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 Kellogg, Samuel H. 1839- 
 
 1899. 
 A handbook of comparative 
 
 reliaion 
 
' /<#?IZ!?^^;^ 
 
 A HANDBOOK 
 
 OF 
 
 L :^dl922 * 
 
 £l£6/WL UUVK^ 
 
 Comparative Religion 
 
 REV. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 MISSIONARY TO INDIA, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 The Light of Asia and the Light of the World," " The Genesis and 
 Growth of Religion" " From Death to 
 Resurrection," etc., etc. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE WESTMINSTER PRESS 
 1899 
 
Copyright, 1899, by The Trustee* of 
 The Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath- 
 School Work. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prkfack ...... \ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The Classification of Religions - - 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Fundamental Agreements - - - ti 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Doctrine of the World-Religions Concern- 
 ing God - - - - - - 11 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Doctrine Concerning Sin - - - 37 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Doctrine Regarding Salvation - - 59 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Doctrine Concerning the Future - 90 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Practical Morals - - - - lltJ 
 
 CHAPTER VIll. 
 The Relation of the World-Religions to Chris- 
 tianity ..---- 157 
 iii 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It might perhaps seem as if such a brief and 
 incomplete discussion of the question of Com- 
 parative Eeligion, as is given in the following 
 pages, would he superlluous. Many of the 
 ablest scholars and specialists in the Avorld 
 have published of late years elaborate discus- 
 sions of the subject, which have laid all stu- 
 dents under lasting obligations. It is to be re- 
 gretted, however, that to a very great extent, 
 the general result of the presentation of the 
 subject, so far as it has hitherto been made 
 popularly accessible, has been to create a 
 widely spread impression that the difference 
 between the various religions of the world has 
 formerly been greatly exaggerated ; and that, 
 in particular, the teaching hitherto current in 
 the Church as to the exclusive position held by 
 Christianity as the one only divinely revealed 
 system of saving truth, is as erroneous as un- 
 charitable. 
 
 It seems to be imagined by many, that just 
 as we ought to have charitv toward our fellow- 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 Christians in various sections of the Church of 
 Christ, who hold on many points religious be- 
 liefs different from those wliich we have been 
 educated to receive, inasmuch as in all that 
 is essential to true religion and acceptance 
 with God, we are truly at one ; even so ought 
 we to regard those who are not even Christians 
 in name, but followers of one or other of the 
 great world-religions. It is strangely fancied 
 that howsoever these may differ from us in 
 many things, yet in all things which are essen- 
 tial to man's eternal well-being, they also are 
 practically at one Avith Christians ; so that, if 
 they but carefull}^ live up to the precepts and 
 observances prescribed in their several reli- 
 gions, it is thought that it is onh^ charitable to 
 suppose that their prospects for the life to 
 come may be, on the whole, as good as our 
 own. 
 
 The practical bearing of opinions of this 
 kind is only too obvious. When the Lord 
 Jesus Christ was about to ascend into heaven, 
 He gave unto Plis disciples orders, in the 
 clearest possible terms, to preach His gospel 
 in all the world, to every creature ; and that 
 with the object of making men who were 
 disciples of Buddha or Confucius, or worship- 
 ers of Jupiter or other of the gods of Greece 
 
Preface, vii 
 
 and Ivome, disciples to Himself, and worship- 
 ers of the one God and Father, whom He de- 
 clared that He had come into the world to re- 
 veal unto men. If, liowever, the view of the 
 other religions of tlie world which we have 
 just indicated, be correct, then it certainly 
 seems much of an impertinence that men 
 should undertake a proselytizing work of this 
 kind ; and it is only natural that people who 
 cherish such a view of the non-Christian reli- 
 gions, should withhold from Christian missions 
 both their service, their means, and their sym- 
 pathy. As a matter of fact, I have observed, 
 during many years' residence in India, and an 
 acquaintance more than usually extensive with 
 missions and missionaries in every part of the 
 world, that men and women who entertain so 
 favorable views of the various ethnic religions, 
 as all alike more or less perfect revelations of 
 the mind and will of God, are very rarely 
 found in the missionary ranks. But this is 
 only what we should naturally expect. 
 
 If then the facts set forth in the following 
 pages with regard to the most important of 
 these religions in the world of to-day, shall 
 prove helpful in enlightening any as to their 
 actual teachings, or correct in any case the 
 very radical and serious misconceptions on 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 this subject, which, we fear, are already begin- 
 ning to show their effect in dulling the mis- 
 sionary zeal of many professed Christians, one 
 great object of the writer will be attained. 
 
 It may not be amiss to remark that this 
 book has been perforce written under great 
 disadvantage, on account of the impossibility 
 of access to many valuable sources of illustra- 
 tion such as abound in libraries in Great 
 Britain and America ; for in such a small and 
 out-of-the-way station as has been of late the 
 author's home in India, such helps are prac- 
 tically not obtainable. I will only venture to 
 hope that for this lack some slight compensa- 
 tion may be found in the writer's many years 
 of residence and familiarity with the life and 
 language of the people, in such a great non- 
 Christian land as India. 
 
 S. H. Kellogg. 
 
 Landoub, Mussoorie, North India, 
 July, 1898. 
 
A HANDBOOK 
 
 OF 
 
 COMPARATIVE RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 At first, to the casual observer, the various 
 religions of mankind seem to present such a 
 chaos of conflicting beliefs as to defy classi- 
 fication. Upon somewhat fuller and more ex- 
 act knowledge, however, it becomes quite pos- 
 sible to bring all under a few distinct and com- 
 prehensive heads. First, we have the theistic 
 religions, of which, at present, Christianity, 
 Judaism, and ^lohammedanism, are the chief 
 examples. In the second place, we have the 
 pantheistic religions, of which the most im- 
 portant example is found in the popular reli- 
 gion of the Hindoos. Thirdly, paradoxical 
 though it may seem, we have atheistic reli- 
 1 
 
2 Handhook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 gions. Such appears to be the Shinto reli- 
 gion of Japan, that of the Jains in India, but, 
 most important by far, the religion of the 
 Buddha, who, in the Buddhist Scriptures, is 
 said to have declared of himself that nowhere 
 among gods or men, did he see any one wliom 
 it would be "proper for him to honor." In 
 the fourth place, we may name the prevailing 
 ancestor worship which is specially character- 
 istic of Confucianism. Originally, this would 
 appear to have coexisted w4th a general the- 
 istic belief in Shang Te as the Supreme God ; 
 but all agree that the worship of the Supreme 
 God forms no part of the Chinese religion of 
 to-day. 1 
 
 Lastly, we liave a large number of religions, 
 found for the most part among the uncultured 
 races, which may be classified in a general way 
 as " animistic." In all religions of this class, 
 the objects of popular worship are spirits of 
 various grades of power and importance, good 
 and evil, whom it is supposed to be important 
 to propitiate in order to man's earthly well- 
 being. In some of these, as in many of the 
 religions of Africa, a Supreme God is dimly 
 
 'Quite possibly Confucianism might be properly classified with 
 Buddhism as an atheistic velinlon; but in the official worship by 
 the eujperor in Pekin, there is still a vague recognition of God 
 under the name of Heaven. 
 
The Classification of Religions. 3 
 
 recognized ; but He is not believed to have 
 anything to do at present with human affairs, 
 and the crude religion of the people therefore 
 is not concerned with man's relations to Him. 
 
 Polytheism, as such, does not appear in this 
 classification ; for the reason that among dif- 
 ferent peoples, the popular polytheism is based 
 on very diverse presuppositions. The polythe- 
 ism of India, for instance, is grounded upon, 
 and is popularly justified by, pantheistic as- 
 sumptions ; while that of the Turanian aborig- 
 ines of India, such as the Santals, the Gonds, 
 and others, is animistic ; though among these 
 savage peoples, the existence of one great God, 
 above all the spirits and demons whom they 
 worship, is commonly recognized. With Him, 
 however, they believe that they have nothing 
 to do. So, again, among the northern Bud- 
 dhists, we have a type of practical polytheism 
 which rests upon, and is a development from, 
 the atheistic Buddhism. Similarly, nature wor- 
 ship, wherever it prevails, commonly rests upon 
 either pantheistic or theistic presuppositions, or 
 else is connected with animistic superstitions. 
 
 It should be remarked that in point of fact, 
 these different types of religion above enumer- 
 ated, are not in practice always sharply dis- 
 tinct. For example, while the popular Hin- 
 
4 Handbook of Comparative Religion, 
 
 dooism of the masses of the population of 
 India is correctly described as a pantheistic 
 polytheism, yet many religious observances, 
 more especially among the lower castes, are 
 undoubtedly of an animistic type, and have 
 arisen from the intercourse of the Aryan Hin- 
 doos with the aboriginal Turanian demon wor- 
 shipers whom they found living in the land 
 when first they entered it, and who still exist 
 to the number of several millions, in the more 
 remote and inaccessible parts of the country. 
 So also, although no faith is more emphatically 
 theistic than that of Islam, yet among certain 
 Mohammedan' sectaries, as, e. g., the Sufis, the 
 conception of the Deity has become distinctly 
 modified in the direction of a mystic pantheism. 
 As it were quite impossible within the limits 
 imposed upon the present work, to consider all 
 the various religions of each ij])Q^ ancient and 
 modern, it has been necessary to confine the 
 discussion to typical examples of each type, as 
 existing in the world of to-day. If animistic 
 religions have been but slightly treated, this 
 is simply because tlie}^ present us with no such 
 elaborated system of religious thought as we 
 find in the religious systems of the more culti- 
 vated races of the world ; so that there is com- 
 paratively little to be said as to the details of 
 
The Claasijication of Religions. 5 
 
 the religious beliefs of those who hold them. 
 But, as regards the practical purpose of the 
 present book, this is of the less consequence, 
 since Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and the 
 other religions of China, Avhich we have con- 
 sidered at length, together claim as their ad- 
 herents the immense majority — probably not 
 less than some 1,300,000,000 — of the human 
 race. 
 
 With these prefatory observations, we may 
 now proceed to inquire, What are the teach- 
 ings of the chief world-religions of to-day on 
 the fundamental questions of religion ? These 
 are, firstly, the being, nature, and character, of 
 God; secondly, the relation of man to Him, 
 especially as affected by the universal fact of 
 sin ; thirdly, concerning the way of salvation ; 
 fourthly, concerning the future of individuals 
 and of the world ; and, finalh^ the question as 
 to the duty of man to God and to his fellow- 
 man. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL AGREEMENTS. 
 
 It is not without much reason that man has 
 been defined as '• a religious animal." If we 
 define him as "a rational animal," as some 
 have done, there is left room for discussion ; 
 for it cannot well be denied that many actions 
 of the higher animals seem to indicate not 
 merely the operation of instinct, but also a 
 process of true reasoning. But no one has 
 ventured soberly to maintain that some ani- 
 mals are also religious. To speak of the re- 
 ligion of a monkey, a dog, or a horse, were 
 only to excite a smile. Man only is religious ; 
 and in the case of man, religion, in some form 
 or other, often no doubt very vague and ill- 
 defined, is universal. It is yet to be proved 
 that any tribe has ever been found so degraded 
 as to be utterly destitute of religious ideas. 
 The assertions to the contrary which have 
 often been made, have repeatedly b}^ further 
 investigation been shown to be erroneous. 
 
 Xo doubt when we thus speak of religion as 
 universal, we must use the word " religion " in 
 6 
 
Fuudai/iental Agreeinents. 7 
 
 a very broad sense; but however broad the 
 sense in which we take it, it is still true that 
 the possession of a religious faculty is one of 
 the most distinctive characteristics of the hu- 
 man race. 
 
 In any comparison of the various religions 
 wherein the religious nature of man manifests 
 its activity, we shall do w^ell first to note those 
 elements which are common to all. All reli- 
 gions, from the highest to the lowest, assume 
 the existence of a Power (or powers) superior 
 to man, on which he is dependent, and which j 
 is able decisively to influence his destiny. It ' 
 is also taken for granted in all religions that 
 the relation between man and the superior 
 PoAver or powers, is a necessary relation. Man 
 feels instinctively that he is born into this re- 
 lation, and that by no power or wisdom of his 
 own is he able to free himself from it. As to 
 the^iatur£LQlthe Power assumed, religions dif- 
 fer. Some regarcTtEFTower as one and only ; 
 others assume a plurality of such powers. It / 
 is however important to observe that in most, 
 if not all, cases where men worship gods many, 
 there is discoverable in the background of the 
 religious consciousness the dim outline of one 
 sole Power, of which the many who are wor- 
 shiped are either different manifestations, or 
 
8 Handhool: of ComjxtratAve Religion, 
 
 to which they hold a position strictly subordi- 
 nate. 
 
 More or less distinctly in all religions is the 
 thought also expressed, that because of man's 
 relation to this Supreme Power, certain things 
 are obligatory on him, and other things must 
 be avoided at the peril of suffering. It is true 
 that among many peoples morality has become 
 more or less dissevered from religion ; but it 
 would probably be hard to find a people so 
 far degraded that there remained not at least 
 some vague sense of responsibility for^ June's 
 actions ; and this is true, even although among 
 many such the commonly accepted theory of 
 religion logically precludes responsibility. 
 
