprehensive endeavor best brings 
 men into that abundance of life which God 
 through Jesus Christ desires to give them. 
 
 This outlook will also give to laymen more and 
 more part in the various lines of missionary ac- 
 tivity. In Christian lands at home laymen are 
 finding larger and larger spheres of influence. 
 Similarly, laymen are to do a much larger part 
 in foreign missionary work. The larger scope 
 of such work demands that kind of qualification 
 which often laymen possess more than the aver- 
 age clergyman. And as foreign laymen set the 
 example in the manifold developments of mis- 
 sionary efforts, so they will stimulate indigenous 
 Christian laymen in other lands to see how large 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD S9 
 
 a sphere is open for them in making their own 
 lands Christian. 
 
 This view affects missions helpfully not only 
 by holding up new motives for inspiration and 
 added hope to missionary zeal, but it will also 
 improve missionary methods as well. It will 
 make insight into the characteristics of non- 
 Christian peoples and institutions more neces- 
 sary and helpful. And since insight and sym- 
 pathy are sisters, the new view will also increase 
 sympathy in the selection and exercise of mis- 
 sionary methods. It will make the study and 
 adaptation of methods and motives more impor- 
 tant. It will use the adjective "better" for 
 commending the Christian religion to non- 
 Christians rather than the adjective "best." 
 But this is simply in accordance with Biblical 
 ideas and precedents. The characteristic word 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews is the adjective 
 " better." " We have a better High Priest, a 
 better hope, a better testament, a better cove- 
 nant, a better sacrifice, a better substance, a 
 better country, better things," etc. " God hav- 
 ing provided some better thing concerning us, 
 that apart from us they should not be made per- 
 
40 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 feet." As in the first century so now, the ad- 
 jective " better " is the right expression for the 
 earHer relation of Christianity to the ethnic 
 faiths. It is the word which expresses the 
 gradual fulfillment of vague and undeveloped 
 aspirations. Since it is always most difficult to 
 establish a universal proposition, one should not 
 attempt more than is necessary in any under- 
 taking. Moreover, since Christianity is a grow- 
 ing religion, and since some phases of thought 
 and life which have seemed to Christians at one 
 time to be absolutely the best, have, after added 
 knowledge and experience, been seen to be not 
 full-orbed apprehension of spiritual truth, the 
 adjective " better" is the only correct term and 
 conception to be used by the Christian teacher 
 in any department of thought and life. More- 
 over, from my own missionary experience I can 
 assure you that whereas a statement by a Chris- 
 tian missionary that the Christian religion is 
 absolutely the best religion in the world, strikes 
 the cultivated non-Christian as offensive and as 
 claiming too much, presenting that same re- 
 ligion as better than those which have been fol- 
 lowed by non-Christians hitherto receives a 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD 41 
 
 more ready and respectful acceptance than any 
 other way of teaching the helpfulness of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 This modern view of missions, based on a new 
 view of God and the world, seems to some people 
 to do away with the need, or at least with the 
 urgency, of foreign missionary effort at all. 
 They sometimes say, " If God is now trying to 
 do all He can for every man in the world, and 
 if His Spirit's activity is universal, why not 
 let the non-Christian peoples alone? Why is it 
 necessary for Christians to do anything for 
 them? " Such questions are illogical and arise 
 simply from failure to realize that this modem 
 view applies not simply to foreign missions, but 
 to the activity of Christians at home and to all 
 philanthropic and religious efforts of Christians 
 anywhere. 
 
 Who doubts that God is doing all He can 
 for every man in Christian America? But 
 is that any reason why the activity of the 
 churches, and the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciations, and the manifold organizations for the 
 spiritual, social, and economic betterment of men 
 in Christian lands should be given up? Is that 
 
42 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 a reason why parents need do nothing for the 
 training of their children, or why all men are 
 not under solemn obligations to God to do their 
 best for neighbors and fellow-citizens and for 
 all classes of the community at home? No one 
 would claim this. The more that we are con- 
 scious of God's opening new opportunities to 
 other men, and the more resources that He has 
 given to any man, the more we recognize the 
 responsibility of that man to God always to 
 do his very best for every man. It is almost 
 axiomatic that the man of many privileges who 
 fails to recognize and meet his added responsi- 
 bilities, thereby incurs added sin, and suffers 
 that retribution which the Lord Jesus Christ 
 said would always come upon those who fail to 
 improve and to impart the privileges which their 
 Heavenly Father has kindly given to them. 
 " To whom much is given, of them much 
 also will be required." When Peter first real- 
 ized that God is no respecter of persons ; but 
 that " in every nation he that f eareth Him and 
 worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him," 
 that did not make him think it needless to give 
 the Christian message. It encouraged him in 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD 43 
 
 giving it. The same conviction should be to us 
 what it was to Peter, an added reason for preach- 
 ing Christ. Nor did the devout Cornelius on 
 hearing this confession from Peter imagine that, 
 because God accepts devout men of every faith, 
 therefore he had no need of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. On the contrary, he the more promptly 
 and quickly placed himself among the disciples 
 of Christ. Such, also, is the ordinary experi- 
 ence of the devout non-Christian nowadays. 
 It is not the broader and more Christian state- 
 ment of God's attitude to devout men in other 
 faiths which drives such men from God, but the 
 narrower view, which belittles the spirit of the 
 God who is pleased to recognize every aspira- 
 tion and every obedience to Himself, whether 
 men have received their inspiration directly from 
 Jesus Christ or not. 
 
 I reserve for the sixth lecture the considera- 
 tion of an additional gain to foreign missions 
 from the modem view of God and the world, 
 viz., the gain which is to come from mission- 
 ary activity to Christian thought in lands 
 now Christian, when peoples that are now non- 
 Christian shall from their own view-points have 
 
44 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord 
 and spiritual helper. 
 
 " God sends His teachers unto every age. 
 To every clime and every race of men, 
 With revelations fitted to their growth 
 And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of truth 
 Unto the selfish rule of one sole race: 
 Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed 
 The life of man, and given it to grasp 
 The master-key of knowledge, reverence, 
 Infolds some germs of goodness and of right; 
 Else never had the eager soul, which loathes 
 The slothful down of pampered ignorance, 
 Foimd in it even a moment's fitful rest." 
 
II 
 
 THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF 
 HINDUISM 
 
 NOWADAYS it is axiomatic that we 
 know nothing thoroughly unless we 
 know it historically. Especially if we 
 wish to know any subject that is apart from us, 
 it is important to know its history ; how it came 
 to be what it is. In order to know the ethnic 
 religions aright we need to know them histori- 
 cally. As one contribution to such an effort, I 
 offer a statement of how Hinduism came to be 
 what it is. Hinduism is the religion of the Hin- 
 dus. For the present object of these lectures, 
 my definition of Hinduism is that it is the inter- 
 pretation by the Hindus, in thought and prac- 
 tice, of what God has been trying to teach them 
 about their relation to Himself and to their fel- 
 lowmen. The many weaknesses and errors of 
 Hinduism are due to the misapprehension by 
 Hindus of the God who was ever seeking to re- 
 veal Himself to them, even while they were f eel- 
 4>$ 
 
46 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 ing after Him, if haply they could find Him. 
 I believe that the statement which is now to be 
 made is, in a large and general way, psycho- 
 logically and chronologically correct. I would 
 not claim more than that it is correct in a large 
 and general way, for more information is likely 
 to suggest some modifications in the description 
 which is now made. But I believe that the re- 
 ligious literature of India, and the present condi- 
 tion of its multitudinous phases, substantiate the 
 positions taken. 
 
 Hinduism is not one homogeneous system. It 
 is a conglomeration of beliefs and practices, 
 many of which are inconsistent and contradic- 
 tory. This is partly because different elements 
 have gone to make up Hinduism, and very natu- 
 rally in Hinduism, as in other religions, mutually 
 inconsistent beliefs and practices have been fol- 
 lowed by the masses without realizing that they 
 were inconsistent. But the same phenomenon 
 appears more or less in all the religions of the 
 world, and in other spheres than the strictly re- 
 ligious. Hinduism is a mixture of inconsistent 
 and contradictory beliefs and practices, partly 
 because the Hindu mind has come to be so con- 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 47 
 
 stituted that it is not critical and that it easily ^ 
 says " Yes " to almost anything which is pre- 
 sented to it. And, vice versa, the Hindu religion 
 has helped to make the Hindu mind thus vague 
 and in a way comprehensive. Some years ago I 
 was asked to secure for publication in a maga- 
 zine of the Chicago University, from some recog- 
 nized Vaishnava authority in western India, a 
 statement of the Vaishnava phase of Hinduism, 
 i. e., the sect of Hinduism which considers 
 Vishnu as the chief god. In order to ascertain 
 who would be regarded as such an authority on 
 Vaishnavism I went to the most prominent and 
 influential Hindu gentleman in western India, 
 the Hon. Mahadev Govind Ranade, who was a 
 Justice of the High Court in Bombay and long 
 president of the Social Conference of India. 
 When I told him what the Chicago University 
 wished me to secure. Judge Ranade replied, " It 
 is impossible for you or anyone to get a state- 
 ment of any phase of Hinduism which would 
 be entirely acceptable to anyone except the 
 writer, because there is no one recognized state- 
 ment of Hinduism, and no person authorized to 
 make a complete statement of any phase of 
 
48 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 Hinduism." However, with a good deal of diffi- 
 culty I secured a statement which was submitted 
 first to a Hindu professor of Sanskrit in the 
 Deccan College, Poona, who was a professing 
 Vaishnava. But before he was willing to give 
 even a general sanction to the statement which 
 had been submitted to him he consulted various 
 Hindu shastris, i. e., men learned in Hindu re- 
 ligious books. After such careful examination, 
 when he returned the statement, he did not seem 
 to feel that the paper was an exact statement 
 of what it professed to be. Such an incident 
 partly explains why different persons make dif- 
 ferent estimates of what Hinduism really is. 
 Generalization is always dangerous without a 
 very large basis of knowledge and experience, 
 and even then only when made by a person of 
 judicial mental habits. Mistaken estimates of 
 Hinduism are very common, because generaliza- 
 tions about it have been made without adequate 
 knowledge and without adequate recognition of 
 the history of Hinduism. Some missionaries 
 have unintentionally made erroneous, because 
 too sweeping, statements of what Hinduism is, 
 because they supposed that those phases of mod- 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 49 
 
 em popular Hinduism with which they have 
 come in contact among the lower classes — albeit 
 those lower classes form a very large section of 
 the community — were the whole of Hinduism. 
 On the contrary, some Western visitors to India 
 and some Hindu visitors to the West have made 
 equally erroneous statements of what Hinduism 
 is by too sweeping assumptions that the more 
 spiritual conceptions of the philosophic books 
 of the Hindus were the whole of the Hindu 
 religion. 
 
 According to the definition of religion used 
 in these lectures, if the religion of any peo- 
 ple be taken as their interpretation of what 
 God has been trying to teach them, then a cor- 
 rect statement of the Christian religion would 
 not be a summary of the most spiritual teachings 
 of Jesus Christ. It would be the interpretation 
 in thought and in practice by the Christians in 
 question of the teachings and person of Jesus 
 Christ. Similarly, in a large and broad sense 
 Hinduism is not the most spiritual conception of 
 the most philosophic books. It is the interpre- 
 tation by the Hindus from early times to the 
 present of their relations to God and men. 
 
50 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 In accordance with the modern view of God 
 and the world, which was claimed in the former 
 lecture as the true way for the wise missionary 
 of these times to study Hinduism, I believe that 
 a survey of how it has come to be what it is 
 will show the goodness of God in seeking to re- 
 veal Himself to His Hindu children, while it will 
 also show how sadly they have often misunder- 
 stood Him. Since God is light and in Him is 
 no darkness at all, He Himself has always been 
 wishing and trying to reveal Himself to His 
 Hindu children as well as to His other children. 
 In fact, it was because He was seeking them that 
 they felt after Him. But even yet the Hindu has 
 not adequately recognized that supreme charac- 
 teristic of God which Jesus Christ revealed, viz., 
 that God needs His human children, and so longs 
 for them that He counts no sacrifice or effort 
 too great to bring them all into intimate filial 
 relations with Himself. 
 
 This study of the historic development of 
 Hinduism will probably give another surprising 
 revelation to some in Christian lands, viz., that 
 just as no feature of the religious history of 
 Israel is more characteristic and inspiring than 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 51 
 
 the frequency with which protestant reformers, 
 or prophets, came to protest against formality, 
 injustice, and impurity among the Hebrews, and 
 to call them back face to face with a righteous, 
 living God, and thereby to strengthen them in 
 trouble and to purify them, so in India there 
 have been many protestants against the imper- 
 fections of current religious thought, and many 
 theistic reformers of unsatisfactory living. 
 Probably more protestant reformers have ap- 
 peared in the religious history of India than in 
 the religious history of Israel; perhaps more 
 than in the Christian Church. While this state- 
 ment may seem surprising to some, is it not what 
 we should expect from such a living, righteous, 
 spiritual, loving God, as has been revealed to us 
 by Jesus Christ ? The Lord Jesus never implied 
 or said that God the Father of the spirits of all 
 men had through what Jesus himself did or said 
 become different from what He evermore had 
 been and must be. Jesus Christ came to reveal 
 the Father, not to make God a Father. " The 
 only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the 
 Father, he hath revealed Him," not made him 
 different. " He that hath seen the Son hath seen 
 
5^ MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 the Father," i, e,, hath seen God as He evermore 
 is, not as He has become changed to be through 
 Christ's revelation. 
 
 This study will also illustrate the correctness 
 of the remark in a former lecture that one com- 
 mon weakness in the religion of any man or 
 people consists in a mistake about proportion, in 
 one-sidedness, in over-emphasis of one phase of 
 truth and in neglect of other phases. It will 
 also bring into new clearness and significance 
 the fact that Jesus Christ is the one in whom 
 the fullness of God dwells: and that as in the 
 fullness of time twenty centuries ago He came 
 to fulfill what was in the bud in the Judaic sys- 
 tem, so in the present fullness of time for India 
 He seeks to fulfill all partial and imperfect ap- 
 prehensions of truth which in mixed measure or 
 in great error have been perceived by the re- 
 ligious teachers of that country. Such a study 
 will also bring into prominence the marvelous 
 patience of God in dealing with His human chil- 
 dren: a patience so beautifully expressed in the 
 Biblical phrase, "With God a thousand years 
 are as one day." 
 
 This delineation of the historical development 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 53 
 
 of Hinduism will also bring out the usual double 
 tendency in thought and life everywhere — ^both 
 the upward and the downward pull. What Paul 
 taught on this point is the ordinary experience 
 in aU human nature ; not only the human nature 
 of the Jew and the Greek, but also of the Hindu. 
 The spirit and the flesh are at enmity with one 
 another. That is, God is ever trying to pull 
 men up, and the lower elements of human nature 
 are always trying to pull men away from God. 
 Because the downward tendency often had tem- 
 porary victory in Israel, God sent protestant re- 
 formers or prophets to that chosen people of 
 His. So, because the downward tendency has 
 been more characteristic of Hinduism than of 
 the religion of Israel, God has sent protestant 
 reformers to that people also. The higher the 
 spiritual vision which was reached by any of the 
 religious leaders and thinkers of India, the sad- 
 der the fruits of modern popular Hinduism ap- 
 pear in the well-nigh universal prevalence of 
 idolatry, ignorance, superstition, and caste in 
 that country, until the glorious Gospel of the 
 blessed God as revealed in Jesus Christ has 
 brought to that land its fullness of time and has 
 
54f MISSIONS from the JMODERN VIEW 
 
 begun to dissipate the darkness and error of 
 modern popular Hinduism. 
 
 With these prehminary illustrations of what 
 the history of Hinduism will illustrate, I now 
 briefly state how Hinduism has come to be what 
 it is, viz., a conglomerate or mixture of the 
 diff*erent religious thoughts and practices of the 
 Hindus for centuries. Without giving many ex- 
 plicit illustrations of the religious practices of 
 Hindus, I shall speak briefly of those influences 
 or ideas which have been formative, and which 
 have been embodied in cultus, as well as in 
 thought. Sometimes a succession of religious 
 strata is recognizable, like geological strata on 
 the surface of the earth. But because religion 
 is a living thing, more often the diff*erent phase? 
 of life which have made up Hinduism have be- 
 come very much intermingled. For this reason 
 it is not now easy to distinguish the diff*erent 
 elements. 
 
 In general, the hill tribes and low castes of 
 India are largely the survivors of those people 
 of Kolarian or Dravidian origin who inhabited 
 India before the Aryans entered that land. In 
 the religious thought and practices of these 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 55 
 
 lower classes of the community we see a large 
 measure of the earliest formative principle of 
 what has brought about the huge religious mass 
 now called the Hindu religion. That first 
 formative principle was the principle of fear. 
 Fear is a considerable part of the religion of 
 many, perhaps of most, men in most religions. 
 But certainly in the thought and practice of the 
 lower classes in India fear easily was, and still 
 is, the original and most essential principle ; fear 
 of the unknown, of the dark, because it includes 
 the unknown; of dangerous places and danger- 
 ous animals ; of unexplained and strange phe- 
 nomena, such as eclipses, comets, etc. ; fear of 
 disease, of death, etc. As primitive Hindus 
 came into contact with such phases of life they 
 naturally wished and sought for escape from 
 such fearful influences. And they sought to 
 secure escape by propitiating the unknown and 
 the terrible. Once as I was going for a tramp 
 on a mountain range my guide said, " Before 
 we start, let me go and make a vow to my god." 
 I followed him, and after he had stood a moment 
 under a sacred tree, I asked, " Wliat did you 
 vow? " He replied, " I vowed to hang a bell in 
 
56 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 the tree, if I should see no snake on this excur- 
 sion." Snakes are the objects most feared in 
 those hills, and the reason why, without under- 
 standing the real reason, he vowed to hang a 
 bell in the branches was, no doubt, this: Snakes 
 are afraid of noises. Therefore, whenever the 
 wind shakes the tree and makes the bell tinkle, 
 a snake dislikes to stay under that tree. So it 
 is not strange that those rude and superstitious 
 people vaguely connect a sacred tree having 
 bells hanging in its branches with some power 
 which helps to drive away snakes. 
 
 The second formative principle in the de- 
 velopment of Hinduism came from the early 
 immigrants of Aryan stock. It was principally 
 the influence of the more helpful phases of 
 Nature. This fact appears in the hymns of the 
 Rig Veda. Songs, prayers, and offerings are 
 made to the sky, sun, moon, dawn, woods, fire, 
 rain, etc. This fact is so well known that illus- 
 trations from Vedic hymns are hardly needed. 
 When those earliest Aryans came in contact with 
 the dark-skinned Dravidians who were in the 
 land before them, then that happened which 
 usually happens when people of different re- 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 57 
 
 ligious ideas intermingle. The religion of the 
 earlier people absorbed something from the 
 brighter, the more cheerful thought of their 
 Aryan masters, while the religion of the Aryans 
 was also affected somewhat by the darker as- 
 pects of their servants' religion. Masters can- 
 not help being influenced by the ideas and prac- 
 tices of servants, even as servants cannot help 
 being influenced by the ideas and practices of 
 their masters. However far one advances into 
 the labyrinth of Hinduism, he always finds super- 
 stition, devils, demons, magic, witchcraft, and 
 uncanny things, which are the earliest element of 
 Hinduism surviving to the present day in the 
 religion of a great many Hindus. Yet the 
 brighter aspect of Nature, which was the special 
 contribution of the primitive Aryans to Hindu- 
 ism, has also had its part in making Hinduism 
 what it is to-day. The justification of this posi- 
 tion and an illustration of the mingling of these 
 two elements can be given from the well-known 
 fact that the Atharva Veda, which is later than 
 the Rig Veda, has both the hymns of the Rig 
 Veda and the magic and charms and maledic- 
 tions which came from the first element of Hindu- 
 
58 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 ism. Superstition lingers very, very long in 
 man, and even those who consider themselves 
 most cultured and most philosophical in the most 
 privileged sections of America still have many 
 strange and injurious superstitions influencing 
 them in thought and life. 
 
 As life became more complex and the roving 
 companies of Aryans settled into community life, 
 and society became more coherent, and the in- 
 terests of different communities seemed to clash, 
 and difficulties increased, a third formative in- 
 fluence came into the making of the religion of 
 India. The characteristics of strong leaders of 
 the community became more valued and more in- 
 fluential than the various aspects of physical 
 Nature. Men of strength and courage were 
 considered worthy of more honor. They were 
 praised not only while alive, but after their 
 death, and the apotheosis of former heroes be- 
 came a prominent principle in the thought and 
 life of the country. In all religions hero-wor- 
 ship has been a prominent and formative influ- 
 ence. In the period succeeding Vedic times hero- 
 worship was the principal element in literature 
 and in religion. It certainly was so in the epic 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 59 
 
 poems which have exerted so great an influence 
 in India, and it was so even in times earlier than 
 the great epics. 
 
 But as life became still more complex, and as 
 knowledge and skill naturally took precedence 
 of physical force and courage, wise men became 
 more and more influential, and the memories of 
 wise men gone received more and more attention 
 and became objects of reverence in the thought 
 of the times. In no country has knowledge come 
 to have the preeminence that it has had in 
 India. There knowledge is the great thing. 
 Nothing in Indian thought and Hfe, neither 
 money, material advantages, social prominence, 
 nor political power, have ever been such objects 
 of respect and desire as they are in the West. 
 It is knowledge or wisdom which is the great 
 thing. Even the rites and institutions of re- 
 ligion have been valued by the thoughtful in 
 India not for their own sakes, but as the means 
 of securing knowledge. And as knowledge came 
 to have such a preeminence it grew into the be- 
 lief that man's spirit is not only his chief ele- 
 ment, is not mortal; it is a part of or is even 
 identical with the universal and immortal. There 
 
60 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 was nothing too much to inquire into. Yet even 
 in those times the teachers of India recognized 
 some limitations to the understanding. In the 
 Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad III. 6 after a pupil 
 had over and over again pushed inquiries in 
 ontology the teacher Yajnavalkya said, " Do 
 not over-question lest your head fall off. In 
 truth you are over-questioning a divinity 
 about which further questions cannot be asked." 
 There are two results of this kind of thinking. 
 One result was the feeling that nothing is real: 
 that life is not worth living. In other words, 
 the first result was pessimism. It was just the 
 result which came to the thinker in Ecclesiastes, 
 " Vanity of vanities ; all is vanity." The other 
 result was that the thinkers knew, and plain men 
 knew, that this kind of philosophy was of no 
 use for the masses ; and so endless rites and mean- 
 ingless ceremonies were placed upon the common 
 crowd, which came to be a yoke that pressed most 
 sorely upon their hearts and lives. 
 
 So, while search by the intellect for a bet- 
 ter understanding of the inward meaning 
 of religion was an upward response to what 
 God was trying to teach the Hindus, yet 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 61 
 
 in this connection there developed one of the 
 greatest dangers to true religion, viz., pride 
 of intellect and contempt of common men. 
 The thinkers sought to spin out their specu- 
 lation finer and finer, but they did not con- 
 sider how they could better help their less culti- 
 vated fellowmen. They sought knowledge only 
 for itself. For the masses they formed an ex- 
 oteric system of rituals and sacrifices, and for 
 the initiated an esoteric system. While theoreti- 
 cally rites and sacrifices were elevated into usage 
 only for the common people, the priests and 
 teachers themselves fell into the practice be- 
 cause they could not command such practices 
 on the masses without themselves taking a part 
 in what they commanded. The word Yoga, 
 meaning " union," is a principal word at this 
 time, and Yoga as both the aim and the 
 means of union with the divine was made 
 to consist largely in terrible austerities. Reli- 
 gion became mainly a yoke of ceremonies and 
 formulas, beginning for the individual be- 
 fore he was bom and continuing for two or three 
 generations in his family after he had left this 
 world. The object of Yoga was not to develop 
 
62 MISSIONS frovi the MODERN VIEW 
 
 into their fullest exercise the natural powers of 
 body and mind, and all the sweet relations of 
 human society, but to restrict and put them 
 away. The result was disastrous in two direc- 
 tions. It was disastrous for the thinkers, be- 
 cause it displaced simple and natural living by 
 formal introspection. It was disastrous for the 
 masses, because religion was thought to consist 
 in meaningless and formal external acts. The 
 thinker went into pantheism; not into recog- 
 nition of a personal God, but of an impersonal 
 chain of events, in which the doctrine of Karma 
 made the whole course of life here and hereafter 
 one of fate. Pride of intellect always injures 
 both heart and will. It caused coldness of 
 heart among the leaders of the Hindu religion. 
 Instead of inspiring the leaders to instruct 
 and uphft the masses, it made them mislead 
 the masses with set purpose. The priests be- 
 came unscrupulous, selfish, and greedy; and 
 formalism resulted in hypocrisy, as it always 
 must with intelligent men. Meanwhile ceaseless 
 and meaningless rites turned the religion of the 
 masses also into formahsm, which is the first 
 great bane of religion. So, whereas the fuller 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 65 
 
 use of the intellect should have diminished the 
 principle of fear in the religion of the Hindus, 
 formalism and sacerdotalism wrought the very 
 opposite result. For now it was not only fear 
 of the unknown in men's immediate surroundings 
 for this world, but fear of the unknown future 
 which became the most influential motive in the 
 religion of the people. The common people 
 were afraid of their religious leaders. The curse 
 of an ascetic was supposed to cause unavoidable 
 and irresistible injury in this world and the 
 next. Sin was not principally unethical con- 
 duct, but the omission of ceremonials and the dis- 
 regard of custom. The only possible expiation 
 for such sin was not in true repentance and a 
 better life, but in the heaviest mortifications, in 
 piling up good deeds to overcome demerit. Also, 
 because the masses could not understand nor ac- 
 cept pantheism pure and simple, its logical oppo- 
 site, viz., polytheism, came into common accep- 
 tance. This is the nemesis which may always be 
 expected for pride and selfishness. The All- 
 god, or It, could be recognized by the common 
 people only in its partial presence in manifold 
 forms and places. Therefore many gods in 
 
64 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 many sacred places came to be worshiped by 
 the common people. 
 
 But despite this new misreading of God's 
 intention, He was still working to reveal Himself 
 to His Hindu children, and the next upward 
 movement was one which emphasized the more 
 spiritual truth that not knowledge, but good- 
 ness and helpfulness to brother-men, is the great 
 thing in religion. This first great protestant 
 reformation in India came through Siddartha, 
 or Gautama, who became the Buddha, or " en- 
 lightened one." He was a contemporary of that 
 Isaiah who was the most inspired and inspiring 
 prophet in the latter part of the Babylonish 
 captivity. As the great prophet of the cap- 
 tivity under the inspiration of God brought to 
 the people of Israel in their decline a protest 
 against formality, injustice, and unbrotherliness, 
 and taught that God could be pleased by nothing 
 save righteous living, so by God's help Sid- 
 dartha became the enlightened one and similarly 
 protested against formality and unbrotherliness 
 among the Hindus. As a protestant against 
 the burdensome religion of the Brahman priests 
 the Buddha became an apostle of the simple and 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 65 
 
 pure life. He protested against the uselessness 
 and the harm of formality. He preached the 
 necessity and value of kindness, gentleness, and 
 purity. He came In " a fullness of time " ; for 
 caste had become a tremendous burden on the 
 social system and was Injuring both the upper 
 and the lower classes by Increasing pride and 
 hard feelings. The people were ripe for a more 
 human system, and the caste system which Brah- 
 manlsm had made so burdensome was largely 
 modified by Buddha and his followers. The 
 tyranny of a religion consisting of meaningless 
 ceremonies was largely put away, and a more 
 simple religion of kindness and purity sup- 
 planted the religion of the Brahmans. The new 
 system gradually developed into the Buddhism 
 which we know. 
 
 But, though Buddha was enlightened on some 
 very fundamental points, he did not apprehend, 
 as the great prophet of Israel did, the most Im- 
 portant of all points, viz., that ethical culture ^/ 
 could not take the place of loyalty to a personal 
 God. Practically Buddha had nothing to say 
 about God at all, so that strictly he was not 
 atheistic, but non-thelstic in his teachings and 
 
66 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 influence. However, though he did not say any- 
 thing about a personal God, yet his own per- 
 sonality was probably the principal inspiration 
 which gave force and permanence to his teach- 
 ings. His example and life are even to this day 
 considered by devout Buddhists as the principal 
 attraction of men. Buddha himself became 
 practically deified. By the impulse of his teach- 
 ings and Hfe for nearly a thousand years 
 Buddhism supplanted Brahmanism. This spread 
 and development of Buddhism also depended a 
 good deal upon political power and circum- 
 stances. For in about three hundred years after 
 Buddha's time the great emperor Ashoka 
 adopted the Buddhist faith, gathered councils 
 to unify and consolidate the teachings of 
 Buddhism, built buildings for it, caused im- 
 portant inscriptions to be cut on various monu- 
 ments, sent out missionaries, and gave Buddhism 
 a prevalence which it probably would not other- 
 wise have secured. However, in the lapse of 
 time several great changes came over the sim- 
 plicity of the rehgion which Gautama had 
 taught. Veneration for him extended to articles 
 and places with which he had been connected. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 61 
 
 His images were made and scattered all over 
 the land. Such reverence soon developed into 
 idolatry. While idols are not referred to in the 
 Rig Veda, it is most probable that some places 
 and objects had been practically worshiped 
 from the earliest times by the most backward 
 classes. But later Buddhism increased idolatry 
 more than any other influence in India, and the 
 substitution of rites and ceremonies obscured the 
 spiritual light which God had revealed through 
 Buddha, and Buddhism, too, became largely a 
 formal religion. 
 
 In this connection a brief statement should 
 be made about a movement closely allied to 
 Buddhism, which started at about the same time 
 and which has had some survival to the present, 
 viz., the Jain revival. It was at first both an 
 ethical and intellectual revolt against the ritual- 
 ism and pantheism of the preceding period 
 when that phase of Hinduism called Brah- 
 manism was in the ascendency. Mahavira, the 
 reputed founder of Jainism, like Buddha, was 
 of royal birth. Unlike Buddha, the metaphysics 
 which he taught was a sort of dualism, a distinc- 
 tion between the individual spirit and the world 
 
68 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 spirit. It started with making the three gems 
 of religion to be right knowledge, right intui- 
 tion, right life. Like Buddhism, but with 
 greater emphasis, Jainism has placed special 
 emphasis on the doctrine of non-injury to all 
 life, even to the humblest insect life. But like 
 Buddhism, Jainism has gradually given more 
 and more emphasis to the importance of ascet- 
 icism for the professedly religious class, has de- 
 veloped monastic institutions, has developed 
 degrading views of reincarnation and hell, and 
 made, not the good of others, but the suppression 
 of the normal powers of mind and body the prin- 
 cipal thing in religion; while for the common 
 classes to eat and enjoy in this life became the 
 essence of religion. But Jainism has had little 
 practical influence on the religious thought of 
 India. At present it has become a religion in 
 which the chief points are the practical denial 
 of a personal God ; reverence amounting to wor- 
 ship of the high priests of the religion ; and the 
 nourishing of vermin and other lower forms of 
 animal life. So for both Buddhism and Jainism 
 the old story has been repeated. The spiritual 
 sense of their worshipers became dulled, formal- 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 69 
 
 ism took a new lease of life, and the ceremonies 
 and superstitions of Hinduism prior to the Bud- 
 dhistic reformation returned. The evil spirit 
 which had been cast out came back with seven 
 other spirits worse than itself. 
 
 After the Buddhist period the man who for 
 the thinking class brought about the revival of 
 Hindu Pantheism was the greatest modem 
 Hindu religious teacher, Shankaracharya. In 
 the ninth century a.d. he developed Hindu 
 thought into a well-ordered pantheistic system 
 by his commentaries on the Vedanta Sutra. But 
 the Hinduism of the period from the ninth cen- 
 tury onward was still a conglomerate, heteroge- 
 neous mass of elements drawn from the religion 
 of the aborigines, where fear was the formative 
 principle; from the Vedic period, where the 
 brighter aspects of nature were more formative ; 
 from the post- Vedic period, when hero-worship 
 had large influence ; from the Upanishad period 
 when reverence for knowledge was considered 
 still higher ; and from the Buddhist revival, when 
 goodness and helpfulness to men were considered 
 more truly what religion rightly is. However, 
 the flesh had again won the victory over the 
 
70 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 spirit ; and now not only was formality in the 
 ascendant, but even immorality, and sometimes 
 bestiality, came into great prominence in the 
 religion of India. Scholars truly say that the 
 literature of India is so largely a mixture of 
 newer additions and interpolations with the older 
 strata that it is difficult to distinguish the dif- 
 ferent elements. But certainly after the decline 
 of Buddhism polytheism (with a sub-stratum of 
 pantheism), idolatry, and caste, came to be the 
 controlling elements in popular Hinduism. Even 
 gods were represented as in many respects im- 
 moral. This interpretation was doubtless due 
 in considerable measure to the literalizing of 
 language which was originally figurative, 
 though sensuous. Thus the older and more 
 spiritual Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita became 
 the immoral Krishna of the later stories. The 
 Manes or departed spirits became semi-deified. 
 By sacrifices and austerities priests and holy 
 men came to be thought to possess power at 
 which the gods trembled. The gods tried to 
 entice holy men into sin. Personified Fate was 
 the mightiest of powers. The sacred books de- 
 scribe the downward course of religious life by 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 71 
 
 the universal recognition of the four ages as 
 Krita, Treta, Dvapara, and Kah, corresponding 
 to the classic descent from the golden to the 
 iron age; the present being the Kali, or the 
 sinful age. Every Hindu reformer makes the 
 same assertion, that the present state of religion 4 
 In India is that of a sad decline. In this de- 
 praved condition the Puranas are the litera- 
 ture which exhibit Hinduism at its lowest level. 
 They are full of exaggerations, miracles, and 
 puerilities. Some of these taught a somewhat 
 spiritual interpretation. But others taught very 
 unworthy doctrines. Where any altruistic re- 
 gard for the good of fellowmen prevailed, there 
 was some response to the upward drawing of 
 God. Where only selfish considerations pre- 
 vailed, there the tendency was toward both 
 superstition and immorality. Thus most of the 
 sects of modem Hinduism have what are called 
 a right-hand and a left-hand phase. The left- 
 hand phase is confessedly immoral. In general, 
 the sects of Shaivism, i. e., those who regard 
 Shiva as the great god, have the grosser and 
 more despicable characteristics, while the sects 
 of Valshnavism, that is those who regard Vishnu 
 
72 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 as the great god, are with some exceptions of a 
 less unworthy character. Among other debas- 
 ing characteristics Shiva was considered the god 
 of thieves ; and many unworthy beliefs and prac- 
 tices come under the head of Shaivism. Prob- 
 ably the most immoral and sensual sect of Vaish- 
 navism is that of the Vallabhas which is found 
 especially in Bombay and Kutch. Their spirit- 
 ual leaders, entitled Maharajas, are considered 
 incarnations of God and command the absolute 
 devotion of their followers. Their worship is 
 often erotic and immoral in tendency. But 
 the downward tendency of popular reli- 
 gion is especially seen in its worst phase 
 as described in the late books called the 
 " Tantras." Here are stated in some detail 
 some of the secret practices of that large 
 branch of modem popular Hinduism denom- 
 inated Shaktas, L e., those who especially wor- 
 ship shaJcti, the female principle. That I may 
 not perhaps be thought to make an over-state- 
 ment, I will quote from Prof. E. W. Hopkins, the 
 successor of Prof. W. D. Whitney and the 
 present professor of Sanskrit in Yale Univer- 
 sity : " Obscenity is the soul of this cult. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 73 
 
 . . . In practice, Shakti-worship, when 
 unveiled, amounts to this: that men and women 
 of the same class and family indulge in a Bac- 
 chanalian orgy, and that, as they proceed, they 
 give themselves over to every excess which liquor 
 and lust can promote. A description of the dif- 
 ferent rites would be to reduplicate an account 
 of indecencies of which the least vile is too 
 esoteric to sketch faithfully. Vaguely to out- 
 line one such religious festival will suffice. A 
 naked woman, wife of the chief priest, sits in 
 the middle of the ' holy circle.' She represents 
 Durga, the divine female principle. The Bac- 
 chic orgy begins with hard drinking. Shiva as 
 Bhairava, the ' dreadful,' has his human coun- 
 terpart also, who must then and there pair with 
 the impersonated Durga. The worship proper 
 consists in a repetition of numerous mantra 
 syllables and yells; the worship improper, in 
 indulgence in wine and women (particularly 
 enjoined in books called Tantras). Human 
 sacrifices at these rites are said to be extinct at 
 the present day. But blood lust is appeased by 
 the hacking of their own bodies. Garments are 
 cast in a heap and lots are drawn for the 
 
74 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 women's garments by the men. With her whose 
 clothes he gets each man continues the debauch, 
 inviting incest in addition to all other excess." 
 But while aU this degrading movement was 
 going on in a considerable part of Hinduism, 
 the living God was not leaving himself without 
 witness, even as Paul said to the men of Lystra. 
 In the latter half of the fifteenth century, in the 
 northwestern part of India, God raised up a 
 reformer named Chaitanya, who was a contem- 
 porary of Luther. Like Luther, he, too, pro- 
 tested against the doctrine of salvation by 
 meritorious deeds and austerities. He preached 
 salvation by hhaktl, that is by trustful adora- 
 tion of God. Like most religious reformers in 
 India he also protested against caste. It was in 
 some measure the counterpart of the reformation 
 in Germany led by Luther, in which salvation, 
 not by merit, but by faith, was the spiritual 
 truth which brought about the great Protestant 
 Reformation of Christianity. Chaitanya's doc- 
 trine of salvation by hhakti — or the devotion of 
 love — ^was, however, expressed in sensuous lan- 
 guage which is common to religion in India. It 
 was represented that the devotee should feel 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 75 
 
 toward God such affection as a young man feels 
 for a young woman. Yet probably Chaitanya 
 himself meant by these words not any physical or 
 sensual affection. He taught the value of sing- 
 ing and dancing and other outward means of 
 arousing the religious fervor which would ex- 
 press bhakti or love to God. But, whereas Chai- 
 tanya began with spiritual principles, his fol- 
 lowers soon fell into quarrels and fanaticism 
 and even immorality. And a new illustra- 
 tion occurred of the power of the flesh to quench 
 the spirit. 
 