 In all religions, again, is expressed the feel- 
 ing that between man and the Supreme Power 
 or powers, something is wrong; in other 
 words, all religions more or less distinctly ex- 
 press or appeal to man's sense of sin. This is 
 clear from various familiar facts ; but it is es- 
 pecially evidenced from the wide prevalence 
 of religious offerings and sacrifices, designed 
 to propitiate or conciliate the good will of the 
 Being worshiped, to Avhom the offerer feels 
 himself subordinate, and Avhose favor he be- 
 lieves to be necessar}^ to his well-being. The 
 significance of such religious observances is 
 
Funclamentid AgreemenU. 9 
 
 the greater, that in many instances they have 
 maintained their place even although, as in the 
 case of Mohammedanism, the authoritative 
 Book declares any propitiation of the Deity to 
 be impossible, or when, as in Hindooism, an 
 inexorable logic, which is accepted practically 
 by not a few, declares such ritual services to 
 be folly unworthy of a man who has attained 
 the supreme wisdom. 
 
 Again, more or less distinctly, religions 
 generally assume- that there is for man a state 
 of being after death; and that the conse- 
 quences of wrongdoing or right-doing in this 
 present life will follow a man after death. 
 There is no doubt a very great difference in 
 the way in which this life after death is con- 
 ceived ; and indeed, in some instances, as 
 notably in the primitive Buddhism, the ortho- 
 dox teaching seems even to deny the existence 
 of a soul which can live after the death of the 
 body. And yet even in Buddhism one meets 
 with much that seems inconsistent with this 
 denial; while the constant tendency of man- 
 kind in such cases is still to insist, despite the 
 philosophers, on the reality of a state of future 
 rewards and retributions. The profound sig- 
 nificance of this fact needs but to be men- 
 tioned. 
 
10 Handhook of Comparative Religion, 
 
 Finally, it is to be observed that the general 
 acceptance, in religions the most diverse, of the 
 fundamental beliefs which have been enumer- 
 ated, gives the strongest a priori reason for 
 inferring that to these beliefs correspond 
 veritable spiritual realities in the unseen 
 world. For these are beliefs which have been 
 so universally accepted in all ages by men of 
 both the highest and the lowest degree of 
 culture, that we can hardly avoid the conclu- 
 sion that they must be due to a certain instinct 
 of man's nature. But where in the whole 
 kingdom of life is there an instance of an in- 
 stinct or appetency universal in any species, 
 to which, nevertheless, nothing whatever in its 
 environment corresponds? Is it not then in 
 the last degree improbable that man should 
 exhibit a unique and solitary exception to a 
 law which elsewhere appears to be universal? 
 and that, too, in regard to a matter which 
 most vitally concerns his conduct and happi- 
 ness, even in this present state of existence 1 
 
CHAPTEE in. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS 
 CONCERNING GOD. 
 
 In any comparison of the various religions 
 of mankind, fundamental to all else is tlie in- 
 quiry as to what they severally teach with 
 regard to the existence and the nature of the 
 Supreme Being. 
 
 Christianity assumes the existence of a God 
 who is self-existe nt, and therefore eternal. 
 All else exists only because He has willed its 
 existence; He alone exists necessarily, and 
 therefore from eternity to eternity. 
 
 Secondly, the God of Christianity is a 
 personal Being. By this we mean that He is 
 eternally distinct and separate from all other 
 beings, rational or irrational, personal or im- 
 personal ; that He is eternally and necessarily 
 conscious of Himself as the eternal Ego ; and, 
 finally, that He is possessed of the power of 
 free self-determination. In all His acting, He 
 acts, not under any inner law of physical ne- 
 cessity, as w^hen a tree produces a flower, but 
 as we act ; namely, through an absolutely free 
 11 
 
12 Handbook of Comparative Beligio7i. 
 
 and unfettered choice, alike of various ends 
 and of the means to secure them. 
 
 Again, the God of Christianity is a moral 
 Being, loving righteousness and hating in- 
 iquity. Hence His choosing is never like the 
 arbitrary choice of a human despot, who 
 chooses and decrees whatever he will, often 
 through mere caprice and unjustly. His 
 choices and decisions are always determined 
 with reference to those eternal principles of 
 righteousness, goodness, and truth, of which 
 His own nature is the eternal and absolutely 
 perfect expression. 
 
 Again, in all His attributes as such an in- 
 telligent, moral Agent, the God of Christianity 
 is represented as ab ^utely without limjta- 
 tions. As to His Being, He is without begin- 
 ning and without end, and He fills hnmensity 
 with His presence. He is not merely more 
 wise, more just, more good, more holy and 
 loving than any other being, but He is infi- 
 nitely wise, infinitely just, infinitely good, 
 infinitely holy, and infinitely loving and 
 merciful. 
 
 Hence, in consistency with all this, the God 
 of Christianity is represented as Sole, Unique, 
 and Supreme. There is no other like Him; 
 there is no other associated with Him. In all 
 
Doctrine of the World- Religions. 13 
 
 His boundless perfections, He is absolutely 
 solitary and unique. 
 
 But the Church in all ages has generally 
 understood the Holy Scriptures also to teach 
 that in the unity of the Godhead there is a 
 Trinity of Personality. The one and only 
 God, indivisible in His essence, exists neces- 
 sarily and eternally as Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit. For the Eternal Love there ever ex- 
 isted within the unity of His own Being and 
 Essence, an eternal and infinitely worthy 
 object of that Love, revealed to us as the 
 " well-beloved Son " ; and there is also an 
 eternal holy fellowship of the Father and the 
 Son in a Third, even the Holy Ghost. And 
 yet though the one God thus exists in persons 
 three, nevertheless, according to the belief of 
 the universal Church, the Three are not three 
 Gods, but God is in His essence One eternally. 
 
 This is not the place to argue this ineffable 
 mystery : our present object is merely to state, 
 for the purpose of comparison with other re- 
 ligions Avhat, as a matter of fact, the over- 
 whelming majority of Christians have for cen- 
 turies understood to be the clear teaching of 
 the Holy Scriptures as to the nature of God. 
 
 From the conception of God above set forth, 
 it follows that such a Being must be the Cre- 
 
14 Handbook of Com/parative Religion, 
 
 ator and the Moral_Goy^rnox..Qf.the universe. 
 If He is the only self-existent One, and is pos- 
 sessed with all the attributes assigned to Him, 
 then evidently, if anything else exists, it must 
 exist simply because it is God's will that it 
 should exist. And again, if any creature, ra- 
 tional or irrational, act in any way, this must 
 be because God, according to the nature of the 
 case, either causes it to act, or, for whatsoever 
 inscrutable reason, allows it so to act. In a 
 word, the Christian doctrine on this subject 
 is summed up in the words of the apostle 
 Paul : " Of Him, and through Him, and to 
 Him are all things." ^ 
 
 If we inquire more particularly as to what 
 Christianity teaches as to the relation of God 
 to the world, it is to be answered that He at 
 once transcends^ the .universe, and is also im- 
 manent therein. He transcends the universe, 
 as the phrase is. That is, in time and in space 
 He is before all, and beyond all, and independ- 
 ent of all. Hence He is by no means to be 
 identified with the universe of matter or mind, 
 as if these were the phenomena of which He 
 is the eternal substrate. Before any of these 
 were, He was. 
 
 But no less is it the doctrine of Christianity 
 
 ' Rom. xi. 36. 
 
Doctrine of the World- Religions. 15 
 
 that . God is immanent in all things. This as- 
 pect of the relation of God to the world, — of 
 which the perversion is pantheism — has in ear- 
 lier days been too much overlooked by theolo- 
 gians, but in our day is again much insisted on 
 by Christian thinkei's, and with abundant rea- 
 son. For this is the constant teaching of those 
 sacred writings which are the foundation of 
 Christianity. Xo less than on God's transcend- 
 ence to all, do they also insist on His imma- 
 nence in all things. " In Him we live, and 
 move, and have our being ; " ^ " in Him," as the 
 eternal Son, " all things consist." ^ The various 
 activities of nature are constantly referred to 
 God in terms which, as modern physical sci- 
 ence unmistakably suggests, are not so much 
 the language of poetry, as the sober and accu- 
 rate phraseology of careful statement of fact. 
 But in view of comparisons to be hereafter 
 instituted, it is of importance to notice here 
 that the Christian Scriptures do not allow us 
 to infer from this immanence of God in all 
 things, that He is therefore t he sole reaL Agent 
 in all the various activitij5S_oi. man. While 
 spirit, soul, and body are all upheld in being 
 by the incessant operation of His almighty 
 power, so that it is true that " in His hand our 
 
 » Acts xvii. 28. "Col. i, 17 (r. v.). 
 
16 Handhook of Corrvparative Religion. 
 
 breath is, and His are all our ways ; " ^ yet when 
 a man acts, it is he himself who acts, and not 
 God. He acts moreover under no necessity of 
 external constraint, but in the fullest and 
 most unhindered exercise of that freedom of 
 personal choice without which indeed he could 
 not be regarded as in any true sense a respon- 
 sible moral agent. 
 
 Such, then, in brief, is the teaching of Chris- 
 tianity as to the being and nature of God, and 
 His relation to the universe of matter and spirit 
 which He has made. 
 
 ^N^earest of kin to Christianity among the 
 ethnic religions, is ^Johammed^ jsai. Most 
 strenuously, as all know, Islam insists on the 
 spirituality, unity, and personality, of God. 
 " There is no God but God," is the keynote of 
 the theology of Islam. Yet even here we are 
 met by a difference from Christianit}" most 
 profound and far-reaching. For when the Mo- 
 hammedan affirms witli such energy the unity 
 of God, he means thereby not merely to deny 
 all polytheism, but also the doctrine of the 
 trinity of persons in the unity of the Godhead, 
 as held by the immense majority of Christian 
 people. Those who have labored among Mo- 
 hammedans will agree that when the Moham- 
 
 ' Dan. V. 23. 
 
Doctrine of the World- Religions, 17 
 
 medan so insists on the unity of God, he has 
 indeed in mind above all else, the Christian 
 doctrine of the Holy Trinity. To affirm this, 
 he declares, is to be guilty of the damnable sin 
 of "^AiV^"/ i. e.^ of affirming that God has a 
 '' shar\k " or associate ; no less than if one af- 
 firmed the existence of the many gods of the 
 polytheist. 
 
 Again, while Islam affirms, in opposition to 
 pantheism, that God is a personal Being, it yet 
 so represents — or rather, misrepresents — this 
 truth, that the idea of personality is caricatured. 
 For while it is true that personality is centered 
 in will, and implies the perfect moral freedom 
 of the agent ; yet the highest possible concep- 
 tion of personality does not imply a power to 
 will arbitrarily, without reference to the na- 
 ture of the person willing, or to reasons be- 
 lieved by him to be good and sufficient for 
 willing as he does. Hence, while Christian 
 theology attributes to God the power of free 
 self-determination, it is ever careful to explain 
 that this self-determination is not arbitrary, 
 but that, on the contrary, God in all His choos- 
 ing is determined by the highest reason and 
 righteousness, and the most perfect goodness 
 and love.v Thus while the Holy Scriptures un- 
 mistakably teach that in the life to come God 
 
18 Handbook of Contparative Ileligwn. 
 
 will punish many of the human race with ex- 
 treme severity, yet they never represent this as 
 proceeding from arbitrary caprice, but always 
 as based on a moral reason ; namely, tlie free 
 choice by such men of sin, and their incorrigi- 
 ble persistence in rebellion against the infinite 
 Love. 
 
 In contrast with this, one of the most emi- 
 nent and enlightened Mohammedan doctors of 
 our day, regarding this matter has used the 
 following startling language : " It is the pre- 
 rogative of God, if He please, without repent- 
 ance, to pardon all sins, except that of shirk; 
 or again, if He please, to visit His wrath upon 
 the very smallest of all transgressions." ^ In 
 this we have self-determination no doubt, and 
 therefore personality, but a Avill which is freed 
 from the control of all considerations of rea- 
 son and righteousness.^ 
 
 The contrast between Mohammedan and 
 Christian teaching regarding God, comes out 
 still more impressively when Ave consider the 
 question of the divine attributes. Both alike in- 
 sist indeed on the infinite wisdom, power, and 
 
 'Sir Sayart Ahmad Kliaii, in the Introduction to his Commen- 
 tary on the Booli of (ienesis. 
 
 ' Compare the words of Kuenen : " It was not In tlie God of the 
 Mutazilite, wliose essence was rigliteousness, but in llie God of 
 Orthodoxy, the Almifility. subject to no other rule than His own 
 caprice, tliat tliey recognized their own and Mohammed's AUaii." 
 Hibbert Lectures. 1882, p. 49. 
 
Doctrine of the World- Religions. 19 
 
 goodness of God, but they stand in profound 
 contrast regarding tlie relation and proportion 
 of His attributes. In the foreground of the 
 Mohammedan system, beyond question, stands 
 the almiffhtines s_jpf God. In the front of the 
 Christian system of doctrine stands the infinite 
 love of God. " God is love " is an apostolic 
 summary of theology. Yet, according to the 
 gospel, neither the power nor the love is 
 ever exercised capriciously. When God puts 
 forth His almighty power, this is ever to carry 
 out the purposes of His infinite righteousness 
 and love. In like manner, when God displays 
 His love, it is ever in full accord with right- 
 eousness, and under the limitations imposed by 
 the fact that He is as righteous as He is lov- 
 ing, and as holy as He is kind. Consequently, 
 when He pardons. He pardons righteously, no 
 less than when He condemns ; and is declared 
 to be " just " even when He " justifies the un- 
 godly." ^ And although He is infinite in love 
 and compassion, so that to save the guilty He 
 is said to have given His only begotten Son ; - 
 yet when men, in the unfettered exercise of 
 their power of free choice, persist in impeni- 
 tence and rebellion, they are not by the love of 
 God, exercised in a way of weak and unholy 
 
 » Rom. iii. 26. ' John iii. 16. 
 
20 Handhook of Com^parative Religion. 
 
 indulgence, saved from the just consequences 
 and heavy penalties of their sin. Yet in it 
 all, the Christian revelation ever holds forth 
 God as the God of holy and infinite love. The 
 keynote of both the Old and the New Testa- 
 ments is that which Ave hear in the words of 
 the prophet Ezekiel : " As I live, saith the 
 Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of 
 the wicked. . . . Turn ye, turn ye from 
 your evil ways ; for why will ye die ? " ^ 
 
 Most impressive and most sad is the con- 
 trast herein with the character of God as pre- 
 sented in the Quran and the Hadis.'^ It is 
 quite true that here and there in the Quran 
 we find representations of God which so far as 
 they go, are true in thought and sublime in 
 expression. A Christian can well join in the 
 ascription of praise which we find in Sura 1 : 
 
 " Praise be to God, Lord otall the worlds, 
 The Compassionate, the Merciful, 
 King ou the Day of reckoning ! 
 Thee only do we worship, and to Thee do we cry for help.*" 
 
 But although God is continually praised as 
 ^' the Most Merciful," His mercy is not thought 
 of as springing from His nature as eternal 
 
 » Ezek. xxxiii. 11. 
 
 *The autliorized Mohammedan Tradition. 
 
 ^ See also a number of passages brou^lit topetlier by Mr. Bos- 
 worth Sniitli in his Mohammed and Mohammedanism, pp. 179-181. 
 
Doctrine of the World- Religions. 21 
 
 Love, but as exercised in the most arbitrary 
 caprice. The one attribute which in the Quran 
 and all Mohammedan writings is ever placed 
 in the foreground, is not God's love, but His 
 power. The names of God are reckoned at 
 ninety and nine, but the name " Father " is not 
 among them. Sir William Muir has rightly 
 said : *' We may search the Quran in vain from 
 beoinning to end for any such declaration as 
 thH ' The Lord is not willing that any should 
 perish,' or 'Who will have all men to be 
 saved.' " ' On the contrary, again and again 
 God is represented as misleading men and 
 causing them to believe error. 
 
 Kor is this to be understood as merely 
 meaning, as in the Christian Scriptures, that 
 He abandons the incorrigible to their self -chosen 
 ways of sin and error. Gn the contrary, God 
 is represented as saying that He actually cre- 
 ated those who are damned in order that hell 
 might be full. Thus, e. g., we read : " li thy 
 Lord pleased, He had made all men of one re- 
 lio-ion; . . . but unto this hath He created 
 them; for the word of thy Lord shall be ful- 
 filled ; Verily, I will fill hell altogether with 
 genii and men."' And so again: '*We cre- 
 
 ' The Covan. its Composition and Teaching, p. 56. 
 " Sura xl. 119. 
 
22 Ilandhook of Cotnparative Religion. 
 
 ated man of a most excellent fabric; after- 
 ward we rendered him the vilest of the vile," ' 
 
 Again, the God of the Quran is not a holy 
 God. The word qiiddus, meaning '' holy," is 
 indeed used of God ; but practically one rarely 
 hears the word applied to Him. The Eev. S. 
 M. Zwemer, missionary to the Mohammedans 
 at Busrah, rightly says that in the Quran the 
 word quddus " nowhere occurs in its biblical 
 sense of ' pure in heart,' ' separate from sin.' 
 God is called once or twice ' the holy King,' 
 but the reference is more to His glory and 
 majesty than to His holiness." That which 
 the same authority says of the Arabs, is true 
 also of the Mohammedans of India: "The 
 very word ' holy ' is an unusual, often an unin- 
 telligible one to the Arabs about the Persian 
 Gulf. It is the name least frequently given to 
 Allah among all the ninety and nine beautiful 
 names they number on the rosary of Islam." 
 
 Xot to enlarge further, we may thus say 
 without hesitation that the representation of 
 the character and nature of God which is 
 found in the Quran, and that which is given in 
 the Christian Scriptures, are, in matters the 
 most vital, diametrically opposed the one to 
 
 ' Sura xcv. 4, 5. See also. The Coran, bv Sir William Mufr, p. 
 52, footnote t, where is given a list of twenty-two texts of tbe 
 Quran to the same effect. 
 
Doctrine of ih*' World-Beligions. 23 
 
 the other. In name, the God of Mohammed 
 is the God of Abraham, of the prophets, and 
 of the Lord Jesus ; but in fact, He is repre- 
 sented as a Being of a very different char- 
 acter. 
 
 Hindooism, whether ancient or modern, 
 teaches a doctrine concerning God, which 
 offers the greatest contrast to both that of Chris- 
 tianity and of Islam. It is however difficult 
 to state with any brevity the teaching of 
 Hindooism concerning God, for the reason 
 that the " Six Systems " of philosophy which 
 are regarded as authoritative among all ortho- 
 dox Hindoos, differ radically among them- 
 selves as to this very question of a God. But 
 no_one of all these systems teaches the exist- 
 ence of a God who is perso nal. Two of them, 
 indeed, acknowledge no Supreme Euler, and, 
 like Buddhism, make the abstraction of 
 hirmma or " deeds " to be in effect, the su- 
 preme power to which all things are due. But 
 leaving the teachings of the Hindoo Scriptures 
 and dealing with the actual beliefs accepted by 
 the mass of the Hindoos to-day, Ave may safely 
 say that all their belief and thinking regarding 
 the being and nature of God are determined by 
 the pantheism o"^ the Yedantic system of philos- 
 
24 Handbook of Comparative Religion, 
 
 ophy. Thus every Hindoo, howsoever many 
 gods and goddesses he may acknowledge and 
 worship, will none the less steadfastly main- 
 tain that God is one and one only. The for- 
 mula which represents their faith is found in the 
 words, " eka7nhrahmam dvitiyandsti : Brahma 
 is one and there is no second." But these 
 words, which in sound so perfectly agree with 
 Christian teaching, in reality have in the mind 
 of the Hindoo a very different meaning. For 
 by this formula it is intended, not that besides 
 Brahma there is no second God, but that be- 
 sides Him, — or It — there is no_seconxlj'eal ex- 
 istence whatsoever. In other words, the God 
 of the Hindoos is not a personal Being. This 
 is indeed indicated by the fact that in the 
 above and similar Sanskrit expressions the 
 word for " God " is neuter. 
 
 As regards the attributes of God, it is one 
 of the commonplaces of Hindooism that 
 Brahma exists in a twofold form ; viz, nirgun, 
 and sagu7i, lit. " witli bonds," and " without 
 bonds." In other words He is to be thought 
 of either as with, or as without, attributes ; or, 
 more precisely, in our modern philosophical 
 terminology, as " unconditioned," or as " con- 
 ditioned." In His essential ultimate nature 
 He is " unconditioned " ; as manifested in the 
 
Doctrin<i of the World- Betigiona. 25 
 
 universe of mind and matter He is "condi- 
 tioned." As nirgtm, He is declared to be 
 an " invisible, imperceptible, formless, infinite, 
 and immutable Essence," which not only was, 
 and is, and ever shall be, but besides which 
 nothing else ever really was, or is, or can be. 
 This is not merely the doctrine of learned 
 Sanskrit works, of which the masses know 
 nothing, but is the teaching of the most popu- 
 lar of North India poets, Tulsi Das, who says, 
 in the Bal Kand of his Eamayan, " Both un- 
 conditioned and conditioned is Ram's essential 
 nature;" "Ineffable, incomprehensible, with- 
 out beginning, and without his like." 
 
 Hence, while the God of Christianity is a 
 personal Being, eternally and necessarily self- 
 conscious and self-determining, the God of the 
 Hindoos is not a personal Being, nor is he es- 
 sentially distinct either from man or from the 
 universe. This, again, is not merely the doc- 
 trine held by the learned and educated few, 
 but is the belief of the people generally. Even 
 from ignorant coolies who cannot read, I have 
 often heard the words. Ham nsl he ansh 
 hain, "We are parts of That One ; " or, again, 
 Jo loltd hai, so loahl hai, " He who speaks is 
 That One ; " that is, whenever I speak, that in 
 me which speaks is God. Or, again, they will 
 
2(^ Handbook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 say, Kartta waM hai^ " That One is the 
 Agent." 
 
 Some have fancied, however, that there was 
 at least a real and ver^^ suggestive analogy be- 
 tween the Hindoo and the Christian concep- 
 tion of God, in the Hindoo doctrine of the Di- 
 vine Triad, Brahma, Yishnu, and Shiva, the 
 Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, who are 
 each the one God. But the analogy is super- 
 ficial and utterly misleading. For the Chris- 
 tian teaching represents the threeness in the 
 one essence of the Godhead to be a threeness 
 of persons ; such that the Father and the Son 
 can reciprocally address each other as " Thou," 
 etc., etc. But Brahma, Yishnu, and Shiva are 
 not regarded as three distinct persons, but as 
 ideally three manifestations of the One Being, 
 which — in another than the Christian sense — 
 is all and in all. Brahma is That One, con- 
 ceived as originating new manifestations of be- 
 ing ; Yishnu, as maintaining these manifesta- 
 tions ; Shiva, as bringing them to an end ; 
 and, indeed, as these three are one, so their 
 work also, from the Hindoo point of view, is 
 one. For it is argued : There is no creating of 
 something new which does not involve the 
 bringing to an end of that thing or condition 
 which existed before it ; hence, the act of 
 
Doctrine of the World-IteligioiUi. 27 
 
 origination and of destroying are really one 
 and inseparable ; and, again, what is preserva- 
 tion but a continued creation ? 
 
 It follows from this popular conception of 
 God that when a Hindoo assents to the Chris- 
 tian affirmation of certain attributes as belong- 
 ing to the Supreme Being, he does not mean 
 what the Christian means. He will readily 
 admit that God is all-powerful, but meaning 
 that all_pg\yer is really His power, and that we 
 cannot set limits to that power ; that He is om- 
 niscient, inasmuch as all knowing is His know- 
 ing; omnipresent — or rather, all-pervasive; 
 but only because all that is, is His very essence. 
 He will admit that God is holy, but explains 
 this in such a way that it is clear at once that 
 he does not mean by tliis what the Christian 
 means ; but only that all holiness is of God in 
 the same pantheistic sense and manner in 
 which also all unholy actions are, no less truly, 
 the acts of that one only Agent. Hence, it is 
 extremely difficult to make the ordinary 
 Hindoo feel that there is anything in, for in- 
 stance, the unspeakable licentiousness imputed 
 to Krishna, or the awful blood thirstiness at- 
 tributed to Shiva or Kali, which is inconsistent 
 with the supposition that each of these is trulv 
 Divine, and to be worshiped as such. It is 
 
28 Ilandbook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 quite true that an ineradicable instinct of social 
 self-preservation has led Hindoo writers to 
 teach that in acts of such a character their sup- 
 posed deities are not to be imitated bv us; a 
 counsel logically incU^feiisible and not always 
 observed ; but it is only too generally believed 
 that their favorite poet, Tulsi Das, was quite 
 right in his constantly quoted dictum : '' To the 
 mighty, O Gusain, is no sin." ^ 
 
 From all this it is evident that Hindoo poly- 
 theism is not inconsistent with the universal 
 insistence of the Hindoos on the unity of God, 
 as they understand that unity ; but is instead 
 securely grounded on it. If everything — 
 whatever else by renson of ignorance it may 
 appear to me to be — is realh^ God, then it is 
 assuredly right to regard and worship any- 
 thing as God. Whether it be the intellectual 
 Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita, or the licen- 
 tious Krishna of the Prem Sagar ; Avhether the 
 glorious sun or the — very common — obscene 
 symbol of the ling or united ling and yoni^ 
 each is Divine, and lie who likes may worship 
 either without blame. Even so, the evil char- 
 
 »This Js not merely an unpractical speculation. In the speech 
 made in 1897 at Poona by the Hon. Mr. Gangadhar Tilak, which 
 was tlie occasion of his nnest, trial, and imiirisonment on the 
 charge of inciting to rebellion against the British Government of 
 India, he justified the Maliratta hero, Sliiva Jee, in Mie assassina- 
 tion of the then Mohammedan ruler, expressly on tins ground. 
 