 I return now to another means which God used 
 to remind men of Himself, and which was a pro- 
 test against polytheism, idolatry, and caste, 
 which three elements have always been the bane 
 of all unsound religious teaching in India. 
 Chronologically this new influence began earlier 
 than the later phases of Hinduism which have 
 just been described. It came through the con- 
 tact of Islam with India. This religion of the 
 Mohammedans who conquered northern India 
 was not Mohammedanism at its best ; but it had 
 some pure and strong features. It passionately 
 emphasized monotheism, and the folly and wrong 
 
76 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 of idolatry. In many places this passion was 
 exhibited by the breaking of idols, the disfigur- 
 ing of Hindu temples, and the sequestering of 
 the endowment of priests and temples. Certain 
 Mohammedan kings, notably Akbar the Just, 
 who invited Hindus to his court and gave them 
 opportunity to study other faiths and to influ- 
 ence one another, exercised a liberalizing in- 
 fluence on Hinduism. In various ways the 
 influence of the monotheism and the spiritual 
 worship of Islam led many thinkers in northern 
 India to give up pantheism and idolatry. Yet 
 the Hindu type of monotheism among Hindu 
 reformers was a distinctively diff^erent type from 
 the monotheism of the Mohammedans. Hindu 
 monotheism recognized the immanence of one God 
 in His universe, as the distinctive God of Islam 
 never was thought to abide in men. One of the 
 most valuable results of such an historical study 
 of the development of the religion of India is 
 the clear fact that, as different changes came 
 about, the Hindus modified, but never broke 
 away from, their past religious inheritance. 
 The influence of Mohammedanism was really 
 considerable, for God used Islam as the chief 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUIS:\I 77 
 
 stimulus to new protestant reformers in India. 
 One of the most prominent of these was Kabir, 
 who probably lived in the early part of the fif- 
 teenth century. He powerfully assailed poly- 
 theism and idolatry, ridiculed the authority of 
 the sacred books, and taught that the spirit is the 
 only authority in religion. But there appeared 
 in him and in his followers that same lack of 
 balance and consistency which has made many 
 spiritual reforms largely valueless. He eventu- 
 ally had an apotheosis. His disciples required 
 such obedience to him as made him almost a 
 deity. Even now in western and northern 
 India one comes across followers of Kabir, who 
 quote admirable spiritual sentiments from their 
 teacher of five centuries ago. Later in the fif- 
 teenth century in the Pan jab, where Mohamme- 
 danism has come into closest contact with Hindu- 
 ism, God raised up another protestant reformer, 
 Nanak, the first acknowledged founder of the 
 Sikh religion. The word " Sikh " exactly means 
 " disciple." The controlling principles of the 
 Sikh religion were, as most reforms in later 
 times have been, protests against pantheism, 
 polytheism. Idolatry, formality, injustice, and 
 
78 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 caste. The protests of the prophets of Israel 
 were largely directed against the very same evils , 
 and the teaching of Nanak and his successors, 
 notably Arjun and Guru Govind Singh, were 
 collected in a sacred book or " Granth." The 
 spiritual power of this purer religion made the 
 Sikhs a militant body which became a most 
 powerful political force in the Panjab. Guru 
 Govind instituted the worship of the sword and 
 the book. But though this religious reforma- 
 tion received its initial inspiration from Islam, 
 it remained truly Indian. The Sikhs never be- 
 came Mohammedans; on the contrary, they 
 fought them. However, starting with a spiritual 
 religion and with some degree of brotherhood, 
 the Sikhs have degenerated into formality. 
 While rejecting the Vedas and caste, they prac- 
 tically worship the various gods of the Hindus. 
 They even worship the Granth, ^. e., their sacred 
 book, with incense and offerings, which is the 
 regular Hindu worship of idols. It is a closed 
 book which they worship. Sikhism, like Islam, 
 being the religion of a book, has ceased to be 
 a growing religion, and is therefore a decay- 
 ing religion. So certainly is Sikhism a dying re- 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 79 
 
 llgion that recently an appeal was made to the 
 British government of India to do something 
 to revive Sikhism, on the plea that if the religion 
 which had made the Sikhs a fighting people and 
 loyal to rulers should die, then the militant spirit 
 would die out in the race which has supplied 
 splendid fighters for the British army. More 
 conclusive evidence that Sikhism is a dying 
 religion could not be given than such an appeal 
 for help from the secular power of a Christian 
 king. In the sixteenth century another great 
 reformer named Dadu arose in the Northwest, 
 where Mohammedanism had been influential. 
 Dadu, too, emphasized monotheism, the spiritual 
 worship of God, and the evil of caste. Some of 
 his teachings are of a high spiritual order. He 
 emphasized the immanence and love of God, and 
 taught that salvation consists in goodness. But 
 as usual among Hindus, his followers have split 
 up into a great many subdivisions and fallen 
 into much formality. In the seventeenth cen- 
 tury other reforming sects arose, such as the 
 Babalas and the Sadhus ; in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury the Satnamis, i. ^., worshipers of the true 
 name. 
 
80 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 !A.t last I turn to the influence of Christianity 
 on the religious development of India. Though 
 some claim that centuries ago Christianity had 
 some considerable influence in modifying Hindu- 
 ism, I am strongly of the opinion that this is a 
 strained and mistaken inference. There are 
 some resemblances between some stories of 
 Krishna and some events in the Hfe of Christ. 
 But these have not been borrowed on either side. 
 They are independent and accidental resem- 
 blances which really show the diff*erence between 
 the two stories. The most influential and fair- 
 minded Indian scholar on these subjects, Prof. 
 R. G. Bhandarkar, told me that this is his im- 
 pression also. Similarly, it has been thought 
 that the Hindu triad or trimurtti, which 
 seems unquestionably to be rather a late 
 idea of Hinduism, was suggested by the 
 Christian doctrine of the Trinity. To me this 
 seems very unlikely. Early in the Christian 
 era a branch of the Christian Church undoubt- 
 edly found some lodgment in India. At least 
 in the sixth century, a.d., there was a Christian 
 Church in Malabar, on the southwestern coast of 
 India. But it has had little eff*ect on Hindu 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 81 
 
 tKought and life. Two hundred years ago the 
 Roman Catholic Church sent missionaries into 
 India, who have secured many followers, and 
 about a century ago Christian Protestants began 
 to send missionaries there. The numerical re- 
 sult of these two missionary efforts is a Christian 
 community of about three milhon people. But 
 it is freely admitted by many of the most intel- 
 ligent reformers and thinkers of India that the 
 Christian thought which has recently come to 
 India has powerfully affected many religious 
 movements which do not take the Christian name. 
 The most important, though not the most nu- 
 merous, of these reform movements, which 
 though not calling itself Christian is very con- 
 siderably Christian in thought and spirit, is the 
 Brahma Sama j , or theistic church of India. By 
 the express admission of its leaders God inspired 
 this important reforming and spiritual move- 
 ment largely through the teachings and life of 
 Jesus Christ. The history of this Brahma 
 Samaj is so well known that it needs little en- 
 largement from me. In the early part of the 
 nineteenth century Rammohun Roy became an 
 ardent student of all the religions of the world. 
 
82 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 In 1820 he wrote a book called the " Precepts 
 of Jesus," and organized a distinct theistic 
 movement which accepted a modified pantheism, 
 which gave great value to the spiritual teachings 
 of all religions, and which modified caste. Then 
 that happened to this movement which happens 
 to all reforms, viz., conflict between the con- 
 servative and progressive elements. The pro- 
 gressive element wished to give greater prom- 
 inence to Jesus Christ and still more to modify 
 caste, while the conservatives held back. This 
 caused a split. The conservative element re- 
 tained the name of the Adi Samaj, i, ^., the 
 original church, and the progressives were 
 known as the Brahma Samaj. Again conflict 
 arose between the conservative and the progres- 
 sive elements. Then the progressives, under the 
 greatest of modem religious reformers in India, 
 Keshab Chundar Sen, went out to form a new 
 theistic body which took the name of the " New 
 Dispensation," while the conservatives retained 
 the name of " Sadharan Brahma Samaj," or 
 " middle church." Again, at the death of 
 Keshab Chundar Sen a new split arose in the 
 New Dispensation, the progressive element being 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 83 
 
 led by Keshab's great lieutenant, Pratap Chun- 
 dar Moozumdar. In western India a corre- 
 sponding theistic movement, which refuses to 
 ally itself with the Brahma Samaj of Bengal, is 
 called the Prarthana Samaj, i. e., "the prayer 
 church." On the whole, the Brahma Samaj and 
 the Prarthana Samaj are very similar to the 
 Unitarian Church of the West. In the Panjab 
 another reforming movement is called the Arya 
 Samaj. It has come less under the influence 
 of Christianity and harks back more to the purer 
 early phases of Hinduism. But undoubtedly it 
 is Christianity which has made the Arya Samaj 
 come into existence and which has powerfully 
 influenced it. New religious sects largely in- 
 fluenced by Christianity are springing up all 
 over the country. One Hindu thinker in Ceylon 
 has written commentaries on the Gospels of St. 
 Matthew and St. John, and it is a common 
 admission by Hindu thinkers and in Hindu 
 newspapers that India reverences the Lord 
 Jesus. Some frankly call Him easily the 
 gi^eatest of spiritual gurus ; others call Him one 
 of the greatest spiritual gurus of the world. 
 Keshab Chundar Sen said, " It is Christ who 
 
84i MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 rules British India, not the British government. 
 • . . None but Christ; none but Christ; 
 none but Christ hath deserved this bright, this 
 precious diadem, India, and Jesus shall have it." 
 The value of such a survey of the historic 
 development of religion in India ought to be 
 manifold. It ought to make God seem very great, 
 very near, and very active in the minds and 
 lives of all men, as the modern Christian view 
 requires us to believe. This survey also shows 
 how great is the downward pull of the lower 
 elements of human nature. Yet it shows that, 
 however low people may go, God does not cease 
 His efforts to draw them upward to Himself. 
 It shows the awful fate which pantheism brings 
 upon the intellectual and moral life of a people 
 by weakening or denying all moral distinctions. 
 Pantheism weakens both the mental and ethical 
 powers of men. By its doctrine of illusion it 
 creates lack of confidence in the reliability of 
 all phenomena and mental conclusions. This 
 survey also shows how polytheism always follows 
 pantheism, how polytheism deadens the spirit, 
 and how ritualism does the same. It shows the 
 nemesis which follows Vedantic pantheism when 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 85 
 
 Ideas are substituted for ideals. Modern popu- 
 lar Hinduism also shows how dangerous it is 
 when emotion and passion rule without intel- 
 lectual restraint and easily run into immorality. 
 In the case of all reformers and especially in the 
 case of the great Buddha there is an illustration 
 of the importance of the personal element in a 
 religious leader, when example is joined to, and 
 illustrates high teaching. There is also illus- 
 tration of the entire inadequacy of ethical teach- 
 ing to retain ethical purity apart from con- 
 sistent recognition of God. The survey shows 
 how comparatively little is the permanent influ- 
 ence of the thinker or the sage who lives for him- 
 self and for thought apart from the world. It 
 shows how easily the common people fall into 
 credulity and superstition and formality. A 
 right understanding of this survey shows that 
 despite God's patient teaching " by divers por- 
 tions, in divers manners," certainly India has not 
 yet come into a sense of filial relation to God 
 and of the brotherhood of men. This one sim- 
 ple, undeniable, historical fact is enough of itself 
 to show that India needs, and must have, the 
 help of the Lord Jesus Christ in order to grow 
 
86 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 into that consciousness of filial relation to God 
 and of brotherly relations to men which is the 
 supreme revelation of Jesus Christ and the 
 supreme achievement to which He inspires men. 
 The survey shows that despite contracted views 
 of God and of the Christian religion, it is only 
 Christianity which has gone to India in a frater- 
 nal spirit of self-sacrifice to help men there. 
 The survey, rightly understood, shows that, 
 since God has long been doing a preparatory 
 work, it is now a priori reasonable to recognize 
 that the "fullness of time " has come for India, 
 when God will, through Jesus Christ, give that 
 land the same spiritual vision and power which 
 He has given to western people. It shows that 
 Christ is now powerfully influencing the reli- 
 gious thought of India. The survey also shows, 
 what has not always been recognized, that it is 
 not to be expected that Indians will wholly cut 
 loose from their old national ways of thinking, 
 even when they become Christians. They will 
 have the characteristic Indian way of Christian 
 thought and life. Just as in apostolic times the 
 Jews who became Christians had still their Jew- 
 ish type of Christianity, and the Greeks who be- 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM 87 
 
 came Christians developed a characteristic tj^pe 
 of Christianity, and the Romans who became 
 Christians developed a Roman type of Christian- 
 ity, so Indian Christians will develop an Indian 
 type of Christianity under the influence of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. It is very important for the 
 Christian missionary to recognize this teaching 
 of history, so that while he makes Jesus Christ 
 known to India, like John the Baptist he may 
 himself decrease and Jesus Christ increase in 
 making Indian Christians of an Indian type. 
 But this view of God's way of doing things 
 makes it none the less, but more, the duty and the 
 privilege of Christians in Christian lands from 
 a sense of brotherhood to do all that they can 
 promptly to give to India, in the best way, that 
 knowledge of Jesus Christ which is the supreme 
 blessing which God the Father of all men has 
 given to Christendom, and has in reserve for all - 
 His children. 
 
Ill 
 
 MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 IN the early years of foreign missionary 
 effort a common, tlioupjh unreal, picture 
 represented the missi(mary as wearinp^ a 
 tall hat and a dress coat, stuiidln^j^ under a ])alin 
 tree, with a book in his hand, and talkinpr to a 
 company of half-dad s/ivafros crouchinpf around 
 and gazinpj at him in wonder. Ucfore he went 
 abroad the advice sometimes given to him as 
 sound was, " Beware of the man of one book," 
 meaning that a man who could easily quote the 
 Bible from any ])lace between ils covers was the 
 man who was thereby mighty in saving souls. 
 The Bible without note or comment was thought 
 to be the very best thing to place in the hands 
 of anyone whom it was sought to lead to Christ. 
 Things are different now. It is admitted to 
 be of great importance that a wise missionary 
 ought to know with some degree of fullness and 
 accuracy the history of the development of re- 
 ligion among the peoj)le to whom he goes with 
 
 8H 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 89 
 
 the Christian message. It is adinllli-d as cciually 
 important tlial he should liavc soiric c/irrriil aiul 
 exact insl^lit Inio I he mind and characteristics 
 of that j)e()j)le, and the ways in which their 
 minds work. If knowlcd^^^c. of tlic hist (Try of 
 every underlaklnrr is important for tlie \vm\vr in 
 spiritual work in America, even more so ih 
 knowledf^e of that hrancli of history whlcli is 
 termed Psyclioh)/:ry : i. c.y kriowlcdn-c of the wuy 
 in which the minds of men have worked and now 
 work. Therefore, psych()h)gy is coming to be 
 considered necessary for wise work by any man 
 among men in America. It Is essential in peda- 
 gogy. It is important for parenbi In order 
 adequately to meet their responHibillt^es. It Is 
 important for every minister to fit hln\ to meet 
 Ills res|)onsihiHtles. James' suggestive book, 
 " Varieties of Religious Inexperience," well points 
 out how varied are the workings of different 
 types of mind even In America. If ])sychoh)gy 
 is important to any niaii for work among men of 
 Ills own race, how nuich more Important that he 
 should understand the ways in which the minds 
 of those of other races work, whose heredity and 
 environment are different. Therefore, an under- 
 
90 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 standing of general and universal psychological 
 principles and particular psychological study of 
 the peoples among whom the missionary works 
 are of very great importance to every wise and 
 strong teacher of Christianity in other lands. 
 While this statement would a priori be accepted 
 as presumptively true, experience confirms the 
 statement. It is an everyday matter for people 
 in India to say that foreign missionaries do not 
 thoroughly understand them. Of course there 
 is some real ground for such a statement. On 
 the other hand, it is easy to over-state such a 
 point. In some circles in the West it is almost 
 a fad to claim that the differences between the 
 Oriental and Occidental mind are so deep and 
 numerous that it is almost hopeless for a man 
 from the West really to understand the man 
 from the East. Vice versa, it is as important to 
 appreciate that human nature is essentially one 
 in all the world, and that the human mind works 
 on similar lines in every land and race, as to 
 appreciate that there are differences in the work- 
 ing of minds of different races. The two foci 
 of psychological truth are, first, that there are 
 certain universal psychological laws; and, sec- 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 91 
 
 ond, that there are diversities of mental charac- 
 teristics in different races and in different indi- 
 viduals. The activities of the human mind are 
 " diverse as the billows, yet one as the sea." 
 Those who would over-emphasize the differences 
 in the working of the Oriental and Occidental 
 mind like to quote the lines of Kipling, 
 
 "O! the East is East, and the West is West; 
 And never the twain shall meet." 
 
 But they do not at the same time continue to 
 quote the whole stanza, which is, 
 
 "0! the East is East, and the West is West; 
 And never the twain shall meet. 
 Till earth and sky stand presently 
 Before God's judgment seat. 
 But there is neither East nor West, 
 Nor border, nor breed, nor birth. 
 When two strong men stand face to face. 
 Though they come from the ends of the earth." 
 
 However like or unlike to ours the mental ways 
 of men in other lands may be, it is unquestion- 
 ably desirable for the foreign missionary to 
 seek to know well the mental constitution of those 
 with whom and for whom he works. The very 
 
92 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 effort to understand them will promote insight, 
 sympathy, respect, and adaptation. And the 
 greater the understanding and adaptation, the 
 more will be the sympathy and respect. In 
 other words, just as it is important and helpful 
 to know the general religious condition of the 
 country through knowing the historical develop- 
 ment of its religion, so it is important and help- 
 ful to know the religious condition of individuals 
 in that country by understanding the working 
 of the minds of men of that type. Accordingly 
 it is a legitimate compliment to missionaries of 
 the past that, though psychology was a subject 
 unknown in the curriculum of school, college, and 
 theological seminary in their time, yet through 
 genuine sympathy with the peoples among whom 
 they worked and through high intelligence they 
 had a fair understanding of the mental charac- 
 teristics of those peoples. Travelers and scien- 
 tists have often recorded their obligations to 
 missionaries for helpful and accurate descrip- 
 tions of the peoples among whom they had 
 worked. 
 
 One of the benefits of psychological study to 
 the missionary will be that he will not expect 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 93 
 
 people in other lands to appreciate points which 
 they are not accustomed to notice or value. Thus 
 he will save them and himself much annoyance 
 and disappointment. The teacher of Christian- 
 ity has often perplexed men by raising points 
 which are of no importance to them. In his 
 " Varieties of Religious Experience " James 
 makes a useful suggestion in pointing out that 
 any theologian who spends needless time in 
 describing attributes of God which have no 
 definite connection with life, are not only under- 
 taking what is needless, but are confusing and 
 troublesome. He says for example, " God's 
 personality apart from the moral qualities which 
 it may comfort; his relations to evil being per- 
 missive and not positive; his self-sufficiency; 
 self-love and absolute felicity in himself: can- 
 didly speaking, how do such qualities as these 
 make any connection with our life.? And if 
 they severally have no distinctive adaptations 
 of our conduct, what vital difference can it pos- 
 sibly make to a man's religion whether they be 
 true or false.? For my own part, although I 
 dislike to say aught that may grate upon tender 
 associations, I must frankly confess that though 
 
94 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 these attributes were faultlessly deduced, I can- 
 not conceive of its being of the smallest conse- 
 quence to us religiously that any one of them 
 should be true. Pray, what specific act can I per- 
 form in order to adapt myself the better to God's 
 simplicity? Or how does it assist me to plan 
 my behavior, to know that his happiness is 
 anyhow absolutely complete? . . . Surely 
 the systematic theologians are the closet-natural- 
 ists of the diety. . . . What is their deduc- 
 tion of metaphysical attributes but a shuffling 
 and matching of pedantic dictionary adjectives, 
 aloof from morals, aloof from human needs, 
 something that might be worked out from the 
 mere word ' God ' by one of those logical 
 machines of wood and brass which recent in- 
 genuity has contrived, as well as by a man of 
 flesh and blood." When theologians in America 
 have not distinguished essentials from non- 
 essentials and from the many adjuncts of the 
 Christian religion, and on account of denomina- 
 tional proclivities and jealousies have often 
 raised even departures from essential Christian- 
 ity into excessive prominence, it would be nat- 
 ural for the American theologian who goes to 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 95 
 
 foreign lands to make the same mistake. If he 
 did not appreciate how such points would only 
 perplex the minds of men unused to such logic, 
 he could not appreciate how misleading such a 
 course would be. For example, how confusing 
 and even grotesque to the Hindu or Japanese 
 must be the giving of any importance to the 
 various phases of Presbyterianism, such as Pres- 
 byterian, United Presbyterian, Reformed Pres- 
 byterian, Presbyterian North, Presbyterian 
 South, Free Church Presbyterian, Established 
 Church Presbyterian, " Wee-Free " Presby- 
 terian, and the like. And if, in their simplicity 
 and mental weakness. Christian adherents of 
 missionaries of these various schools of Presby- 
 terianism should accept these distinctions as im- 
 portant, how injurious to the simplicity that is 
 in Christ Jesus would be the effect of such indi- 
 gestible and strange teaching. 
 
 When I speak of Psychology and Missions 
 some of the points which will be raised may not 
 be considered by experts in the science as strictly 
 psychological at all, when that science is defined 
 as mainly a knowledge of the contents and work- 
 ing of consciousness as such. In general I shall 
 
96 MISSIONS Irom the MODERN VIEW 
 
 speak of some of the mental characteristics of 
 the Indian mind. I wish it to be distinctly 
 understood that in the characterization which I 
 make I am speaking only in general terms. I 
 believe the following statements to be accurate 
 in general, though some persons who are 
 acquainted with India might make somewhat 
 different characterizations and estimates of the 
 Indian mind and its ways of working. 
 
 The first remark is that the Oriental mind is 
 in many respects the type of mind of children 
 in the West: less logical and more simple. 
 Also the Indian mind is what it has come to be 
 under the influence of race, climate, social con- 
 ditions, and religious teaching and practices. 
 These various influences have acted and reacted, 
 so that it is not only difficult, but impossible, 
 wholly to distinguish cause from effect. Social 
 conditions have varied religion, and religion 
 has affected social conditions. Climatic influ- 
 ences have helped to make the working of the 
 Hindu mind not energetic, but languid. The 
 same influences have made it easy to live without 
 making practical considerations as controlling 
 as in colder lands and less bountiful climates. 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 97 
 
 Many hard experiences from frequent famines 
 and extreme poverty, and from being conquered 
 by foreigners, have made the Hindu patient, as 
 well as mild. Pantheism, with its injurious doc- 
 trine of illusion, denying the real existence of 
 anything, has affected Hindus of all classes. 
 It has weakened confidence in the reality of 
 mental and moral, as well as outward, phe- 
 nomena. In my opinion it is probably the 
 Indian type of pantheism more than anything 
 else which has caused those characteristics of the 
 Hindu which have given him the reputation of 
 not being truthful. The influence of the doc- 
 trine of illusion would naturally be the convic- 
 tion that there is no need of accuracy of 
 statement, or justification for aiming to be 
 accurate. Another reason for the belief that 
 truthfulness is not characteristic of the Hindu 
 is more complimentary to the Hindu's heart than 
 to the Hindu's mind. This reason is that the 
 Hindu is so courteous and so anxious to avoid 
 saying things which, though true, would be 
 distasteful to the hearer, that he says things 
 which, though inaccurate, will please his hearers. 
 In other words, he prizes courtesy more than 
 
98 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 accuracy. This is a characteristic very objec- 
 tionable to the westerner, who prizes truth and 
 accuracy more than anything else. But popu- 
 lar Hinduism, as well as pantheism, has had an 
 influence in weakening the Hindu's respect for 
 truth. The later Hindu books have much to 
 say about casuistry, and the circumstances under 
 which lying is justifiable. Moreover, the very 
 large use of figurative language largely ac- 
 counts for what seems to the Occidental a very 
 serious and grotesque departure from truth. 
 Whereas such language is not understood by the 
 people using it as meaning all that the words on 
 their face would make an Occidental suppose 
 they meant. This powerful imagination is 
 both a weak and a strong point in the Indian 
 mind. It makes the Indian less fitted to cope 
 with all phases of life. It makes him satisfied 
 with the unreal. On the other hand, who does 
 not consider a strong imagination one of the 
 most precious gifts of childhood. ^^ What added 
 joy and value it gives to slender possessions! 
 How much of the riches of literature comes from 
 an exuberant imagination! How much of the 
 satisfaction of parents, and especially of 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 99 
 
 mothers, comes from fond imaginings about the 
 future of their children! Imagination is the 
 eye of faith which sees the invisible and which 
 gives substance to hope. How large a part of 
 Christian thinking and poetry depend on real- 
 izing God and heaven and future blessings 
 through the imagination! The missionary to 
 India needs thoroughly to understand and to 
 appreciate how imagination is the most charac- 
 teristic feature of the Indian mind. 
 
 Closely allied to this is another characteristic 
 of the Hindu mind, in which it differs from the 
 type of the adult male mind in the West. Men 
 in the West ask for logic or proofs. The Indian 
 cares little for logical evidence. What he wants 
 is the conclusiveness of an illustration or a simile. 
 Herein lies both a mental weakness and a mental 
 strength. It is a weakness because it is easy in 
 India, as elsewhere, to give an illustration more 
 evidential value than it really has. Because a 
 thing has once been so-and-so, it does not fol- 
 low that it will be so again in the same depart- 
 ment, much less that it will be so in another 
 department. But to the Hindu it seems entirely 
 conclusive to say that, just as there are many 
 
100 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 TOads leading to a city, so there are many roads 
 which lead to God. Logically this by no means 
 follows. So if a Hindu knows that you once 
 gave a man a certain present, he easily thinks 
 you will do the same thing for him at any time. 
 Like children, they cannot see that circum- 
 stances may be so different that you cannot, or 
 that for some good reason you should not, do 
 the same thing for him which you did for the 
 other man. However, such valuation of an 
 illustration more than of syllogistic proof gives 
 useful working power to the Hindu mind, which 
 if understood and rightly used may be very 
 helpful to the missionary in his work. As a 
 matter of fact, the larger part of mankind is 
 rightly influenced more by the power of illus- 
 tration than by a logical process of reasoning. 
 How much of logic did Jesus Christ use? 
 Very, very little. He stated the truth which He 
 knew, and which He wished men to apprehend 
 and follow, and often by illustrations of some 
 kind enforced His teachings. His character- 
 istic teaching by parables is essentially teaching 
 by illustration and not by logic. The mission- 
 ary from the West mistakes when he over-esti- 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 101 
 
 mates the necessity or Importance of logical 
 proof in setting forth Jesus Christ and His 
 teachings. For years after I became a mission- 
 ary in India I supposed it necessary to prove the 
 truth of Christianity. Nowadays I do not 
 attempt that. I only seek to help men to see 
 Christ as He was and spoke and is, i. c, I try 
 to exhibit His excellence, His betterness. His 
 way of life. Experience shows this to be the 
 most successful and satisfactory way. Even in 
 America when the preacher follows Christ as his 
 master in the way of teaching spiritual truth, as 
 well as in accepting His interpretation of spirit- 
 ual things, he will not attempt to prove things 
 about Christ and His way. He will set Christ 
 forth, will interpret His teachings and life in 
 the vital and simple language of the times, and 
 to such a message he will get a more satisfactory 
 response. Nor do I try to prove the truth of 
 the Bible any more than the truth of my mother, 
 or wife, or children. I show the excellence of 
 the Bible. That is not only enough; it is the 
 satisfactory way for the majority of people in 
 the West as well as in the East. In contrast 
 with the logical methods of the West even the 
 
102 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 logical methods of the Hindus show how the 
 latter values the illustration more than formal 
 proofs. The syllogism of the West consists of 
 three propositions: the major premise, the 
 minor premise, and the conclusion. The syllo- 
 gism of the Indian consists of five proposi- 
 tions: (1) the statement, or proposition; (2)' 
 the major premise; (3) the illustration; (4) the 
 minor premise; and (5) the conclusion. The 
 first, that is, the statement or proposition, is 
 simply the conclusion, with which the syllogism 
 is to close; yet the formal stating of it has an 
 illustrative value to the Indian. In fact, a 
 similar procedure is not very uncommon in the 
 West, though books on logic say that the syllo- 
 gism consists of three, and only three, members. 
 We here do not make the proposition or con- 
 clusion the first step of our syllogistic process 
 because it is not necessary, and the practical 
 West takes the short cut to things, omitting 
 needless steps. The Hindu syllogism has for 
 its third member the illustration, which, as 
 human nature goes, is really the conclusive 
 element in most arguments, despite the fact that 
 often the illustration may not be wholly perti- 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 103 
 
 nent or wholly parallel with the proposition 
 which it seeks to establish. Many theologians 
 in the West now definitely say that it is both 
 useless and impossible to try to prove the exist- 
 ence of God because we practically assume Him 
 before we try to deduce His existence by a syllo- 
 gistic process. 
 
 An allied characteristic of the Hindu mind is 
 the seemingly illogical way in which, while the 
 doctrine of illusion makes real existence unreal, 
 the doctrine of faith makes unrealities real. A 
 common teaching of the rehgious books of India, 
 and one of the commonest assumptions of ordi- 
 nary men in everyday Hfe, is that a thing truly 
 is what one thinks it to be. If you think a rope 
 is a snake, it is a snake ; if you think brass to be 
 gold, it is gold; if you think an idol to be the 
 living and omnipotent God, it is such. This 
 illustrates what has been said, and will again be 
 said in succeeding lectures, that the weakness of 
 the Hindu mind and character is largely a lack 
 of all-around and sane development, a lack of 
 proportion or balance. The East is weak where 
 the West is strong. And in passing, that may 
 now be suggested which will later be more fully 
 
104 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 dwelt upon, viz., that the West is weak where 
 the East is strong. I suppose the sounder prin- 
 ciple would be that, though a man must tem- 
 porarily act on his immediate perception of 
 things and for the present assume things to be 
 what they appear, he should not continue to 
 assert that things truly are only what they seem 
 to be. Yet this unbalanced faith is almost the 
 principal thing by which the Hindu is influenced 
 in his. religion. He does not wish to test his 
 faith and by testing reassure himself that 
 his assumptions are true. It is enough that his 
 ancestors and he have always believed and acted 
 as they have. Why should he even consider the 
 desirability of changing? So, if God is every- 
 thing and everywhere, as his sub-conscious pan- 
 theistic assumption implies, then if he believes 
 that the idol is God, it is really so. In other 
 words, while the Occidental sometimes over- 
 emphasizes the function of reason as essential 
 in normal and sane mental processes, the Hindu, 
 abnormally minimizes it. 
 
 Another mental characteristic of the Hindu 
 mind, due to his powerful imagination, is that he 
 is an idealist. He considers that the thing that 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 105 
 
 ideally ought to be really is. The working of 
 such idealism often perplexes Hindus in under- 
 standing Occidentals, and leads the former to 
 charge the latter with untruthfulness. E. g., if 
 a Hindu comes to you and asks you to give him 
 employment, you may reply, " I am sorry to 
 say that I have no vacancy whatever." " But, if 
 a vacancy should occur at some time, then 
 would you give it to me ? " " I have no idea 
 that such a vacancy is likely to occur. Then 
 why should I hold out any hope to you? " 
 " Yes, of course, no vacancy may occur, but if 
 one should occur, then would you not remember 
 me? " " Well, I can make no definite promise 
 whatever, but if a vacancy should occur, I 
 should probably think of you, and if you then 
 should seem the best man for the place, I should 
 offer you the position." The man goes away 
 and soon forgets almost all that you have said 
 except the last clause, " I should offer you the 
 position." Then much later if a vacancy 
 should occur and you should not appoint the 
 man to it, he would charge you with having 
 broken your promise. The ideahst does not 
 give weight to conditions which stand in the 
 
106 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 way of what he desires. Those are like the 
 small dust in the balance. What he remembers 
 and expects from you is the fulfillment of his 
 ideals. Why should he not expect from a great 
 and good man like you whatever he wishes.'' 
 One of the first and most important lessons for 
 a missionary to India to bear in mind is to make 
 no conditional promises whatever. His hearer 
 will rarely remember or value the force of con- 
 ditions in a promise. And if a promise, apart 
 from its conditions, is not kept, the maker will 
 probably be thought to have broken his 
 promise. 
 