Doctrine of the World- Religions, 29 
 
 acter of many of their supposed incarnations 
 is not inconsistent with Hindoo belief as to the 
 attributes of God, but is evidently in full ac- 
 cord therewith. 
 
 It only remains to be added that this teach- 
 ing of Hindooism as to the being and nature 
 of God, logically involves what tlie Hindoos 
 commonly believe as to the relation of God to 
 the world. All Hindoos agree that God is the 
 Creator of the Avorld ; but, again, they mean 
 not by this what the Christian means by such 
 words. That God created the world out of 
 nothing, according to Hindooism, is not for a 
 moment to be believed. The Sanskrit maxim 
 is regarded as expressing axiomatic truth : — 
 ndvastuno vastiisiddhih, " out of nothing noth- 
 ino- can come." Christianitv teaches that God 
 is the efficient cause of the world ; Hindooism, 
 that He is the material cause . That is. He is 
 the cause of the existence of the world in the 
 sense in which the clay is the cause of the ex- 
 istence of the pot which is made of it. Or, to 
 use their own favorite illustration : H I go 
 into a dark room and see a rope which I mis- 
 take for a snake, the rope is the cause of the 
 appearance of that snake ; even so, when I see 
 the world, which seems to every one to be 
 other than God, yet is really That One, I must 
 
30 Ilamlhook of Comparntlce Religion, 
 
 say that God is the cause of what appears to 
 me to be a world. 
 
 Also, as according to the Hindoo concep- 
 tion, God is not, in the Christian sense, the 
 Creator of the world, so neither is He to be 
 thought of as in any true sense its Moral Gov- 
 ernor. For it is evident that the everyday 
 phrase among the Hindoos, Karttd icaM hai 
 ^' He himself is the Agent " — i. e., in all man's 
 seemingly free actions — excludes the idea of a 
 moral government of the world by God. Hin- 
 dooism indeed admits that there is a necessary 
 and inevitable sequence between our acts and 
 their reward or retribution ; but tliis is not be- 
 cause of any moral government of the w^orld 
 by God, as we understand it ; but only because 
 of an inherent and necessary, but non-moral, 
 nexus between harmma and joArtZ, " works " 
 and "fruit." And indeed if the personality 
 of God be denied, where is there left any place 
 for the conception of His moral government ? 
 
 Such in merest outline is the teaching of 
 Hindooism as to the being and nature of God. 
 If there be at first sight not a few points of 
 apparent similarity to Christian doctrine, yet 
 a very little examination shows that the simi- 
 larity is chiefly apparent, and that the contra- 
 dictions between the teaching of the two sys- 
 
Doctrine of the World- Religions. 31 
 
 tems as to this most fundamental question, far 
 outweigh any real agreements. 
 
 Buddhism in recent years has been much 
 lauded by many as a religion which, more than 
 any other, agrees with Christianity. We have 
 been told that Buddha, no less than Jesus 
 Christ, taught the existence of a personal God. 
 Mr. James Freeman Clarke has told his readers 
 that the object of the life of Sakya Muni " was 
 to attain nirvana^ ... a union with God, 
 the Infinite Being." ' Mr. Ernest de Bunsen 
 has gone even further and declares that the 
 doctrine of Gautama Buddha " centered in the 
 belief in a personal God."^ But over against 
 such assertions we may place the well-nigh 
 unanimous declarations of the most eminent 
 specialists in the study of Buddhism. Koppen 
 declares categorically that Buddhism knows of 
 " no God, . . . as to be supposed anteced- 
 ent to the world. . . . There is only an 
 eternal Becomim L no eternal Being. ''^ ^ Olden- 
 berg, who perhaps may be regarded as facile 
 jprinceps among modern investigators of Bud- 
 dhism, says that the Buddhists maintain '' caus- 
 ality Avithout substance." " Where there is no 
 
 • Tc'.n Great Religions, p. 168. 
 
 ''The Angel Messiah, of Buddhists, Essenes, and Christians. 
 p. 48. 
 ^Die Religion des Buddha, 1 Bd. S. 230, 
 
32 Handbook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 Being, but only a coming to pass, there can be 
 recognized as the First and the Last, not a 
 substance, but only a law." ^ No less categor- 
 ically Professor Max Mllller says that Buddha 
 denies the existence, "not only of a Creator 
 but of any absolute Being ; " ^ and that as re- 
 gards " the idea of a personal Creator . . . 
 Buddha seems merciless."^ A few citations 
 from the canonical Budd hist Scriptures will 
 show with what good reason such scholars 
 have so spoken. In the Vinaya Text of the 
 Pdrdjika, the Buddha is represented as say- 
 ing, " I do not see any one in the heavenly 
 worlds, nor in that of Mara, nor among the 
 inhabitants of the Brahma worlds, nor among 
 gods or men, whom it would be proper for 
 me to honor." In the Salla Sutta of the 
 Sutta Nipdta the Buddha declares, '' With- 
 out a cause and unknown is the life of mor- 
 tals in this world." Similar statements and 
 intimations are so numerous, and the utter 
 absence of anything contradictory of them is 
 so conspicuous, that it is no wonder that the 
 leading Buddhistic scholars of our day are 
 practically unanimous as to this point of Bud- 
 dhist doctrine ; and such assertions to the con- 
 
 » Buddha, sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde, S. 257, 258. 
 ■^ Chips from a German Workshop, vol. i. p. 227. 
 ^ Buadhaghosha's Parables, lutrutluction, p. x.\xi. 
 
Doct^nne of the World- Religions. 33 
 
 traiy as are above cited, are evidently based 
 on an astonishing misapprehension or igno- 
 rance of the facts. With the statements of 
 European students of the Sacred Books of 
 Buddhism, agrees the unanimous testimony of 
 inissiaiiaxLes in Buddhist lands who, as living 
 in daily contact with the people, are of all 
 others best qualified to tell us what is under- 
 stood by the votaries of Buddhism to be its 
 teaching. Mr. Hardy, who was many years a 
 missionary in Ceylon, says that while there 
 are here an4 there individual Buddhists, more 
 particularly among those who have come under 
 Christian influence, who believe in the exist- 
 ence of a God, yet these are exceptions; and 
 "the missionaries are frequently told that our 
 religion Avould be an excellent one, if we could 
 leave out of it all that is said about a Creator." ^ 
 Dr. Edkins, some time missionary to China, 
 says : " Atheism is one point in the faith of 
 the southern Buddhists: . . . the Chinese 
 Buddhists do not hold that one Supreme Spirit 
 rules over the whole collection of worlds."^ 
 To the same effect might be cited the testi- 
 mony of Dr. Adoniram Judson, missionary to 
 Burmah, and many othei^. I will add only 
 
 ' Legends and Theories of the mtddhtsts, p. 221. 
 ' Chinese Bitddhism, p. 191. 
 
34 Handhook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 that in India, the birthplace of Buddhism, 
 Buddhism is universally understood by the 
 people to be distinguished from Brahmanical 
 Hindooism as being atheistic. The Brahmans 
 constantly use the phrases Bauddha mat^ " the 
 Buddhist doctrine," as equivalent to Ndstik 
 mat^ lit. '' the Ile-is-not doctrine ; L e.^ the doc- 
 trine which declares that He — namely, God — 
 is not.^ 
 
 Confucius probably could not fairly be called 
 an atheist, but he avoids, to a great extent, re- 
 ferring to any Supreme Being. He frequently 
 refers to the ordinances of " Heaven," but in 
 a way which leaves it uncertain whether he 
 thought of the power thus named as a personal 
 God. In fact, Confucianism deals so exclu- 
 sively with the affairs of earth, and the duties 
 between man and man, that it may well be 
 questioned whether it can fairly be called a 
 religion, or anything more than a system of 
 social ethics. All agree that in extreme an- 
 tiquity, the Chinese recognized the existence 
 of a Supreme God, known as Shang Te. Pro- 
 fessor Douglas says that then " in the eyes of 
 the emperor and people, Shang Te appeared 
 
 ' For a much more complete discussion of tills and other points 
 nt Buddhist doctrine, I mav be permitted to refer the reader to 
 my Light of Asia and the Light of the World. Macmillan & Co., 
 London and New Vorli, 
 
Doctrine of the World- Religions. 35 
 
 as a personal God, directing their ways, sup- 
 porting them in their difficulties, and chastis- 
 ing them for their faults. . . . But as time 
 went on, the distinctive belief in the person- 
 ality of Shang Te became obscured, and he was 
 degraded from his supremacy to the level of 
 the i mpers onal Ileayen." ' From this national 
 degradation of belief, Confucius did not es- 
 cape. He is said never to mention this Shang 
 Te, nor enjoin his worship, although he does 
 sanction the worship of spirits and also of 
 one's ancestors. It is therefore only in a very 
 qualified sense, if at all, that we can speak of 
 Confucianism as a theistic religion. 
 
 Kot much better can be said of the Chinese 
 Taouism . What indeed were the real teach- 
 ings of its founder, Laou Tsze, with reference 
 to God, has been — and probably always will 
 be — greatly disputed. On the whole, however, 
 the opinion seems probable that, although in 
 veiled and obscure language, Laou Tsze meant 
 to teach the existence of a Supreme Being. 
 But certainly, if this was his intention, he must 
 be understood in a pantheistic sense : for, as 
 Professor Douglas tells us, he taught that it 
 vras possible for the creature to be absorbed 
 into the Creator.^ But whatever may have 
 
 ' Confucianism and Taouism, p. 83. * See Ibid. pp. 211, 212. 
 
36 Handbook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 been his precise belief, bis modern disciples 
 have practically lost sight of the Supreme God, 
 and instead worship Laou Tsze himself, and 
 with him also an imaginar}^ being, Yuh-hwang 
 Shang Te — supposed to be the ruler of the ma- 
 terial universe. In addition to these are also 
 worshiped the heavenly bodies, and the vari- 
 ous powers of nature, together with a multi- 
 tude of imaginar}^ spirits, who are supposed to 
 preside over the various departments of life. 
 
 Passing over to Japan, in the national Shin- 
 toism we find a religion — if religion it can 
 properly be called — which is thoroughly j^ha- 
 istic. It can hardly be better described than 
 as a system of fantastic atheistic evolution. 
 The "gods" who are worshiped in Shintoism 
 are not the originators of the world, but were 
 themselves evolved from it. But it is needless 
 for our purpose to go into further detail. In 
 a word, the Shinto doctrine regarding God, is 
 that there is no _such Being, and that the so- 
 called gods appeared spontaneously, at a cer- 
 tain stage of the w^orld's evolution. 
 
CHAPTEK lY. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE CONCERNING SIN. 
 
 As before remarked, all religions more or 
 less distinctly recognize and deal with the fact 
 of man's consciousness of sin. Even such re- 
 ligions as Shintoism and Buddhism, wherein 
 is recognized no personal Creator, are no ex- 
 ceptions to this rule. What sin really is many 
 sadly misunderstand, but they cannot ignore 
 the fact that man is not in a spiritually normal 
 condition. 
 
 Nothing is more characteristic of the Chris- 
 tian religion than the place which sin holds in 
 its system of teaching. It is, in a word, that 
 supreme evil, the root of all other evil, to de- 
 liver man from which is everywhere repre- 
 sented as the prime object of Christ in coming 
 into the world. As to the nature of sin, it is 
 the Christian teaching that sin concerns man's 
 relation to God. It consists fundamentally in 
 this : that, man is not what, Ike .holy law oi 
 God_.rightly requires him to be, and does not 
 do what either the law of nature or of super- 
 natural revelation requires of him. That re- 
 37 
 
38 Handbook of Coinjjarative Religion. 
 
 quirement is, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God with all thy heart, . . . [and] thy 
 neighbor as thyself/'^ "He that loveth an- 
 other hath fulfilled the law." ^ He that lov- 
 eth not thus God and man, is a lawbreaker, a 
 sinner. 
 
 Going still more deeply into the matter, the 
 Christian Scriptures teach that sin concerns 
 not only actions but states and feelings as well ; 
 in a word, that man^s nature is sinful. He 
 did not merely, by some unfortunate accident 
 or unwise choice become a sinner, and thus the 
 object of God's holy anger, but he is a child 
 of wrath by nature.^ Nevertheless, the Chris- 
 tian teaching insists that for this God is not 
 responsible, but man. With the utmost ear- 
 nestness the apostle James declares that God 
 neither is nor can be the author of sin.^ The 
 trouble is with man, with his perverse and re- 
 belling will which will insist on self-will as the 
 rule of life, instead of God's will. 
 