 Pantheism has dangerously weakened the 
 moraL as well as the mental working of the ~J 
 Hindu mind. Pantheism, and its accompany- 
 ing doctrine of illusion which does away with 
 the reality of intellectual distinctions, also 
 logically and naturally does away with the 
 reality of moral distinctions. The Hindu has 
 a conscience because God speaks to his sense of 
 right and wrong. But that conscience is 
 weakened by unreal assumptions about God and 
 reality. The Hindu does not consider that to 
 be wrong which trained ethical sense considers 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 107 
 
 wrong. But assuming the unreality of moral 
 and mental action injures both conscience and 
 mind. Also caste, which is the principal thing 
 in modern Hinduism, has still more weakened 
 the conscience. For right is not what is con- 
 sistent with the nature of God or the universal 
 ethical standard, and wrong is not what is incon- 
 sistent with the same. They are what cus- 
 tom and religion state them to be: they are 
 inconsistency with arbitrary caste rules. 
 Therefore not lying, nor breaking the seventh 
 commandment, nor stealing is so heinous 
 according to the code of caste as drinking a 
 cup of water from the hand of a low-caste man, 
 however clean that hand may be. 
 
 Another mental law which the foreign mis- 
 sionary to India at first is almost sure not to 
 bear in mind, and which even the experienced 
 missionary frequently disregards, is that words 
 and ideas which have one meaning in the West, 
 often have a very different meaning in India. 
 God, sin, salvation, holiness in the Upanishads 
 and in the code of caste really have a very 
 different signification from the signification of 
 those same words in Christian lands. It is 
 
108 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 sometimes said to a new missionary that he 
 should not be surprised if the people of the 
 country do not understand their own language. 
 The suggestion implies the need of caution lest 
 he use words which to his hearers will have a 
 very different significance from that which 
 those words have in his own mind. And he fre- 
 quently makes serious mistakes in idiom, which 
 result in his giving a very different meaning to 
 his hearers from that which he intended. How- 
 ever, words in every language are constantly 
 changing their meaning, and so after long con- 
 tact with Christian teaching such words as God, 
 sin, salvation, repentance, holiness are acquir- 
 ing in the Indian vernaculars a new and 
 Christian significance. 
 
 Another characteristic of the Hindu seems 
 an anomaly, but is one which can be accounted 
 for. Caste is probably the most ironclad insti- 
 tution that ever repressed the freedom of men's 
 actions, and to some extent also their freedom 
 of thinking. Yet it is often truthfully said 
 that the Hindu mind is remarkably hospitable 
 to new ways of thinking. The Hindu readily 
 incorporated a considerable part of Buddhism 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 109 
 
 into his own religion. The Hindu mind freely 
 holds both pantheism and polytheism to be true. 
 The Hindu is quite ready to admit Christ to 
 his pantheon and to give Him almost the highest 
 place, but without giving up any of his own 
 inherited positions which are inconsistent with 
 Christianity. The Hindu who has not come 
 under the spell of the Western Zeitgeist has no 
 hesitation in accepting every word of the Bible 
 and every miracle recorded in it as true, and 
 also the traditions and medieval miracles of the 
 Roman Church, without at all giving up his 
 own Hindu ideas. How does this come about? 
 I think the explanation is twofold. It was said 
 of the Germans long ago, that since France had 
 dominion of the land through her armies, and 
 Great Britain had dominion of the sea by her 
 naval power, there was nothing left for Ger- 
 many but the air, and so she sought dominion 
 in thinking and philosophy. So when ritual 
 and caste dominated with heavy hand the out- 
 ward life of the Hindu, he sought and secured 
 at least some measure of liberty, and took it in 
 thought. For caste and the ritual of popular 
 Hinduism do not care what the individual 
 
110 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 thinks or says, if only he does not openly dis- 
 regard caste regulations. The recent contact 
 with Western civilization is rapidly and power- 
 fully weakening the ideas and practices of 
 caste, so that now in many places Hindu 
 religious leaders think it impolitic and useless 
 to punish even open violation of caste. But 
 probably even before this modern period dis- 
 regard of caste was not punished, if this was 
 not openly flaunted before the public. The 
 genius of Hinduism would not express itself in 
 a formative principle like that word of Chris- 
 tianity which says, " As a man thinketh in his 
 heart, so is he." As a man acteth outwardly 
 so is he, is the standard of caste. A second 
 explanation of the omnivorousness of the Hindu 
 mind is that pantheism has led Hindus to dis- 
 allow or minimize distinctions. Therefore Hindus 
 are ready to accept almost anything as true, 
 and are not impressed by the logical consider- 
 ation that both of two mutually contradictory 
 positions cannot be true and helpful. 
 
 Understanding such characteristics of the 
 Indian mind will explan why Hindus, when they 
 become Christians, do not and cannot have the 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 111 
 
 religious experience which people had in New; 
 England a generation ago when men were 
 deeply agitated for personal sin and expressed 
 repentance in pungent language and in prompt 
 and expressive acts. When Hindus become 
 Christians it is rarely from a strong sense of sin 
 and of need of forgiveness. They have not 
 inherited or developed sensitive consciences 
 which call for relief from ethical wrongdoing. 
 They become Christians principally because by 
 the teachings and example of Christian leaders 
 they are satisfied that the Christian way of 
 living is the better way for time, and are 
 assured that it is better also for the unknown 
 future. They are drawn to become disciples of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ by His character and 
 teachings ; i. e., they feel bhakti or trustful love 
 for Jesus Christ. They are drawn toward Him, 
 and therefore become His disciples. Accord- 
 ing to the direction of Jesus Christ Himself it 
 is not until the Holy Spirit takes of the things 
 of Jesus Christ and applies these to the Indian 
 adherents of Christ that He convicts them of 
 sin for ethical shortcomings. This being so, 
 the missionary should not wonder that marked 
 
lis MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 repentance is not at first strong among Indian 
 Christians. Such manifestations are not to be 
 soon expected from that type of mind which 
 the Hindu has inherited from generations of 
 ancestors, and from social conditions which 
 caste and polytheism have developed. These 
 considerations also show how Hindus are likely 
 to move in masses more than as individuals. 
 Mass movements are likely to sweep consider- 
 able communities at a time into the Christian 
 fold. 
 
 The case of one of the most interesting and 
 eminent converts to Christianity in Western 
 India illustrates how one type of the Hindu 
 mind works. Like the early Hindu reformers 
 he had become impressed with the social evils of 
 his land. He saw that caste was splitting up 
 the community into selfish and injurious rela- 
 tions, and he knew that India can never rise so 
 long as it remains in the baneful bondage of 
 caste. Also he knew that nothing but a religion 
 would put away caste. So without any knowl- 
 edge of Christianity, but no doubt under the 
 inspiration of God, he began to study what 
 religion India should have in place of Hin- 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 118 
 
 'duism. At first, he naturally thought of 
 Mohammedanism, about which every Hindu 
 knows something. And he reasonably thought 
 that Mohammedanism has some greater and 
 more powerful truths than Hinduism in its 
 emphasis on the truth of one personal and 
 righteous God, in its doctrine of the harmful- 
 ness of idolatry and the need of spiritual 
 worship, and especially in its theoretical teach- 
 ing about the error of caste pride, and to some 
 extent in its practical influence in abolishing 
 caste distinctions. But as he thought still more 
 he became convinced that Mohammedanism was 
 not the religion which India needs, because it 
 largely depends upon compulsion and not on 
 reasonableness in enforcing its authority. So 
 he began to think of developing an eclectic 
 religion in which the best characteristics of 
 various religions might be combined. This way 
 of thinking is very much in accordance with the 
 Hindu mind. While in this state of search, this 
 man met a European in a railway train and 
 talked with him about his intention. The Euro- 
 pean asked him if he had ever read the Bible or 
 knew about Jesus Christ. The man said " No," 
 
114 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 but promised to read the Bible and find out 
 about Christianity. Accordingly the European 
 then and there gave him a New Testament; 
 and largely without the personal influence of 
 Christian teachers that capable and enterpris- 
 ing Hindu gentleman was so attracted by the 
 Jesus Christ who is delineated in the Gospels, 
 and so delighted with His way of leading men 
 into spiritual life by spiritual means, that he 
 soon became a Christian. He became a Chris- 
 tian, not from a personal sense of sin, but 
 because he believed that Jesus Christ could help 
 his country and save it from its injurious social 
 condition. 
 
 Another instance will also show how the 
 Hindu mind works. On one occasion at a meet- 
 ing of the Bombay Missionary Conference I 
 told how I was accustomed to preach Christ to 
 Hindus. At the close of my remarks a Parsi 
 convert, who has become an earnest Christian 
 preacher, asked if I was accustomed, when 
 preaching, to tell people that they were born 
 in trespasses and sins. I replied, " Never." He 
 said, " Is that taught in the Bible, and do you 
 believe it ? " I replied, " Yes, it is taught in 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 115 
 
 the Bible, and I believe it." " Why do you not 
 then preach it? " I said, " Because that Is not 
 part of the good message which I have to give 
 to men. It is hard enough to make men realize 
 that they are now in trespasses and sins for 
 which they themselves are responsible, and to 
 make them come to Christ in order to get away 
 from trespasses and, sins. If I should say that 
 they were born In trespasses and sins, they 
 would probably lay it on to their parents, and 
 the more excuse themselves from responsibility." 
 This led another missionary to say that a short 
 time before Dr. Wilson, one of the most eminent 
 Scotch missionaries in Bombay, had told him 
 that when speaking to a Hindu about the bur- 
 den of sin, that Hindu had told him that he 
 himself seriously felt the burden of his own sins. 
 It is so rare for a missionary to have any Hindu 
 speak of being burdened for a sin of his own 
 that Dr. Wilson asked the man with interest If 
 he would tell him what those sins were of which 
 he so felt the burden. The man instantly 
 replied that they were his wife and mother-in- 
 law. He felt as people in America very com- 
 monly feel, that there was a good deal of sin 
 
116 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 which was causing him much trouble, but it was 
 the troublesome doings of others, not of him- 
 self, which were a burden to him. Principally 
 it was the word " burden " and not the word 
 " sin " in Dr. Wilson's remark which stuck in 
 that Hindu's mind. He had a real burden 
 because he was inconvenienced by things which 
 his wife and mother-in-law had done. So when 
 he spoke of carrying burdens connected with 
 wrong-doing, the missionary supposed he was 
 making a confession of unease due to his own 
 sin. This story illustrates a common experience 
 of Hindus. They are often ill at ease. They do 
 feel burdened by many of the trying expe- 
 riences of life and they desire relief from that 
 unrest. They are uneasy because they are not 
 in right relations to God, and it will be 
 because Jesus Christ more than any other 
 religious teacher brings into the Hindu 
 mind and heart and conscience that revelation 
 of God which makes the Hindus conscious of 
 God's love and desire to help men that they will 
 become Christians more than by any other 
 influence. 
 
 The more we know of the Hindu mind, the 
 
MISSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY 117 
 
 more it becomes clear that the Lord Jesus Christ 
 is the One who is fitted to satisfy that type of 
 mind. He satisfies the imagination of the 
 Hindus. His teaching has that universal 
 character which is in accordance with the hos- 
 pitality of thought which characterizes the 
 Hindu mind. He gives relief from the bondage 
 of ritual and sacrifice and caste from which the 
 heart and mind of the Hindu has long sought 
 release, as the heart of man everywhere seeks 
 relief. There is much criticism of Christendom 
 in India, and rightly so, for how much of 
 Christendom is not Christian! There is much 
 hesitation in India to accept what is naturally 
 considered Western theology. But there is no 
 criticism of the Lord Jesus Christ. He meets 
 and satisfies the Hindu intellect, the Hindu 
 heart, the Hindu life, as no one else. And He 
 is winning India to Himself. He will win it 
 wholly. Keshab Chundar Sen well said, " It 
 is Christ who rules British India, and not the 
 British government. None but Christ, none but 
 Christ, none but Christ, have deserved this 
 bright, this precious diadem, and Jesus shall 
 have it." 
 
IV. 
 
 MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 THE individual is the concrete expression 
 of the associated life of man ; and society 
 is the associated life of individuals. 
 Therefore sociology as the science of social phe- 
 nomena is to-day, like ps3^chology, a study of ab- 
 sorbing interest and vital importance. Religion 
 being preeminently the doctrine and practice 
 of men in relation to one another in their inter- 
 pretation of God, sociology is a science of 
 exceptional value to the religious teacher and 
 leader. The history of religion in some broad 
 sense is almost the history of sociology. What 
 is the so-called Mosaic system but an attempt 
 to regulate the relations of the men of Israel 
 under a sense of responsibility to God? 
 Thoughtful and experienced men in the West 
 now value the historical and analytical study of 
 social phenomena in showing how many past 
 efforts to do good have been mistaken, and in 
 pointing out the path to meet present problems. 
 118 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 119 
 
 The leaders of life in America now understand 
 that wise charity can only be exercised when 
 administered on those lines which sociology 
 teaches to be sensible. It is weU known that 
 charity as formerly administered cannot cure 
 one-tenth of the evils which it seeks to cure, 
 while it often creates new evils in its well-meant, 
 but mistaken, efforts to do good. 
 
 If the scientific study of social phenomena is 
 important for the religious leader in his own 
 land, how much more so is it for the man who, 
 with little experience of work among his own 
 people, goes to labor in a foreign land, among 
 men of different climate, diverse race, history, 
 customs, religion, and assumptions ! This would 
 seem almost axiomatic. Yet it has not been 
 understood by missionary societies and by mis- 
 sionaries as it should have been. However, this 
 is not strange, because scientific sociology is a 
 comparatively recent study, even in the West. 
 Nor is it surprising that even among primitive 
 peoples, and still more among advanced peoples 
 like the Japanese, Chinese, and Hindus, it is 
 sometimes said of some missionaries, " Save us 
 from our friends." It is likely to be said of 
 
!!;>() MISSIONS from thr INIODIORN VIKW 
 
 lliosc mlssioiiMiirs wlio llmik il CMsy n\u\ \''i}^}\\ l<) 
 ])r()|)()S(' niid |)iisli .s\\(<'|Miii_;- clinii^j^cs ol* cuslom, 
 vvillioiil iiiKlcrshuuliii^ I lie 1)Rh1s of lliosc ciis- 
 loms in llu' li;^lil of llic history of society in 
 I, hose ImikIs. \'(I il sjx'nks imicli for \\\v /^ood 
 Ncnsi' of I lie >iv('i*n;_^'r niissioiiMry IIimI lie Iwis 
 lisu/illy Ik'cii |>ni(l«'iil mikI I'm- si'^lihd in llu» 
 course vvliicli he has lollouMd ui seekin/^' l.o 
 modify and lo mold social cuslonis and insli- 
 iidions. 
 
 Of* n\\ coMidries prohahly Indi/i is Ihe one 
 which has Ihe niosl complex social phenomena: 
 vvhei'e individualism is Ihe leasl (levelo|>ed: \vhei(! 
 cuslom is mosi, sujjicme. So Ihal hefore all 
 olhei's Ihe missionary lo India should he one who 
 has Hludi(<l nol. oidy Ihe hislory of sociel^ in \\\h 
 own huid, l)ul in oilier lands, and who ^och to 
 India, anxious and ready lo leain many l.hin^H 
 hefore Iryin;^' lo leach ail Ihin^rs. Almosl. I ho 
 worsi Ihin;^ which could hajjpen lo a. youn;.^" mis- 
 Kion/iry «^()in/4- lo /my land would he lo have llu* 
 nhilily lo use Ihe Viiinicul/ir inime<li/ilely upon 
 landing-. Willi Ihe hesl of inlenlions he would 
 make many needless mislakes. There /iro 
 " Train ill* '• I Ionics for Missionaries" in America 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 121 
 
 which think they are doing missionary candi- 
 dates good service by teaching them in this 
 country the vernaculars of India. This is 
 almost sure to lead those candidates to form 
 some bad mistakes in pronunciation and in idiom 
 in the use of the languages so acquired. It also 
 prevents the young missionary from going 
 through that most important preliminary expe- 
 rience of getting gradually accustomed to the 
 ideas and ways of the people before he ought to 
 attempt much in teaching them. The chances 
 are that missionaries from such training homes 
 will begin and will long continue their work on 
 the assumption that what they ought to do is 
 to teach those people the imitation of Western 
 ideas and customs. One of the chief temptations 
 of the dogmatic type of young missionary is to 
 marvel at the ways of experienced workers and 
 to count them old fogies and behind the times. 
 Fortunately most young missionaries are not 
 of this type. 
 
 But the missionary — whether recent or long 
 in the land — is sure to do some injury to himself 
 and to his work and to the people, if he fails to 
 realize the fundamental laws which have always 
 
122 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 controlled and which should control all social 
 and religious progress. The first of these prin- 
 ciples is the law of continuity. Just as in phy- 
 sical life the present is the outcome of the past, 
 so in psychical life the present is the product of 
 the past. He who would rightly judge of the 
 present must bear in mind this law of continuity 
 in psychical as in physical life. The past must 
 be and will be modified. But what is wise and 
 what is unwise in each case must depend consider- 
 ably on what the past calls for. Customs and 
 institutions are the skeleton of the social organ- 
 ism, and just as the skeleton of the human body 
 must and should considerably determine the 
 plans for the development of that body, so the 
 skeleton of the past psychical body must and 
 should largely determine plans for the develop- 
 ment of the future psychical body. This is 
 simply another way of saying that heredity as 
 well as environment determines and should deter- 
 mine the constitution of the social organism, as 
 it does the constitution of the physical organism. 
 Therefore, it is important both to understand 
 the heredity of the social constitution, and to 
 bear it in mind when considering a new social 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 123 
 
 environment for the future best development of 
 any form of society. 
 
 This implies — what in missionary activity has 
 not always been sufficiently understood, nor fol- 
 lowed — ^that so much of good as is in the struc- 
 ture or in the possibilities of indigenous society 
 in any land should be thoroughly understood 
 and appreciated and utilized. In other words 
 the missionary should follow the controlling 
 principle of the Lord Jesus Christ, in social mat- 
 ters as well as in what are called purely religious 
 matters, viz., the missionary should try to fulfill, 
 and not to destroy. What did Jesus or the early 
 apostles direct the early Christians to give up in 
 their social organization, or in their religious 
 organization? They did not give up the tem- 
 ple, or the synagogue, or any of their social 
 habits. They did not cease observing Saturday 
 as their Sabbath. They only added to the use 
 of Saturday as Sabbath the recognition of the 
 first day of the week as the Lord's day. And so 
 not abruptly, but gradually, there came in the 
 Christian community a transfer of the day of 
 rest from the seventh to the first day of the 
 week. At first both days were more or less 
 
IM MISSIONS frovi the MODERN VIEW 
 
 observed. But at last without any upheaval the 
 first day became the sole Sabbath of the 
 Christians of the world. 
 
 It also has not been sufficiently understood 
 that it is a mistake to assume that the social 
 structure of any country should be changed 
 from its own type into the American type. 
 Changed it must be, and will be; infused 
 with, and molded by Christian principles and 
 motives it should be; and by God's grace it 
 eventually will be changed into a Christian civil- 
 ization. But it will be a different type of 
 civilization from that which prevails in America. 
 Change is not always improvement ; or it may be 
 only partial improvement and partial deteriora- 
 tion; and change in an undesirable and effete 
 type of society may produce only partially desir- 
 able results. Under the influence of Christian 
 missionaries some social changes in some lands 
 have probably wrought more evil than good. 
 But that is simply saying that good-intentioncd 
 people have made mistakes in other lands just as 
 they have in America. In short, what may be 
 good for the West, may not only not be now 
 good for the East; it may be even undesirable 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 1^5 
 
 now; tli()ii<^li later tlic development, of society 
 there may approxlnwite the type of society in the 
 West. This in no way implies that Christian 
 ideas and principles should not control every- 
 where. The world's way of living in society 
 is bound eventually to l)e the way of the prin- 
 ciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 It is hazardous to <»;enerallze upon anything 
 in India, because, as has been Intimated in a 
 previous lecture, the structure of society there, 
 as the structure of religion, is not altogether 
 homogeneous. India Is not and never has been 
 one nation. It Is a coiiglonierule of races and 
 of social phenomena. This Is one reason why 
 people who talk about that country differ so 
 much in their statements and in their opinions. 
 In the most backward classes there is still a com- 
 paratively piiniilive type of society. In other 
 classes there Is an advanced type of social organ- 
 ization. And yet it seiins safe to say that. In 
 general, society In India Is more in the intermedi- 
 ate state. It certainly is the country where 
 individualism is at the minimum and where social 
 solidarity is most pronounced. 
 
 The missionary to India needs to remember 
 
126 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 that the hfe of society has a physical basis. 
 Man cannot wholly rise above his physical en- 
 vironment. The upward trend of society comes 
 when environing forces are gradually modified. 
 But sometimes the combination of those very 
 forces with the working of some new forces 
 enables men eventually to make those very forces 
 which pressed them down become the means of 
 rising higher. India's physical environment has 
 largely developed its social structure. Its cli- 
 mate is on the whole enervating. Its soil is so 
 rich that without strenuous toil it produces 
 enough for the sustenance of the body. So 
 Indians naturally have not been energetic. Shut 
 out from much contact with other nations of the 
 world by high mountains and by the sea, India 
 has led a self-contained life. When successive 
 torrents of invaders from the northwest poured 
 through mountain passes to overwhelm the land 
 the Indian easily submitted. This submission 
 was mainly physical, and yet the conquest 
 aifected the internal structure of society. 
 
 The family organization of India involves 
 many questions which the missionary should con- 
 sider and understand. The type of family in 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY irt 
 
 India is that of the united family where three 
 generations live together. This has been partly 
 due to economic considerations. There have 
 been few moral restraints on the increase of 
 numbers, and therefore it has been necessary so 
 to organize the family as to minimize expenses 
 and to multiply the means of support. Nat- 
 urally this has been accomplished by having two 
 and three generations united together and living 
 in a common building. And this made it neces- 
 sary for the women and even for the children to 
 work for the support of the united family. This 
 organization of the family largely controlled the 
 position of women. It made the head of the 
 united family very much the arbiter in settling 
 all questions for the whole group. It compelled 
 the younger women to be subject to the older 
 women. It greatly limited education. It placed 
 the discipline of most of the members of the 
 family in the hands of one or two. In India, as 
 in all tropical countries, sexual instincts are 
 early developed and are strong. This has been 
 one main reason for early marriages in that 
 country. And so long as early marriages are 
 the rule, the united family system has some 
 
1S8 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 advantages over the smaller and separate family 
 system of the West. As this family system has 
 affected the marriage system, and as in turn the 
 marriage system has affected the family system, 
 it ought to be evident to the Western missionary 
 that none of these customs can be, or should be, 
 hastily changed. Yet how hard it is for young 
 missionaries from America, especially for un- 
 married young ladies, to appreciate that the 
 marriage customs and family customs of India 
 are not so harmful as they seem at first to people 
 who have a different system, and that such 
 marriage and family customs should not be radi- 
 cally changed at short notice. The missionary 
 rightly seeks to give boys and girls an education 
 in schools, and to give the brightest of them an 
 advanced education. He easily supposes that 
 education is mainly a matter of the study of 
 books in schools. But the Indian united family 
 system, with its early marriages, made an educa- 
 tion for girls through books usually out of the 
 question. A girl was betrothed, as we say, or, 
 as the Hindus say, married, at an early age. In 
 order to fit into the future united family life of 
 her husband she has to spend a part of every 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 129 
 
 year in the home of that husband even while she 
 is a girl, in order to learn to take her part in 
 that united family life. She spends only a part 
 of her time in her own home. This interferes with 
 study. Very early she becomes a mother and 
 has to carry maternal responsibilities. Educa- 
 tion for the boy has in India always implied more 
 study of books than education for the girl. So 
 in those families where such education was prized 
 it was possible for the boy to go on with the 
 study of books even when he had paternal 
 responsibilities, because his own support and the 
 support of his wife and children could be assured 
 through the common means of the united family. 
 This combined some advantages with some dis- 
 advantages. But when the missionary from the 
 West sought to give to girls an education 
 through books, and rightly realized the impor- 
 tance of postponing to a later date than Hindu 
 custom allowed the entrance of those girls into 
 the responsibilities of motherhood, the practical 
 question would arise as to how long marriage 
 should be postponed, and how long education 
 through books should continue. How diflScult it 
 inevitably is for unmarried ladies who have been 
 
130 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 brought up in the advantages of life in the West 
 and who have never studied the history of mar- 
 riage and the history of society in non-Christian 
 lands to realize the danger of postponing too 
 long the marriage of girls whom they are train- 
 ing in schools. Perhaps it is impossible, and it 
 certainly is most difficult, for such Western mis- 
 sionaries at first to realize the danger of immor- 
 ality in thought, if not in deed, through greatly 
 postponing the marriageable age of boys and 
 girls in such lands. It requires not a little of 
 the teaching of history and of experience as well 
 as of idealism to decide upon the best age for 
 this fundamental matter. Similarly in India all 
 arrangements for marriage between young 
 people are settled not by themselves, but by their 
 elders. The wisdom of this course is one of the 
 very hardest matters for young missionaries, 
 especially for young ladies from America, to 
 realize. But this custom has so many advan- 
 tages that radical change in the matter of mak- 
 ing matches should not be suddenly attempted. 
 Happiness in the married state does not depend 
 upon the way in which young people enter into 
 it. It depends on whether the young man and 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 131 
 
 the young woman are truly mated or not. If 
 they are truly mated and fitted to be helpmeets 
 of one another, they will live happily together 
 however it came about that they were made man 
 and wife. Whereas, though without the interven- 
 tion of any other person they absolutely settle 
 for themselves that they should become husband 
 and wife, if they are not truly mated, their mar- 
 ried life is apt to be anything but satisfactory. 
 Yet in the West it is largely assumed that the 
 only reasonable and satisfactory way for a male 
 and female to decide whether to become husband 
 and wife is for themselves entirely to settle the 
 question after more or less courting and without 
 much counsel from relatives and elders. But in 
 India, where the parties are young, and where 
 for many reasons it is not wise or feasible for the 
 two sexes to have much intercourse, and so for 
 boys and girls to be intimate or to know much 
 about each other and each other's families, the 
 prudent way for good matches is for the elders 
 to take the initiative, and also to have a large 
 part in deciding whether a marriage between a 
 boy and a girl is a wise one or not. The two 
 changes which Christian civilization ought soon 
 
132 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 to bring about and does bring about are, first: 
 that the age of true marriage should be some- 
 what deferred ; and second : that neither boys nor 
 girls should be required to enter into the mar- 
 riage relation without their own consent and 
 without something of a desire for such a rela- 
 tion. Missionaries are bringing about these two 
 changes as fast as practicable. But at first the 
 young and inexperienced missionary thinks it 
 very strange, and even improper, that he or she 
 or relatives should be expected or allowed to have 
 much part in making matches for Christian 
 young people. " That is a matter which the 
 young people must entirely settle for themselves 
 without consulting me or anyone else," is the 
 first impulse of the missionary from the West 
 who has no knowledge of the history of marriage 
 in India or experience of the mistakes which 
 come when the missionary fails to use his or 
 her influence in the matter. Nor is it alone in 
 India, but in many another missionary land, that 
 wise missionaries find it very desirable that they 
 should have considerable part in helping the 
 youth in their schools and the young men and 
 women in the Christian community and the par- 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 133 
 
 ents of young people in deciding wisely in the 
 most important matter of selecting husbands and 
 wives. In other directions also the marriage 
 question is in some respects one of the most per- 
 plexing for the missionary. The principle of 
 the Bible rightly assumes that a man should not 
 marry a woman with whom he cannot have sym- 
 pathy in religion, as in other matters, and so 
 marriage with an unbeliever was strongly dis- 
 countenanced by the apostle Paul. But he did 
 not have in mind that state of society which 
 exists in many missionary fields in India. It is 
 not likely that the Christian man whom Paul had 
 in mind would have had any difficulty in finding 
 a Christian wife ; or that he would be unable to 
 meet his responsibilities, if he was unable to 
 marry a Christian wife. But in some missionary 
 fields in India the situation is very different. In 
 all the early stages of missionary effort in India 
 men become Christians in larger numbers than 
 women, because the women are more secluded and 
 have fewer opportunities for Christian instruc- 
 tion and inspiration. Moreover, as a Christian 
 community grows the effort is made to give as 
 many Christian girls as possible an advanced 
 
134 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 education. A well-educated girl ought to have, 
 if possible, an educated husband. But it is by 
 no means an uncommon occurrence that when 
 the number of Christian men exceeds the number 
 of Christian women it is impossible for some of 
 those men to get a Christian wife. It is not 
 desirable nor safe for many men to live in celi- 
 bacy. In India a widower with a family of little 
 children often cannot get a Christian woman to 
 go into his home and be a mother to his children. 
 Yet the Pauline injunction, " Be not unequally 
 yoked with unbelievers," is supposed to be con- 
 clusive in settling that a Christian man can only 
 marry a baptized woman. Under the stress of 
 such circumstances it is not at all uncommon for 
 a Christian man to marry an unbaptized female, 
 even though he knows that this will result in his 
 being excluded from church membership. The 
 duty of that Christian widower to his children 
 requires him to take another wife. He can get 
 a non-Christian woman who is uninstructed in 
 religious matters to become to him a faithful 
 wife and to his children a good mother; but he 
 cannot get a Christian wife. Ought the Pauline 
 injunction to be stretched to cover that case.? 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 135 
 
 Ought he to be disciplined if, though for years 
 he has sought a Christian wife and cannot get 
 one, he takes a non-Christian? To avoid this 
 difficulty, some missionaries sometimes quickly 
 baptize such a woman, in order that she may 
 technically be called " Christian." But mani- 
 festly this is debasing the rite of Baptism, and 
 of course it is regarding merely the letter, and 
 not the spirit of the Pauline command. Or some- 
 times when a Christian man has for years sought 
 in vain for a Christian wife the stress of circum- 
 stances leads him into illicit and sinful relations 
 with a woman with whom he would have liked to 
 contract honorable marriage, but was prevented 
 by the PauHne injunction. Modem sociology 
 shows that history cannot absolutely settle such 
 questions. In accordance with modern views of 
 God and the world it should be recognized that 
 the apostolic command in question is not the sole 
 authority for the settlement of questions very 
 unlike those which called forth that injunction. 
 Does not the principle which Jesus Christ 
 applied to the Sabbath question apply also to 
 the marriage question.? Would not the Chris- 
 tian principle be that marriage is made for man, 
 
136 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 and not man for the marriage ideas of Biblical 
 times ? 
 
 Similarly the Christian missionary rightly 
 considers caste an institution which in many 
 respects is more opposed to the spirit of Christ 
 than any other social institution of India. He 
 therefore, in season and out of season, rightly 
 seeks to break down its unbrotherly character- 
 istics. But when the question comes of the wis- 
 dom of marriage between people who, though 
 originally of different caste, have become Chris- 
 tian, it does not follow that because people of 
 one social origin object to marrying people of 
 another social origin, therefore they are wrongly 
 influenced by caste. Nor does it follow that it 
 is wise often to promote inter-marriage between 
 people of different social origins. For a man 
 marries not only his wife, but he enters into close 
 social relations with all that wife's relatives. 
 And a wife marries not only her husband, but 
 enters into close social relations with all his rela- 
 tives. So the practical situation makes most 
 missionaries very slow to favor easy and promis- 
 cuous marriages between people of different 
 social origins. 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 137 
 
 The question of polygamy Is a social question 
 not so easily settled in every state of missionary 
 work as would be at first supposed by the people 
 of America and by the inexperienced missionary. 
 It was Sarah herself who gave to the father of 
 the faithful her servant Hagar to wife. The 
 unfortunate outcome of that action depended 
 partly on the fact that Sarah herself later 
 became the mother of a son. Had that not been 
 the case, who can tell what the history of the 
 Abrahamic family would have been? So in India, 
 where even more urgent views are held as to the 
 importance of the family line being continued 
 than were held among the Hebrews, it is not 
 uncommon that a Christian wife, who has no 
 children herself, proposes to her husband that he 
 should take a second wife. In my first year of 
 missionary life a man once asked for admission 
 to the Christian church who had two wives. He 
 had taken the second wife because the first had 
 no children. But later the first wife also became 
 the mother of a son. When he applied for 
 admission to the church he was told by the strong 
 Indian Christian pastor that it was necessary 
 for him to put away one of his wives. Neither 
 
138 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 wife wished to leave him. Neither wife was con- 
 scious of having done him or anyone any wrong. 
 Each was the mother of a son, and each nat- 
 urally asked " Why should I be put away from 
 my husband and home? " But the rule of the 
 church forbade the reception of a man with two 
 wives. And he was encouraged to feel that it 
 was more important that he should join the 
 church than that he should retain both wives. 
 So at last, contrary to her wish, he gave 
 a writing to one of the wives, saying 
 that she was free to go where she pleased 
 and do as she pleased, and that so long as 
 she remained otherwise unmarried and remained 
 good, he would give her a small monthly ahmony. 
 Then he was received into the church. But the 
 result was that that faithful wife who was put 
 out of her home came to lead a bad life. With 
 more experience I now very well see that the 
 proper course to have been followed was to have 
 said to the man, " We will not receive you into 
 the church because you have two wives. But, 
 because you have brought them into that rela- 
 tion, and have made them mothers of sons, you 
 cannot rightly desert either or compel her to 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 139 
 
 leave your care and support. Whenever in the 
 course of events you may be the husband of only 
 one wife, if you then live as a Christian man, 
 and wish it, we shall receive you into our 
 fellowship." 
 
 In the Jewish Church and in the early Chris- 
 tian Church it was not by radical and severe 
 enactments that polygamy was put away. Like 
 slavery it disappeared under the dynamic of 
 Christian principles. So far as I know, most 
 missionary societies in India would now naturally 
 follow the course which I have indicated, viz., 
 they would decline to receive a polygamist into 
 church membership, but would not thereby deny 
 that he might be a Christian at heart and a 
 Christian in life. 
 
 The history of social institutions has instruc- 
 tion for the Christian missionary in the impor- 
 tant matter of knowing how to deal with vice. 
 It is claimed, I do not know with how much accu- 
 racy, that in some districts in England the insti- 
 tution of a good many homes for fallen women is 
 increasing, instead of diminishing, immorality. 
 Under the ordinary working of God's law sin is 
 followed and should be followed by its natural 
 
140 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 evil consequences of all kinds. This is not in- 
 consistent with the Christian principle that by 
 God's grace men may give up their sin, and that 
 some of the evil consequences of sin will be put 
 away, and that there is no greater privilege and 
 duty for the Christian than to be one who saves 
 others from their sins, and helps the repentant 
 sinner to escape from such consequences of the 
 sin as he can escape from. Yet that does not 
 imply that while men and women repent of sin 
 they should be easily shielded from as many of 
 the natural results of wrong-doing as possible. 
 Sociology teaches that it is a complicated and 
 difficult question to know how to deal with vice 
 in the West. It is important for the missionary 
 to know the teachings and principles of sociol- 
 ogy as to the best ways of dealing with vice in 
 non-Christian lands where the social institutions 
 are different from those in the West. Yet I pre- 
 sume it would be a matter of great astonish- 
 ment to most missionaries to hear that some good 
 men and women in England have some doubts 
 as to the entire wisdom of multiplying such insti- 
 tutions as have just been mentioned; and that 
 therefore it docs not certainly follow that such 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 141 
 
 institutions should be multiplied in non-Christian 
 lands. 
 
 Education Is principally a social phenomenon. 
 How much modern ideas of education have been 
 changed in this land in recent years! How 
 much scientific pedagogy is now required before 
 even a college-bred man or woman is em- 
 ployed as an instructor in the public schools 
 of some cities, and in private institutions ! 
 How much emphasis is now placed upon 
 kindergarten, upon manual training, upon 
 school discipline, upon cultivating the aesthetic 
 taste! And similar pedagogical qualifications 
 will soon be thought to be essential and will 
 become common among missionary candidates. 
 The last word on co-education may, or may not, 
 have beon said for America. In a land like 
 India co-education is only beginning to be pro- 
 posed and attempted, for the logical situation 
 has legitimately led the missionary to be slow in 
 proposing it in the schools. Yet probably there 
 is going to be much more of co-education in 
 foreign lands. 
 
 Industry and charity are important social y 
 phenomena. The missionary has to follow some 
 
142 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 policy In regard to these questions. Indiscrim- 
 inate and unwise charity has been almost the 
 worst scourge of India. How far the mission- 
 ary in that country can radically depart from 
 old customs Is not easy to decide. But certainly 
 the wise principle is to displace the need of mis- 
 placed charity and to develop the industrial 
 capacity and habits of the land. On this prin- 
 ciple nowadays the Industrial side of mission- 
 ary effort Is rightly receiving and is likely to 
 receive more attention. 
 
 The Indian missionary Is sometimes charged 
 with denationalizing Indian Christians. There 
 Is danger on this point. It is easy to Increase a 
 sense of need and dissatisfaction with economic 
 ways and surroundings. So far as this dissatis- 
 faction stimulates adequate exertion for the sup- 
 ply of those needs, so far the missionary does 
 well. But In schools and churches to Increase 
 the needs and habits of people which their own 
 resources cannot meet or supply Is not true 
 kindness. It is now realized that it Is not a wise 
 policy to take children, even famine children, far 
 from their own district and surroundings, 
 though in the new place they may get better care 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 143 
 
 for body and mind. After they have had this 
 care and are grown up, they may not be fitted to 
 remain in their new habitat. In the long run it 
 might have been better for them to have had 
 fewer opportunities in their own district. 
 
 More distinctively rehgious questions also are 
 in some measure sociological. The missionary 
 who has been brought up with Puritan ideas 
 about Sunday observance in the surroundings 
 of New England life naturally imagines that 
 keeping Sunday in the New England way is 
 almost a sine qua non, if an Indian would be a 
 Christian. But the social situation is so differ- 
 ent there that it is impossible for many Chris- 
 tians to stop all Sunday work, just as unfor- 
 tunately Sunday work is more common in New 
 England now than it was years ago. 
 
 All government is a social relation, and so 
 church government is essentially a sociological 
 question. Men now see that history does not 
 absolutely settle all questions of any kind. In 
 new situations God's providence often gives new 
 points of view. It is no longer believed by any- 
 one in America that there is any divine right for 
 kings. Any kind of government that secures 
 
144 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 the welfare of a people is ordained of God. 
 Similarly it should now be seen that the Bible is 
 not the sole source of authority in church gov- 
 ernment. What the Bible teaches and helps to 
 secure is good order. Just as there are practi- 
 cally three types of secular government, all of 
 which are divine: monarchical, aristocratic, and 
 democratic, so there are three types of church 
 government, all of which I believe to be historical 
 in apostolic times, and all of which to have been 
 of divine appointment. I believe that the right 
 reading of the New Testament shows that in 
 Palestine the first Christian Churches were Pres- 
 b3i:erian in polity because they were Christian 
 synagogues instead of Jewish synagogues, and 
 the synagogue system is practically the Presby- 
 terian system. In Greece the early churches 
 were democratic or Congregational, for the very 
 natural reason that the secular government was 
 democratic; and since religion is not a separate 
 compartment in which men think and act differ- 
 ently on Sunday from the way in which they 
 think and act about all matters in the remaining 
 six days of the week, the eccles'ioe of Greece were 
 democratic in constitution and action, as the civil 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 145 
 
 institutions of the land were. The monarchical 
 principle prevailed in the Christian church in 
 Rome. If this position is correct, the Bible 
 shows that all three forms of church government 
 are of apostolic and divine appointment. Sim- 
 ilarly what form of church government shall now 
 prevail in any land or any section of any land 
 is settled partly by the heredity and partly by 
 the surroundings of that church. Each form of 
 government has its excellences and its weak- 
 nesses. That may be the better form of gov- 
 ernment for a community or a section of 
 churches at one time than would be good at 
 another period. Personally I am an episco- 
 presbygationalist. That is, I try as a mission- 
 ary to unite the excellences of the three types of 
 church government. The circumstances of mis- 
 sionary responsibility compel me to be an episco 
 or bishop, as every missionary in every land at 
 first has been and must be. I settle a great 
 many questions; I have a diocese in which I 
 exercise large control. But in the churches of 
 my diocese I develop preshys, i. e., committees 
 composed of leaders, as much as I can, because 
 the leaders of a church in any community always 
 
146 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 have and must have exceptional fitness to exert 
 an influence and therefore must and do lead. 
 But I am also a gationalist. That is, I try in 
 every church to help every member to feel a per- 
 sonal interest in all matters of the church, and 
 by placing responsibility on him I try to qualify 
 him to bear still further responsibility, and 
 thereby to make him a more intelligent Chris- 
 tian, and a more effective member of the organi- 
 zation. My impression is that before we get 
 through with it all types of church government 
 in the West as well as in the East will be a good 
 deal Episcopresbygational. 
 
 Whether a church should have a pastor or 
 not; whether it should have only one pastor or 
 not, is also a social question. The apostolic 
 churches at first did not have pastors who gave 
 their whole time to the service of the church in 
 return for which those churches paid them sal- 
 aries. In India most of the churches are not 
 able to pay for pastors who give their whole 
 time to the churches. As the community 
 develops, it is more and more important that the 
 leader in a Christian church should be a strong 
 man with large capacity, and the need of some 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 147 
 
 such pastors will be more appreciated. But the 
 more difficult it will be for churches of limited 
 resources to pay for such pastors. Because 
 churches in the West should have pastors whose 
 support they supply, it does not necessarily fol- 
 low that this is the practical and best way for 
 aU missionary churches in every land. 
 
 Another very important sociological principle 
 is how far a missionary should use authority, 
 and how much he should depend upon personal 
 influence apart from a claim to authority. 
 Power to inflict penalties is one important ele- 
 ment of authority. How far should a mission- 
 ary be a man who can wisely inflict pecuniary 
 penalties.? How far should he rather let the 
 Christian churches and community sometimes 
 make mistakes and learn by experience to trust 
 his judgment more, or how far should he depend 
 on his own sense of what is right and good, in 
 order to decide all social matters, even though 
 the exercise of such authority should alienate 
 and embitter the Christian community.'' Of 
 course circumstances must help to decide all such 
 questions. The situation may be diff'erent in 
 one country or in one district from the situation 
 
148 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW, 
 
 elsewhere. One type of man can perhaps better 
 f oUow one principle than another. But the mis- 
 sionary certainly needs to bear in mind one prin- 
 ciple which he often easily forgets: viz., that 
 the exercise of power of any kind is attended 
 with serious dangers. What is the history of 
 the priesthood in any land? Among the 
 Hebrews, as among the Hindus, it teaches a most 
 impressive and suggestive lesson: that the reli- 
 gious leader who uses authority of any kind may 
 easily degenerate into a tyrant who comes 
 wrongly to consider himself as an authority to 
 settle the most important matters for those 
 whom he ought to lead only by teaching and 
 example. The power of the purse is a distinct 
 danger to the modern missionary. The mission- 
 ary can easily think that he or she should abso- 
 lutely decide when a boy or girl should or should 
 not come to school or leave school; or be mar- 
 ried or not be married; or do this or do that, 
 because the missionary has spent some money 
 for that boy or girl. For past or future pecu- 
 niary favors which are in his hand he can come to 
 think that even the parents or relatives of those 
 children have lost their right or their qualifica- 
 
MISSIONS AND SOCIOLOGY 149 
 
 tions to have much voice in settling such ques- 
 tions. In every single case where the people 
 have had intelligence the history of modern mis- 
 sions has given a melancholy illustration of hard 
 feeling, bitterness, estrangement, and even sep- 
 aration from the church and Christian principles 
 when missionaries have seemed to be or really 
 were arbitrary in thinking that they should 
 settle all questions, though they might have 
 retained the confidence of those whom they had 
 alienated, had they been content to depend on 
 influence rather than on authority. The Holy 
 Spirit utters no commands: He influences men. 
 The missionary should avoid the mistake of being 
 limp ; he should be decided in exercising proper 
 discipline and in carrying proper responsibility 
 for the use of money. Yet even when he dis- 
 agrees with the Christians of his community he 
 should remember that the greatest service he can 
 render is to be a " holy spirit " himself, who by 
 example and precept, in love and in gentleness, 
 as well as by plainness of reproof, seeks to lead, 
 rather than to drive those whom God in His 
 mercy has brought into His fold. 
 
A COMPARISON OF CHRISTIANITY AND 
 HINDUISM* 
 
 THE scientific and thorough examination 
 of the religions with which Christianity 
 has come into contact is a recent under- 
 taking, but a general comparison for practical 
 purposes has been one principal part of mission- 
 ary activity from the first Christian century. 
 Paul did something of it at Lystra, on Mars 
 HiU, and in his writings, especially in the first 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. At first 
 the comparison of religions for practical pur- 
 poses naturally dwelt on the unsatisfactory ele- 
 ments of non-Christian faiths. Formerly the 
 offices of medicine largely sought to cure disease 
 by fixing attention on abnormal conditions and 
 on removing these by aid from without. There 
 was little thought of internal, curative forces. 
 So it was not unnatural that the offices of spir- 
 itual medicine were worked on the same assump- 
 tion and method. From the very first the Chris- 
 
 * In preparing this chapter use has been made of Slater's 
 The Higher Hinduism in Relation to Christianity. 
 
 150 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 151 
 
 tian missionary saw the weaknesses and unsatis- 
 factoriness of non-Christian religions, and, be- 
 lieving that Jesus Christ was the only one to free 
 men from those weaknesses, the missionary saw 
 little good in those ethnic faiths. History has 
 given much justification to that early method, 
 for all the religions with which Christianity 
 formerly came into contact, Greek, Roman, 
 Scandinavian, Teutonic, Keltic, have passed 
 away. No religion can die until it is supplanted 
 by a better one, for man is essentially religious 
 and must have some religion. The old religions 
 passed away because they were not meeting the 
 needs of men so well as they should: and since 
 the Christian religion took their place, it is 
 plain that the Christian religion was better than 
 those which it supplanted. For nineteen centu- 
 ries the verdict of experience has uniformly been 
 that when any fairly pure type of Christianity 
 has, for any considerable period of time, come 
 into contact with other faiths, it has displaced 
 them, and they have gone. When Islam came 
 into contact with a corrupt type of Christianity 
 in some parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, it 
 supplanted them, but it is not doubtful that it 
 
152 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 was a corrupt type of Christianity that went to 
 the wall. In his " Rise and Influence of Ration- 
 alism in Europe " Mr. Lecky has said, " There 
 is but one example of religion which is not neces- 
 sarily subverted by civilization, and that ex- 
 ample is Christianity." Even with this inspir- 
 ing record of history as to the comparative value 
 of Christian and non-Christian faiths, some 
 Christians have objected to examining Chris- 
 tianity with other religions, as if the former had 
 some special divine basis, which puts it in another 
 class from other religions, and which should 
 exempt it from scientific comparison. But the 
 modem view of God and the world forbids such 
 classification, and Christianity appears more 
 certainly fitted to be the religion of mankind 
 as it receives no diff'erent treatment than 
 other faiths when all are compared with one 
 another. 
 
 When comparing Christianity with other re- 
 ligions missionary advocates have sometimes un- 
 fairly compared the ideals of Christianity or 
 the best phases of Christendom with the worst 
 aspects of non-Christian religions. Of course 
 this is not right. Yet it is not surprising, be- 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 153 
 
 cause human nature leads men for practical pur- 
 poses to set roseate ideals against a strong de- 
 lineation of evil conditions. Advertisements of 
 all kinds illustrate this tendency of human na- 
 ture. Often without intending to exaggerate, 
 the characteristic advertisement would seem 
 to imply that man could hardly find life 
 worth living without the article recommended. 
 It may be largely due to the same natural 
 propensity that non-Christian advocates con- 
 trast the best ideals of their own sacred 
 books with the current evils of Christen- 
 dom, forgetting or ignoring the clear fact that 
 most of those evils are due, not to the following 
 of Christian principles, but to a disregard of 
 those principles. Even in America, not a few 
 intelligent people are strongly carried away by 
 unfair and entirely misleading representations 
 of the better phases of ethnic rehgions, and 
 imagine that the fruits of the ethnic faiths cor- 
 respond to the ideahstic statements which are 
 quoted. First-hand knowledge of the actual and 
 legitimate fruits of those faiths would im- 
 mensely surprise such people and cause a revul- 
 sion of opinion. Some people who call them- 
 
154 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 selves Christians are nowadays often inclined 
 to suppose that one religion is as good as an- 
 other. Dr. John Henry Barrows, the President 
 of the first Parliament of Religions at the Chi- 
 cago World's Fair in 1893, was most anxious 
 that a second similar Parliament of Religions 
 should be held at Benares in order that the rep- 
 resentatives of all other faiths might not only 
 hear what can be said in praise of Hinduism, 
 but might see its results in the most sacred city 
 of that faith. But no shrewd Hindu would ever 
 consent to issuing an invitation for such a Par- 
 liament to meet at Benares. In India the most 
 expressive term for a cheat is " a Benares man." 
 The one truth-seeking course is to compare the 
 ideals of one religion with the ideals of other 
 religions, and also the power of one and the 
 power of the others to inspire both individuals 
 and society measurably to realize their ideals. 
 In other words, like phases of various religions 
 should be compared. Any honorable student of 
 comparative religion now seeks to follow this 
 principle. Christian advocates certainly should 
 be scrupulously desirous of treating all ethnic 
 faiths with both justice and courtesy. What- 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 155 
 
 ever may be the result to Christianity of a com- 
 parison of it with other religions, there is no 
 doubt that the result of such recent comparison 
 has been one cause of the modern view of God 
 and the world, and that it certainly has in- 
 creased reverence for God by increasing recog- 
 nition of His continuous effort to reveal Him- 
 self to His human children. Such scientific and 
 historic study of religions in all lands has given 
 a new illumination to the words of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, " My Father worketh even until 
 now, and I work." Nor has comparative religion 
 yet led men to find reason for thinking that any 
 other previous religion can take the place of 
 Christianity hereafter. 
 
 With these preliminary remarks on the prin- 
 ciples which should control the comparison of 
 religions, I turn to some comparison of Chris- 
 tianity and Hinduism, because my experience 
 is principally connected with the contact of these 
 two faiths. In these lectures by religion I mean 
 any people's interpretation in thought and in 
 act of what God is trying to teach them by 
 every revelation of Himself. As Hinduism 
 means the heterogeneous ideas and practices 
 
156 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 which historically have been current in different 
 types of Hindus, so Christianity means the vary- 
 ing ideas and practices which those who call 
 themselves Christians have followed in their in- 
 terpretation of God and of the world. The 
 purest type of Christianity would begin with 
 Christ and with the best interpretations of Him. 
 But many types of Christianity have not been 
 pure, and since Christianity is a growing reli- 
 gion, even up till now it has not become all that 
 it is to be. In seeking to compare Hinduism and 
 Christianity one should rightly compare only 
 their similar aspects. However, since neither 
 has had one consistent type and development, it 
 is difficult to decide what are aspects which can 
 be fairly compared. Not only do Greek, Roman 
 Catholic, and Protestant types of Christianity 
 differ in their interpretation of what is Christian 
 thought and practice, but different schools in 
 those different churches differ quite considerably 
 among themselves. Nevertheless, there are large 
 outstanding characteristics of religion as under- 
 stood and practiced by most Hindus and by 
 most Christians which can be fairly placed in 
 comparison. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 157 
 
 In general, it may be said that Hinduism 
 starts from nature and interprets God through 
 it, while by its fundamental and characteristic 
 doctrine of incarnation in the Lord Jesus Christ 
 Christianity starts with human nature, and in 
 particular with the man Christ Jesus, and 
 through Him and through less perfect human- 
 ity interprets God. This contrast is great and 
 suggestive. Starting from nature rather than 
 man, and always following that direction, how 
 is it possible to arrive at a personal and at a 
 high ethical conception of God.^* Though 
 hero-worship, and respect for virtues, and rever- 
 ence for Buddha entered into Hinduism as form- 
 ative principles, they were entangled in earlier 
 and lower elements. But the influence of even 
 these somewhat human elements was again 
 eclipsed by Vedantic pantheism, which unques- 
 tionably is the controlling element in advanced 
 Hinduism, and is sub-conscious even in polythe- 
 ists and idolaters. If any intelligent Hindu 
 were asked for one phrase which is indubitably 
 and universally Hindu, he would say it is " eham 
 eva advitiyam, " i. e.^ there is only one It; no 
 second. Dr. Deussen is the principal authority 
 
158 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 on Hindu philosophy. In his " Essay on the 
 Philosophy of the Vedanta," he says, " The 
 Vedanta is now, as in ancient times, living in 
 the mind and heart of every thoughtful Hindu. 
 It is true that even here in the sanctuary of 
 Vedantic metaphysics, realistic tendencies, nat- 
 ural to man, have penetrated, producing the 
 misinterpreting variations of Sankara's Advaita 
 [pure pantheism] ; . . . but India till now 
 has not been seduced by other voices." 
 
 The character of any religion mainly de- 
 pends on its conception of God. So we begin 
 with the doctrine of God in Hinduism and 
 Christianity. The Hindu pantheism has been 
 the controlling element in forming the idea of 
 God. Therefore the Hindu doctrine of God 
 cannot be personal, and, if impersonal, it can- 
 not be ethical. Even when some theistic doc- 
 trine appears in high phases of Hinduism 
 as developed by Madhva and Ramanuja, while 
 it makes Brahma a personal, omnipotent, and 
 omniscient God, it is very different from the 
 Christian conception of God, because the former 
 regards God as essentially different from the 
 human soul. It seems fair to say that the 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 159 
 
 highest Hindu conception of God as personal 
 makes Him to consist of pure thought, without 
 activity. The gods of the polytheists, and espe- 
 cially the gods of the modern Epics and Pura- 
 nas, i. e., the gods of popular Hinduism, have 
 characteristics which are not models for good 
 men to follow, and sometimes they are positively 
 immoral according to the common understand- 
 ing of the masses, though doubtless some of these 
 interpretations degenerated from earlier and 
 better meanings. 
 
 The doctrine of God even in the least ethi- 
 cal and least spiritual types of Christianity has 
 been, and is, that He is a personal, ethical Cre- 
 ator and Ruler of the universe and that He is 
 ceaselessly active. Theologies vary as to His 
 dealings with sin and sinners, and have some- 
 times been such as are repellent to modern con- 
 ceptions of right. But even those repellent 
 theories were because men thought of God as 
 just, and therefore compelled to safeguard His 
 justice, albeit those theories made His efforts 
 inconsistent with our present views of right. 
 But the doctrine of God which naturally follows 
 from the Christian doctrine of incarnation, is 
 
160 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 that God is like Jesus Christ, full of truth and 
 grace. Who questions that this is the highest 
 doctrine of God which men have held? Hindu- 
 ism and Christianity have both a doctrine of 
 incarnation which at bottom implies that when 
 men are in trouble God is sure to come near to 
 help them. But the Hindu doctrine of incarna- 
 tion differs very much from the Christian doc- 
 trine. Of the ten incarnations of Vishnu the 
 earlier ones are incarnations of God in animals, 
 such as a fish, a tortoise, and a boar. Then 
 comes a semi-animal incarnation as a man-lion, 
 and later incarnations in human beings, though 
 these human beings are in some respects unlike 
 ordinary men. 
 
 Also in comparing the doctrine of man in 
 Hinduism and Christianity we find a marked 
 contrast. According to Christianity man is 
 made in God's image and is God's child. Ac- 
 cording to the pantheistic school of Hinduism, 
 which is always coupled with the doctrines of 
 illusion and transmigration, man is not what he 
 seems to be. He is one link in an indefinite chain 
 of events. He once may have been an animal. 
 In the next state of existence he may become 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 161 
 
 another animal. Caste, which is the controlling 
 element of popular Hinduism, has no dignity 
 for man as man. For however good and capable 
 a low-caste man may be, he can never in the 
 present state of existence rise to the dignity of 
 a man of high origin, however incapable and 
 unethical that man may be, provided the latter 
 does not violate the laws of caste. 
 
 The doctrine of God and of man involves the 
 doctrine of sin. According to pantheistic Hin- 
 duism sin is mainly ignorance and yet partly 
 the working of wrong acts in a previous state, 
 and therefore it is mainly fate. Where the 
 conscience of man asserts itself, sin is sometimes 
 ethical wrong-doing, for which a man himself 
 is responsible. Yet the word sin in its most 
 common and most characteristic meaning ex- 
 presses not doing that which is inherently and 
 always wrong, but in particular it is disregard 
 of caste requirements ; it is an unfortunate con- 
 dition, due as much perhaps to the action of 
 others as to one's own responsible deeds. Being 
 touched by a low-caste man brings a man into 
 more difficulty, for which expiation must be 
 made, than anger or pride. Among Christians 
 
162 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 also there have been low conceptions of sin. 
 It has sometimes been understood to be disregard 
 of commandments by the church, or by the 
 priest. Yet probably there has been even in 
 the lower types of thinking among Christians 
 an ethical element, and certainly on the whole 
 in Christianity sin is wrong-doing toward God 
 and toward men and toward one's self, for which 
 one is responsible and which results in making 
 a man's soul unclean. 
 
 The doctrine of sin has as its counterpart the 
 doctrine of salvation. Undoubtedly among 
 Christian churches there have been, and still are, 
 inadequate and even wrong conceptions of what 
 salvation truly is. Even when salvation was 
 largely thought of as a future condition in a 
 safe place, there was some element of apprecia- 
 tion that it was a matter of character. Cer- 
 tainly in pure Christianity as taught by the 
 Lord Jesus Christ salvation is simply and only 
 soundness of character. Negatively it is sal- 
 vation from sinning, and positively it is strength 
 and virtue in the soul. In Hindu pantheism sal- 
 vation is release from conscious existence. In 
 caste it is remaining within the pale of caste 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 16S 
 
 requirements. In popular Hinduism it is get- 
 ting favors of any kind from the gods. 
 
 In regard to the means of salvation there 
 are points of contact and of contrast between 
 Hinduism and Christianity. According to pan- 
 theism the principal means of securing bliss is 
 by the path of knowledge. According to or- 
 dinary Hinduism it is through austerities and 
 through the merit of many good works that 
 sin can be atoned for and the person brought 
 into a right condition. However, in Hinduism 
 there is also a doctrine of grace according to 
 which by the favor of the gods a sinner can 
 lose some of the results of his wrong-doing and 
 unfortunate condition. The word prdyaschit, 
 meaning expiation or atonement, is a word of 
 great significance and of common usage among 
 Hindus. While it doubtless implies that a man 
 who is in trouble recognizes that he has done 
 wrong, and that he must make some expiation 
 for wrong-doing, yet for the most part repen- 
 tance is not thought of as any necessary part 
 of such expiation. In modern times the word 
 prdyaschit principally expresses the penance 
 which a man must perform to do away with the 
 
164^ MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 results of disregard of caste regulations. For 
 example, if an intelligent Hindu gentleman 
 crosses the ocean in order to go to a foreign 
 land for a higher education, even with the in- 
 tention of thereby qualifying himself to serve 
 his country better, he must on returning to India 
 do penance, i. e., make a prdyaschit, before he 
 can be restored to society. Among some of the 
 adherents of Christianity there have been me- 
 chanical conceptions of atonement. But in 
 general even in the grosser types of the doc- 
 trine there was some recognition of the fact of 
 suffering on God's part due to the sin of His 
 human children, and of His hatred of wrong- 
 doing as the essential element in the means of 
 salvation which Christ revealed. And nowa- 
 days I suppose the understanding to be very 
 common that the suffering of Christ expresses 
 God's eternal sorrow for sin, and the profound 
 truth that He must always suffer, when for any 
 reason His human children fail to live up to 
 right relations with Himself, and that the suf- 
 ferings of Christ as expressing the sorrow of 
 God are the way by which sinners are brought 
 into reconciliation with their Heavenly Father, 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 165 
 
 because through the sufferings of Christ as a 
 revelation of God's suffering there awakens in 
 the sinner's heart a sense of his own wrong- 
 doing, and a repentance and a desire to sin no 
 more. The doctrine of the Cross is central in 
 Christianity as expressing God's eternal and in- 
 finite pain for sin in man and His readiness to 
 do all that He can to reclaim them. In Hin- 
 duism there is no such doctrine whatever. In 
 Christianity there is also prominent the fact 
 that God's particular way of reclaiming men 
 from weakness and wrong-doing and of drawing 
 them into higher and purer life is by fellowship 
 and example. Jesus Christ is a Saviour of men 
 because He is Himself a man and is to us an 
 elder Brother, who by His example, and by His 
 fellowship with men, and by His suffering for 
 men draws them to God. In Hinduism there is 
 no Saviour. The highest way of salvation is 
 the way of knowledge, which is a long and hard 
 way which very, very few can even hope of 
 traversing. For the common Hindu the main 
 way of salvation is the way of works. But how- 
 ever much he may work, this is not supposed to 
 bring him purity of character, though it may 
 
166 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 save him some steps in the long, long chain of 
 transmigration. 
 
 One of the principal characteristics of Hin- 
 duism, and one about which much is now spoken 
 in the West, is the doctrine of karma. The word 
 karma really means deed. And the doctrine 
 means that men must suffer the results of their 
 deeds. This doctrine includes a large measure 
 of important truth. It is akin to the common 
 teaching of the Bible, " Whatsoever a man sow- 
 eth, that shall he also reap." And the helpful 
 truth in this doctrine is that retribution is not 
 arbitrary: it is the exact, inevitable result of 
 what a man has been and has done. But the 
 practical weakness of Hinduism is that this doc- 
 trine is held alone, without the complementary 
 and equally true doctrine that a man can escape 
 in some measure from some of the results of 
 wrong-doing, and also that he may lose by 
 future wrong-doing some of the good which 
 would result from past good deeds. It is the 
 plain teaching of daily experience that men can 
 forgive one another and can put away some 
 of the results of their own wrong-doing and of 
 the wrong-doing of others, and the supreme 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 167 
 
 teaching of Christ is that God is trying to over- 
 come karma, so that where sin abounded grace 
 doth much more abound, and so the worst of 
 sinners can have hope that by the help of the 
 living God the trend of his past life and deeds 
 can be changed and he can become a new crea- 
 ture. This latter is a doctrine which Hinduism 
 does not know and cannot teach. 
 
 God has made men in India, as in other lands, 
 know that truth and kindness and gentleness and 
 patience and those principles which we in the 
 West know as virtuous are desirable and helpful. 
 His Hindu children have not been ignorant of 
 these fundamental teachings of their Heavenly 
 Father. Yet the Hindu religion has not empha- 
 sized such matters, and has often greatly ob- 
 scured them. Where the way of knowledge is 
 supposed to be the highest way of religion, and 
 knowing all things to be illusory is the highest 
 knowledge, or where meritorious deeds can pur- 
 chase release from undesirable conditions, how 
 can repentance and humility and gratitude and 
 hope be naturally stimulated? The power of 
 the doctrine of the Cross as developed by Paul 
 finds its principal commendation in the fact that 
 
168 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 therein there Is a power to produce sorrow for 
 one's own sin, and humihty for one's own weak- 
 nesses, and trust in God as the giver of grace, 
 and gratitude for the receipt of undeserved 
 kindness. These are the virtues which the Cross 
 is fitted to develop in man, and it has developed 
 them as no doctrine of Hinduism has any fitness 
 to do. 
 
 According to the higher aspects of Hinduism 
 there is no place for prayer. With an imper- 
 sonal God and the working of an inevitable Fate 
 in mind, how can any man pray? Yet prayer 
 is instinctive in the human heart. Men in diffi- 
 culty and in sorrow must more or less long for 
 relief. So polytheism has in some measure pro- 
 vided a way for that which pantheism and karma 
 cannot provide. Not prayers, but vows, are a 
 considerable part of popular Hinduism. But 
 vows are transactions whereby men seek to pur- 
 chase some of the things which they desire. 
 Whereas in Christianity prayer has a very high 
 place. God being a living God and in ceaseless 
 relations with all men, and especially being like 
 Jesus Christ, prayer is one of the highest and 
 most natural and most hopeful activities of the 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 169 
 
 human soul. And Jesus Christ has not simply 
 by His precepts encouraged men to pray, but 
 by His example He has made men believe that 
 the heart of God longs to respond to the upward 
 look and appeal of His human children. 
 
 Sacrifice is always an element in religion. 
 Among the early Hindus the sacrifice of animals 
 was very prominent. There was a sacrifice of 
 the horse, of the cow, of lesser animals, and 
 sometimes even of man. But in the upward 
 trend God was more and more showing men that 
 the sacrifice of animals was not what he desires 
 from His human children. Probably when 
 Ashoka, the first great Buddhist monarch, was 
 on the throne in the middle of the third century 
 before Christ, he gave a great blow to sacrifice. 
 The Buddhist and Jain doctrine of non-injury 
 must have had great influence in deterring men 
 from killing animals for religious purposes, and 
 Ashoka's inscriptions in various parts of India 
 show that he sought to prohibit that practice. 
 Also philosophers in their doctrine of salvation 
 by knowledge must have led men to see that sac- 
 rifice has in itself no real value. Similarly in 
 Christendom after Christ the sacrificing of ani- 
 
170 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 mals gradually died out. But a new idea of 
 sacrifice, as the giving by God for men of His 
 beloved Son and His continual suffering for 
 them, brought into Christianity a higher con- 
 ception of sacrifice. Under the inspiration of 
 that divine example the sacrifices of Christianity, 
 are those which love makes to enable God or to 
 enable human beings whom men love to secure 
 those obj ects which are dear to Him and to them. 
 In Western India even twenty-five years ago 
 it was a common thing for most Hindus to say 
 to the Christian missionary, " Your religion and 
 ours are very different." Now, after contact 
 with Christianity, it is far more common to say, 
 " There is not much difference between your re- 
 ligion and ours." This great change illustrates 
 what the result on Hinduism is of its contact 
 with Christian teachings. Christian ideas and 
 principles are gradually fulfilling and supplant- 
 ing Hinduism. Yet there is another movement 
 somewhat in the opposite direction, viz., a move- 
 ment for the revival of Hinduism. But this 
 is not strange, because religion is the nearest 
 and dearest object to men, especially to con- 
 servative men. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 171 
 
 One of the points in which Hinduism and 
 Christian thought come nearest in words, though 
 not so near in reality, is the desire for knowing 
 the truth and in the conviction that it is possible 
 to know the truth. The best minds of India have 
 for many ages been eager and patient and self- 
 sacrificing seekers for the eternal and the 
 supreme. But to the Vedantist to know is to 
 know metaphysically, to accept speculatively. 
 And according to Hindu thought all that one 
 can know is to deny that anything can strictly 
 be predicated of the Supreme. It is without 
 qualities (nirguna), without differentiations 
 {nirviseshika), without limitations (nirupad- 
 hika). It is pure being, or pure thought, know- 
 able " only by the withdrawal of the senses from 
 every external object, of the mental faculties 
 from their truest cognitions, and by complete 
 suppression of the passions." Nothing can be 
 affirmed of It because It is in no relation to us. 
 Even the universal forms of thought are unreal. 
 Whereas to the Christian knowing the Supreme 
 is a true apprehension of a real, personal God, 
 who is knoTVTi not simply by the intellect, but 
 also by the heart and by the will, just as we 
 
112 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 get acquainted with human beings. Christ's 
 teaching is this : " This is Hf e eternal, that they 
 might know Thee, the only true God." 
 
 It is also a characteristic of both higher Hin- 
 duism and of Christianity that the only worthy 
 object of knowledge is something spiritual, not 
 material. Thus the Svetasvatara Upanishad 
 VI. 20, says : * 
 
 "When men shall roll up space, 
 As it were a piece of leather, 
 [that is, when the impossible shall happen] 
 Then will come an end of evil 
 Apart from knowing God." 
 
 And the Mundaka Upanishad I. 2. 10, 11, says: 
 
 " Thinking sacrifice and meritorious deed the chiefest. 
 
 Naught better do they know, — deluded! 
 
 Having experienced enjoyment in the vault of heaven 
 
 won by good works. 
 They re-enter this world or a worse. 
 
 They who practice austerities and faith. 
 Who dwell serene, possessing knowledge. 
 They, being freed from stain, depart hence 
 To where is the immortal Person, e'en the imperishable 
 Spirit [Atman]." 
 
 * This and following quotations from the Upanishads 
 are from a forthcoming Translation of the Principal 
 Upanishads, by R. E. Hume, Ph. D. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 173 
 
 In words, and in some true degree in reality, 
 this thought resembles the teaching of Christ, 
 who says, " Lay not up for yourself treasures 
 upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, 
 and where thieves break through and steal : But 
 lay up treasures for yourselves in Heaven." 
 " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall 
 see God." But the Christian sense of true 
 knowledge is something different from meta- 
 physical speculation, and is expressed in the 
 words, " The world, in its wisdom, knew not 
 God." So that there is a deep contrast between 
 Hinduism and Christian thought about what 
 constitutes the knowledge of the Supreme. The 
 former is speculative knowledge: the latter is 
 personal intimacy gained by all the powers of 
 man. The speculative knowledge of the Vedan- 
 tist results in his assuming that It is all, and 
 that I myself am It. The practical knowledge 
 of the Christian is that God is the Father of 
 our spirits; that He is love; and that we have 
 fellowship with Him as sons, similar to the fel- 
 lowship which man has with man. Through 
 knowledge to loss of conscious existence is the 
 Hindu ideal: through the life of Christ, and 
 
174 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 later through our own purified life, to intimacy 
 with the living God, is the Christian ideal. Thus, 
 first on the testimony of Christ, as one whose 
 own life gives assurance that He knows that 
 whereof He speaks, and then by our own experi- 
 ence, we know God by our whole being, our 
 intellect, heart, and will, and grow into intimacy 
 with Him. 
 