 Hence, Christianity magnifies to the utmost 
 the guilt of sin. It declares that because " the 
 invisible things of God from the creation of 
 the world are clearly seen, even His eternal 
 power and Godhead," therefore men are " with- 
 
 » See Matt. xxil. 37-39. and parallels. « Rom. xlii. 8. 
 
 » Epli. il. 8. * See James i. 13, 14. 
 
The J Joe trine Concerning Sin, 30 
 
 out excuse " in that " when they knew God 
 they glorified Him not as God, neither were 
 thankfuL" ^ It further teaches that this guilt 
 of man is such that by no tears of repentance 
 nor any sacrifice of_his__awn, hoAvever costly, 
 can he expiate his guilt and become reconciled 
 to God. It teaches, moreover, that while sin 
 leaves man's free agency untouched, so that 
 he is fully responsible for his sin, yet it is none 
 the less true that, as Jesus said, " Whosoever 
 committeth sin, is the servant [slave] of sin." ' 
 It is insisted that for one who is accustomed 
 to do evil, to learn to do well is as possible as 
 for the Ethiopian to change his skin or the 
 leopard his spots.^ 
 
 As for the consequences of sin, Christianity 
 is, again, most explicit. For man left to his 
 own resources, there is no escape from a life 
 of unending sin and misery. While the first be- 
 ginnings of these evil issues are felt with more 
 or less severity in this present life, they are 
 represented as culminating in the life to come ; 
 which retributions none have described in 
 more terrible language than He who said that 
 He came into the world to save sinners. 
 
 As to the origin of the sin and misery in 
 which mankind is evidently sunk, Christianity 
 
 ' Rom. i. 20, 21. « John viii. 34. * Jer. xiil. 23. 
 
4:0 llatidbook of Conqjarative Religion, 
 
 does not attempt to explain the ultimate mys- 
 tery, further than to teach that it had its origin 
 in the abuse of man's free agency, and that 
 the sin of the first ancestor of the race in this 
 respect involved the Avhole race in hereditary 
 guilt and misery. " By one man sin entered 
 into the world and death by sin." ^ 
 
 Among modern non-Christian religions, Mo- 
 hammedanism, although widely differing from 
 Christian teaching in its doctrine as to sin, yet 
 most nearly approaches it. As in Christianity, 
 sin is regarded as consisting in opposition to 
 the will of God. Sin has however in the the- 
 ology of Islam, a much narrower definition 
 than in Christianity, inasmuch as only willful 
 violations of the law of God are reckoned sin, 
 and sins of ignorance are not recognized. 
 
 But the Mohammedan conception of sin is 
 further vitiated by a misapprehension of what 
 is involved in the absolute freedom of God. 
 Whereas, according to the Christian concep- 
 tion, God wills this or that because it is right, 
 namely, in accord with His own infinitely per- 
 fect and holy nature, on the other hand, it is 
 the Mohammedan doctrine that a thing is right 
 merely because God wills it. Consistently, in 
 the Quran, God is represented as ordering the 
 
 • Rom. V. 12, 
 
Tht Doctrine Concerning Sin. 41 
 
 commission of gross crimes, forbidden in the 
 Mosaic Decalogue, which then become right 
 and obligatory, simply because God has de- 
 clared this to be His will. Hence it is that, 
 very significantly, instead of the words " guilt " 
 and " transgression," Mohammedan writers 
 prefer the terms " the permitted " and " the 
 forbidien." Hence, again, the distinction be- 
 tween moral and ceremonial precepts is almost 
 completely destroyed. Thus, Mr. Palgrave, in 
 his travels in Arabia, tells us that on one oc- 
 casion he asked a Wahabi Mohammedan what, 
 in iiis opinion, was the greatest of sins. " Un- 
 doubtedly," he replied, " the sin of shirks ' 
 And what the second ? " Undoubtedly, the 
 use of tobacco ." And how about murder, ly- 
 ing, and adultery ? '' Ah ! God is merciful f " 
 was the reply. 
 
 Again, sin, according to the Mohammedan 
 doctrine, has nothing to do with our nature. 
 It is denied that the nature of man has any 
 evil taint. It is believed tliat human sin be- 
 gan with the fall of Adam, as related in Gene- 
 sis ; but man inherits from him nothing of the 
 nature of moral evil. Yet the Quran admits 
 the universal sinfulness of man, though little 
 is said of it. Thus : " If God should punish 
 
 'That is, denying the personal unity of the Godhead. 
 
42 Handbook of Co^nparative Religion. 
 
 men for their iniquity, He would not leave 
 upon the earth any moving thing." ^ Why sin 
 should be thus universal, if there be no taint 
 of nature, and each man sins independently, is 
 a question which Mohammedanism leaves un- 
 noticed. 
 
 As to the consequences of sin, in this life and 
 the life to come, Mohammed depicted these in 
 the most terrible language. " The wicked 
 shall be cast into scorching fire to be broiled ; 
 they shall be given to drink of a boiling foun- 
 tain ; they shall have no food, but of dry 
 thorns and thistles.'"^ But the sufferings of 
 the wicked are not represented, as in the Bible, 
 as the necessary moral consequence of sin, but 
 as due simply to the arbitrary will aad decree 
 of God,3 ' "zr^ '"- " 
 
 In contrast with the teaching of the Chris- 
 tian Scriptures, Mohammed did not recognize 
 the guilt of sin to be such as to require an ex- 
 piation in order to the Divine forgiveness. 
 The remission of the penalty of sin is regarded 
 as wholl}" within the prerogative of God, and 
 dependent soleh" on His sovereign pleasure, 
 wholly apart from any mediation or expiation. 
 
 'Sura xvi. 63. 
 '^Sura Ixxxviii. 3. 
 
 ' See also the passage cited above, p. 18, from the writings of 
 Sir Sayad Alimad Kliau, p. 10. 
 
Tlw Doctrine Concerning Sin. 43 
 
 Evidently, therefore, Mohammed rated the 
 guilt and ill-desert of sin much lower than do 
 those religions in which atonement, in some 
 form or other, is regarded as the indispensable 
 condition of pardon ; and accordingly, among 
 Mohammedans everywhere the sense of the 
 guilt of sin is exceedingly slight. 
 
 Nothing has done more to lessen the sense 
 of guilt among Mohammedans than their doc- 
 trine of taqdh\ or the foi^eordination of God. 
 According to the general belief of Mohammed- 
 ans, everything — even the apparently free acts 
 of men — has not only been foreordained by 
 God, but the morally good and the morally 
 evil have been foreordained in the same sense 
 and in the same manner. If this be so, then 
 it is quite plain that man is a mere puppet in 
 God's hands, and responsibility and ^uilt there 
 cannot be. 
 
 It is indeed true that there are some passages 
 in the Quran which seem inconsistent with the 
 extreme form in which Mohammed taught the 
 foreordination of God. Thus men are com- 
 manded to pray, to believe the prophet, and to 
 do good works, and salvation is often repre- 
 sented as depending upon their believing or re- 
 jecting the doctrine taught by Mohammed. 
 We read, for example : " The truth is from 
 
44 Handbook of Comjparati/ve Religion. 
 
 your Lord ; wherefore let him who will believe ; 
 and let him that will be incredulous. We have 
 surely prepared for the unjust hell fire." ^ 
 
 But the Quran is full of passages of a very 
 different tone; Avhich, as every one knows, 
 have had the effect of making the Mohammed- 
 ans everywhere to be the most thomugbgoing 
 fatalists to be found in the world. Thus it is 
 written: "The fate of every man have we 
 bound about his neck." "God misleadeth 
 whom He pleaseth, and guideth whom He 
 pleaseth aright." ^ 
 
 If it be asked, wherein does the doctrine of 
 the divine foreordination as taught in the 
 Quran and accepted by Mohammedans gen- 
 erally, differ from the same as taught in the 
 Christian Scriptures, we may say that the fun- 
 damental difference lies in this ; that, accord- 
 ing to the Scriptures, while God has predeter- 
 mined all things, and while the ultimate rea- 
 sons of His decrees are found in Himself, yet 
 inasmuch as He is not only infinite in power, 
 but also, by the very necessity of His nature, 
 infinite in righteousness and love, therefore no 
 decree can be arbitrary, but has its reason in 
 the perfect righteousness, love, and goodness 
 of God. Hence it follows that, according to 
 
 'Sura xvlll. 28. *Sura xvl. 95 ; xvii. 14, et passim. 
 
The Doctrine Concerning Sin. 45 
 
 Holy Scripture, the purpose of God is not re- 
 lated in the same way to all the free acts of 
 His creatures. He decrees that which is go^ 
 effectively^ as its direct s ourc e and origin ; but 
 the origin of evil is never in the Scriptures at- 
 tributed to the foreordination of God, but to 
 the abuse of f ree_agency by His creatures. So, 
 again, though He have chosen some unto life 
 eternal in His Son, not on the ground of their 
 works, but solely out of His free grace and 
 pit}^ ; on the other hand it is nowhere taught 
 in the Bible, as in the Quran, that God in like 
 manner foreordains some to perdition without 
 reference to their works, creating them for this 
 end. For while it is taught that many are 
 undoubtedly foreordained to perdition, it is 
 ever kept before us that this is on the ground 
 of their willful and incorrigible rebellion, as 
 foreseen by God. But the Quran, on the con- 
 trary, represents the Divine decree as related 
 in precisely the same way to the good and the 
 evil acts of men. God decrees, now the salva- 
 tion of this one, and now the damnation of that 
 one, simply and only because He wills it. The 
 decreeing of God is wholW independent of any 
 considerations of either righteousness, justice, 
 or love. The spirit of the theology of Islam 
 on this point is well represented in one of the 
 
 
 3 -L;'- 
 
40 Ilandhook of Comjxtrative Religion. 
 
 authentic Mohammedan traditions, which Mr. 
 Palgrave gives as often heard by him from the 
 Wahabees of Nejed, thus : 
 
 '* When God resolved to create the human 
 race, He took into His hands a mass of earth, 
 the same whence all mankind were to be 
 formed, and in which they in a manner pre- 
 existed ; and having then divided the clod into 
 two equal portions, He threw the one half into 
 hell, saying. These to eternal fire, and I care 
 not ; and projected the other half into heaven, 
 adding, And these to Paradise, and I care 
 not." ^ 
 
 Teri^ible as the language of the ^' Traditions " 
 is, it does not go beyond the teaching of the 
 Quran as to the relation of God to the sin of 
 men, in such words as these : " \i we had 
 pleased, we had certainly given unto every 
 soul its direction ; but the word which hath 
 proceeded from me must necessarily be ful- 
 filled when I said, Yerily, I will till hell with 
 genii and with men altogether " . . . ^* unto 
 this hath he created them." ^ 
 
 Obviously the inevitable eft'ect of teaching 
 such as this will be to blunt to the utmost the 
 sense of responsibility and of ill-desert for 
 
 'Quoted in Clmke's Ten Great Religions, p. 478. 
 
 »Sura xxxii. 13; xi. 119. The Quran is full ot similar statements. 
 
Tlie Doctrine Concerning Sin. 47 
 
 wrongdoing. If a man sin, the Quran itself 
 assures him that this is because God "hath 
 bound his fate about his neck " ; ^ so that the 
 fault is not man's but God's. 
 
 The teaching of Hindomsm as regards sin, is 
 in marked contrast alike "vvith both Christianity 
 and Mohammedanism. Both of these, as we 
 have seen, agree in so far that they regard sin 
 as an evil which essentially consists in opposi- 
 tion to the will of a personal God. But ac- 
 cording to the doctrinal creed, commonly ac- 
 cepted by the Hindoos, sin, in this Christian 
 sense of the word, cannot accurately be said to 
 exist. Tliis follows, first, from the denial by 
 orthodox Hindooism of a Godjwhgis personal. 
 If there is no personal God, then law, in the 
 Christian or Islamic sense of the word, cannot 
 exist, for law is the expression of a personal 
 will. Sin in the Christian sense of the term, 
 is the more impossible, because the a^ent in 
 every act, is really God. If so, then guilt is 
 but a fiction. I who seem to be the agent, in 
 reality am not the agent. 
 
 Again, essential to the Christian conception 
 of sin, is this, that the sinner in sinning act 
 freely. If a man do a thing which in outward 
 form is sinful, but do this under constraint, as 
 
 » Sura xvii. 14. 
 
48 TIandhook of Comparative Religion, 
 
 when he has been drugged, and simply carries 
 out the purpose of another, his own will 
 through no fault of his being in abeyance, 
 then however evil and ruinous the action may 
 be in itself, there is no sin, and no responsi- 
 bility or guilt. But this is precisely the pop- 
 ular creed of Hindooism ; that whatever I do, 
 I do under the same law of physical necessity 
 as that under which a certain tree bears a cer- 
 tain kind of fruit. This is so with the tree be- 
 cause of the nature of the seed which was 
 sown ; because of which this particular kind of 
 fruit is borne, and no other. So according to 
 the universal Hindoo belief, shared alike by 
 the most ignorant villagers and b}^ the most 
 learned pundits, all that I am, and all that I 
 do, be it what we call good, or be it evil, is the 
 necessary and inevitable result of certain other 
 acts of mine in a previous state of being, of 
 which I have no recollection, but the fruit of 
 which 1 nevertheless must bring forth, of 
 whatever sort it be. So while Hindooism and 
 Mohammedanism agree in affirming that every- 
 thing — even the evil that I do — is predeter- 
 mined ; yet they differ profoundly, in that 
 whereas the Mohammedan believes that the 
 predetermination is the act of a pei'sonal God, 
 who wills what each man shall do or sliall not 
 
The Doctrine Concerning Sin. 49 
 
 do, Hindooism makes the predetermination of 
 all things to be simply the necessary self-mani- 
 festation of the unconscious Brahma, in a mul- 
 titudinous and almost endless series of in- 
 dividual births and consequent acts of human 
 beings. 
 
 Indeed, the reality of an essential distinction 
 between good and evil, as by logical necessity, 
 so often in actual fact, is formally denied. 
 For the Hindoo will often insist that if we 
 will speak accurately, what we call " sin " pap^ 
 and "righteousness" or "merit," dharmma, 
 2?iinya, are both alike evil ; because e very ac t, 
 be it good or bad, makes it necessary that I 
 be again born that I may reap its fruit, and 
 that personal existence in some form should be 
 continued ; for it is this, and not Avhat we call 
 sin, that is really the fundamental evil. 
 
 And if the conscience or reason of any still 
 rebel against such teaching, and insist on the 
 reality of the distinction between moral good 
 and evil, sin and righteousness, then Hindooism 
 has yet one more resource by which to silence 
 the Avitness of conscience. This is found in its 
 doctrine of mciycl or " ijlusion." Mciyd is that 
 illusion which of necessity arises when the 
 Supreme Brahma, essentially unconditioned, 
 {nirgun) becomes conditioned {sagun) in the 
 
50 Handbook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 universe. Of this may a are begotten the 
 ideas of a distinction between God and the 
 world, of personality, free agency, responsi- 
 bility, sin and righteousness. For it is quite 
 clear that if indeed Brahma is the only Being, 
 then there is no room for sin, and the idea of 
 sin and all connected with it must be illusion. 
 In this way, again, orthodox Hindooism denies 
 the reality of sin as the opposite of righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 Such is the Hindoo doctrine as to the nature 
 of sin. It wall be asked : Do men in India 
 practically accept this belief? The question 
 cannot be answered in a word. ]^LQt_a_few 
 there are, who endeavor, with a horrible faith- 
 fulness to their principles, to exhibit those 
 principles in actual living. Here we see them 
 walking about in stark nakedness and utter 
 shamelessness ; tliere, again, seeking in deep 
 meditation to center their thoughts on this one 
 conception, aham Brahmam, " I am Brahma," 
 and so to cultivate and attain an absolute free- 
 dom alike from doing right and doing Avrong. 
 With such the writer has often talked ; and 
 men in a more hopeless moral state it would 
 be impossible to find. Furthermore, the real- 
 ity of any necessary, unchanging distinction 
 between moral right and w^rong, is practically 
 
The Doctrine Concerning Sin. 51 
 
 denied by every one in the constant use of 
 the popular proverb before cited, "To the 
 mighty is no sin " ; and in the refusal to admit 
 that the indescribable licentiousness of Krishna, 
 or the horrible bloodthirstiness of Shiva or 
 Kali, is in the least incompatible with the belief 
 that these are worthy representations of the 
 Deity. When men do wrong, one often hears 
 responsibility denied in the words : " True, I 
 have sinned ; but what fault was it of mine ? 
 It w^as in my karmmay 
 
 And yet while, logically, no Hindoo should 
 ever admit sin, yet their Sacred Books have 
 much to say of sin, and prescribe many pen- 
 ances and expiations by which it may be re- 
 moved. Well known is the Sanskrit couplet : 
 
 Phpohamiiiipakarmmaham paphtmh phpasmiibhavah 
 Trhhi mam pundarikUksha sarvvaphpaharo mama. 
 " I am sin, my work is sin, my spirit is sin, in sin was 
 
 I conceived : 
 Save me, O Lotus-eyed One, Remover of all my sin." 
 
 The Kig Veda even speaks of a sin of the 
 fathers, whose sin has come on us. Thus 
 
 " Absolve us from the sin of our fathers, 
 And from those which we have committed with 
 our own bodies." • 
 
 Especially are such confessions of sin, how- 
 
 * Rig Veda. vii. 86. 
 
62 Handbook of Coirvparative Religion. 
 
 ever,- to be found in the modern non-canonical 
 writings of many Hindoo reformers, who 
 doubtless became such because the sense of sin 
 was too strong in them for the Hindoo creed. 
 Such are the following : 
 
 "With what face can I approach thee? Shame cometh 
 
 unto me! 
 Thou knowest the evil I have done. How can 1 be pleasing 
 
 tintothee?" 
 
 "I went out to seek a bad man ; bad man I found none at 
 
 all: 
 If I look into my own heart, Myself la the worst of all." 
 
 But having lost sight of the personality of 
 God, and therewith of the true nature of sin 
 as opposition to His holy will, the conceptions 
 of the Hindoos as to the nature of sin — so far 
 as it is, despite philosophy, admitted, — have 
 been perverted and degraded correspondingly. 
 A man will lie and cheat with no apparent 
 sense that he is thereby sinning ; but will not 
 so much as touch an ^g^^ lest he should thus 
 become defiled, and be reckoned as a sinner. 
 
 If it be possible, the Buddhist religion leaves 
 even less room for a right conception of sin 
 than modern Hindooism. It is true that the 
 Buddhist Scriptures have much to say of sin, 
 and by this fact many who are ignorant of the 
 true significance of terms in the Buddhist re- 
 
The Doctrine Concerning Sin. 5.S 
 
 ligion, and so read into this word "sin" a 
 Christian meaning, are grievously misled. 
 Hence a degree of harmony is imagined be- 
 tween the teachings of Gautama Muni and 
 those of Jesus Christ, where instead there is 
 only the most irreconcilable antagonism. 
 
 Kecalling what has been shown in a former 
 chapter as to the essentially atheistic character 
 of orthodox Buddhism, it will be seen at once 
 that where there is denial of, or even uncer- 
 tainty as to, the being of God, there cannot 
 possibly be any conception of sin in any such 
 sense as that which Christians attach to the 
 word. For the very essence of sin lies in an- 
 tagonism between the will of God and the will 
 of man ; and where the being of God is doubted 
 or denied, as in Buddhism, obviously sin, as we 
 understand the term, cannot be recognized. 
 
 If it be asked then, What is it that the 
 Buddhist means when he speaks of sin? we 
 answ^er, that according to the Buddhist Scrip- 
 tures sin consists essentially in tanhd {trishnd). 
 Tanhd, lit. "thirst," means "deske," and is 
 therefore often rendered in English "lust," 
 and so appears as identical with that "lust" 
 (Gr. i-iOuiua) of which the apostle James says 
 that " The lust, when it hath conceived, bear- 
 eth sin." (k. v. James i. 15.) But a little study 
 
54 Ilandhook of Co/ti^jarative Religion. 
 
 of the Buddhist authorities serves to show 
 that what the Buddhist means by tanhd is far 
 enough removed from what the New Testa- 
 ment writers mean by kruduiiia " lust." As 
 to the real meaning of tanhd^ either of two 
 views may be maintained with good show of 
 reason. A large number of passages in the 
 Buddhist Scriptures seem to teach clearly that 
 by tanhd is meant desire of anything what- 
 ever, whether in this life or another. It is 
 directed that he - who will attain to peace 
 " learn to subdue " — not merely evil desires — 
 but "all the desires that arise inwardly."^ 
 The Bhikkhu, or disciple of the Buddha, is 
 charged explicitly not to "desire anything 
 whatever." 
 
 Nevertheless here and there passages occur 
 which seem to limit this all-inclusiveness of 
 the term, and from these some eminent spe- 
 cialists have inferred that these prohibitions of 
 desire can refer only to such aims and aspira- 
 tions as are " grasping and selfish." ^ But even 
 if we take the term in this restricted sense, we 
 are as far as ever from the Christian meaning 
 of the word " sin." For the Buddhist regards 
 not merely those acts or states of mind as self- 
 
 «8ee Sutta Nipata ; Mnha viyhha Sntta 5-8. 
 * See Rhys Davids: 5«rfd/imn, pp. 101, 106. 
 
TJn Doctrine Conceruitig Sin. 55 
 
 ish whicli we should so call; but all desire 
 which terminates on or has regard to self, 
 and thus even the desire for a life of happiness 
 in heaven.^ Hence, while no doubt, according 
 to the J3uddhist doctrine, many things are re- 
 garded as sinful which we also regard as sin, 
 many other things are regarded as no less the 
 otfspring of tanhd and therefore sinful, Avhich 
 in reality are not sinful in the least. This 
 utter confusion of mind on the subject of sin 
 is well illustrated by the list of "the Ten 
 Sins " which we find enumerated in Buddhist 
 authorities. These are said to be: Doubt; 
 Dependence on rites ; Sensuality ; Bodily pas- 
 sions; Hatred, or ill-feeling; Love of life on 
 earth ; Desire for life in heaven ; Pride ; Self- 
 righteousness ; and Ignorance. 
 
 The wide divergence between the Buddhist 
 and the Christian conception of sin is no less 
 strikingly shown by the Buddhist Decalogue, 
 as contrasted with the Mosaic. The ten com- 
 mands are as f ollow^s :— (1) Take not life (of 
 any living thing); (2) Do not lie; (3) Do not 
 steal ; (4) Do not commit adultery ; (5) Do not 
 drink what can intoxicate. These five only, 
 indeed, are regarded as obligatory on the ordi- 
 nary Buddhist layman ; but for him who will 
 
 • This is reckoned one of " The Ten Sins." 
 
56 Hand hook of Comjparatvm Religion. 
 
 become an Ar^hat or saint, the fourth com- 
 mand above given is modified to a command 
 to lead a chaste celibate life, and then the Dec- 
 alogue is completed as follows : (6) Eat not at 
 prohibited times; (7) AVear no garlands, and 
 use no dentrifices or perfumes; (8) Sleep on 
 no high or broad bed ; (9) Abstain from music, 
 dancing, and from stage plays; (10) Abstain 
 from the use of gold or silver. 
 
 As these ten commands constitute the Deca- 
 logue, perfect conformity to which is one mark 
 of the perfected Buddhist saint, therefore the 
 doing of any of these prohibited things is a 
 sin. So we see that not only lying, stealing 
 and adultery, but also using tooth powders, 
 singing even the purest and most elevating 
 song or hymn, and even the use of gold and 
 silver in the ordinary and most necessary 
 transactions of life, — all these things are reck- 
 oned sin. Surely this is enough to show that 
 when any one, in reading anything regarding 
 sin in any Buddhist book, understands that 
 word in the Christian sense, he is under a 
 misapprehension which must lead him utterly 
 astray in his understanding and estimate of 
 the moral value of the Buddhist religion as 
 compared with Christianity. 
 
 In reading the teachings of Confuci us, one 
 
Tht Doctrine Coacerning Siii. 5t 
 
 cannot but again be impressed deeply with the 
 total absence of any adequate conception of 
 sin. Among the "Five Kelations of Life,"' 
 the relation of man to God is not mentioned. 
 Indeed, since sin consists in a disturbance 
 of the relation between man and God, there 
 is obviously no room in Confucianism for the 
 Christian conception of sin. Whether Con- 
 fucius was at heart an atheist or agnostic or 
 not, it is certain that he never clearly recog- 
 nizes any duties but such as are due from man 
 to man. Indeed, occasionally he seems to go 
 further, and enter his voice against the recog- 
 nition of such duties. Said he : " To give one's 
 self earnestly to the duties due to men, and 
 while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof 
 from them, may be called wisdom." ^ 
 
 The views of Laou Tzse it is difficult to set 
 forth Avith exactness. His works are said by 
 Chinese scholars to be difficult of understand- 
 ing even by the Chinese themselves. But in 
 what of his teachings has been made accessible 
 to European readers, it is as difficult to find 
 any clear recognition by him of duties due 
 from man to God, as in the teachings of Con- 
 
 ' These are:— the relation of friend to friend, of brother to 
 brotlier, of husband to wife, of fatlier to son, and of ruler to 
 
 ^"* QuoVed in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopoedla, in article, " Con- 
 fucius," vol. 1., p. 532, 
 
oS Ihindhook of Coirqjarative Religion. 
 
 fuciiis. As to the duties of man to his fellow, 
 he said much which is good and true; but 
 that there are duties due from man to God, 
 and that in these man fails, and is therefore 
 a sinner, of this we have yet to find any ac- 
 knowledgment. Indeed, Professor Douglas 
 tells us that Laou Tzse, like Confucius, " held 
 that man's nature was good, and that he who 
 acted in all things with the uncontaminated 
 instincts of that nature, would eventually re- 
 turn home to Taou." ^ 
 
 How very profound is the difference be- 
 tween the chief non-Christian religions, and 
 that of Jesus Christ, in their teaching as to 
 sin, we have now seen. But these, again, in- 
 volve differences no less profound and radical 
 in regard to the vital matter of salvation. 
 What the great world-religions teach on this 
 subject, we shall see in the next chapter. 
 