 There is a contrast between the conception of 
 the soul in the East and in the West. In the 
 West the assumption is that the soul of man 
 is a self-conscious intelligence and will. In Hin- 
 duism there is more than one conception of the 
 soul. In the lowest types of Hinduism there is 
 no clear understanding of the soul, but probably 
 it is something which controls the body, with- 
 out much thought of its nature or its future. 
 In higher Hinduism the soul is practically a very 
 rarified or etherealized body. According to the 
 main belief of Hinduism, especially of the San- 
 khyan philosophy, the universe is made up of 
 innumerable souls and bodies. Every kind of 
 body — mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and 
 even divine — is possessed by a soul. At a par- 
 ticular time a particular soul occupies a par- 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 175 
 
 ticular body for some important reason. Ac- 
 cording to Hinduism the individual soul has 
 three bodies. According to the Christian it 
 has two. It has in this present world a physical 
 body, the soma sarhikon of St. Paul. And 
 when the spirit leaves this physical body, it takes 
 on a psychical body, the soma pneumatikon of 
 St. Paul. The Hindu says that the individual 
 soul has, (1) a corporeal body (sthula sarira) ; 
 (2) it has a subtle, or psychic body (sukshma 
 sarira), as minute as a point, composed of 
 sense, volition, and cognition, which is built by 
 his thoughts, and which accompanies the soul in 
 all its migrations. In regard to these two bodies 
 the Hindu idea approaches Christian thought. 
 But, (3), he adds a third or causal body, 
 {kdrana sarira), which is not a real body, but 
 is like a dreamless sleep, into which illusion will 
 bring the soul. So both physical and psychic 
 bodies are eventually to pass into this unreal 
 body when consciousness shall cease. 
 
 What the future of the soul is to be after it 
 leaves the body is not consistently taught in all 
 types of Hinduism. Even the Bhagavada Gita, 
 which is esteemed the greatest of the sacred 
 
176 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 writings of India, teaches that being virtuous 
 is not the end of Hfe, and that virtue does not 
 bring the highest reward. Thus in IX. 20, 21, 
 Krishna is represented as saying: 
 
 "Of me the knowers of the three Vedas, the soma- 
 
 drinkers, the purified from sin, 
 When they sacrifice with offerings, request the way to 
 
 heaven. 
 Reaching that holy, God-Indra's world. 
 They eat in heaven the heavenly feasts of the gods. 
 
 " But after having enjoyed that spacious heavenly world, 
 When their merit is exhausted they return to this mortal 
 
 world. 
 Thus, though having followed the injunctions of the 
 
 threefold [Vedas], 
 They who only desire desires obtain the transitory." 
 
 Similarly, the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad IV. 
 3. 7 ff. teaches that purification from sin and 
 the practice of virtues merits only a transitory 
 reward; that this reward is enjoyed in a festive, 
 sensuous paradise and that the heavenly climate 
 has the effect of sapping and withering the little 
 merit acquired, and when this is worn out its 
 possessor comes back to this mortal, sinful world 
 to begin the round again. But in the higher 
 Vedantic system the loss of conscious existence 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 177 
 
 in the supreme It is the summum honum of the 
 individual soul. According to the Brihad 
 Aranyaka Upanishad II. 4, 12, " after death 
 there is no consciousness." In the Chandogya 
 Upanishad VIII. 11, the father of creation, 
 Prajapati, teaches that the highest attainable 
 condition of anyone is like profound, dream- 
 less, unconscious slumber. According to the 
 Mandukya Upanishad 7, the acme of existence 
 for a person is the condition beyond profound 
 slumber, " having no inner consciousness, nor 
 outer consciousness, nor consciousness of either 
 sort, not pure intelligence, nor intelligence, nor 
 non-intelligence." 
 
 The doctrine of transmigration is one of the 
 two principal doctrines of the higher Hinduism. 
 In the early phases of Hinduism what might 
 happen in another existence was not a common 
 part of the fear which troubled men. Nor did 
 the early Aryan settlers have any such doctrine 
 as transmigration. But when the Hindus began 
 to speculate on the problem of evil and on ulti- 
 mate realities, they developed the most thorough- 
 going doctrine of metempsychosis. In many 
 systems of thought in the Orient, as well as in 
 
178 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 Hinduism, matter is evil. Contact of the soul 
 with matter causes impurity which must be re- 
 moved. It can be removed by successive rebirths 
 in all manner of bodies. Men whose conduct 
 has been evil are to have as punishment rebirth 
 in lower animals, even in vegetables and min- 
 erals. This doctrine has as its basis the pan- 
 theistic conception of the supreme. A meta- 
 physical supreme It logically carries with it a 
 metaphysical conception of man as not strictly 
 personal, with no personal responsibility and 
 with the desirability of eventually losing the 
 untrue sense of personality which he now has. 
 In the West, where the assumption is that, like 
 the supreme soul, the individual soul of man is 
 self-conscious intelligence and will, this doctrine 
 of reincarnation and transmigration cannot be 
 accepted, because a self-conscious intelligence 
 cannot be suddenly transferred from one type to 
 another most unlike type of existence such as 
 that a man should become a mineral or vegetable 
 or even animal. Yet the underlying truth of 
 transmigration, though badly mixed up with 
 metaphysical and ethical error, is a conviction 
 of the continued existence of the soul after this 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 179 
 
 present life. However, the working of the 
 theory is considerably materialistic, because the 
 merit or demerit of the soul in one state of 
 existence mainly depends upon the particular 
 body which it inhabits at the particular time. 
 Again, this doctrine assumes the important truth 
 that wrong-doing of any kind is necessarily fol- 
 lowed by evil consequences, and this meets that 
 sense of justice which is in every human heart. 
 This doctrine has its attractiveness as an at- 
 tempt to account for the mixture of good and 
 evil in the world and for the inequalities of 
 conditions and birth. Without a personal soul 
 and without a personal and merciful God who 
 is doing His best to develop into ethical union 
 with Himself the souls he has made in His image, 
 the transmigration doctrine is not an untenable 
 one. It illustrates what has been emphasized 
 in previous lectures, that it is simply an imper- 
 fect interpretation by the Hindus of that which 
 God has been trying to teach and which the 
 Christian interpretation states in a sounder way. 
 What is lacking in the Hindu doctrine is better 
 explained by the Christian teaching. Happi- 
 ness and misery; do not mainly depend on out- 
 
180 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 ward conditions : they depend on moral qualities. 
 At heart the world knows by experience that 
 the main differences between men are the con- 
 ditions in the men themselves and not in their 
 circumstances. Also, that even the conditions 
 of every individual in this life depend very much 
 on contact with other men and do not need an 
 explanation from assuming a former state of 
 existence. Modern thought still more confirms 
 the Christian doctrine by throwing light on the 
 two great forces of heredity and environment, 
 although men have always known something of 
 their power. Heredity and environment explain 
 many of the perplexities which led the Hindus 
 to the theory that conditions in this life are 
 wholly due to actions In a previous state of 
 existence. 
 
 No well-informed man now questions that 
 heredity is one of the principal forces which 
 work In forming and controlling men. The con- 
 tinuity and solidarity of the race are undeniable 
 facts which are becoming more and more clear, 
 and heredity works for both degeneration and 
 regeneration. By it the individual receives from 
 his ancestors for many generations his chief 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 181 
 
 physical and spiritual characteristics and ten- 
 dencies. Heredity works both retribution and 
 beneficence. And the knowledge of this eternal 
 law is more and more one of the principal forces 
 to create a high sense of responsibility in man- 
 kind and to help It upward. Similarly, modern 
 science shows how environment largely accounts 
 for the condition and development of the indi- 
 vidual. While a bad environment tends to re- 
 produce crime, yet unquestionably on the whole 
 the environment of men Is more wholesome than 
 unwholesome, and human nature responds to 
 what God is doing for it through the manifold 
 relations of society. These two laws, whose uni- 
 versal workings are indubitably demonstrated, 
 show the reasonableness of the Christian doc- 
 trine of man as having his first existence in this 
 world, and from this passing into the next world. 
 Moreover, the Christian doctrine adds one 
 supreme explanation to the enigma of life which 
 the Hindu only vaguely understands, viz., that 
 sufl[^ering has a spiritual value. Despite its per- 
 plexity, suffering Is a part of God's wise and 
 loving order In training men. This is in the 
 plainest way confirmed by the life and work 
 
182 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 of Jesus Christ. He knew no sin, yet He was 
 the greatest suiferer. But amid all His suffer- 
 ings He was calm and hopeful because He under- 
 stood the inevitableness and the function of suf- 
 fering in a sinful world as expressing the neces- 
 sary and eternal sorrow of God for the sins of 
 men. It is the sorrow of God for the sins of 
 His children which draws them into repentant, 
 humble, and grateful relation to Him as sons. 
 " Though Jesus was a son, yet learned He obedi- 
 ence by the things which He suffered; and has 
 been thereby made perfect. And thereby hav- 
 ing been made perfect He became unto all them 
 that obey Him the author of eternal salvation." 
 Heredity shows that men suffer on account of 
 sin. Even God suffers on account of sin, and 
 both His suffering and men's suffering is a 
 means by which to overcome and banish sin. 
 
 The doctrine of transmigration is inconsistent 
 with the doctrine of mercy. Transmigration is 
 a system of impersonal, inexorable law. But 
 some phases of Hinduism which formulate a doc- 
 trine of mercy show that transmigration does 
 not meet the needs of the human heart which 
 shows mercy to feUowmen and which cannot 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 183 
 
 avoid the belief that the power who rules men 
 will also show them mercy. Only so low is the 
 sense of sin and so strange is the mercy, that 
 even taking the name of God and bathing in 
 sacred streams will wash away all sins according 
 to the teachings of some types of Hinduism. 
 Again, transmigration is opposed to the law of 
 development which modern thought posits as 
 universal. Transmigration teaches that for 
 some demerit in some birth a man may have to 
 go back and become a mineral, or a vegetable, 
 or an animal. Modem thought teaches the con- 
 tinuity of the existence of every soul. Trans- 
 migration assumes the same, but it fails in the 
 very point where it could unquestionably estab- 
 lish itself, if it were true, viz., in experience; 
 because the individual soul which may have been 
 through a thousand states of existence before it 
 came into its present body in this world remem- 
 bers nothing in its previous states of existence, 
 as it should have done. So that the doctrine 
 of transmigration is a mere assumption, and an 
 unphilosophical one at that. Moreover, while 
 seeking to satisfy the claim of justice in ac- 
 counting for inequalities and evil in this world 
 
184 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 as a consequence of wrong-doing in a previous 
 life, it is most unjust, for it claims to make men 
 suffer for wrong which they do not know and 
 cannot know that they have done. The human 
 heart necessarily revolts against punishing any- 
 one for assumed wrong which he does not know 
 and cannot know that he has done. And still 
 worse is it that transmigration is in no way 
 remedial. It does no good to the sinning soul. 
 It cannot show him what wrong he has done nor 
 how that wrong has worked evil, and so it can- 
 not make him penitent; and even after making 
 him suffer in this world it perhaps sends him 
 back to the impure surroundings in which he 
 became impure, perhaps to dwell in a stone, or 
 a pig, or a crow. It is a moral injury to men 
 to make them believe that there can be sin 
 with no possibility of consciousness of sinning, 
 and to impress fatalism upon them, as the doc- 
 trine of transmigration does. According to that 
 creed the results of unknown deeds are inevitable, 
 while a man has neither ability to do differently 
 nor consolation amid bereavement and trials for 
 which he knows that he is not personally respon- 
 sible. So transmigration offers no hope for this 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 185 
 
 world or for the next. One illustration of the 
 cruel form of the doctrine is seen in the sorrows 
 and perplexities which millions and millions of 
 helpless widows have for many generations suf- 
 fered, because they were charged by the fami- 
 lies of their husbands, and were often believed 
 by themselves, to have been the cause of the 
 death of their husbands on account of their own 
 sins in a former life. 
 
 In contrast with this needless, injurious, un- 
 scrupulous theory, there comes into greater re- 
 lief the Christian doctrine of a holy and living 
 Father, who seeks both by the working of the 
 law of retribution and by the redeeming power 
 of suffering to change the desire and character 
 of the sinning soul, by holding up new ideals 
 and by granting power to overcome the defects 
 of the past. According to the Christian doc- 
 trine, " not by being born again into some sin- 
 ful world, but by being born anew, here and 
 now, through the divine Spirit does the soul 
 rise to a higher and purer life." Not by meta- 
 physical union with an impersonal and supreme 
 It, but by spiritual union with a personal God, 
 and thus by becoming in its measure like God 
 
186 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 is the full development of the soul to be at- 
 tained according to Christian teaching. 
 
 The Hindu word for union with the Supreme 
 is " Yoga." While meditation and concen- 
 tration of thought is the highest way to 
 secure Yoga, yet austerities and self-repression 
 are taught to be the principal way by which 
 concentration of thought can be secured. So 
 strange have been the teachings of Hinduism 
 in regard to the method of Yoga that, if thor- 
 oughly followed, those efforts result in idiocy. 
 They are thus described by one who has long 
 lived in India. " Yoga is a state of perfect 
 hibernation, in which a Yogi is insensible to 
 heat and cold, to pleasure and pain. . . . 
 It is a total suspension of the function of res- 
 piration and circulation." That is, it is finally 
 a state of practical unconsciousness. But such 
 a union with the Supreme is not to develop one's 
 self to the utmost, but to extinguish one's self to 
 the utmost. Moreover, the result to be gained 
 is some assumed benefit to the individual him- 
 self. In no wise is it to make the individual help- 
 ful to others. So that, as has been said, the 
 Hindu asks, " What shall I do that I may inherit 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 187 
 
 personal extinction of life? " The Christian 
 asks, " What shall I do that I may inherit eter- 
 nal life? " Christ said, " I am come that men 
 might have life and might have it abun- 
 dantly." 
 
 Comparison between Hinduism and Christian- 
 ity leads to the final contrast that in Christian- 
 ity the knowledge of God is for all men by a 
 way which can be understood and followed by 
 all men. All types of popular Hinduism make 
 the way of salvation one of hard works, in which 
 one gains his end by piling up deeds of merit. 
 The Vedantic or higher system lays down the 
 most difficult process which requires a knowledge 
 of metaphysical problems that the unlearned 
 masses can never understand or follow. For 
 the many the way of salvation is a gross, ma- 
 terial way. For the favored few the highest 
 way is the way of speculation. And yet the 
 Hindu heart has responded to God's teaching 
 that neither by the way of deeds nor by the 
 way of knowledge does one come into right rela- 
 tions with God, but by the way of grace through 
 humble trust in Him. Only this way of devo- 
 tion and faith (bhakti) is not accompanied by 
 
188 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 that revelation of God which Jesus Christ has 
 made. As He becomes more and more known 
 to our Hindu brother-men He meets that dim 
 sense of hope which is satisfied by the Christ. 
 
 There is but one science for the universe, 
 which we know is and must be true in every land 
 and for every people, whether they understand 
 it or not. There cannot be one astronomy true 
 for India and not for the West: nor one geol- 
 ogy, nor one chemistry, nor one psychology true 
 for one part of the world and untrue for another 
 part. Similarly because there is only one God 
 who is evermore the same, all-controlling in 
 every land and in every human heart, there can 
 be but one true moral system. The fatherhood 
 of God and the brotherhood of man make it 
 certain that there is but one moral and spiritual 
 reign, though the embodiment of this reign will 
 vary in form. Religion deals with universal 
 problems relative to God and man, and man's 
 duty to God and other men. So the universal 
 religion will be that which treats all men as the 
 children of one God, who deals with them on 
 the same principle. But the universal religion 
 will be one of universal principles, not one of 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM 189 
 
 rules. It will recognize that men must differ 
 and should differ on points of speculation, on 
 ceremonials, and rituals. If, as we believe, 
 Christianity is the fullest interpretation of uni- 
 versal religion which has yet been made, and 
 if it is a growing religion in which there is room 
 for all fuller knowledge that may come to man- 
 kind, and is one which adapts itself to various 
 races and individuals according to their indi- 
 vidual and varying needs, then Christianity as 
 now developing and to be developed hereafter, 
 will become the religion of India and of the 
 world. Prof. E. W. Hopkins, successor of Prof. 
 W. D. Whitney, of Yale, after visits to India 
 and after exceptional study of the religions of 
 India, thus speaks in his book on " The Religions 
 of India " : " In her own religions there is no 
 hope for India, and her best minds have re- 
 nounced them. The body of Hinduism is cor- 
 rupt, its soul is evil. As for Brahmanism — the 
 Brahmanism that produced the Upanishads — 
 the spirit is departed and the form that remains 
 is dead." In a spirit of fairness and sympathy, 
 as Christian teachers set forth to the men of 
 India how Jesus Christ best fills out those phases 
 
190 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 of truth through which they have thought of 
 God in the past, and brings them into helpful 
 and fihal relations with Himself, the men of 
 India will come to accept Him more and more 
 as their great Guru. It was the religious men 
 and women of India among others whom our 
 Lord had in mind when He said, " Other sheep 
 I have, which are not of this fold: them also 
 I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and 
 they shall become one flock, one shepherd." 
 
VI 
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS TO GAIN FROM 
 CONTACT WITH THE EAST 
 
 WHILE the sun draws the earth toward 
 itself, the earth also in the ratio of 
 its bulk draws the sun toward itself. 
 As in physics, so in morals, it is now known that 
 action and reaction are ever at work ; that con- 
 tacts of thought bring modifications in both 
 directions. The larger and weightier thought 
 of course has the greater influence, but the re- 
 ceiver of thought and life also affects the giver. 
 That reaping follows sowing, and giving brings 
 returns, is God's inspiring universal law. And 
 the more unselfishly, and the more without 
 thought or hope of reward that one works for 
 others, the larger and more blessed his reward. 
 " Give and it shall be given unto you ; good 
 measure, pressed down, shaken together, run- 
 ning over shall they give into your bosom." 
 The enemy has sometimes sown tares. But as 
 Christianity has been a sower of the good seed 
 191 
 
192 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 of spiritual truth and of loving service to men, 
 so it must in the past have reaped and must 
 hereafter reap bountifully. It has given some 
 of its best men and women from the very first 
 to take to others its own best possession, the 
 truth and love of God as revealed in Jesus 
 Christ. It has spent immense labor in translat- 
 ing the Bible into the manifold tongues of earth. 
 It has cared for the bodies, as well as the spirits, 
 of God's children. It has provided hundreds of 
 thousands of educational opportunities for the 
 minds of non-Christian fcllowmen. We can see 
 from the past some of the blessings which have 
 come to Christianity through missionary contact 
 with other faiths. We can forecast some bless- 
 ings which are still to come. Contact with 
 various peoples through missionary activity has 
 always brought to the church enlargement in 
 thought, in sympathy, and in joy. Enlargement 
 in all directions to the uttermost capacity is 
 necessary for its universality. Because Chris- 
 tianity is a growing religion and thereby has 
 fitness to meet the universal needs of all men 
 it has been, and still is, the principal missionary 
 religion of the world. 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST 193 
 
 Consider how at the very outset the contact 
 of Christianity with non-Christians resulted in 
 an enlargement of vision. While the earliest 
 Christians recognized Jesus Christ as the Mes- 
 siah, they had the contracted idea of all Jews 
 that salvation is of the Jews and for the Jews. 
 That narrow belief could not have been enlarged 
 in any way save through the logic of missionary 
 activity. Christ had taught His disciples that 
 He was to be the founder of a universal faith 
 and had bidden them carry the Gospel to the 
 uttermost parts of the earth. But none of these 
 teachings had been apprehended by the disciples. 
 On a housetop in Joppa, Peter had seen the 
 vision by which God tried to teach him that 
 He had spiritual children other than Jews, whom 
 He accepted and whom He wished to bless. But 
 Peter did not and could not understand the 
 vision till the exigency of missionary service 
 actually brought him into contact with the de- 
 vout non-Christian. Then only he received 
 through experience an understanding of the 
 enlarging truth which an intellectual vision had 
 not been able to give. When the apostles and 
 brethren that were in Jerusalem heard this news, 
 
194 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 instead of praising God they contended with 
 Peter for having lived up to his vision. Though 
 his report of the whole circumstance partly sat- 
 isfied them, it was not entirely conclusive to the 
 Jerusalem church, for when a Christian move- 
 ment took place at Antioch there was great 
 opposition to it from the parent church. Again 
 the only evidence that stopped this accusation 
 was the testimony of Peter from his experience 
 as a missionary. Even then how little that 
 Jerusalem church and its leader, James, realized 
 the spirit of the new Christian dispensation is 
 illustrated by the strangely narrow conditions 
 which were enjoined upon the Gentile Christians 
 as essential to their admission to the universal 
 and spiritual religion. Of the four conditions 
 laid down three would not now be thought of 
 in a letter from a missionary society to a com- 
 munity in a foreign land which was wishing to 
 come into Christian fellowship, viz., first, that 
 the new converts must never purchase or use 
 things bought in a market which might pre- 
 viously have been offered to idols ; second, must 
 not use blood; and, third, must not eat things 
 strangled. The fourth was the only condition 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST 195 
 
 which has a universal ethical character, viz., 
 that the new converts must abstain from forni- 
 cation. Still again it was the conclusiveness 
 of a visit of Gentiles from Cyprus and Cyrene 
 who had come to accept Jesus as Lord that 
 probably led Barnabas to get an enlarged under- 
 standing of the scope of Christianity and led 
 him to become a missionary. Preeminently it 
 was missionary work which helped the conserva- 
 tive Saul to become the interpreter of Christian- 
 ity as the universal religion. Until he had been 
 induced by Barnabas to leave Tarsus for mis- 
 sionary work at Antioch, there is little to show 
 that Paul had come to understand the univer- 
 sality of the Christian evangel. But when the 
 exigencies of the situation required him to teach 
 and act, then in a masterly way he realized and 
 expounded that in Christ there can be neither 
 Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, 
 barbarian nor Scythian, bondman nor freedman ; 
 for in Christ Jesus those who once were afar off 
 are made nigh, for He is their peace ; He made 
 both one, and broke down the middle wall of 
 partition ; that through Him all men might have 
 access in one Spirit unto the faith. It weus 
 
196 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 through the implications and requirements of 
 missionary work that Paul was made the first 
 great interpreter of Christ as the reconciler of 
 all men to God, and therefore of Christianity 
 as necessarily the universal religion. And the 
 enlargement which came to him was not only 
 intellectual breadth of vision, but increase of 
 sympathy, of tact, of courage, and of indom- 
 itable perseverance in the advocacy and in the 
 spread of Christian truth. It is probable that 
 had some " pent-up Utica " like Tarsus retained 
 him, the history of Christianity would have been 
 far different. The world might have had to 
 wait long for an interpreter of the universality 
 and the liberty that is in Christ Jesus. Through 
 missionary activity the same enlargement of 
 vision and of capacity came to the Antioch 
 church and long made it one of the centers of 
 Christian thought and life, while the mother 
 church soon faded into insignificance because it 
 was not a missionary body and had not a sense 
 of the universality of the Christian religion 
 and of responsibility for making it universal. 
 The same result befell all the non-missionary 
 churches of apostolic times. 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST m 
 
 It is a commonplace of church history that 
 Christianity has always been greatly influenced 
 by the peoples with whom it has come into con- 
 tact. The Jewish Christians, like all Jews, were 
 not philosophical. But when Christian princi- 
 ples came into contact with the philosophical 
 Greek world, how many types of Christianity 
 were more or less tinged with or controlled by 
 Greek philosophy. In the New Testament writ- 
 ings the Gospel of St. John is a most striking 
 example. This fourth Gospel is the work of a 
 disciple under the influence of the Alexandrian 
 philosophy, which interpreted the Lord Jesus 
 Christ in the way most effective to commend 
 Him to those who held the eternal logos as the 
 principal means of spiritual revelation. The 
 Alexandrian school of Christian theology, which 
 under Clement and Origen was especially influ- 
 enced by contact with Greek philosophy, was 
 the principal missionary influence in the third 
 century by discerning and proclaiming the 
 points of affinity between the best utterances 
 of non-Christian sages and the teachings of the 
 New Testament. Despite some fanciful alle- 
 gories and crudities, those early Christian phi- 
 
198 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 losophers enlarged the true religion by attempt- 
 ing to place it in an intelligible relation to other 
 religious systems, and to God's purpose in the 
 whole movement of history. When Christianity 
 went into imperial Rome, its type of theology, 
 its mode of worship, and especially its ecclesi- 
 astical system and methods were unavoidably 
 and thoroughly Romanized. The Christianity 
 which went into the Greek world had been Jew- 
 ish. But a Greek environment developed the 
 phases and formative principles of Christ's 
 teachings into that type of Christianity which 
 is called the Greek theology and the Greek 
 church; and on the whole, Christianity gained 
 thereby. The Roman environment brought some 
 gain and some loss to Christianity by creating 
 that type of our religion which is called the 
 Latin theology and the Roman Church. 
 
 Modem times furnish illustrations of the 
 same phenomenon. What a contracted outlook 
 was held by the Christians of Great Britain 
 a little over a century ago! What a different 
 man the missionary motive and missionary 
 service made of WilKam Carey, the cobbler! 
 What a quickening came to the churches 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST 199 
 
 tlirough his going as a missionary to India! 
 Vision and life came to the man himself, and 
 to the churches which sent him out. How much 
 David Livingstone gained in soul and in influ- 
 ence from his contact with life among the de- 
 graded peoples of Africa 1 What would he have 
 been, and what would the churches of Great 
 Britain have lost, had he stayed in some smaU 
 sphere in Scotland! In theology, as well as 
 in sympathy, that contact with ethnic princi- 
 ples and faiths which came through the modern 
 missionary movement has immensely helped the 
 churches of Great Britain and America. They 
 once largely held the doctrine of a limited atone- 
 ment. But as the missionary spirit spread, the 
 logic of the heart made the churches at first 
 secretly, and then more openly, appreciate that 
 there are and that there can be no uncovenanted 
 mercies of God, as had been held. The vision 
 of the countless masses of non-Christian fellow- 
 men going into outer darkness could not con- 
 tinue to be borne or believed. So contact with 
 the people of ethnic faiths has been one promi- 
 nent influence in leading the advanced churches 
 of Christendom to discard the restriction of 
 
SOO MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 God's saving love to those who intelligently 
 accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. Prob- 
 ably no one thing now causes more dislike to 
 foreign missions among large numbers of the 
 best Christians in evangelical churches than the 
 supposition that the average missionary believes 
 and teaches to non-Christians that there is no 
 salvation except for those who definitely express 
 their faith in Christ as Saviour. An appeal for 
 support of missions on such a score would doubt- 
 less have the opposite effect, and would kill mis- 
 sionary interest in thousands of churches now. 
 Contact of Christianity with the better sec- 
 tions of the non-Christian world has created 
 even in Christendom a higher and better thought 
 of God. As Peter's first contact with a devout 
 non-Christian made him see and say, " I am 
 finding out that God is greater and better than 
 I had supposed, for I now perceive that God 
 is no respecter of persons ; but among every 
 nation he that f eareth Him and worketh right- 
 eousness is acceptable to Him," so a large body 
 of Christians at heart now believe, whatever 
 the implications of some old standards may be. 
 This larger view of God increases, not lessens, 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST 201 
 
 the valuation of Christ as the supreme revelation 
 of God in man, and the importance of making 
 Him known to all men. It increases the appre- 
 ciation of the spiritual greatness and power of 
 Jesus Christ, because He is now recognized as 
 being the human expression of the larger God. 
 An increased reverence for Christ comes through 
 seeing how the non-Christian world bows in rev- 
 erence before Him, and by the vision of Him 
 is drawn to bhakti, i. e., reverential love for Him 
 and for the God whom He makes so real and 
 near. Christendom is to get a still greater 
 reverence for the Lord Jesus Christ by seeing 
 how He draws all men to Him, in accordance 
 with His prophetic word, " If I be hfted up, I 
 will draw all men unto me." It would be a 
 revelation to multitudes in the West if they 
 could know how much the words of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ are read and reverenced and medi- 
 tated on by non-Christians in India; and how 
 He is loved and trusted and followed and even 
 prayed to there. Not a few " Lives of Christ " 
 have been written by Hindus who do not call 
 themselves Christians. " The Oriental Christ," 
 by Pratap Chundar Moozoomdar, is probably 
 
gOa MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 the best known of these books. Reverent com- 
 mentaries on the Gospels of St. Matthew and 
 of St. John have been recently written by a 
 Hindu in Ceylon named Parananda. The book 
 entitled, " Precepts of Jesus," written so long 
 ago as 1820 by the founder of the Brahma 
 Samaj, Rajah Rammohun Roy, was given to 
 the Hindus by that gifted theistic reformer be- 
 cause he said that the moral code of the New 
 Testament and the teachings of Jesus were the 
 best he knew. He even studied Hebrew and 
 Greek in order that he might satisfy himself 
 that he rightly understood the teachings of the 
 spiritual leader of Christendom. The most 
 gifted and influential Hindu of the immediate 
 past. Justice M. G. Ranade, told me that one 
 principal pursuit of his had been the study of 
 what had made Paul the man he was. Mr. Ran- 
 ade did not teU me what the conclusion of his 
 study had been, but it seems inevitable that a 
 man of his acumen and judicial habits could not 
 have failed to see that the two things which had 
 made Paul the man whose writings have unques- 
 tionably influenced the world more than the writ- 
 ings of any other man, were, first, the vision 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST 203 
 
 of Christ, and, second, his own missionary 
 service. 
 
 As the West comes more fully to know the 
 history of the ethnic faiths, it will more and 
 more see that those faiths are earlier types from 
 which Christianity has been exempt, or above 
 which it has been gradually raised. Take, for 
 example, the whole theory and practice of 
 sacrifice. Not even in the religion of Israel was 
 there so much required by sacrifice as in the reli- 
 gious development of Hinduism. There was a 
 time when the altars and temples of India ran 
 with blood. Even human sacrifice, as well as the 
 sacrifice of the nobler animals, such as the horse 
 and the cow, were more or less required. But 
 under God's continual teaching of His Indian 
 children, the grosser sacrificial system has 
 largely passed away. There seems to have come, 
 first through Buddhism, a very great restraint 
 to all kinds of animal sacrifice ; and at present 
 only in comparatively few places and to a very 
 limited extent are animal sacrifices practiced in 
 India. Does not this plain, historical fact show 
 how God is confirming by new and vivid illustra- 
 tions the great Christian revelation that God 
 
204 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 Himself makes the supreme sacrifice for men? 
 Instead of asking them for a sacrifice to appease 
 Him, the only sacrifice which He desires from 
 His human children is the sacrifice of loving 
 service for brother-men. 
 
 I believe that the contact of the East with 
 Christianity will enrich the apprehension of God 
 in the West. In India, when anyone wishes to 
 express aflPection and trust toward one who 
 is above him, be it man or woman, it is common 
 to say to such, " You are my father and mother." 
 It does not seem enough to say, " You are my 
 father," or " You are my mother." It Is felt 
 that full appreciation of love, and tenderness, 
 and power from and toward such a benefactor 
 can only be expressed by calling him or her 
 both father and mother. A similar habit of 
 devout and grateful worship in India is to call 
 God both father and mother. This is frequent in 
 the ahhangs or lyrics of Tukaram, the popular 
 religious poet of western India. The Roman 
 Catholic practice of reverence for the mother 
 of Jesus, almost like reverence for a divine being, 
 shows a somewhat similar feeling in the human 
 heart of many in the West. It may be that 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST 205 
 
 some of the men and women and children of 
 Christendom, too, may find enrichment in their 
 thought and apprehension of God and in com- 
 munion with Him by thinking and speaking of 
 Him as " Father and Mother." 
 
 Contact of Christianity with the peoples of 
 the East is going to enrich Christianity by 
 showing that the evidence of spiritual truth is 
 not so dependent on history as Christians of 
 the West have been inclined to believe. Unques- 
 tionably the East is weak in appreciation of 
 the valuation of historical evidence. This char- 
 acteristic deficiency has over and over again led 
 them into accepting the unreal for the real, 
 and into following moral will-o'-the-wisps. On 
 the other hand, the West is unquestionably weak 
 in over-emphasizing the importance of histor- 
 icity as almost the only evidence of truth. But 
 the most accurate account of the past can only 
 show us what has been, not what may be or 
 should be. Necessary and valuable as history 
 is, do we go to chroniclers or to poets for the 
 purpose of seeing spiritual laws and the beau- 
 ties and possibilities of spiritual things? By 
 historical evidence the highest Christianity can- 
 
206 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 not be verified. Some Christians question the 
 historicity of the virgin birth of Jesus. Sup- 
 pose that doctrine to be absolutely and unlm- 
 peachably accepted as history, how much does 
 that add to the spiritual helpfulness of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ? The Gospels of St. Mark 
 and St. John and the letters of St. Paul make 
 no allusion to it, and therefore do not depend 
 on it. Year by year Christians are finding that 
 scores of points once supposed to be indubitably 
 historical are not such. Yet instead of weak- 
 ening, this experience has often increased, the 
 spiritual value of Christianity. Will not con- 
 tact with ethnic faiths in which the ideal is a 
 large part of the evidence on which Orientals 
 rely increase the capacity and readiness of 
 Christians in the West to use the spiritual imag- 
 ination for the comprehension of spiritual 
 things? The ideal is the best thing in the 
 highest realm. It is the ideal which points the 
 way upward. Faith Is seeing the invisible ideal 
 and acting as if it were true. In the parable 
 of Abraham and Lazarus, Jesus Christ said that 
 if men would not believe prophets, i. e., those 
 who announce spiritual things which they have 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST S07 
 
 apprehended, then they will not believe even 
 though one rose from the dead. For his time 
 and purpose the apostle Paul rightly empha- 
 sized the great importance of the resurrection 
 of Jesus Christ. In 1883, in company with 
 some missionaries in Calcutta I invited the late 
 Keshab Chundar Sen to a conference, in which 
 he frankly spoke to us about his position in 
 regard to some points in the Christian belief. 
 He said that he felt absolutely sure that the 
 spirit of Jesus rose from the dead. He did not 
 know and did not care whether His body also 
 rose or not. And he said that Hindus as a 
 whole would never care. He also implied that 
 he did not know or care whether the Lord Jesus 
 is metaphysically divine or not. He reverenced 
 and loved and followed Him because He was 
 ethically and spiritually divine. On these 
 grounds Keshab said that the object of his life 
 was to lead his countrymen to Christ. It is 
 the character of Christ, and the ideal quality 
 of His teachings, not His resurrection from 
 the dead, which draws the East toward Him. 
 When the East says that it is satisfied that the 
 spirit of Jesus rose and does not care whether 
 
208 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 His body rose or not, and that through such 
 confidence it accepts Him as its spiritual Guide, 
 the one who has brought hght and immortality 
 to life through the Gospels, men in the West 
 may come to see that the historicity of the 
 physical resurrection of Jesus is not as essen- 
 tial to Christianity as has sometimes been 
 supposed. 
 