 » CoTifucianism and Taouism, p. 196. 
 
CHAPTER y. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE REGARDING SALVATION. 
 
 If an^'tliing be vital to religion, it is the 
 c^uestion of man's salvation. That the human 
 race is in an evil condition, that men are in 
 bondage to various evil tendencies and pas- 
 sions, is admitted, as we have seen, in all re- 
 ligions. Hence the question is fundamental in 
 religion, how man may be saved from sin and 
 its present and future manifold miseries. 
 
 Evidently, man needs two things, namely 
 pardon and cleansing. He is in a state of 
 manifest disharmony with God. Among men 
 of all ages and all religions we find variously 
 expressed this sense of alienation from God. 
 Very touching utterance has sometimes been 
 given to the need which is felt of reconcilia- 
 tion between man and God ; more frequently, 
 perhaps, in other than the canonical books of 
 the various ethnic religions. Thus, in North 
 India, Kabir Das lamented : 
 
 *' Master ! Master ! all are saying ; but I have another con- 
 cern : 
 I'm not with the Master acquainted ! Ah ! where shall I 
 sit in His presence? " 
 
 59 
 
(oO Handhooh of Comjxirative Religion. 
 
 But man needs more than pardon ; he needs 
 also cleansing and deliverance from the pres- 
 ence and power of sin. This is also admitted 
 among men of all races and religions. Again 
 and again, by one and another in non-Chris- 
 tian lands, the sense of this need has been 
 most pathetically expressed, as thus in South 
 India : 
 
 •* Purification before the great God 
 Is greater than lite and is stronger than death ; 
 'Tis the hope of the wise, 'tis the prize of the saint. 
 Where is the fount whence flows tliis pure stream?" 
 
 On this momentous subject, the Christian 
 teaching is very clear and emphatic. In the 
 first place, the Christian Scriptures teach that 
 man is wholly unable, by any effort or expe- 
 dient of his own, to attain either to assured 
 reconciliation and peace with God, or to de- 
 liverance from the power of sin. As regards 
 reconciliation with God, the apostle Paul only 
 sums up the teaching of all Scripture when he 
 declares that " by the deeds of the law shall 
 no flesh be justified in his sight." ^ AYhile no 
 other religion admits this in theory, yet his- 
 torically nothing is clearer than that this is 
 the practical confession of all men. For no 
 
 ' Rom. lii. 20. 
 
The Doctrine Regarding Salvation. 61 
 
 sooner is one supposed work of merit com- 
 pleted, whether sacrifice, penance, lustration, 
 than straightway the man undertakes another, 
 thus unwittingly confessing that the sought- 
 for certitude of pardon, and peace of con- 
 science, has not yet been attained. 
 
 The Scriptures teach, in the second place, that 
 man is equally unable to deliver himself from 
 the bondage to sin, and secure purity of heart. 
 The Lord Jesus Christ said plainly : " Who- 
 soever committeth sin, is the servant [slave] of 
 sin." ^ 
 
 Again, the Christian Scriptures teach that 
 what man is thus unable to do for himself, 
 God is both able and willing to do for him ; 
 and that He has in fact provided for the pardon 
 and purification of every man who will have 
 the blessing, through the incarnation, atoning 
 death, resurrection, and exaltation of His only- 
 begotten Son Jesus Christ to the right hand of 
 power. 
 
 As for the Incarnation, the statements of 
 Holy Scripture are such as these : The Word, 
 by whom " all things were made," " was made 
 flesh and dwelt among us."^ The Son of man 
 '.'came down from heaven," to do the will of 
 Him that sent Him.^ Jesus speaks of a glory 
 
 ' John vlil. 34. « John 1. 3. 14. ' John vl. 88. 
 
62 Handbook of Comrparatlce Religion. 
 
 which He "had with the Father before the 
 world was," ^ Avhich glory He left, to come into 
 the world to save man. The apostle Paul 
 goes not a word bej'^ond the explicit teaching 
 of Christ Himself, when he says that He " be- 
 ing in the form of God, counted it not a prize 
 to be on an equality with God, but emptied 
 Himself, taking the form of a servant, being 
 made in the likeness of men ; and being found 
 in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, be- 
 coming obedient even unto death." ^ 
 
 As to the relation of the work of Jesus 
 Christ to the salvation of men, the sacred 
 writers are also unanimous and explicit. The 
 apostles uniformly teach that man's salvation 
 is secured, primarily, not through the moral 
 influence of the holy life or self-sacrificing 
 death of Jesus Christ, but through that death 
 as an expiation for sin. He is said, with al- 
 lusion to the ancient Jewish sacrifices, to be 
 "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin 
 of the world " ; ^ and to be " the propitiation 
 for our sins." ^ We are said to be " reconciled " 
 by His death, even as, being thus reconciled, 
 we are " saved by His [glorified] life." ^ He 
 is said to have " put away sin by the sacrifice 
 
 ' John xvll. 6. » Phil. li. 6-8 (r. v.). 
 
 ' John i. 29. * I John 11. 2 ; Rom. ill. 26. 
 
 ' Rom. V. 10, 
 
The Doctrine Regarding Salvation. 03 
 
 of Himself " ; ^ to have been "delivered up on 
 account of our offenses," ^ so that we are 
 "justified," 3 not by our own works, but "by 
 His blood." ' And all these and numerous 
 similar statements only reproduce in varied 
 form what our Lord explicitly said of Himself, 
 that He came, not merely to set men a noble 
 example, and lure them to God by the beauty 
 of holiness, but " tcL^ve_His life as a ran- 
 som for many," ^ and shed His blood " for the 
 remission of sins." ^ 
 
 ^ As the Christian teaching concerning recon- z y (^ 
 ciliationiof God is on this wise, so it is also '\<-^. 
 taught with equal clearness, that as pardon, so r ^, . ' 
 also purification of the heart and life, is at- 
 tainable only through the power of this same 
 Christ, working in us by the Holy Spirit. We 
 are said to be saved " by His life." ^ He is said 
 to be " able to save to the uttermost them that 
 draw near unto God through Him, seeing He 
 ever liveth to make intercession for them."» 
 We are said to be made " free from the law of 
 sin and of death," to which we are all by na- 
 ture in bondage, by " the law of the Spirit of 
 life in Christ Jesus." ^ The atoning death it- 
 
 \ p ?,^- r.- ?n * K^"»- J^- 25, Greek. 
 
 *R(>m. 111. 20. *R()m V 9 
 
 ' Matt. XX 28. -» Matt. xxvl. 28. 
 
 •a:;;iii.%(K.v.). •Heb.vi,.25(K.v., 
 
64 Handbook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 self is represented as in order to this end. He 
 is said to have reconciled us " through [His] 
 death," in order to present us "holy and with- 
 out blemish and unreprovable before Him 
 [God]."^ 
 
 And as to the way in which men may secure 
 this pardon and purity of heart Avhich is pro- 
 vided for us in Christ, the Scriptures teach 
 that both the pardon and the purification and 
 deliverance come through faith. "By Him 
 every one that believeth is justified from all 
 things." ^ Sanctification also is declared to be 
 "by faith in" Him.^ 
 
 Finally, the Scriptures which teach these 
 things teach no less explicitly that this is not 
 merely one way, or the best of mau}^ ways of 
 salvation, but the onh;^\va}^ The apostle de- 
 clared : " There is none other name under 
 heaven given . . . whereby we must be 
 saved." ^ Even to His own disciples Jesus said, 
 with regard to holy living : " Apart from Me 
 ye can do nothing." ^ That men may also be 
 saved by faithful following of the prescrip- 
 tions of other religions, although in these days 
 a very popular opinion, is not only a thought 
 wholly foreign to biblical teaching, but is 
 
 ' Col. i. 22 (R. v.). ' Acts xlii. 39 (R. v.). 
 
 ^ Arts xxvi. 18. *Actsiv. 12. 
 
 'John XV. 5 (R. v.). 
 
The Dopfrine Regarding Salvation. 65 
 
 again iiiid again directly contradicted in the 
 Scriptures. Concerning all who had come be- 
 fore Him, and offered themselves to men for 
 their spiritual shepherds, Jesus Himself said : 
 "All that came before Me are thieves and 
 robbers." ' So much for the biblical doctrine 
 as to the Avay of salvation. 
 
 The Mohammedan doctrine of salvation 
 stands in the sharpest contrast with all this. 
 While according to the teaching of our Lord, 
 salvation is, above all, a salvation from the 
 po\ier and the presence of sin ; and deliverance 
 from the penalty of sin, is simply in order to 
 this end ; on the other hand, in the Moham- 
 medan conception, salvation consists merely in 
 delrveiMceJiNom^^ The connection 
 
 of salvation with holiness of character, as per- 
 taining to its very essence, is so completely lost 
 sight of, that, as above noted, one of the most 
 enlightened Maulavis in India has declared that 
 God, in virtue of His absolute sovereignty, may 
 even save some who have never repented of 
 sin.^ Hence there may easily be impenitent 
 sinners in Paradise ! 
 
 With such low views of the evil of sin, and 
 indifference to deliverance from it, it is not 
 surprising that Islam utterly denies the need 
 
 'Johnx. 8. ^Seeabovep, 18. 
 
66 Jlandhooh of Comparatice Religion. 
 
 of anj^ expiatory sacrifice in order to the 
 pardon of sin. The Christian doctrine of 
 atonement is in the Quran denied again and 
 again in the most explicit manner. Thus re- 
 peatedly it is written to this effect : *' No soul 
 shall acquire any merits or demerits but for 
 itself; and no burdened soul shall bear the 
 burden of another ; " ^ " Nothing shall be im- 
 puted to a man for righteousness except his 
 own labor." 
 
 Hence, as is well knoAvn, Mohammedanism 
 also denies with emphasis the Incarnation of 
 the Son of God. Christ Jesus was merely a 
 man ; a prophet, no doubt, but yet a mere 
 man like Abraham, Moses, and the other 
 prophets ; greater than those before him, but 
 less than Mohammed.^ With so little appre- 
 hension of the evil of sin, it is not strange that 
 the doctrine of the New Testament, of an in- 
 carnation in order to a Divine atonement for 
 sin, should find no place in Islam. There is 
 no logical place for it, if Mohammedan postu- 
 lates be granted. The Quran once and again 
 declares that those who regard Jesus as God, 
 are " infidels," and for them a special hell 
 (I<aza) is prepared. The affirmation of the In- 
 
 ' Sura vi. 164. 
 
 'And yet, strangely, while the sinfulness nl Molianunert Is ad- 
 mitted in the Quran, Jesus is represented as a sinless prophet! 
 
The Doctrine Regarding Salvation. 67 
 
 carnation iy ^' ^hirl\''' the greatest sin of which 
 a man can be guilty. It is knfr, blasphemy 
 — against God. 
 
 It should be noted, however, in passing, that 
 notwithstanding all this, even in Islam the 
 crying need of the human soul for an incarna- 
 tion and for atoning blood is "witnessed. In- 
 consistently enough, sacrifice is required of 
 every good Mohammedan. It is true that the 
 expiatory idea is ignored, and the Moham- 
 medan sacrifices are explained as comm emora- 
 tive of the readiness of the patriarch Abraham 
 to offer up Isaac, as self-dedicatory, or as of- 
 fered by way of thanksgiving. Still, behind 
 these lies none the less truly, even though un- 
 consciously, the original Avitness of the human 
 heart to the need of incarnation and atoning 
 blood in order to salvation. Moreover, va- 
 rious sects among the Mohammedans, as, e. g., 
 the Babis in Persia, and the followers of the 
 Caliph Hakim in Egypt, hold to some notion 
 of an incarnation; and the Shais in India 
 maintain that the deaths of Hosein and Hasan 
 at Kerbela were expiatory of sin. 
 
 As for deliverance from the presence of sin, 
 and the attainment of holiness, Mohammed 
 has simply nothing to say on the subject. A 
 missionary to Egypt states that he has ex- 
 
68 Handbook of Comjjarative Religion. 
 
 amined every passage in the Quran with refer- 
 ence to this question of personal holiness, and 
 as the result declares that " it is a hopeless 
 task to look for . . . the doctrine of the 
 necessity of purity of heart in the Quran." 
 There is therefore no suggestion whatever as 
 to the way of its attainment. 
 