 Even in the hard-headed West, metaphysics 
 in the long run is greater than physics. Though 
 blunter and more material methods of demon- 
 stration sometimes seem to have put metaphysics 
 aside, the latter has a way of luring men to 
 depend on it. Just now in the realm of thought 
 metaphysics is receiving much more attention 
 and valuation than half a generation ago. So 
 when the East, with its gift for metaphysics, 
 joins the West, with its gift for history, we 
 may expect in the Church become universal 
 among all races that balanced judgment which 
 will give an estimate and interpretation of spir- 
 itual things to which the Occidental Church has 
 not yet attained. How strange to the Eastern 
 mind, even before it wholly bows before the 
 Lord Jesus Christ as its spiritual Master, is the 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST 209 
 
 marked tendency in some quarters by the most 
 exact, critical, and historical study, to limit 
 to that which is indubitably shown by documents 
 to have been spoken by Jesus the acceptance 
 of anything as truly from Him and as legiti- 
 mately expressing Him and His teaching! The 
 " historical Christ " has become a phrase of con- 
 siderable usage. It is assumed that only from 
 those words which the historical Christ certainly 
 spoke can we ascertain what is Christian. The 
 spiritual interpretations of their Master by His 
 greatest disciples, such as St. Paul and the 
 writer of the fourth Gospel, are discounted by 
 a class of thinkers. But Christianity will never 
 become a universal religion on such a basis as 
 that. If Greek philosophy and metaphysics 
 molded that type of Christianity which has 
 always controlled the Greek section of the 
 church, and if Greek theology is now helping 
 the Western Church to modify the Latin theol- 
 ogy which was so long dominant, then Oriental 
 ways of thinking are going still more to influ- 
 ence and to fertilize the thinking and the life 
 of Christendom in the West. 
 
 One of the glaring weaknesses of Christen- 
 
^10 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 dom has been the tendency to reserve certain 
 spheres of life for religion and to term the rest 
 secular. In some ethnic faiths, certainly in 
 Hinduism, there has been no such weakness. 
 Every least detail of thought and life from 
 before the birth till after the death of the indi- 
 vidual has been rightly deemed as something 
 rehgious. Also religion is there considered not 
 mainly a matter of individual concern: it is 
 preeminently a social consideration. Herein is 
 one chief power of caste. Caste is practically 
 the living religion of India. And it exercises 
 power because as religion it expresses the right 
 relation between man and the Supreme, and 
 between man and man. So it masterfully con- 
 trols the everyday life of Hindus. Contact with 
 such ethnic faiths is going to strengthen the 
 tendency among Western Christians to make 
 religion here include every department of life 
 and every feature of every department. It will 
 be a sound element of the " Back-to-Christ " 
 movement when we believe as well as say, 
 " Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye 
 do, do all to the glory of God." Such a belief 
 and practice is essential for making Christian- 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST Sll 
 
 ity universal: universal in its application to 
 every single detail of the life of every man as 
 well as of all men everywhere. 
 
 Again, in the West there is a tendency to 
 esteem the substance of any matter, entirely 
 apart from its form, as the only important con- 
 sideration. In the East, form is deemed an 
 essential part of every matter. It is not enough 
 to have a good thing. Its goodness depends 
 considerably on the way in which it is admin- 
 istered and is received. An Oriental monarch 
 once had a dream and asked one of his wise 
 men to interpret the dream. The man said, 
 " The meaning of your dream is this : Your 
 children will die, and then you will die." This 
 blunt and untactful reference to the possibihty 
 of death caused the monarch to order the imme- 
 diate beheading of that interpreter. He then 
 asked another courtier for the interpretation 
 of the dream, who said, " The meaning of your 
 Majesty's dream is this: Your Majesty will 
 survive his children." This interpreter received 
 reward and honor. The story is not without 
 significance for men in the West. Will not 
 contact with peoples and faiths of the East 
 
Sia MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 strengthen a conviction in Christendom that re- 
 finement and appreciation of the best way of 
 doing things is a necessary part of true religion. 
 What is culture which people in the West are 
 coming more and more to value, except a higher 
 and higher valuation of the importance of doing 
 everything in the best way? The principal 
 thing which Orientals dislike in Occidentals is 
 their bluntness in the relations of life ; their oc- 
 casional rudeness through disregard of those 
 civilities and courtesies which constitute one 
 chief charm of life. Even in America the word 
 Christian is by no means a synonym for gentle- 
 man. This weakness makes some people in some 
 cultured but not deeply religious circles seek 
 more to be gentlemen than Christians and 
 thereby to plume themselves on being all that 
 they ought to be. Contact of Christianity with 
 the ethnic peoples and faiths will bring to 
 Western Christianity an added conviction that 
 the most courteous way of doing things is an 
 important virtue, pleasing to God, and is the 
 truly Christian way of manifesting those rela- 
 tions to brother-men which are according to 
 the spirit of Christ. 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST ^15 
 
 Allied to this point is the difference of esti- 
 mate and of development of the virtue of rever- 
 ence in Christendom and among Eastern peo- 
 ples. Who does not know that the civilization of 
 the West is weak in regard to appreciating and 
 developing this high quality on which so much 
 depends in the relations of the family, of the 
 school, and of the whole framework of society, 
 as well as of religion? Here the imagination 
 has not been properly cultivated. There is no 
 adequate veneration for the old and for the 
 past. Our places of worship can be entered 
 with hats on the head. Everyone feels author- 
 ized and able to criticise every opinion which 
 he hears, and to criticise every person whom he 
 meets or knows about. Perhaps among the 
 Chinese the feeling of veneration for the past, 
 for ancestors and elders, has the highest devel- 
 opment. But it is a sterling virtue also in Japan 
 and in India. The Christian religion is not 
 the cause of this deficiency in the West. We 
 are weak because we are not as Christian as 
 we ought to be. Yet probably even in the New 
 Testament reverence is not so much dwelt on 
 as in some non-Christian sacred books. " A 
 
^14 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 Hindu philosopher, casting a glance at a beau- 
 tiful flower, with which he might worship his 
 deity, asks, ' How can I bring myself to pluck 
 it, seeing that it is Thyself that is there ? ' " 
 He connects the flower with his god. 
 
 The Hindu type of religion is meditative 
 and reflective. The Western type is active and 
 seeks to serve God by serving one's fellowmen. 
 It is a splendid type, which makes the wilder- 
 ness to bud and blossom as the rose. The Orient 
 greatly needs to copy and assimilate the Occi- 
 dental type of true piety. But equally does 
 the West need to copy the quiet, thoughtful, 
 meditative type of the East. It can best be 
 accomplished through contact with the East. 
 In theory the Christian Church places the char- 
 acter of Mary before that of Martha : in prac- 
 tice it Uves as if Martha, not Mary, had chosen 
 the better part. 
 
 As Christianity has developed in the West, 
 it has been a mixture of Christian practices with 
 some non-Christian ideas of the peoples who 
 accepted it. Its leaders are more and more 
 seeking to know its essentials; to recognize at 
 their true worth things that are not funda- 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST 215 
 
 mental, and to cast out those elements which 
 are inconsistent with the simplicity that is in 
 Christ Jesus. Dogmatism about denomina- 
 tional pecuharities and ecclesiastical arrange- 
 ments and non-essentials is being counted as 
 at variance with the Christian spirit. Contact 
 with ethnic faiths will, through comparison and 
 differentiation, help in securing an analysis of 
 the very essence of Christianity, and in under- 
 standing that the essentials of the Christian 
 religion are certain spiritual and ethical con- 
 ceptions of God and of man, especially as re- 
 vealed by Jesus, and certain principles and 
 motives of action which enable men to attain 
 to that character which the character of God 
 calls for. Under past historical conditions, 
 with certain philosophical pre-suppositions there 
 have been produced certain institutions and 
 theologies which have borne the Christian name. 
 Growing knowledge of non-Christian religions 
 is showing that, as under different sociological 
 conditions and on different philosophical as- 
 sumptions, certain non-Christian institutions 
 and theologies have been produced, so, even 
 after contact with Christianity under the socio- 
 
216 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 logical conditions and the philosophical assump- 
 tions of the Orient, somewhat different types of 
 Christianity will be developed there. A com- 
 bination of all types can alone give complete 
 universality to Christianity. Christianity is a 
 growing religion, which is now the religion of 
 the more advanced peoples and which has for 
 its inspiring base the belief in the fatherhood of 
 God and the brotherhood of man. Therefore it 
 has the inspiring missionary motive of brother- 
 liness and of responsibility, both of imparting 
 to all men that which it has received from God, 
 and of receiving from all men that which God has 
 taught them. Therefore It must be and will 
 be universalized. As it will impart to men of 
 other faiths the things of supremest value which 
 it has received, it will receive from them what- 
 ever they may have to give. 
 
 The life has gone out of other religions. 
 Hear the words of a Hindu leader looking at 
 the condition of his own religion : " There Is 
 no more tragic event under the sun than the 
 death of a nation, and this consists in the de- 
 struction of peoples and Institutions and national 
 peculiarities that give It an Individual character. 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST 217 
 
 This awful tragedy is now going on in India. 
 The old religion is dying, the old morality is 
 dying; the bonds of custom and tradition, 
 which are the bones and sinews of the social or- 
 ganism, are dissolving ; there is death and decom- 
 position all around." When the old Greek and 
 Roman religions were similarly dying, the first 
 great Christian missionary made their best ele- 
 ments live again in higher Christian forms, and 
 thus enabled them to do even more for the world 
 than they had done before. The Greek thinkers 
 had sought for truth, for beauty, for freedom, 
 and for the highest ideals of life. As these 
 nations and philosophies were passing away, 
 Paul, by his interpretation of Christ as their 
 highest fulfillment, made their spirit live forever 
 by passing them into those Christian institutions 
 and theologies which had the dynamic of Christ 
 in them. Without Christ, those ideals would not 
 have been fulfilled. Without those ideals, the 
 Christianity of Paul and of the whole church 
 would not have been as rich as it became. In his 
 letter to the Romans, Paul rightly taught that 
 even the Old Testament shows that national 
 blessings had been bestowed on the Jews that 
 
218 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 through them all men might be blessed ; and that 
 every good element in individual and national 
 life attains perfection only when it is caught up 
 in, and developed into, a larger whole. God has 
 made of one every nation of men to dwell on all 
 the face of the earth.* This does not mean to 
 dwell in uniformity of rite and dogma: but it 
 does mean in unity of the spirit in relation 
 to God. The history of modern thought and 
 life under the continuous tutelage of God is a 
 record of the good and of the permanent, mixed 
 with the evil and the transient. St. Paul's ex- 
 planation of the mystery by which the good is 
 being separated from the bad is by God's revela- 
 tion of that mystery as a dispensation of the 
 fullness of the times by summing up of all things 
 in Christ. All things are to be summed up in 
 Him. No good thing is to be lost. In Him all 
 things hold together. In Him all fullness be- 
 comes permanent. Bishop Westcott has put this 
 inspiring assurance in the following words: 
 " Vast peoples, richly endowed with manifold 
 gifts, still remain without the pale of the faith. 
 These may even now be being disciplined for 
 some future work. The races of the Far East, 
 * Rev. A. Crosthwaite, in Hartest Fields 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST 219 
 
 we can hardly doubt, will in their season lay 
 open fresh depths of the Gospel which we are 
 unfitted to discover. Already there are symp- 
 toms of such a consummation : and when once we 
 trust the simple apostolic message, we shall be 
 allowed to learn as we have never yet done how 
 it can take up and transfigure the most different 
 forms of conduct and thought and become more 
 glorious as it does so." The author of the Epis- 
 tle to the Hebrews expresses this hope by saying 
 that God had foreseen some better things for 
 Christians of later times, that without the saints 
 whom Christ is later enlightening, even the lead- 
 ers of the faith in the past should not be made 
 perfect. And St. Paul says that Christ's work 
 of perfecting the saints will go on till we all — 
 not only all individuals, but all races — attain 
 unto the unity of the faith and the knowledge of 
 the only God, unto full grown men, unto the 
 measure of the fullness of Christ. Bishop Gore 
 expresses the same hope thus : " Each new race 
 which is introduced into the Church not only 
 itself receives the blessing of our religion, but 
 reacts upon it to bring out new and unsuspected 
 aspects and beauties in its truth and influence. It 
 
220 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 has been so when Greeks, and Latins, and Teu- 
 tons, and Kelts, and Slavs have each in turn been 
 brought into the growing circle of believers. 
 How impoverished was the exhibition of Chris- 
 tianity which the Jews were capable of giving 
 by themselves! How much the treasures of 
 wisdom and powder which lie hid in Christ awaited 
 the Greek intellect, and the Roman spirit, and 
 the Teutonic individuality, and the temper 
 and character of the Kelt and Slav, before 
 they could leap into light! Can we doubt 
 that now again not only would Indians, and 
 Japanese, and Africans, and Chinamen be the 
 better for Christianity, but that Christianity 
 would be unspeakably also richer for their 
 adhesion — for the gifts which the subtlety of 
 India, and the grace of Japan, and the silent 
 patience of China are capable of bringing into 
 the city of God? " 
 
 The true Christian position is not that that 
 apprehension of Christ which has already been 
 attained by any one church, or any one race, is 
 the full apprehension of all that the Lord Jesus 
 Christ truly is. It is the faith that as in the 
 past God has through His Son progressively re- 
 
CONTACT WITH THE EAST 221 
 
 vealed more and more of Himself, so He will con- 
 tinue to do through the bringing of all humanity 
 into union with that Son, and through Him into 
 union with Himself. Just as in the past the 
 various races have in their own way added some- 
 thing to the revelation of the unsearchable riches 
 of Christ, so in the future every race will, 
 by its thought and life, apprehend and reveal 
 riches in Christ which the Western nations need 
 also to apprehend. I suppose that the Japanese 
 recognize and admit that the unexpected capa- 
 city and power which they are manifesting in 
 their present contest with Russia are in some 
 measure due to their contact with even the par- 
 tial Christianity of the West. And what shall 
 the unsearchable riches of Christ prove to be 
 
 when 
 
 " Every creature, every tribe 
 On this terrestrial ball, 
 To Christ all majesty ascribe. 
 And crown Him Lord of all." 
 
VII 
 
 THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 THERE is a large number of men in India 
 who have a fair knowledge of the English 
 language and who have come somewhat 
 into contact with the current literature and 
 thought of the West. The major part of such 
 persons have lost faith in the indigenous reli- 
 gions of their country without acquiring in 
 their stead any intelligent and vital religious 
 thought and life for themselves. Some of them 
 have read and heard some of the objections in 
 the West to a part of traditional Christian the- 
 ology. They easily imagine that there is little 
 certitude about any Christian positions. In 
 conversation with missionaries they would pre- 
 fer to follow the critical spirit which they have 
 acquired and through which they have lost 
 confidence in their former faiths. They would 
 like to discuss those Western objections to tra- 
 ditional theology about which they have some 
 hazy conception. But the wise missionary 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 225 
 
 knows that thought and talk in this direc- 
 tion are not for the spiritual good of such un- 
 settled men. By race these men are still reli- 
 gious. He would like to lead them into per- 
 sonal communion with the Lord Jesus Christ and 
 through Him to help them to gain true spiritual 
 life. In order to do this he should avoid refer- 
 ence to those matters which are the staple of 
 current objections in the West. Otherwise he 
 would himself immediately lead the conversation 
 on to topics which his visitors would greedily 
 follow. He should confine himself, so far as 
 possible, to the most simple and vital matters. 
 If he can speak largely in the way in which he 
 thinks that Christ Himself would direct the con- 
 versation, he would be following his Master. 
 The following statement is an example of the 
 way in which I often give to such men the good 
 news of life in God through the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 There are many thoughtful people in India 
 like you who are greatly drawn to Jesus Christ, 
 who recognize the beauty and power of His hfe 
 and teaching, who are thereby being helped in 
 their own lives, who are not following any Indian 
 
^U MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW, 
 
 religion, who do not consider themselves Chris- 
 tians, who are pei'plexed by the varieties among 
 Christians, and who would like to know what is 
 the simple, essential thing in Christianity. From 
 my own experience and from the testimony of 
 the best Christian literature and of the best 
 Christians I will tell you frankly and simply 
 what the essence of Christianity is and what 
 good it is to be a real Christian. 
 
 The first point is that even in Christian coun- 
 tries in all branches of the Christian Church 
 there is search for agreement as to what is the 
 essential thing in Christianity. Both in Europe 
 and America conferences are constantly taking 
 place among members of different denominations, 
 articles are constantly appearing in the religious 
 press, asking what is the characteristic, indis- 
 pensable truth which every Christian holds and 
 must hold. The best minds everywhere candidly 
 say that the essential thing in Christianity is 
 much less than all the creed and practice of any 
 branch of the church. 
 
 This tendency is largely due to God's provi- 
 dence in teaching His children in many things 
 outside of religion. In all science, in all prac- 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 225 
 
 tical life men are seeking first to know what the 
 facts are, what the primal elements and prin- 
 ciples are. Similarly under God's guidance His 
 Christian children are seeking to understand 
 clearly what the primal elements and principles 
 of Christianity are. Theology is an explana- 
 tion or philosophical statement of the facts 
 which Christianity presents. Just as the science 
 of astronomy is changing, not because the facts 
 of astronomy have changed, but because new 
 facts are constantly becoming known, so the 
 science of Christian theology must be modified, 
 when new religious facts become known, and 
 their relation to old facts become better under- 
 stood. Moreover, just as in aU science an im- 
 portant distinction is carefully made between 
 facts on the one hand, and laws, doctrines, 
 hypotheses and so on on the other hand, so in 
 theology an important distinction is now made 
 between the essential facts of Christianity and 
 the inferences from those facts, some of which 
 are very generally acknowledged as Christian 
 doctrines, and others of which inferences are 
 more or less controverted. 
 
 This scientific, careful, truth-seeking tendency 
 
S26 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 is helping men to recognize what is the charac- 
 teristic essential thing in Christianity. For 
 example, everyone, non-Christian as well as 
 Christian, knows that there is a book called the 
 Bible. That is a fact. There have been innu- 
 merable discussions over hom the Bible came to 
 be, and with what kind and degree of divine 
 assistance it was written. That inquiry is right. 
 Thinking men must have some theory about all 
 important matters. But that inquiry is not 
 the essential thing about the Bible. The essen- 
 tial thing is what does the Bible say? what facts 
 of religious significance does it disclose.'' Since 
 it tells many wonderful, helpful things about 
 God, all Christians believe that God in some way 
 helped the writers of the Bible in their work. 
 This is the simplest position of Christianity 
 about the Bible. 
 
 However, though all Christians thus recognize 
 the Bible as at least the principal record of many 
 most important facts in the religious history of 
 mankind and as written by God's help, yet it is 
 not the Bible which is the characteristic, essential 
 thing in Christianity. The characteristic thing 
 in Christianity is that which gives it its name, 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY S^7 
 
 VIZ., Christ. Christ is Christianity, and the 
 supreme simplicity of this religion is that it can 
 truly be so summed up. Hence, loyalty to Christ 
 is the one peculiar requisite of the Christian. 
 Therefore, following Him, in some way or other 
 taking His help all the time in our lives, is being 
 a Christian. 
 
 Now what does loyalty to Christ mean and 
 imply, and how is it to be carried out.? Let us 
 ask Him. On one occasion some women brought 
 their children to Jesus Christ, hoping that in 
 some way He would help them. Christ's dis- 
 ciples, who up to that time understood Him very 
 imperfectly, imagined that such a religious 
 teacher would not have much for children, and 
 therefore began to drive away the women. But 
 when Jesus saw this He was much displeased 
 and said, " Let the children come to me, because 
 of such is the kingdom of God. Whoever does 
 not come to God like a little child cannot know 
 God or be in His kingdom." This was a charac- 
 teristic teaching of Christ, and it shows how 
 He expects men now to get acquainted with 
 Him, and then to become loyal to Him. The 
 childlike way of knowing anyone is not to read 
 
228 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 a book about him or read arguments about him, 
 but to see him, hear him, go about with him, 
 and by such personal intercourse to get ac- 
 quainted, and then to trust and love such a 
 person. In other words the childlike way is 
 the vital way, the way of life, in fact, the way 
 in which we all truly come to know any- 
 thing. How can one learn carpentry and 
 get help from some skillful carpenter.? It is 
 essential to find out from the testimony of some 
 person or book or paper that there is such a 
 carpenter, where he Hves, and how others have 
 received help from him. But this is only pre- 
 liminary. This alone would not enable a young 
 man to learn carpentry from that carpenter. 
 The one simple, essential thing is to go to that 
 carpenter and stay with him and follow his 
 directions. That is the simple, vital way which 
 Christ always points out as the one by which men 
 can get His help. As before, so now He always 
 says, " Come and see," " Learn of me," " Follow 
 me," " Take my help." That was the one way 
 in which His first disciples came to know Him 
 and grew to be loyal to Him. The ordinary 
 name which they used in speaking to Him and 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 229 
 
 of Him was " Master," i. e., Teacher. The only 
 name given to His followers in the four gospels 
 is " disciples," i. e., scholars. They learned 
 from Him about Himself and many other things 
 by associating with Him, seeing more and more 
 who He was, and gradually they grew more and 
 more loyal to Him. Before His death and res- 
 urrection and spiritual presence they could not 
 adequately understand Him. But after those 
 experiences they grew more and more loyal to 
 Him and had higher and higher appreciation of 
 Him. 
 
 We, too. In India can get properly acquainted 
 with Him and become truly loyal to Him only in 
 this same simple, vital way. At first sight this 
 might seem impossible because He is not physi- 
 cally visible to men. But this is not at all so. 
 In fact there are some special advantages which 
 we now have over those first disciples. 
 
 In the first place, we must remember that the 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ assure^? us not simply 
 that He once rose from the dead — that alone 
 would be a matter of small moment. The great, 
 the important assurance is that He is now alive 
 and ever wiU be alive, and, since He is now in a 
 
^30 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 more spiritual, glorified sphere, it is easier for 
 every man everywhere to associate with Him and 
 get His help. In the second place, we now have 
 a much completer view of Christ than those who 
 had seen His physical form. We now make 
 small account, as they could not, of His physical 
 limitations. This absence of physical appear- 
 ance aids us in emphasizing His spiritual teach- 
 ings and life. Moreover, we have those inter- 
 pretations of Him which have come from His 
 most spiritual followers, such as Paul and John 
 and others. We have the revelation and inter- 
 pretation of Him which have come from the best 
 experiences of His church and from history. 
 All this is a very great help. Finally, we know 
 that the best part of any man is his spirit, L e,, 
 his thoughts, his aspirations, his loves. Physi- 
 cal intercourse, even with a great man, is often 
 a hindrance to one's getting the most help from 
 his spirit. The biographies of great men fur- 
 nish many illustrations of this. Now the New 
 Testament contains very few references to the 
 body of Jesus Christ. It is full of His spirit. 
 That is what we want. And if He is now seek- 
 ing for spiritual intercourse with us, then witH 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 231 
 
 the help of those spiritual revelations which are 
 In the New Testament we can now have spiritual 
 fellowship with Him, we can learn who He is for 
 us, how He helps, whether to be loyal to Him or 
 not, and how. 
 
 It is feasible now for you or for any man to 
 learn of Him In the simple, vital way of personal 
 Intercourse. You can yourself see how this can 
 be done. The intercourse of the vast majority 
 of officials and employees in India to-day Is 
 through writing. Living men who work every 
 day under the same roof impart and receive 
 directions mainly through writing. Though 
 they may see one another with physical sight, 
 their personal intercourse Is mainly spiritual, not 
 physical. Now this kind of spiritual inter- 
 course with Jesus Christ Is just as feasible for 
 every man as with his superintendent or em- 
 ployer. When a subordinate gets written direc- 
 tions from his superior, at first sight he may not 
 whoUy understand them. Then what does he 
 do ? He might go directly and ask for explana- 
 tions. If he did, probably his superior would 
 say : " If you do not understand It all, never 
 mind now. Begin and follow the directions 
 
232 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 carefully step by step, and it will all come out 
 straight and plain. Those are the very same 
 directions which have been given in this office for 
 years, and have been found to be sufficient. 
 However, if you get into difficulty, why come to 
 me and I will then explain whatever is neces- 
 sary." For essence, Jesus Christ says not only 
 that, but something more helpful. He says: 
 " I have given you some written directions ; but 
 knowing how easy it is for men who are weak 
 and not spiritual to misunderstand spiritual 
 principles, to go astray, and to get discour- 
 aged, confused, and more weak, I am not 
 leaving you alone to work out your own salva- 
 tion. The Holy Spirit of God, whose special 
 work it is to explain spiritual things and to help 
 men to attain them, will stay with you night and 
 day and will enable you both to know and to do 
 what you need. What you have to do Is to 
 speak with Him and with Me, to expect and to 
 follow our guidance." 
 
 Now let me say to you what I would say to a 
 man in America who wished for personal inter- 
 course with Jesus in a simple, intelligible way 
 so as actually to find out by his own experience 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 233 
 
 what Christ can do for him. I would say to such 
 a man that he can begin almost anywhere. The 
 natural place would be at some point where the 
 man feels some need, especially some spiritual 
 need. And beginning anywhere, the first thing 
 to do is not to ask Christ to show us what to do, 
 but to watch Him and see how He lived, how He 
 did the thing in which we are weak. Just as 
 the first thing to do for one who wishes to learn 
 carpentry from a carpenter is not to ask ques- 
 tions, but to watch the carpenter. Suppose a 
 man wants to find out what Christ can do to 
 help him to become truthful.* Absolute truth- 
 fulness is a fundamental, but a very rare 
 virtue. 
 
 A man who wants to become a better man 
 knows he is very weak here and needs help. He 
 first reads Christ's life, and notices how abso- 
 lutely true He was. There was no make-believe, 
 no policy, no shiftiness in Him. So the man 
 would naturally say : " I wish to be like Him. I 
 will at least think of Him, and I will accept what- 
 ever help He gives me." Then, thinking of 
 
 * Suggestions have been taken from Dr. Newman 
 Smyth's "Personal Creeds." 
 
^34 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 Christ, constantly reading His life, and looking 
 to Him, he follows truth in everything. He sees 
 that he must begin by being true at heart. He 
 must not deceive himself, or pretend to be what 
 he is not. When he speaks, he seeks to say just 
 what is true. He looks at facts and means to 
 understand them just as they are, not to twist 
 them to mean what he would like them to mean. 
 He finds this kind of being, thinking, speaking, 
 acting, beset with all manner of difficulty. He 
 is all the time falling below the standard of 
 Christ and his own ideal, too. He is making 
 enemies. He is made more and more humble. 
 He finds that some of his bitterest critics are 
 men prominent in religious circles. Tliis sur- 
 prises him. But it all makes him marvel more 
 and more at the absolute, transparent sincerity 
 of Christ, and more and more to find a satisfac- 
 tion in humble sincerity and a gradual willing- 
 ness to suffer the criticisms and persecution 
 which the longing for truthfulness brings. He 
 understands the glory of Christ who was " full 
 of truth," and he finds himself having more and 
 more intercourse with Christ and getting more 
 and more help from Him. And his experience 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 235 
 
 is not that his trying and trying is what en- 
 ables him to grow in truth, but that his admira- 
 tion for the spotless truthfulness of Christ and 
 association with Him are making a change in 
 himself. 
 
 Longing to be true and following the truth 
 bring so many trials that a man might soon begin 
 to ask how he should treat his enemies ; and then 
 in Christ's simple vital way he might go to 
 Christ to find out and to get help. First, he 
 would notice how Christ treated His enemies. He 
 would see that the feeling of revenge seemed 
 absolutely wanting in Christ's conduct toward 
 those who willfully and persistently opposed 
 Him. His feeling was one of mingled indigna- 
 tion and pity: indignation because of their 
 rancor, their hypocrisy, their not simply stay- 
 ing away from Him, but their hindering simple 
 folk from coming to Him : and deep pity because 
 they were spiritually so lean and poor. He 
 would see this spirit manifested all through 
 Christ's life, and finally hear Him pray, as 
 His executioners were nailing Him to the 
 cross, " Father, forgive them, for they know 
 not what they do." And he would find that 
 
236 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 this thinking of Jesus, associating with Jesus, 
 was gradually making him feel somewhat the 
 same toward his own enemies. He would see 
 that it was not trying to be like Christ, but 
 associating with Christ, which was helping him 
 and really developing Christlikeness in him. It 
 is varied and repeated experiences of this kind 
 which are the practical, convincing proof of 
 Christ and His helpfulness, and which awaken 
 that loyalty to Him which is the essence of Chris- 
 tianity. Personal intercourse with Christ and 
 humbly taking His help, i. e., trusting Him, 
 having faith in Him, have always had two 
 results : first, a higher and higher view of Him ; 
 and, second, a vital understanding of how He 
 helps men. 
 
 Eighteen centuries ago many men talked about 
 Him, considered His wonderful works, compared 
 them with the works of others, admitted that He 
 was a very extraordinary being, but that was 
 all. They got little or no help from Him. His 
 disciples lived with Him, saw much of His per- 
 sonal life, admired Him, followed His teachings, 
 unconsciously were molded by His person, and 
 they got unspeakable help from Him. Toward 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 237 
 
 the end of His public ministry one day Christ 
 asked His disciples, " Who do men say that I 
 am? " They answered, " Some people say that 
 you are one prophet or great religious teacher; 
 others say you are still another prophet; still 
 others say you are a third prophet." Then Jesus 
 asked, " But what do you say ? " To this Peter 
 promptly replied with the first distinctively 
 Christian confession, " Thou art the Christ, the 
 Son of the Living God," i. e.^ " You are the One 
 who makes us know in our very lives and hearts 
 God as living and helpful to men." That is 
 what Christ wants to do, to make men know God 
 as He really is, a living, helpful Father. There- 
 fore instantly He replied to Peter, " Blessed art 
 thou, Peter. You have got what I have to give. 
 It is first on you, and hereafter on men like you, 
 men of like understanding of me, of like faith 
 on me that I found my church." That is the 
 essence of Christianity according to its founder ; 
 to use Him as the revelation of a living God, who 
 therefore is like Him, and thus by His help to 
 come into humble filial relations with God our 
 Heavenly Father. 
 
 Now let me tell you what the spiritual blessing 
 
S38 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 is which comes to men through trustful personal 
 intercourse with Christ, and what is the charac- 
 teristic way by which Christ imparts it to men. 
 Thoughtful men admit that the highest blessing 
 possible to a man is his becoming acceptable to 
 God. But to the question, how man may become 
 acceptable to God, the religions of the world 
 have given different answers. Some say, " Re- 
 peat over and over the name of God." Some 
 say, " Practice austerities." Some say, " Per- 
 form such and such rites." Others say, " Per- 
 form other rites." But, apart from the charac- 
 teristic way which Christ points out, every other 
 religion practically says that the way for man 
 to become acceptable to God is to work hard, to 
 make sacrifices, and by such efforts to win or 
 earn God's favor. Now, without going into 
 details, it is sufficient to show that all of these 
 other ways are mistaken and inadequate for two 
 reasons : first, because they do not rightly under- 
 stand what it is that God desires in men, what it 
 is that makes men acceptable to Him; and, sec- 
 ond, because they are not able to accomplish in 
 man what is necessary to make him acceptable to 
 God. 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 239 
 
 In the first place, do you believe that what 
 God really desires in you and in others is to 
 believe something — it matters not what — about 
 Him; or desires that you should constantly re- 
 peat His name; or that you should practice 
 austerities on your body ; or that you should per- 
 form a large number of rites and ceremonies ; or 
 that you should try, and try very hard, to please 
 Him, and repent when you have failed, and try 
 again, and so on? Certainly it is none of these 
 things that you desire in your wife or child or 
 friend. Then how much less does God desire 
 any of these things from any of His human 
 children. What any wise and good man wants 
 from his children and associates is purity of 
 heart and true love. And that is what God 
 desires in men. According to Jesus only har- 
 mony with God, love for Him, makes one accept- 
 able to Him. Some of Jesus' sayings are these : 
 " God is spirit, and they that worship Him must 
 worship Him in spirit and in truth." " Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart 
 and with aU thy soul and with all thy mind. 
 This is the first and great commandment." 
 Therefore it is a mistake to imagine that what 
 
240 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 God desires in us is efforts to make ourselves 
 good. What He wants is our trustful, obedient 
 love. 
 
 The second inherent weakness in all proposals 
 to make men acceptable to God by trying and 
 trying, i. e., by works which are supposed to 
 secure more or less of merit, is that these efforts 
 have not power to secure their end. The desired 
 end is purity of heart and humble love for God. 
 But when a man sets out to make himself accept- 
 able to God by works of various kinds, he sooner 
 or later considers that what God really desires 
 is works, works, works; not love and purity of 
 heart. Then, if the man trying to make himself 
 acceptable by works comes even approximately 
 up to liis standard, what is the inevitable result? 
 He is satisfied, probably puffed up and proud. 
 And when a man is satisfied with himself or is 
 proud, where is his humility or repentance or 
 purity of heart? Where is his humble love for 
 God? It is himself that he is satisfied with and 
 loves. No other result is possible in a man who 
 thinks to make himself acceptable to God by 
 works and who comes approximately up to his 
 own standard. 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 241 
 
 But there are some tender souls who set out 
 to make themselves acceptable to God by works, 
 and whose ideal Is high, who find themselves con- 
 stantly falling below their ideal and who find 
 unworthy motives constantly coming in to mar 
 the sincerity and value of their deeds, and who 
 for this reason get discouraged, and who know 
 that they are not acceptable in their own sight, 
 much less in God's sight. So that both in 
 the case of those who think they are succeeding, 
 and in the case of those who know they are not 
 succeeding, the way of trying to become accept- 
 able to God by one's own efforts is not the true, 
 vital way. It is mistaken in aim and inadequate 
 in power. That great spiritual hero, Paul, has 
 given us his testimony on this point. If there 
 ever was a man who tried to make himself accept- 
 able to God by great efforts and good deeds, it 
 was he. But the result of all his efforts was the 
 deepest dissatisfaction with himself and con- 
 sciousness of failure before God. Describing 
 his experience before he took Christ's help, he 
 said, " I knew what I ought to do and tried and 
 tried to do it ; but I always failed. O wretched 
 man ! Who could deliver me out of this death ! " 
 
S42 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 But then, going on to tell what a different 
 experience he had after his relation of personal 
 trust in Christ, he said, " I thank God. Jesus 
 Christ does save from such death." 
 
 This leads me to explain how a trustful per- 
 sonal relation with Jesus Christ secures the high- 
 est spiritual blessing to man, viz., harmony with 
 God. I will not try to explain the whole of the 
 process. I only state in a simple, vital way 
 which you or any man can test, the character- 
 istic essential thing in Christianity. If a boy 
 is a very timorous person living among friends 
 and associates of like character, how can he be 
 made a courageous lad? Will it be by people 
 telling him not to fear, and by his trying not to 
 be afraid? Not at all. The way by which he 
 can become a brave man is by associating with a 
 good and brave man who is willing to help him, 
 and for whom he cannot help feeling respect and 
 love. Living with such a man, seeing how his 
 truthfulness and trust in God and man keep 
 him from fear and make him brave, helps that 
 timorous boy. He finds that in time of trouble 
 his brave friend is always near and always helps, 
 and so he becomes himself a brave man. Or, if 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 245 
 
 a boy is lazy and his mates are lazy, how can he 
 become industrious? Not by people telling him 
 to be industrious, nor simply by his trying to 
 become such. The true way is for him to live 
 with some noble, industrious man whose example 
 is always inspiring, and who will take great 
 pains for and with him, who will suffer for him, 
 who will make him sorry for his faults, and 
 who will thus enable him to become a different 
 boy. 
 
 In the same way it is living with Christ which 
 is the one true way of enabling a sinful man to 
 become acceptable to God. When one does this, 
 the first thing which he notices is the difference 
 between himself and Christ. He sees Christ 
 having an absolute and wholly unselfish love for 
 God his Father, and having spotless purity of 
 character. He sees Christ suffering for the sins 
 of men. He feels Christ longing to free him 
 from his weakness and sins. Love for Christ 
 springs up in his heart. He finds Christ helping 
 him to live better. And by Christ's help he 
 becomes like Christ, and so a different man. 
 By Christ's help he comes into harmony with 
 God. This is an intelligible process which you 
 
244 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 can understand and can try for yourself. It is 
 the essential thing in Christianity. 
 
 For two reasons I will not try to explain to 
 you one central element in the process by which 
 Christ helps men, viz., the part which His suffer- 
 ings and death have in making sinful men into 
 new creatures. His apostles and followers all 
 make His sufferings and death the center of His 
 influence. The first reason why I do not attempt 
 this is that Christians differ in their explanation, 
 i. e., in their philosophy, of this wonderful truth. 
 Now the philosophy of anything is not a part of 
 the essence of Christianity. The second reason 
 is that, as the first disciples had true vital rela- 
 tions with Christ without any explanation and 
 sometimes with divergent explanations of this 
 great truth, so now men may have and do have 
 helpful relations with Him, while in a similar 
 position in regard to any explanation of the 
 exact force of His sufferings and death. The 
 supreme fact is that Christ reveals God's indig- 
 nation and sorrow for man's sin. His long-suf- 
 fering love for man under the chains of sin, and 
 His power to free them from it. No religion 
 gives to repentance the importance and reahty 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 245 
 
 which Christ gives it. But undoubtedly repent- 
 ance must be the beginning of growth in spirit- 
 ual life, for repentance means dissatisfaction 
 with one's imperfect past, and a humble, earnest 
 desire to do better. But even repentance is not 
 hopeful nor fruitful unless accompanied and 
 strengthened by what we call faith, i. e., con- 
 fidence in one who is able and glad to help us 
 in our needs, resulting in loving gratitude to 
 the one who renders such help. It is a simple, 
 historical fact and a daily experience of many 
 men that the sufferings and death of Christ 
 make men dissatisfied with their sinful past 
 and anxious to become better, that they quicken 
 faith in Him as able and willing to help, and 
 that they create ardent and grateful devotion 
 to Him. Thus they bring men into helpful 
 relations to Christ. This is the essential thing 
 in Christianity. And those who come into these 
 helpful relations to Christ and live with Him 
 gradually become like Him by the certain laws 
 of the mind. 
 
 I will now take a step further and show how 
 such trustful association with Christ enables men 
 to understand and to realize the highest relation 
 
^46 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 to God. In a word, it enables them to live in 
 truly filial relations with Him. Multitudes of 
 people use high religious language which does 
 not express any distinct, conscious experience. 
 It is merely vague phraseology. Many men 
 constantly call God their Father. But no one 
 living with them would have the remotest idea 
 that in their souls those men feel like sons of 
 God, or in their lives live like sons of God. But 
 without a doubt Jesus Christ did do just this. 
 His entire consciousness was that of a son. All 
 His conception of God was the conception of a 
 Father. All His feelings w^ere those of a loving 
 son. So far as we can judge from the gospels, 
 He never spoke to God without addressing Him 
 as Father. Not only so, but He also thought 
 of all men as, according to God's own plan and 
 wish, children of God. Only He knew that they 
 did not so think of themselves, nor live as God's 
 sons, and could not thus live so long as they had 
 low thoughts and ideals and habits — though in 
 their own estimation some of them were very 
 religious people because they did a great many 
 religious acts. But, though men fall below their 
 essential sonship to God, yet because Christ 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 247 
 
 thinks of them as such, His one great work is 
 to enable men to live as sons of God. Among 
 the first words of the account of Christ, which 
 is caUed the Gospel of John, we find it said, " As 
 many as received Him, to them He gave the 
 right [i. e,, the privilege] to become sons of 
 God." 
 
 To enable men really to live as sons of God 
 is Christ's supreme work. At first even His 
 disciples could not adequately grasp this con- 
 ception. So He had to use terms which they 
 could better understand. We can believe that 
 a daughter of our late good Queen Victoria, 
 who was in perfect sympathy with her, might 
 perhaps think of her as Queen-mother without 
 great distinction in the two terms. At any 
 rate to Jesus Christ it must have been that the 
 expression " Kingdom of God," which He so 
 often used, was nearly synonymous with the 
 Fatherhood of God, which expression we do not 
 find in the gospels, very likely because at the 
 time that He was teaching in Palestine it would 
 not have been well understood. Certainly the 
 greater includes the less. Christ's supreme con- 
 ception of God was that of Father, and so must 
 
248 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 include the conception of God as King. God's 
 Kingdom is a paternal rule where paternal and 
 filial love are the controlling principles. 
 
 Now the blessed thing is that trustful asso- 
 ciation with Christ enables men to live in such 
 filial relations with their heavenly Father. 
 Christ does this first by being such Himself. 
 He was the Son of God in a peculiarly high 
 sense. Nevertheless, it is true that He is our 
 elder brother, and we are younger sons of the 
 same Father. And He helps His younger breth- 
 ren to realize what sonship to God is by His 
 own filial relation to that Father. The deepest 
 reverence for that Father, the most absolute 
 conformity to His will, the utmost delight in 
 His service, the most sensitive desire that He 
 should be known and appreciated, in short, spir- 
 itual oneness with that Father characterized 
 Him so that He could truly say, " The Father 
 and I are one." This shows His perfectly filial 
 relation to God. Thus seeing Him men can 
 in some measure understand how He was the 
 Son of God. Thereby He gives us a concep- 
 tion of what, in some measure, we may become, 
 and awakens in our hearts a sense of privilege 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 249 
 
 and duty and love. The inherent possibility in 
 man begins to develop into reality. 
 
 In the second place, He helps men to become 
 sons of God by telling them that that is God's 
 plan and wish for them. He tells them always 
 to address God as Father. He said, "When- 
 ever you pray, begin thus, ' Our Father ' ; and 
 while you may freely tell Him every slightest 
 need, remember especially that He knows what 
 is best and will do what is best. Therefore 
 always say, and always mean it, too, * Thy will 
 be done,' for, after all, what you most need 
 is to know and do and love our Father's will." 
 His teaching might almost be typically con- 
 densed in a few other quotations about men's 
 bearing themselves like sons of their Heavenly 
 Father. Here are a few of those teachings: 
 " Be not anxious, saying. What shall we eat.'^ 
 or What shall we drink .^^ or. Wherewithal shall 
 we be clothed? for your heavenly Father know- 
 eth that ye have need of all these things." " 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 ? " " Love your enemies, 
 
250 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 and pray for them that persecute you, that ye 
 may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." 
 " Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly 
 Father is perfect." 
 
 In the third place, Christ helps men to be- 
 come sons of God by identifying Himself with 
 them, by being, as He Himself says, •with them 
 and in them, and having them in Himself. In 
 mystic language, which is yet intelligible. He 
 tells how He personally associates with and 
 helps those who trustfully associate with Him. 
 For example. He says that such a person is to 
 Him in such a relation as a branch is to a vine. 
 When a branch is in vital union with a vine 
 just such sap as is in the vine comes into the 
 branch and by that living relation that branch 
 has just such leaves and just such fruit as 
 the vine. " In a similar way," He says, " if 
 you will live in me, I will put my sap into you ; 
 that is, my thoughts, my beliefs, my aims, my 
 loves, my life will come into you and you will 
 become Hke me." Now what I am trying to do 
 is to put these truths in a simple, intelligible 
 way which you can test for yourself. Words- 
 worth has well said, "We live by admiration, 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 251 
 
 hope and love." So if any man lives with Christ, 
 he cannot help admiring Him, looking up to 
 Him, gradually living as He does, hoping for 
 higher things, and more and more loving Him. 
 In Wordsworth's language, he lives by admira- 
 tion, hope, and love for Christ, and so becomes 
 like Christ, and therefore like Him realizes filial 
 relations with his Heavenly Father. This is 
 the essence and the simplicity of Christianity. 
 It may help 3'ou if I specify one or two par- 
 ticulars w^here the supreme excellence of this 
 simple Christian way manifests itself. The cru- 
 cial point where every system except the Chris- 
 tian system glaringly shows its weakness is in 
 its inability to secure thorough humility to- 
 gether with other great spiritual attainments. 
 If a man is unusually gifted and hard-working 
 and self-denying and otherwise preeminent, how 
 can he also be kept thoroughly humble? The 
 Christian way secures it by making the com- 
 parison — if any comparison is made at all — • 
 not between that man and other men, but be- 
 tween that man and Christ, and every such 
 comparison is always and only humbling to the 
 Christian. It is not only that we are following 
 
252 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 and emulating our Father and elder brother, 
 but that whatever good we may do we do for 
 love to them and by their help. What place 
 then is left for pride? Through such influence 
 the truest Christian is the humblest man. 
 
 A second crucial point in ethics is the eleva- 
 tion and soundness of motive in our relations 
 with our fellowmen. Trustful association with 
 Jesus Christ awakens in man motives like His 
 own. His motives were true respect for men — 
 even the most sinful men — ^because essentially 
 they are sons of God, and the most unselfish 
 love for them as lost sons needing to be saved. 
 The simplicity of Christianity is that trustful 
 association with Christ secures such high rela- 
 tions also with men. I urge you to try this 
 simple, vital way for yourself. 
 
 Ever since the few short years of Christ's 
 earthly life in Palestine, nearly nineteen hun- 
 dred years ago, He has been an invisible person. 
 From the first He Himself recognized that His 
 work of revealing God to men and enabling 
 them to become sons of God was circumscribed 
 by His human, visible condition. So long as 
 He could be seen and heard in one particular 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 253 
 
 locality how could men regard Him as a uni- 
 versal, spiritual helper? None ever knew so 
 well as He how best to promote men's spiritual 
 welfare. Therefore, as the time for His de- 
 parture drew near He said to His disciples, 
 *' I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you 
 that I go away. For if I should not go away, 
 you would depend, as now, on my physical 
 presence. You could not even understand me. 
 You need to become more and more spiritual. 
 So I am going away. But I shall not leave 
 you alone. The Spirit of God will come and 
 be ever with you. I have done my peculiar 
 work as a concrete human revelation of the 
 Father. Now the universal, invisible Spirit will 
 come and do His work. Primarily He will ex- 
 plain me to you. Pie will make you understand 
 who I am, and the spiritual meaning of my 
 words and conduct which you cannot now un- 
 derstand. And He will always continue to be 
 with all my brethren and to guide them in all 
 things." Now, since this is Christ's teaching, 
 and since Christianity is loyalty to the living 
 Christ, we may say that the simplicity of Chris- 
 tianity is that it is living by the help of Christ 
 
S54 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 under the guidance of the Spirit of God. That 
 is, the Holy Spirit of God is the spiritual re- 
 vealer of the Christ who was the concrete 
 revealer of God. Christ said the " Holy Spirit 
 shall take of the things of me and show them 
 to you." 
 
 Prior to Jesus Christ men's conceptions of 
 God and of the true relations between God and 
 men were so vague and mistaken that they did 
 not know God as Father. But God so revealed 
 Himself through the Hfe, teachings, sufferings, 
 and resurrection of Jesus that we may say that 
 Jesus is the fullest human expression of God, 
 by which He makes us know Him as the Father 
 of our spirits. But men are still so unspiritual 
 that even with Christ's help they cannot ade- 
 quately apprehend the Father and walk as His 
 sons without the further and constant help of 
 the Holy Spirit. Owing to men's low, sinful 
 condition they get a wrong conception of God 
 and live without sympathetic obedience to Him. 
 Therefore they need Christ to reveal the Father 
 and help them to live as His sons. Vague and 
 wrong conceptions of God and of their relations 
 to Him are men's first great lack. This Christ 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 255 
 
 supplies. Their next great lack is that even 
 when they get better conceptions, they forget 
 God and live as if He were not. The Holy 
 Spirit, who ever lives with God's sons, supplies 
 this second lack. He makes God a present God. 
 He shows that a risen Christ means an ever- 
 living Christ, and that His help does not depend 
 on our visible sight of Him. The Spirit shows 
 Christ's brethren that they have a union with 
 Christ which is ever constant and indissoluble, 
 which in Biblical language is expressed by the 
 term in Christ. 
 
 Now, how are men to know for themselves 
 whether these things are so or not? In the 
 same vital way as that in which they know 
 anything, i. e., by actual experience. In Bibli- 
 cal language, " As many as are led by the Spirit 
 of God they are the sons of God." " The Spirit 
 beareth witness with our spirit ; that we are 
 the children of God." Let a man stop and ask 
 himself, " Is there anyone who has intercourse 
 with my spirit .? Is there some voice which 
 speaks to my soul? Is there someone who 
 strengthens the better impulses of my heart? 
 Does he use the example and words and power 
 
g56 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 of Christ or not? " These are simple, natural 
 questions which any man may ask for himself 
 and to which he can, if wise, give answers. 
 Persons who truly take Christ's help can hon- 
 estly give intelligible answers. Christ definitely 
 said that the Holy Spirit would help the spirits 
 of men and would use Him In this work. There 
 are men who can honestly say that this thing 
 is true in their lives. If true of some, others 
 can test it for themselves. Let a man earnestly 
 desire to know God, see if he will not find the 
 life of Christ most helpful to him. As he 
 brings Christ in any way Into connection with 
 his life, see if he does not have inward spiritual 
 impulses. Is it not the most reasonable explana- 
 tion of those Impulses that God by His Spirit 
 is helping the man to walk as His son.? This 
 is the explanation offered by Christianity. 
 
 In religious matters there are two ways of 
 trying to ascertain truth. One is the purely 
 intellectual method, according to which one asks 
 an argument to the intellect before accepting 
 anything. Thus, for example, according to this 
 method, one would not believe in God till His 
 existence and attributes had been proved. But 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY ^57 
 
 neither you nor I should much respect even the 
 intellect of a man who would not have anything 
 to do with his mother until he had asked for 
 and examined the intellectual proof of her ex- 
 istence and attributes. Nor should we think 
 that a mother would be of much use to a man 
 who believed in her only because he had asked 
 and received proofs of her existence and char- 
 acter. Similarly, because God is the Father of 
 every man and is constantly acting as his 
 Father, I do not respect the intellectual condi- 
 tion of men who do not recognize that there is 
 a God until they have been through a process 
 of argument proving His existence. Just as 
 we know men more by association than by argu- 
 ment, so we know God more by association than 
 by argument. Reasoning has its proper place 
 in determining our relations with men, 
 and also in ascertaining what is from God. 
 Christianity has from the first had to give and 
 has gladly given proper and adequate proofs, 
 so far as reason requires them. Nevertheless, 
 the strong thing in Christianity is that it is 
 fitted for the whole of man, and its strongest 
 proof is supplying all the needs of men in the 
 
258 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 simple, vital way of life in all departments. The 
 sound way of trying to ascertain religious truth 
 is the way of making reason and experience go 
 hand in hand. There is such overwhelming his- 
 torical and experimental evidence for believing 
 that Jesus Christ lived and was substantially 
 as described in the New Testament that the 
 only sensible thing is to act as if that were 
 so, and then to test for yourself whether you 
 need His help by the simple, natural way which 
 I have described, i. e., by personal association 
 with Him. Every thoughtful person knows that 
 personal influence is the greatest influence. 
 When personal association is continuous and 
 spiritual, and includes both the great and little 
 matters of life, it is a transforming power. I 
 have shown that such trustful, intimate, per- 
 sonal association is what Jesus desires and off^ers 
 to every man. Also I have shown how it is 
 feasible for everyone and for you. 
 
 It is feasible, first, by a careful, thoughtful 
 use of the biography of Jesus as written in the 
 four gospels. With this should be used its 
 supplement in the Acts of the Apostles and in 
 the letters of St. Paul and other apostles, be- 
 
SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY 259 
 
 cause these writings show how association with 
 Jesus Christ aiFected those early Christians, and 
 how they finally understood Him. 
 
 Secondly, Christianity teaches that Christ is 
 now living and in personal relations with us all. 
 If true, this enables us to have personal inter- 
 course with Him in a vital way. It is a thing 
 which every man can test for himself. Paul 
 was the most bitter persecutor of Christians. 
 He became the chief missionary of this faith. 
 He says this change was due to personal inter- 
 course with Christ. If Jesus Christ is even a 
 true religious teacher, this claim is true, because 
 the most important point of His teaching was 
 that He was to be forever with His followers 
 to help them. 
 
 Thirdly, the Spirit of God is said by Christ 
 to live with men and to take of Him and to 
 make Him real to men. You and I can test 
 this for ourselves. 
 
 The results of trustful, personal association 
 with Christ have always been to lead men to 
 higher and higher views regarding Him, and 
 to make them grow more and more like Him. 
 His earliest disciples from regarding Him as a, 
 
^60 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 teacher grew to regard Him more and more 
 as Saviour and Lord. They also grew more 
 and more into His likeness. Paul could hon- 
 estly say, " I do not live, but Christ lives in me." 
 That was no exaggeration. He was controlled 
 by the mind and spirit of Christ. Whoever 
 lives in trustful, intimate intercourse with Jesus 
 Christ, the Son of God, comes into fihal rela- 
 tions with God as Father, and he knows that 
 it is Christ who helps him into this changed 
 life. Now, my friend, will you not try this 
 vital way for yourself? Never mind what any- 
 one else thinks about Christ. Never mind 
 whether things have been put forward which 
 do not seem right to you. Have trustful, inti- 
 mate personal association with Christ, and you 
 will be helped by Him. You will be helped in 
 your belief. You will be helped in your life. 
 And the more you trust Him and take His help, 
 and follow Him, the more you will grow like 
 Him. 
 
VIII 
 
 HOW GANGARAM BECAME ACQUAINTED 
 WITH GOD 
 
 PEOPLE m America often wonder how the 
 missionary In India presents Christ to 
 common, plain people there. So I will 
 give you an Illustration of the way In which 
 one missionary tries to make God seem vitally 
 great and good and near to every man through 
 the revelation which Christ has made of Him. 
 One of the advantages of being a missionary 
 in India Is that with ordinary people religion 
 Is there always a natural, proper subject of 
 conversation. It is mainly with people who have 
 come under Western ways and ideas that a 
 Christian has to be careful about quickly intro- 
 ducing a religious topic Into conversation. But 
 with the average man one does not need to wait 
 or to beat around the bush before speaking of 
 distinctly Christian things. Suppose that a 
 plain man, who knows nothing of Christianity 
 except that there is now a considerable Chris- 
 2QI 
 
^62 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 tian community in Ahmednagar, and that in a 
 particular house lives a missionary who is a 
 leader of Christians, comes to my house largelyj 
 out of curiosity. The following would be a 
 way in which I might talk to him. When he 
 knocks on the door, or through a servant sends 
 a message to my room that he wishes to see 
 me, and I say, " Come in," I should first ask, 
 " What is your name.? " He might say, " Gan- 
 garam," which is as common a name as John 
 or Charles in America. Then I might say, " Do 
 you know my name.? It is Hume." Then he 
 would say, " Hume Saheb," L e., Mr. Hume. 
 Then I would ask, "What is your business.?" 
 and he might reply, " I am a carpenter." Then 
 I might say, " Let me tell you my business. It 
 is to help men to become acquainted with God." 
 This makes him look surprised, because he has 
 never heard of such an occupation before. Then 
 I might ask, " Gangaram, are you acquainted 
 with God.? " Of course he looks as surprised as 
 if I had asked, " Are you acquainted with the 
 Queen or the Governor.? " Then I say, " Gan- 
 garam, I am somewhat acquainted with God^ 
 It is my business to help men to get acquainted 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD 263 
 
 with Him. I will explain it to you so that you 
 can understand. Men get acquainted with God 
 in just the very same way as that in which 
 they get acquainted with men. There is no 
 different way. Just as I have only one pair of 
 outward eyes and outward ears, and have to get 
 all my outward knowledge about everyone 
 through those eyes and ears, so I have only one 
 pair of inward eyes and inward ears, and have 
 to get all my inward knowledge of everyone, 
 of men and of God, through those eyes and 
 ears, by using them in just the same way. What 
 does it mean to be acquainted with anyone? It 
 does not mean to see that man's face, but his 
 mind and heart. There are hundreds of men 
 whose faces we often see, with whom we are not 
 acquainted, because we do not see their minds 
 and hearts. To be acquainted with anyone 
 means to know what he often thinks about, what 
 he is interested in, what he is trying to do, 
 what he is glad for or sorry for, what his hopes 
 and ideals are. Now, there are four ways in 
 which I get acquainted with men, L e., see what 
 is regularly going on in their minds and hearts ; 
 and in the very same ways I get acquainted with 
 
264 MISSIONS Irom the MODERN VIEW 
 
 God, i. e., know what is going on in His mind 
 and heart, i, e., I know what He is trying to do, 
 what He is glad for and sorry for, and so I 
 secure intimacy with Him. 
 
 " One way in which I get acquainted with 
 men is through letters. Here is a letter from 
 a man who lives ten thousand miles away, whose 
 face I have never seen and may never see. But 
 we write letters to each other. In these letters 
 we say what we are thinking about, and inter- 
 ested in, and what we are trying to do, what 
 we are glad for and sorry for, what our hopes 
 and ideals are; we tell one another how each 
 is getting on; each says what he would like 
 the other to do for him, and inquires what he 
 can do for the other. Through such letters we 
 are becoming truly acquainted, i, ^., we see one 
 another's mind and heart, and are drawn to one 
 another. Now, is there anything which men 
 can do which God cannot also do? Men can 
 write letters and get acquainted through them. 
 Do not you suppose that God also can do the 
 same.f* " Of course, Gangaram looks somewhat 
 surprised, but says that of course God can do 
 whatever men can do. Then I say, " Not only 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD 265 
 
 can God write letters, but He has written many. 
 I have some of His letters in my house now. 
 Here is one, and I will read a part of it to you." 
 Then, of course, I would not open a big book, 
 because that would not seem like a letter. But 
 I usually have in small form a Gospel on my 
 table. Taking up the Gospel of Luke, I say, 
 " Here is a letter from God, in which He has 
 expressed just what my friend expressed in the 
 first letter which I showed you, viz., what He 
 is thinking about, and interested in, and wish- 
 ing to do; what he is glad for and sorry for; 
 what He wants me to do for Him, and what 
 He wishes to do for me. Therefore by read- 
 ing this letter I see what is in the mind and 
 heart of God, and so I get acquainted with 
 Him and come to understand and to appreciate 
 Him and am drawn to Him. If you will more 
 and more find out what is in this letter from 
 God and act up to what He wishes in it, you, too, 
 can get acquainted with God. Now I will read 
 something from this letter." 
 
 Then I might open at the fifteenth chapter of 
 Luke and say : " In this place in this letter it says 
 that God is like any man, just such a man as 
 
^66 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 you are, just such a man as I am, just like 
 all the men about us. It says that God is like 
 a man who had a hundred sheep. One evening 
 when this shepherd brought his flock home and 
 counted them, he found one missing. What did 
 he say.? 'I don't care; let the thing go; I 
 have ninety-nine sheep left ' ? Of course not. 
 No shepherd ever felt like that. Why not.? 
 In the first place, because that sheep was worth 
 money to that shepherd — worth from three to 
 R\e rupees — and no man is willing to lose 
 money if he can help it. And another reason 
 was because that shepherd had come to feel 
 an interest in that sheep, since he had taken 
 care of it for a long time. So immediately he 
 left the ninety-nine safe sheep in the fold and 
 started to find the lost one. First he went west 
 toward Nepti, but could not find it there. Then 
 he went north toward Savedi, but could not 
 find it there. Then east toward Ferribag, but 
 could not find it. Then he hurried south toward 
 Walki, because it was getting dark; and he 
 asked everyone whom he met if he had seen 
 a stray sheep. And like every Eastern shepherd 
 he often called the name of the sheep. At last 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD 267 
 
 he heard a little * Ba-a ' and said, ' I believe 
 that is my sheep.' He called again and went 
 in that direction, and at last he found the poor 
 thing caught in a thicket. It could not get 
 out, its fleece was torn, and it was all in a-trem- 
 ble because it was dark, and it could hear the 
 wolves howling. What did he do? Did he give 
 the sheep a good kick and say, ' You have made 
 me lots of trouble to-day ; I will give you a 
 good beating when I get home'.? Not at all. 
 He said, ' You poor, poor thing ; I am so sorry 
 for you.' And, like every shepherd, he took it 
 tenderly out of the thicket and lifted it upon 
 his shoulders, two legs on one side and two on 
 the other, and carried it home and spoke kindly 
 to it all the way, and took extra care of it 
 that night. And he was so pleased that he 
 called all his friends together and told them all 
 about it. He did not speak of his troubles, 
 but of his joy in finding the lost sheep. And 
 it says in this letter that that is just what God 
 is like. He is your shepherd, and you are His 
 sheep. But you are worth far more to Him 
 than that sheep was to that shepherd; worth 
 far more than three or five rupees. And He 
 
268 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 has done far more for you than that shepherd 
 had done for that sheep. But you, too, are 
 lost. For, when you said to me that you are 
 not acquainted with God, that means that you 
 have strayed away from Him. A sheep is lost 
 which does not know the way to its fold. And 
 you are lost in the thicket of ignorance of God. 
 But He is trying to find you, and He will do 
 His best to get you out of it, and to take you 
 home to be with Him where you can be safe. 
 You do not yet know how He feels and talks and 
 deals with men. But He is most eager for you, 
 and He needs you so much that He is trying 
 to find you and all other lost sheep like you, 
 and He has sent me to tell you this. 
 
 " Now the letter goes on to say that God 
 is not only hke a man, but like a woman; just 
 such a woman as your wife and my wife. This 
 woman had ten pieces of silver. One day when 
 she counted her money one piece was gone. 
 What did she say ? Did she say, ' I don't care ; 
 I have nine pieces left'.? Of course not. You 
 know the proverb that says you can buy ten 
 needles for the smallest copper coin, but that 
 a woman cries if she loses one needle. Then 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD S69 
 
 how much worse that woman felt when she had 
 lost a piece of silver. So she did what your 
 or my wife would do. She tried to find the 
 lost coin. But when she could not find it she 
 lighted a lamp, because the room had no 
 windows, and she swept its earthen floor and 
 then threw the dirt which she had gathered up 
 and down in a fan till at last she saw the silver 
 bit. Then she was so pleased that she called 
 her women friends together and told them all 
 about it, and said, ' Rejoice with me, for I have 
 found the money that was lost.' And the letter 
 says that is how God feels. Gangaram, you 
 are God's money. He needs you. You are 
 worth much more to Him than that coin was to 
 that woman. The place for money is not in the 
 dirt, where it is worth nothing, but to be clean 
 and in its owner's hand, so that he can do 
 with it what he wants. You are in the dirt of 
 ignorance and carelessness ; that is, you are lost, 
 and not in God's hand, where He can use you to 
 do some good work. But He is trying to find 
 and to clean you so that He can do some good 
 work by you. He is so anxious for you that He 
 sent me here to tell you this. 
 
270 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW. 
 
 " Then the letter goes on to say that God is 
 like a rich man who had two boys. The younger 
 boy had got into bad company, and was not 
 contented and made much trouble. He kept 
 nagging his father and saying, ' Father, there 
 is no fun here in this little village; no chance 
 to make much money, or to get a reputation. 
 I want to go to Bombay. That is a big place, 
 where there is lots of fun and chances to make 
 money. Let me have some money and go there. 
 Some day you will see me come back with a 
 big bag of money.' But the father replied, 
 ' My boy, I have lived longer than you. It is 
 easier to lose money than to make it. Those 
 companions of yours are not good. They are 
 sure to get you into trouble.' But the boy 
 kept nagging his father, and at last he got his 
 money and went off. He thought he was going 
 to have a grand time. He had fun for a while. 
 But his companions fleeced him. He lost all 
 his money, and pawned his clothes and fell sick. 
 And plague and famine all around made him 
 think he would die. Then he said, ' I am a 
 fool. Here I am dying with hunger, and even 
 the servants at home have plenty of everything. 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD ^71 
 
 I will go home.' So he started. But when he 
 came near to the house he thought how his 
 older brother and the servants might laugh, and 
 say, 'A big bag of money he has brought.' So 
 he felt ashamed and stopped a moment behind 
 a tree. But, Gangaram, what had been hap- 
 pening in that house all those days? Every 
 day the mother had cried. Every single day 
 that father's heart had been heavy. If he knew 
 of anyone's going to Bombay he would say, 
 « If you see my boy, tell him his mother is dying 
 for lack of him, and tell him to come home.' 
 And at the moment that the boy stood hesitating 
 under the tree the father was thinking, ' Where 
 is my boy now.? ' And as he looked out he said, 
 « Who is that? It looks like my boy,' and down 
 the road he ran and they both threw their arms 
 around one another and both cried. The boy 
 said, ' Father, I have been a naughty boy. I 
 have made you and mother sorry. I have wasted 
 your money. I do not ask you to take me into 
 the famHy again. But please try me as a 
 servant.' Then the father said, ' My boy, my 
 boy! Don't you say another word. Your 
 mother will be a new woman to-day. Come right 
 
272 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 into the house.' And he pulled him in and left 
 him with his mother in an inner room, where both 
 could cry and be glad, while he went and 
 told the servants, ' Make a great dinner to-day. 
 This is the happiest day this house has ever 
 known. This son of ours who was as good as 
 dead is alive again and at home.' Now, Gan- 
 garam, that is just what God is like. He is 
 your father. You are His boy. You have 
 been foolish and done a great many wrong 
 things. These have caused you much trouble. 
 But your God, too, has suffered because you 
 have lived away from Him. But He longs for 
 you and needs you, and He wants you to come 
 and live with Him. He cannot bear to have 
 any son of His suffer in ignorance and sin. He 
 wants everyone to live near Him as a loyal son. 
 And He wants you and me to know this, and 
 therefore has sent us this letter. 
 
 " Now, Gangaram, I could tell you a great 
 deal more that there is in this letter. But there 
 is a second way in which we get acquainted with 
 men and with God. Through messengers, also, 
 we get acquainted with men. That is, we find 
 out what is in their minds and hearts, what they 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD 273 
 
 are thinking about, and trying to do ; what they 
 are glad for and sorry for; what they wish to 
 do for us, and what they wish us to do for 
 them. Yonder In that house Hves the Collector, 
 who Is my friend. Often he sends a mes- 
 senger to me to say what he wants me to 
 know. He sometimes sends me a paper or a 
 book, and asks me for an American magazine 
 or book. He asks me to come to see him at 
 a certain time and place. He wants to know 
 about various things in which we both are 
 interested. And in this way we become better 
 acquainted. Now men get acquainted with 
 God also in the very same way. He sends mes- 
 sengers to men to tell them what Is in His mind 
 and heart : what He Is trying to do ; what He is 
 glad for and sorry for; what He wishes us to 
 do for Him and what He wishes to do for us. 
 And that Is just what I am — God's messenger 
 to you. There are things which He is very 
 anxious that you should know and do, and so 
 He has sent me to you. Now listen. 
 
 " More than nineteen hundred years ago a 
 very wonderful thing happened to the north- 
 west of Kanhur over there, some twenty-five 
 
£74 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 hundred miles away. It was so wonderful that 
 now almost everyone counts time from that 
 event. Every letter that is stamped in the post- 
 office is stamped with that date. Every news- 
 paper that is published in this country dates 
 from that event, though it happened in a dis- 
 tant land years ago. It was like this: Your 
 own religion says that the god Vishnu took ten 
 incarnations. The first was a fish, the second 
 was a tortoise, the third was a boar, and so on. 
 Personally I do not believe this, because it does 
 not seem sensible, and I do not think God would 
 do what was not sensible. I would not become 
 a fish or a tortoise or a boar, if I wanted to 
 help you. You could not understand fish lan- 
 guage or fish experiences. However, I do not 
 care very much whether you believe it or not. 
 But there is one thing which is at the heart of 
 all those stories about Vishnu's incarnations 
 which I do believe with all my heart; it is that 
 when man is in trouble you may be sure that 
 God will try to help him. And that is what 
 happened nineteen hundred years ago. When 
 men could not understand what was in the mind 
 and heart of God, He said, * I will go to help 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD rtB 
 
 them.' But He came in a sensible and helpful 
 way ; that is, He came as a man. Everyone can 
 understand human experiences. A tear and a 
 smile mean and express the very same thing in 
 every part of the world, even though men may 
 not understand one another's words. So because 
 men did not understand properly what was in 
 God's heart and mind, He took an incarnation in 
 a very great and good man to help men truly to 
 understand what God is like; how He thinks 
 and feels ; what He is glad for and sorry for ; 
 what He wishes to do for us, and us to do for 
 Him. Now the name of this incarnation was 
 Jesus, which means Helper; and He also was 
 sometimes called Christ, which means the ap- 
 pointed one, i. e.. He was the Helper whom God 
 appointed to come and reveal Him. It is from 
 Him that the Christian religion gets its name. 
 And the essence of the Christian religion is that 
 God is like Jesus Christ. Now let me tell you 
 about Him. He was born a baby, and grew up 
 like you and me. He never had any advantages 
 in schools. But He was most intimate with 
 God, whom He always recognized as with Him 
 and whom He pleased and whom He sought to 
 
276 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 reveal to men. His business, like yours, was 
 that of a carpenter. Whenever He made a 
 plow or a door or a window, He made just 
 as good a job as He could. He was most kind 
 to all men and most strong. He gave eyes to 
 the blind, ears to the deaf, and limbs to the 
 lame. He even gave life to the dead. But He 
 did more wonderful things than that. He made 
 the bad good. He made hard-hearted Marwadis 
 [money-lenders], who love money more than 
 anything else, generous and humble. Once when I 
 was in the village of Ambli-Vadgaon a Marwadi 
 came to say that the Mission teacher, Nanaji, 
 who had just been transferred from that village, 
 still owed him four rupees, and he wished me 
 to collect and pay him this sum. I told him 
 that I would speak to Nanaji about it, and, if 
 it was all right, I would see that the small debt 
 was repaid. Just then a poor, paralyzed woman 
 came up to ask for help. She was in rags. So 
 I said to the Manv^adi, ' I tell you what I will 
 do. I will take the responsibility of collecting 
 and paying those four rupees now, if you will 
 use part of it in helping to buy a garment for 
 this poor woman. I will pay half the price, and 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD 277 
 
 you pay half.' But the Marwadi replied, * Sir, 
 not one particle will I give.' What do you 
 think of that, Gangaram? Just like a great 
 many Marwadls, wasn't he? There was a poor, 
 paralyzed, half -starved woman of his own town 
 for whom he was not willing to do one thing. 
 Would it be more wonderful to give eyes to the 
 blind, or to give inward eyes to such a money- 
 lender and to make him humble and generous.^ 
 Well, that Is what Jesus Christ did. One day, 
 when He was going through a town called Jeri- 
 cho, a money-lender, like the Ambli-Vadgaon 
 Marwadi, named Zaccheus, a short man, got up 
 into a tree to see Jesus plainly as He was passing 
 along with a great crowd. When Jesus reached 
 the tree. He looked up and said, ' Zaccheus, 
 come down. I would like to go home with you 
 to-day ! ' The man was amazed and so was the 
 crowd, because everyone knew that he was a 
 hard-hearted, dishonest man who had no religion 
 at all. But the object of Jesus was to make 
 that bad man good, though He did not say so. 
 I would give a great deal to know what Jesus 
 Christ said to Zaccheus In his house. I am 
 pretty sure He did not say anything to him 
 
^78 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 at first about his being bad. I think He may 
 have said, ' Zaccheus, what a nice house you 
 have ; how much good you can do to your neigh- 
 bors and to poor people if you are hospitable 
 and share your house with them. How much good 
 you can do with your money if you are thought- 
 ful and generous with it. You ought to remem- 
 ber that your money and your house are really 
 God's, not your own, and that the only real 
 value of money is that you do good with it in 
 the way in which God wishes you to use His 
 money. Though you may not have thought of 
 this before, I hope you will hereafter.' I am 
 sure He spoke of God as Father of all men, and 
 all men as brothers, and of the blessedness of 
 being good, and of the joy which one can give 
 to Him by being sorry for sin and of living 
 right for the rest of one's life, etc. And, Gan- 
 garam, before Jesus Christ left that house, that 
 hard-fisted, hard-hearted money-lender became 
 a changed man. He said with trembling in his 
 voice, ' Sir, I am not the same man I was when 
 I came in with you. You have helped me to 
 see that I am not good. I have never sought 
 anything but money for its own sake. And I 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD 279 
 
 have never stopped to consider whether I did 
 right or wrong in getting money. Everyone 
 considers me hard-hearted. I do not suppose 
 one person loves me. But I have made up my 
 mind to become a different man. I will do my 
 best to think up all the men from whom I have 
 squeezed money wrongfully. And I will give 
 four rupees for every rupee which I have taken 
 wrongfully, so far as possible. But I never 
 can find half the people whom I have wronged. 
 So I shall give half of the rest of my property 
 to the poor, and I will try never again to take 
 money wrongfully ! ' What do you think of 
 that, Gangaram.'^ Did you ever know of any 
 guru [spiritual leader] who could do, or did, 
 things like that .? But that was what Jesus often 
 did, and now wants to do. He made very bad 
 women penitent and pure and humble. But, 
 strange to say, some of the priests hated Jesus 
 because He taught about God as He did, and 
 they plotted against Him and at last managed 
 to kill Him. But you would not expect that 
 death could defeat such as He, would you.'' Not 
 at all. They could put Him to death. But 
 they could not keep Him dead, and three days 
 
S80 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 after they had killed Him He rose from the 
 dead, and is alive now and forever will be, and 
 is near everyone to help him. And this letter 
 from which I read to you is principally taken 
 up with telling about Him. That is how it 
 came to be written. 
 
 " But there is a third way of getting ac- 
 quainted with men. It is to talk to them and 
 to hear what they say. That is the way in 
 which you and I are getting acquainted now. 
 You are now finding out what kind of a man I 
 am, what I think about and try to do, what 
 I want to do for you and other men. And I 
 am beginning to know you. Well, is there any- 
 thing which men do to one another which they 
 cannot do to God and God to them.'' We can 
 talk to one another. Can we not talk to God.^ 
 Of course we can. He that made the ear, shall 
 He not hear.? Talking to God is what Chris- 
 tians call prayer." Gangaram evidently does 
 not see this plainly. So I say, " I know what 
 troubles you. You cannot see God, and have 
 an idea that if any vow is to be made to Him 
 you need to go to an idol and by it be reminded 
 that He can be told something. But idols are 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD 281 
 
 not necessary. They are even a hindrance. 
 Cannot blind people who see nothing outwardly 
 talk to one another just as weU as those who 
 have eyes? Wait a minute." Then I step 
 behind a door, and ask, " Can you hear me? " 
 He says, " Yes." Then I say, " Speak to me. 
 Say, ' I hear you.' " He says, " I hear you." 
 Then I return and say, " When we could not see 
 each other we could hear each other just as well 
 as now, when we see one another, because we 
 were near. How near is God to us now? Nearer 
 than we are to each other. He is always right 
 by our side. What does your proverb say, 
 ' Not a leaf stirs without God's moving it.' So 
 God can hear us, hear even our thoughts, and 
 He wishes us to talk to Him. Is there not 
 something which you would like to say to God 
 now? " Then again Gangaram looks confused 
 and says, " What should I say ? " I reply, " I 
 will tell you what I think it would be well for 
 you to say to Him. Would it not be well to 
 say, ' I do not know Thee ; but I should like 
 to?'" "Yes." "And to say, 'Please make 
 me a better man? ' " " Yes." " And ' help me 
 in my business ? ' " " Yes." " And ' bless my 
 
282 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 family?'" "Yes." "Well, now, say those 
 four things to God; to the God who is nearer 
 you than I am, right by your side, who is like 
 that shepherd and that woman and that father, 
 and like Jesus Christ. Do not say them to me 
 or to the air, but to God." Again Gangaram 
 looks surprised and perplexed. He does not 
 know how to pray. So I say, " I will help you.. 
 Sentence by sentence I will suggest to you what 
 to say, and then you say them to Him; not 
 to the air, and not to me; but to Him." I 
 would not ask Gangaram to close his eyes, be- 
 cause that is no necessary part of prayer, and 
 because he would feel uncomfortable to do so 
 before a stranger. He might imagine that I 
 might make some passes over him with my hands, 
 or work some hocus-pocus. So I take hold of 
 one wrist and hold up his hand to help him feel 
 that he is really himself speaking to someone, 
 and not merely repeating words after me into the 
 air. " Now, Gangaram, say to God what I 
 have suggested to you, and what you really wish 
 to say to Him. Say it to Him, not to me, and 
 not to the air. I am only helping you. But 
 it must be you yourself who is speaking to God, 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD S83 
 
 who is right here and who is eager to have you 
 
 speak to Him. Say, ' O God, I do not know 
 
 Thee.'" "O God, I do not know Thee." "But 
 
 I should like to." "But I should like to." 
 
 " Please make me a better man." " Please make 
 
 me a better man." " And bless my family." 
 
 " And bless my family." " Now, Gangaram, 
 
 God not only heard what you said to Him ; He 
 
 cares. You have a Hindustani couplet which 
 
 says: 
 
 "*Do hathawale jitne hain 
 Un sabse chod hath, 
 Mang usse jiske hain, 
 Ab sau karor hath.' 
 
 [Withhold your hand from one that has only 
 two hands (i. ^., men), ask of Him who has a 
 thousand million hands.] If He has a thou- 
 sand million hands, how many hearts has He.? 
 A thousand million, and He cares for you, and is 
 ready to answer your wish. 
 
 " But do you suppose He can talk as well as 
 hear.'* Of course He can. He that made the 
 tongue, shall He not speak.? He talks straight 
 to every single person every day ; only He talks 
 in His own way. Many people do not know 
 
284i MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 that He is talking because they do not under- 
 stand how He talks. I will tell you. Animals 
 make a loud noise when they talk. The donkey 
 brays, the dog barks, the cow lows. But culti- 
 vated people, when they talk, speak low. But 
 God talks lower and stiller than the most cul- 
 tivated man or woman. He talks something; as 
 my wife sometimes talks to our children and to 
 me. Every morning when it is time to rise she 
 opens the windows and lets the light into the 
 room, and in that way she says to the children, 
 ' Now get up.' And every night when she puts 
 them to bed, she puts out the light, and that is 
 her way of saying, * Now, go to sleep.' That 
 is just the way in which God speaks to every- 
 one in the world every day. Every morning 
 He opens the windows and lets in the light, and 
 in this way says, ' Get up, everyone.' Every 
 night He puts out the light, and so in His way 
 saySy ' Go to sleep, everyone.' Every time that 
 He sends rain. He says in His own way, ' Look 
 out, get the fields ready to sow,' etc. Every 
 time that He sends a customer to you He says 
 to you, ' Now is your chance to earn money. 
 But be sure to make a good job!' That is. 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD 285 
 
 God speaks to everyone by what He does, just 
 as men do. The only trouble is that people do 
 not feel well enough acquainted with Him to 
 know that this is one of His ways of talking. 
 But it really is. God talks by everything that 
 He does. 
 
 " And another of His quiet ways of talking 
 is by putting thoughts into men's minds. That 
 is one way in which your wife and my wife talk 
 to us. Without saying one word out loud, by 
 her looks my wife often tells me what she wishes 
 to say. And the more I get acquainted with 
 her, the more I know what she is thinking about, 
 and what she wishes, and what she is glad for 
 or sorry for, by the thoughts which she puts 
 into my mind, without speaking loud. So God 
 talks to us by putting thoughts into our minds. 
 Every good thought which ever comes into your 
 or my mind, Gangaram, is God talking to us. 
 It does not happen. It is His voice. But how 
 little we realize that that is God's principal 
 way of communicating with His children! I 
 will tell you what I think God may be saying 
 to you now. I think He may be putting into 
 your mind this thought, ' These are the most 
 
286 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW 
 
 wonderful and the best things which I ever 
 heard.' " " That is so, Saheb." " WeU, Gan- 
 garam, that is God speaking to you." " You 
 would do well to act as if these things are true." 
 " Yes." " Well, that, too, is God's voice. And 
 every good thought that ever will come into 
 your mind will be God's voice to you. 
 
 " Now, Gangaram, the fourth way in which 
 to get acquainted with men is to live with them, 
 to go about with them, to see them do their 
 work, and to take their help in your work. 
 And that is also the way to get acquainted with 
 God. It is good to read His letter, to hear what 
 His messengers say, to talk to Him, and to 
 hear Him talk ; but all these are not enough if 
 you do not live with Him and have Him live 
 inside of you as He wants to live. Looking at 
 bread does not feed anyone. The bread must 
 be inside him. Hearing about water does not 
 satisfy anyone's thirst. It must be inside of 
 him. So hearing about God will not make you 
 acquainted with Him. He must be in your mind 
 and heart. If what I have said goes into one 
 ear and out of the other, that will not make 
 you acquainted with God. You must keep these 
 
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD ^Sl 
 
 things and Him in your heart and mind. Live 
 as though they were true. Tell your wife and 
 children and neighbors about them. Recognize 
 every customer as from God, and make every 
 plow and door and window as if you were 
 making it for God. Recognize every good 
 thought as from Him. Often look up and speak 
 to Him. In these ways, Gangaram, you can 
 become truly acquainted with God. He knows 
 all about you, and He wants you to become 
 acquainted with Him. 
 
 " Now, good-bye, Gangaram. Come and see 
 me as often as you can. When you can, come 
 to our church over there. You may not know 
 what its bell says. It was made in America, 
 but when it says, * Ding, dong,' that means, 
 ' Come, come.' Whenever it says, ' Ding, dong, 
 ding, dong,' it means, ' Come, come, everyone ; 
 come, come, Gangaram; come, come.' Come 
 whenever you can. Whenever you come there 
 you will hear more from this letter of God's ; 
 His messenger will tell you His messages ; we 
 shall talk to Him, and He will talk back to us, 
 by putting good thoughts into our hearts ; and 
 then we will act as if we were living with Him." 
 
^88 MISSIONS from the MODERN VIEW] 
 
 Friends In America, is there any other way 
 to become acquainted with God here than the 
 way of the old, old story as Gangaram heard 
 it ? Our Lord Jesus Christ truly said, " This 
 is life eternal; not that we should go by and 
 by to a safe place called heaven, but that we 
 should become acquainted with God here and 
 now, through Jesus Christ, whom He has sent." 
 This is life eternal, to be intimate with God; 
 to think His thoughts with Him; to respond 
 to His love for us ; to share His love for our 
 brother-men and sister-women; to be filial to 
 Him in our plans and lives, by the desire to 
 please Him and to have His blessed will done 
 everywhere as it is done in heaven. This is 
 what Jesus Christ helps men to do as no one 
 else, and why we need to take His help and 
 become Christians. This is life eternal, to be 
 acquainted with God. And the better that we 
 ourselves become acquainted with Him the more 
 we shall gladly do all we can to enable Him to 
 win every single human child of His in every 
 land to become acquainted with Him and to live 
 with Him as a son. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acquainted with God, how 
 
 to become, 262 
 Aims of the Missionary, 32 
 Akbar, 76 
 Arya Samaj, 83 
 Atonement in Hinduism, 
 
 163 
 Authority or influence for 
 
 the Missionary, 147 
 
 Benares, 154 
 
 "Better" the right word 
 
 for commending Christ, 
 
 39 
 Bhagavad Gita, 70, 175 
 Bhakti, 187, 201 
 Bhandarkar, 80 
 Bible, the, 226fF 
 Brahma Samaj, 81, 202 
 Brotherhood of Man, 216 
 Buddha, 64 
 Buddhism, 66ff 
 
 Caste, 108, 136 
 
 Chaitanya, 74 
 
 Charity, how to administer, 
 142 
 
 Christ, the human expres- 
 sion of God, 201 
 
 Christ, an example, 165 
 
 Christ, draws the Indian to 
 Himself, 117 
 
 Christ's divinity, 16 
 Christ's sufferings, 164, 
 
 182, 244 
 Christian, what it is to be 
 
 a, 227 
 Christians, why Indians 
 
 become, 11 Iff 
 Christian community, the, 
 
 81 
 Christianity defined, 49 
 Christianity, influence of in 
 
 India, 80 
 Christianity, the essence of, 
 
 215, 224 
 Christianity a growing 
 
 religion, 14, 216 
 Christianity is for all 
 
 men, 187 
 Church Government, 143 
 Cornelius, 31 
 Cross, the, 165, 167 
 
 Dadu, 79 
 
 Denationalizing to be 
 
 avoided, 142 
 Deussen, 157 
 Devout non-Christians, 200 
 
 Education, 141 
 Episcopresbygationalism, 
 145 
 
 S89 
 
290 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Environment explains 
 
 much, 180 
 
 Ethical teaching insuffi- 
 cient, 65, 86 
 
 Ethnic faiths, contact with 
 in Christendom, 199 
 
 Evolution, 12 
 
 Family organization in 
 India, 126ff 
 
 •' Father and Mother," 
 God as, 204 
 
 Fear formative in Hin- 
 duism, 55 
 
 Flesh, the, 53 
 
 Form an element of value, 
 211 
 
 "Fulfill," Christ seeks to, 
 26 
 
 "Fullness of time," 27 
 
 God like Jesus Christ, 16 
 God, the Fatherhood of, 
 
 216 
 God, how God talks, 283ff 
 God, how to talk to, 280ff 
 God's patience, 52 
 God's sorrow for sin, 244 
 Gore, Bishop, 219 
 Greek philosophy, 197 
 Guru Govind Singh, 78 
 
 Harmony with God through 
 
 Christ, 242 
 Hebrews, the epistle to the, 
 
 39, 219 
 
 Heredity explains much, 
 
 180 
 Hero-worship formative in 
 
 Hinduism, 58 
 Hindu characteristics, 97, 
 
 99, 104, 108, 214 
 Hinduism defined, 46, 156 
 Hinduism erroneously es- 
 timated, 48 
 Hinduism dying, 189, 216 
 Historicity not chief proof, 
 
 18, 205 
 Holy Spirit, the, 232, 253ff 
 Hopkins, E. W., 72, 189 
 
 Ideal, the value of the, 18, 
 
 206 
 Idolatry, 28 
 Illusion, 103 
 Illustration, the value of, 
 
 100 
 Imagination strong in the 
 
 Hindu, 98 
 Incarnation in Hinduism, 
 
 160 
 Incarnation in Christian- 
 ity, 159 
 Indian Christianity, 86 
 Indigenous good should be 
 
 conserved, 123 
 Influence or authority for 
 
 the missionary, 147 
 Intercourse with Christ, 
 
 how possible, 231 
 Islam, 14, 75 
 
 Jainism, 67 
 
INDEX 
 
 ^91 
 
 James' "Varieties of Relig- 
 ious Experience," 89, 93 
 
 Kabir, 77 
 
 Karma, 62, 166 
 
 Keshab Chundar Sen, 82, 
 
 207 
 Kipling, 91 
 Knowledge most valued in 
 
 India, 59 
 Krishna, 70 
 
 Laymen, 38 
 
 Left-hand phase in Hin- 
 duism, 71 
 Living with Christ, 236 
 
 Man a revelation of God, 
 
 21 
 Man in Hinduism, 160 
 Man in Christianity, 160 
 Men, God's need of, 25 
 Marriage system in India, 
 
 128ff 
 Mercy in Hinduism, 183 
 Metaphysics, value of, 208 
 Methods, missionary, 39 
 Missions, hopefulness of, 
 
 24 
 Mohammedanism, see Islam 
 Moozumdar, P. C, 83, 201 
 
 Nanak, 77 
 
 Nature in Hinduism, 56, 
 
 157 
 Need of Christ, 30 
 Need of missions, 41 
 
 " New Dispensation," the, 
 
 82 
 
 Oriental mind not logical, 
 96,99 
 
 Pantheism, evil effects of, 
 69, 84, 97, 106 
 
 Parananda, commentaries 
 by, 202 
 
 Pastors, how far neces- 
 sary, 146 
 
 Paul, 195, 217 
 
 Peter, 42, 193, 200 
 
 Philanthropy, 36 
 
 Polygamy, 137 
 
 Polytheism, 63 
 
 Prarthana Samaj, 83 
 
 Prayer, 168 
 
 Proportion, 19, 52 
 
 Protestants in Hinduism, 
 51 
 
 Psychology, as used in this 
 book, 89, 95 
 
 Puranas, 71, 159 
 
 Rammohun Roy, 81, 202 
 Ranade, 47, 202 
 Rebirth, 178 
 
 Religion defined, 13, 14, 155 
 Religion, universality of, 
 
 23 
 Religion covers all life, 210 
 Religions, all imperfect, 13 
 Repentance in Christianity, 
 
 244 
 Resurrection of Jesus as- 
 
292 
 
 INDEX 
 
 sures that He is alive, 
 229 
 
 Resurrection of Jesus as 
 viewed by Indians, 207 
 
 Revealed and natural re- 
 ligion, 12 
 
 Reverence in the East and 
 West, 44, 213 
 
 Roman influence on Chris- 
 tianity, 198 
 
 Sabbath question, the, 135, 
 
 143 
 Sacrifice, 61, 169 
 Sacrifice in Hinduism les- 
 sening, 203 
 Salvation in Hinduism, 
 
 162, 163, 165 
 Salvation in Christianity, 
 
 16, 162, 163 
 Shaivism, 71 
 Shakti worship, 73 
 Shankaracharya, 69 
 Sikhism, 77 
 
 Sin in Hinduism, 63, 161 
 Sin in Christianity, 162 
 Slater's Higher Hinduism, 
 
 150 
 Snakes, 56 
 
 Sociology defined, 118 
 Sociology important to the 
 
 Missionary, 119 
 Sonship to God through 
 
 Christ, 246 
 
 Suffering has spiritual 
 
 value, 181 
 Syllogism, the Indian, 102 
 
 Training Homes for Mis- 
 sionaries, 120 
 
 Transmigration, 177 
 
 Truth, search for by 
 Hindus, 171 
 
 Tukaram, 204 
 
 Unbaptized wives, 134 
 Unmarried missionary 
 
 ladies, 128flF 
 Upanishads, 60, 172, 176, 
 
 177 
 
 Vaishnavism, 47 
 
 Vallabhas, 72 
 
 " Varieties of Religious 
 Experience," 89, 93 
 
 Vedanta, 158 
 
 Vedas, 56 
 
 Vice, how to deal with, 139 
 
 Virgin birth of Jesus, non- 
 important, 206 
 
 Westcott, Bishop, 218 
 Widows, 185 
 Wilson, Dr., 115 
 Wisdom, 59 
 
 Yajnavalkya, 60 
 
 Yoga, 61, 186 
 
 Young Missionaries, 121 
 
 Zaccheus, 277. 
 
BOOKS OF THE YEAR 
 
 Missions and Modern History 
 
 A Study of the Bearing on Christian Missions of Some Great Event? 
 
 of the Ninteenth Century 
 2 Vols., 8vo, Cloth, net 4.00 ROBERT E. SPEER 
 
 Along the idea that "History is God teaching by example" Mr. 
 Speer has selected some of the most striking cribcsandinovcmcntsof 
 the past century and seeks to see in them the results on the spread of 
 the knowledge of God through Christian. missions. Among others 
 he studies in this way the Tai-ping rebellion, the Indian Mutiny, the 
 Rise of Japan, the Decline of Spanish Power in America and similar 
 events of great importance. 
 
 New Forces in Old China 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, Illustrated, net 1.50 ARTHUR J. BROWN, D.D. 
 
 To the preparation of years of study and correspondence. Dr. 
 Brown added a long visit to China so that his Information is unques- 
 tionable. 
 
 His aim is to show how the great transforming forces. Western 
 trade, Western politics and Western religion are making tremendous 
 changes in that sluggish mass we call China. 
 
 Amon^ the Burmans 
 
 i?mo. Cloth, Illustrated, net 1.25 H. P. COCHRANE. 
 
 This book covers what one wants to know about Burma : how it looks 
 something about the history and habits of the people ; net put in dry 
 statistical form, but told as a vivacious story ._ The religious conditions 
 are accurately diagnosed and what the missionaries have done and 
 may confidently expect to do 
 
 The China Martyrs of 1900 compucd by 
 
 ROBERT COVENTRY FORSYTH 
 
 Large 8vo, Cloth, with 144 Portraits and other Illustrations, net 2.00 
 A complete roll of the Christian heroes martyred in 1900, with the 
 story of their experiences as narrated by survivors. 
 
 "This simple, unpretentious record will take its place amongst mis- 
 sionary classics. — British Weekly 
 
 "It will be for all time the standard authority and narrative of this 
 harrowing series of martyrdoms in modern times.'' — The Watchman. 
 
 A Memorial of Horace Tracy Pitkin 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, net I CO ROBERT E. SPEER 
 
 "Mr. Speer has put the matter of the memorial into excellent shape. 
 There is much in it worth reading by people without special Christian 
 or mtssionpj-y interests, for Mr Pitkin m.iy be taken as one cflhc best 
 examples of a type of young man which has played and is playing some 
 considerable part in the work of the present generation."— iV- Y. Times 
 
 "No nobler type of manhood has sprung from our scil."— TA* 
 Outlook, 
 
BOOKS OF^ THE YEAR 
 
 TVi<» Vancs'ifar^. A Tale of Korea. JAMES S. GALE 
 
 1 ne V angUara. Author of "Korean Sketches 
 
 Illustrated, i2mo. Cloth, 1.50 
 "The readers of Mr. Gale's interesting story will have a better 
 conception of the sort of folk the Koreans are than could be gathered 
 from a dozen volumes of travel." — Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 "The book 13 eminently enjoyable ; it is hearty, unconrentlonal, 
 full of odd and unexpected bits of adventure, romance and character. 
 
 A capital book to read just now, and, indeed at any time." 
 
 — The Outlook. 
 
 The Story of James Chalmers ( '^Tamate") 
 
 His Life and Adventures Told for Boys 
 Illustrated, 12 mo. Cloth, $1.25 net RICHARD LOVETT, M. A. 
 
 Told in such a way as to catch the interest and sympathy of bojrs, 
 and to show that a man who is neither a soldier nor a traveler nor a 
 scientist nor a statesman may yet be a great hero. Many of the won- 
 derful and dangerous incidents in "Tamate's" long and strange life are 
 here described, often in his own words. These include many which 
 show how often he sto,d on the brink of death, and how enthusiastit 
 he was in his desire to uplift and to bless the wild savages of Raro- 
 tonga and Guinea. 
 
 Ax /^««M r^«4r«Y T^r\r**» A study of Home Missions with speial 
 r%X V/Ur V/Wn l^OUr reference to the South and West. 
 
 lamo. Cloth, Illustrated, net i.oo S. L. MORRIS, D.D. 
 
 "At Our Own Door" fills a demand for literature on the subject of 
 home missions that has long been felt. — Atlanta Journal. 
 
 The book is large in its grasp, particular in its presentations of 
 facts, sweet in its spirit, confident in its expectations of victory for 
 home missions, in every way worthy of the great cause for which it 
 pleads. — The Interior 
 
 Our People of Foreign Speech 
 
 i6mo. Cloth, 50c net ^ ^ SAMUEL McLANAHAN 
 
 A handbook distinguishing and describing those in the United 
 States whose native tongue is other than English. With particular 
 reference to religious work among them. 
 
 Tom Keenan Locomotive Engineer 
 
 A Story of Fifty Years on the Rail as told by Himself 
 Illustrated, i2mo. Cloth, net 1.00 _ Edited by NEASON JONES 
 Preserves in the vernaculrr the life story of a character as unique 
 
 and beneficent as Jerry McAuley, and demonstrates the remarkable 
 
 transformations effected among railroad men. 
 
 Boys of the Street : How to win Them 
 
 i6mo. Cloth, net 50c CHARLES STELZLB 
 
 "This little volume is full of useful suggestions to any who have 
 
 to do with boys clubs. j\lr. Stelzle has had the good fortune to form 
 
 his conclusions out of successful experieoce with boys." — The Outlook, 
 
N E W E D S T I O N S 
 
 The story of the Nazarene 
 
 Illustrations and maps, Svo, cloth, net i 75 NOAH K. DAVIS, LLD. 
 *'We have never before seen such historic imagination joined with 
 such thorough sanity . . . It is a Lving, breathing, throbbing story of 
 Jc3us' life, lull of deepest suggestion and profoundly impressive." — 
 Western Recorder. 
 
 Studies in Christian Character 
 
 i6mo, cloth, gilt top, 1,00 net W. L. WATKINSON, D.D. 
 
 "Scarcely another modern preacher draws from Nature's labora- 
 tory so many chaiming and brilliant figures and emblems. As a 
 preacher of sweet reasonableness, open eyed optimism, and tender 
 Evangelical znal and courageous intelleccual honesty, he has few 
 equals." — Methodist Review. 
 
 Studies in Life and Experience 
 
 i6mo, cloth, gilt top, net, i.oo W. L. WATKINSON, D D. 
 
 "He has what this poor world needs — vision." — Neiuell Lhvight 
 Hillis. 
 
 "Overbrimming with literary riches, which he uses with exquis- 
 ite taste for the illustration of truth and illumination of life." — Metho- 
 dist Review. 
 
 Times of Retirement 
 
 i2mo, cloth, 1.25 net'^ REV. GEORGE HATHESON 
 
 Devotional Meditations by the author of "Moments on the Mount," 
 
 etc. With a biographical sketch by the Rev. U. MacMillan. 
 "We would commend .his collection of short papers as unsurpassed 
 by anything of their kind. What one expects from such, one finds 
 here — deep feeling, clear insight, religious inspiration. It is charac- 
 teristic of these mediti^tlons that they begin In reflection, out of which 
 on the wings of thought devotion rises naturally in adoration and 
 prayer." — The Outlook. 
 
 The I^aCt of Christ second American edition 
 k lamo, cloth, 1.25 P. CARNEGIE SIMPSON 
 
 "A right manly, man«makmg volume." — Expository Times. 
 
 •'Distinguished both for intellectual clearness and keenness and 
 for moral cogency." — The Outlook. 
 
 "It is a good book. It lifts the reader high above the tenuous 
 mists of drifting doubts " — The Interior. 
 
 The True Estimate of Life and How to 
 
 I^ive G- CAMPBELL MORGAN, D.D. 
 
 Cloth, gilt top, net, 8oc New, enlarged and revised edition 
 
 "There is here a union of deep spirituality, fervor, rugged com 
 mon sense, clearness of insight and a firm grasp upon Biblical truth, 
 knowledge of men, and vigorous speech " — The Pacific. 
 
New Forces in Old China 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, Illustrated, net 1.50. ARTHUR J. BROWN, D.D. 
 
 "May be put in the same class with Smith's ' Chinese 
 Cha7-acteristics'' a work already regarded as a classic by all 
 sinologists. * * * One of the first writers to give full 
 credit to the force of economic and commercial factors. 
 * * Should be read by all who have political, commercial 
 or financial relations with the Far East." — The Inde- 
 pendent. 
 
 H. P. COCHRANE 
 
 Among the Burmans 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, Illustrated, net 1.25 
 
 "An unusually comprehensive account of one of the 
 most interesting Oriental peoples, and is entertaining as 
 well as instructive, enlivened with anecdote and gleams of 
 humor, while seriously religious in tone and practical in 
 purpose." — The Outlook, 
 
 A Tale of Korea. JAflES S. GALE 
 
 Author of "Korean Sketches. 
 
 The Vanguard : 
 
 Illustrated, i2mo. Cloth, 1.50. 
 
 "The readers of Mr. Gale's interesting story will have a 
 better conception of the sort of folk the Koreans are than 
 could be gathered from a dozen volumes of travel." — 
 Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 "The book is eminently enjoyable ; it is hearty, uncon- 
 ventional, full of odd and unexpected bits of adventure, 
 
 romance and character A capital book to read 
 
 just now, and, indeed at any time." — The Outlook. 
 
 The Story of James Chalmers (^'Tamate") 
 
 His Life and Adventures Told for Boys. 
 Illustrated, i2mo, Cloth, net 1.25. RICHARD LOVETT, M.A. 
 
 " From start to finish it is a volume of thrilling interest, 
 telling as it does the story of Chalmers' life from boyhood 
 until the day he fell a martyr under the blows of cannibals 
 in New Guinea. It is the record of the life of a man who 
 knew no fear and who counted not his life dear unto him- 
 self " — American Afessenger. 
 
 That Sweet Story of Old; 
 
 A Life of Christ for 
 Young People 
 HARQARET E. SANQSTER 
 
 Fully Illustrated, i2mo, Cloth, 1.25. 
 
 The ever-new life of Christ retold. The large expecta- 
 tion created by this author's name on the title page is fully 
 sustained in the pages of the work itself. 
 
Education in Religion and Morals 
 
 i2mo. Cloth. Gilt Top, net 1.35. Prof. GEORGE ALBERT COE 
 
 Author of "The Religion of a Mature Mind." 
 "We verily believe a more serviceable book has not re- 
 cently been issued from the press." — Wesley an Christian 
 Advocate. 
 
 " It strikes us that he has put his finger upon the vital 
 point in this matter, and that the principles he advocates 
 should be recognized and practically used in our systems 
 of education." — The Interior, 
 
 A Young Man's Make-Up james i. vance 
 
 i2mo, Cloth, net 75c. 
 
 "A message of inspiration for all alike but especially for 
 those just entering upon life. Dr. Vance is a vigorous 
 thinker and writer, and has the rare ability to see things 
 in their practical bearing. He is a bitter enemy of any- 
 thing savoring of cant, and his frank incisive utterances are 
 peculiarly adapted to catching and holding the attention of 
 young men." — Newark Evening News. 
 
 Quiet Talks on Prayer 40th thousand. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, net 75c. S.D.GORDON 
 
 "I cannot speak of it too highly. — R. F. Coy le, Ex- 
 Moderator General Asseriibly. 
 
 " A work altogether out of the ordinary. * * Came to 
 us almost like a revelation," — United Presbyterian. 
 
 Quiet Talks on Power 60th thousand. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, net 75c. S.D.GORDON 
 
 " Contains the most helpful discussions on Power from 
 on high that I know anything about." — -J. Wilbur Chap- 
 man, D.D. ' 
 
 "One cannot read far into this little volume without be- 
 ing convinced of its rare value." — Bible Teacher. 
 
 " We commend this book without any reservation." — 
 Sword and Trowel, London, Eng. 
 
 The Loom of Providence 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, net i.oo. ROBERT MacKENZIE, D.D. 
 
 "These are thoughtful and helpful sermons, brief 
 enough for easy reading, on suggestive topics and infused 
 with a hopeful and manly spirit of faith." — Congrega- 
 tionalism 
 
The Harvest of the Sea i, Sl\ln£ """ 
 
 Illustrated, i2mo, Cloth, net i.oo. 
 
 WILFRED T. GRENFELL, M.D. 
 
 A vivid story, in which fact is presented in fiction form, 
 of the Deep Sea Fisherman's life on the Dogger banks in 
 the North Sea and off the Coasts of Newfoundland and 
 Labrador. Full of thrilling heroic adventure in which men 
 count not their lives dear — "This also is the price of fish." 
 
 The White Peril in the Far East 
 
 A study of the ethical and international significance of the 
 
 Russo-Japanese war. 
 l2mo, Cloth, net i.oo. (By the Author of Evolution of the 
 Japanese.) SIDNEY L. GULICK, D.D. 
 
 The conclusions presented were gained from extended 
 intimate acquaintance and conversation with Japanese men 
 of affairs, with whom the author was in daily contact. 
 There is a yellow peril for us, but it is not so threatening 
 as the white peril for the Far East, which the white man is 
 determined to exploit for his own selfish ends regardless of 
 the yellow man's rights, 
 
 A Young People's History of 
 Japan, 
 
 BELLE M. BRAIN 
 
 A young people's history of Japan from the earliest days 
 down to the present. A great mass of information, his- 
 torical and otherwise, is here condensed with surprising 
 skill within the covers of a small volume. 
 
 The Heart of the World ^hSn^sodaHsm. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, 1.25. CHARLES M. SHELDON 
 
 Nothing that the author has written since his remark- 
 able little volume In His Steps, has presented with such 
 force and conviction — hovvbeit in story form — the great 
 principles for which he stands to-day a recognized ex- 
 ponent. 
 
 For a Free Conscience tt'SJLtc..^nry. 
 
 i2mo, Cloth, 1.50 LYDIA C. WOOD 
 
 Presents in a true light the Quaker ideals and life of the 
 early days. The Friends for hundreds of years have been 
 living "the simple life" yet often grossly caricatured in 
 Literature. In this author they find a sympathetic scribe 
 who knows their real life from the inside. 
 
 All About Japan 
 
 i2mo, Cloth, net 75 cts. 
 
Princeton Theoloqical Seminary Libra^ 
 
 1 1012 01 
 
 234 6468 
 
 
 Date Due 
 
 
 Ap8 '40 
 
 
 
 
 »■ 
 
 
 
 
 f> , 
 
 
 
 
 JA2f,-53 
 
 
 
 
 f£9 -K-, 
 
 
 
 
 MR ' " 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f) 
 
 
 
 

 - Ai/^S, fsxr