 In the Quran the means of such a salvation 
 as it recognizes, is said to be faith ; but this, 
 again, not in the Christian sense. There is no 
 element of trust in a loving and forgiving God 
 and Saviour. Faith is represented as consist- 
 ing merely in an intellectual, nay even igno- 
 rant, unintelligent, and merely verbal assent to 
 the Kalima : — " There is no God but God and 
 Mohammed is His prophet." Qopd works, 
 however, have their place in obtaining salva- 
 tion. Especially important is it to observe 
 daily the five times of prayer, to give alms, to 
 fast from sunrise to sunset throughout the 
 whole month of Eamazan, and once in the life 
 to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Sometimes 
 language is used which seems to ascribe to 
 good works a direct efficacy in the |)rocure- 
 ment of salvation. 
 
 Thus it is said that if believers who give 
 alms conceal them, and give unto the poor, 
 " this will be better for vou, and will atone for 
 
The Doctrine Reyardiny Salvation. 69 
 
 Practically, it is fair to sa}^ that 
 Mohammedanism teaches the merit of good 
 works, and their efficacy as a e-round — thono-h 
 
 •' I/O o 
 
 not a certain ground — of acceptance with God. 
 
 Finally, Mohammedanism teaches no less 
 emphatically than the Christian Sci'iptures 
 that there is only one way of salvation : but 
 whereas in the gospel Chi^ist declares Himself 
 to be the only Way, and His Name the only 
 name given under heaven whereby men may 
 be saved, the Quran teaches that thei-e is no 
 salvation for any outside of Islam. "Whoso- 
 ever followeth any other religion than Islam, 
 it shall not be accepted of him ; and in the 
 next life he shall be of those that perish." ^ 
 
 Very different alike from the Christian and 
 the Mohammedan conception of salvation, is 
 that of Himlooism. Xo more than in Islam, 
 is the question how to be rid of the sinful 
 heart and character ; but rather how to escape 
 from the various sufferings incident to this 
 embodied life. But, according to the com- 
 monly accepted notion, these various suffer- 
 
 ' Suva ii. 271. 
 
 'Siiia iii. 84. It is indeed true that in Suva ii. 61, an early Sura, 
 given at Medina, it is said tliat Jews, Cliristians. and Sabians, in a 
 word, " wlioever l)elievetli in God and tlie last day, and dotii tliat 
 wliicli is rijrlit shall have their reward witl) their'Lord. and there 
 shall come no fear on them." But it is generally agreed by tlie 
 Mohammedan doctors that tliis early deliverance was degraded 
 by the passage given in the text. 
 
70 Hatidbooh of Cornparative Religion. 
 
 ings and troubles of life, are in fact insepa- 
 rable from personal existence. Hence when 
 the Hindoo speaks of mukti., which is the term 
 usually employed by Indian Cliristians to 
 denote '" salvation," he means something very 
 different from Avhat we mean. The word 
 strictly means " HJDersytion,'' but connotes noth- 
 ing' as to what that is from which one is liber- 
 ated. With the Christian, rtmhti is "liber- 
 ation" from sin; but with the Hindoo it is 
 liberation from personal conscious existence. 
 
 All sects of Hindoos believe in the doctrine 
 of transmigration. When a man dies he is or- 
 dinarily born again, either in this world or 
 some other : but in any case this rebirth in- 
 volves at least the liability to manifold pains 
 and troubles. As a South India Folk Song 
 puts it : 
 
 "How mauy births are past, I cauuot tell. 
 How many yet to come no man can say : 
 But this alone I know, and know full well, 
 That pain and grief embitter all tlie way." 
 
 Deliverance from this necessity of repeated 
 births, whether into this w-orld, or one of the 
 heavens or of the hells, is what the Hindoo 
 means when he talks of obtaining salvation. 
 I do not recollect ever to have met the con- 
 
The Doctrine Ueijardinij Salvation, 71 
 
 ception in any authority on modern orthodox 
 Ilindooism that salvation essentially consists 
 in deliverance from sin, in an inner radical 
 transformation of character. 
 
 As to the means of salvation, understood in 
 the Hindoo sense, it is taught, in general, that 
 there are two ways, namely, the gydn mdrg^ 
 " the way of knowle dge,'^ and IhaMi mdrg^ or 
 "the way of devotion," or — as some have 
 chosen to put it — of faith. From those who 
 advocate the superior excellence of the way of 
 knowledge, one often hears language which 
 sounds very like the teaching of Christ, that 
 to know God is life eternal. But the knowl- 
 edge intended is very different in the two 
 cases. The knowledge, the attainment of 
 which, according to the gydn mdrgis becomes 
 the instrument of liberation, is the recognition 
 of mv essential identity with Brahma, the 
 impersonal God; whence it follows that all 
 that consciousness testifies to the contrary is 
 an illusion; as is frankly admitted. It is 
 taught that this transcendental knowledge is 
 to be attained by the diligent practice of va- 
 rious ascetic observances, which space will not 
 allow us to detail. For this reason, the gydn 
 mdrg\ has not had the popularity that the 
 hhal'ti mdrg has had. This is the way of 
 
72 Handbook of Coinparatioe Religion. 
 
 " devotion," or " faith " in personal deities, es- 
 pecially in the god Krishna. But this hhal'f) 
 is as different as possible from the Christian 
 conception of faith in Christ. For nowhere is 
 it taught that either Krishna or any other of 
 the personal objects of worship has done any- 
 thing for the sinner's salvation ; nor do they 
 propose to do anything for him. His liber- 
 ation is to be obtained b}^ something which he 
 is to do himself ; namely, by the maintenance 
 of a certain frame of mind toward the deity 
 whom he worships. 
 
 In the Bhagavad Gita, wherein it is at- 
 tempted to combine these two contrasted 
 schemes of salvation, it is taught that the 
 hhaUi w4iich thus saves consists in doing 
 everything with exclusive reference to Krishna, 
 Avithout regard to any pleasure or other ad- 
 vantage or benefit to be derived from such ac- 
 tions. Ordinarily, it is taught, we are by our 
 actions, good and bad, bound to the necessity 
 of repeated births. Hence the ideal of the 
 gydn mdrgh is to renounce " action " ; an ideal 
 most nearl}^ attained by some of the Hindoo 
 ascetics, who sit day after day Tvith their eyes 
 closed, apparently oblivious to all about them, 
 endeavoring to think nothing but this one 
 thought, Tadaham, " I am That," i. e., Brahma. 
 
The Doctnnt Ueyardiny Salvation. I'd 
 
 But the more popular Bhagavad teaches that 
 this end may be more easily attained. Even 
 although I act, as is necessary for most men in 
 this world, I may be saved, if only my actions 
 be all performed without any reference to any 
 advantage, here or hereafter, which may come 
 to me through them. 
 
 In the primitive Yedic religion of India, 
 there is much which reminds one of the Chris- 
 tian doctrine of the necessity of a Divine 
 atonement to the forgiveness of sin. In the 
 Rig Yeda w^e find expressions such as this : 
 "Do thou, by means of sacrifice, take away 
 from us all sin." ^ In the Tandya Maha Brah- 
 mana of the Sama Yeda it is said of sacrifice : 
 "Thou art the annulment of sin — of sin!" 
 Kot only so, but the doctrine of that early 
 time was that Frajapati, the Lord and Saviour 
 of the universe, gave Himself for men. Thus 
 it is written in the Satapatha Brahmana: 
 " The Lord of creatures gave Himself for them ; 
 for He became their sacrifice." In the Tait- 
 tiriya Brahmana it is Avritten : " The sacrifice 
 is the victim ; it (the sacrifice) takes the sacri- 
 ficer to the blessed place." 
 
 But these ancient conceptions, so marvel- 
 ously near the truth set forth in the gospel, 
 
 • Rig Veda x. 133-6. 
 
74 Handbook of Cornj)(jrative Religion. 
 
 have practically disappeared from modern 
 Hindooism. The place which is occupied by 
 sacrifice — now much less frequent — in the 
 modern religion, is very different. In these 
 days, tlie ideas of atonement and substitution 
 are not commonly connected mlLtheLsacrifice. 
 It is instead regarded either as an offering of 
 food to the god which is worshiped, or as in 
 order to the placation of some angry demon. 
 But while we cannot say, that atonement, in 
 the sense of the substitution of a sacrificed 
 victim for the sinner, in order to the expiation 
 of his sin, is a doctrine of modern Hindooism ; 
 yet it is still believed that sin must be expiated, 
 in order to salvation ; and this by the sinner's 
 own voluntary or involuntary acts or suffer- 
 ings. That is, whatever evil one does, the ill- 
 desert of the act must be expiated, either 
 through some penasce {prdyaschitt) enjoined 
 by the Brahmans, or by suffering in some fit. 
 ture birth. But it is held equally true that 
 whatever good one may do, this also, no less 
 than the evil, makes a rebirth necessary, in 
 order that he may reap the fruit of this. But 
 this is far enough from the Christian doctrine 
 of atonement. 
 
 The Hindoos, as is well known, generally be- 
 lieve in the incarnation of the Deity. Concern- 
 
Tin JhH'frint keijardiiuj Salvation. 75 
 
 ing this, it is the orthodox doctrine that there 
 thus far have been nine incarnations (avatars),' 
 and that a tenth, commonly known as the 
 Nishhdank Avatar, or " Sinless Incarnation," 
 is still future. It has often been fancied that 
 in this doctrine of incarnation we have a very 
 close agreement with Christian doctrine. But 
 in reality, between the Christian and the Hin- 
 doo doctrine as to the incarnation of the Deity, 
 there is much more of contrast than of agree- 
 ment. 
 
 In the first place, it is the Christian doctrine 
 of the Incarnation tliat Jesus Christ was_G,od 
 incarnate in a sense unique and exclusive. On 
 the contrary, the Hindoo doctrine, in accord- 
 ance with the universal ])antheism, is that the 
 distinction between men in general and the so- 
 called incarnations, is not in kind, but in de- 
 gree only. All men are incarnations of the 
 Deity, each in his measure ; and even among 
 the ten who are regarded as incarnations j;r//' 
 excellence, some are said to have had more, 
 some less, of the Divine nature. 
 
 Secondly, tlie incarnation of the Son of God, 
 according to Xew Testament teaching, was in 
 its very nature incapable of repetition ; while, 
 as just remarked, the Hindoos maintain that in 
 
 ' Lit. "descents." 
 
T6 Handbook of Comjjaratwe Religion. 
 
 the special supereminent sense there have 
 already been nine incarnations of the Deity, 
 and that a tenth is yet to come. Again, the 
 Christian doctrine lays stress upon the fact 
 that the incarnation of the Son of God was a 
 \'^luntary:__act ; while Hindooism expressly 
 teaches that the supposed incarnations of the 
 Deity, no less reaDy than the births of ordi- 
 nary men, were the necessary fruit of works 
 done by the incarnate one in a previous state 
 of existence. They could not therefore be ex- 
 pressions of the Divine love to lost sinners, 
 and as a matter of fact, are never so repre- 
 sented. Further, whereas our blessed Lord is 
 declared to have been withoiiLsui, "holy, 
 harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners," 
 all the Hindoo incarnations thus far are repre- 
 sented as having been sinful ; indeed, many of 
 them are set forth as having differed from 
 ordinary men in nothing more than in having 
 utterly transcended them in impurity of life, 
 hatred, anger, and vindictiveness. The doctrine 
 of the "sinless incarnation" yet to ap])ear, is 
 however very suggestive, as being a virtual con- 
 fession, which seems to express the sense of 
 the Hindoos that these supposed incarnations 
 hitherto, as having been thus sinful, have not 
 fulfilled the ideal of a Divine incarnation. 
 
The Doctrine Regarding Salvation. 77 
 
 Finally, whereas it is said to have been the 
 object of the incarnation of our Lord that He 
 might save His people from their sins, this is 
 never in the Hindoo Scriptures once repre- 
 sented as the purpose of any of their incarna- 
 tions. On the contrary, the Deity is again 
 and again said to have assumed bodily form 
 on earth, in order to deliver the good from 
 their enemies, and de stroy sinners, instead of 
 saving them. Even the Nisld'alanh Avatar^ 
 still expected, is likewise foretold as to come 
 for the destruction of sinners. Thus in no in- 
 stance has the Hindoo doctrine of incarnation, 
 any more than have their modern sacrificial 
 rites, any connection with the salvation of sin- 
 ners from their sins ; while, it should be added, 
 the Shaivites or worshipers of Shiva, deny the 
 doctrine of incarnation altogether. 
 
 In connection with the doctrine of salvation, 
 Christianity lays great stress upon union with 
 God through Jesus Christ, as essential to sal- 
 vation from sin and to holy living ; and, so far 
 as words go, the expressions which are used in 
 many Hindoo sacred books might seem to teach 
 the same thing. Yoga, or union with the Su- 
 preme Being, is often held up as the highest 
 good, in language which sounds like much in 
 the gospels and epistles. But in this matter 
 
78 Handhook of Comparative Religion, 
 
 again, in reality, we have not similarity, but 
 the strongest contrast. For the union with 
 God in Christ of which the New Testament 
 writers say so much, does not involve any sup- 
 pression of, still less loss of, [)ersona]ity. The 
 believer, tlu'ough his faith mystically united 
 with God in Christ, is still, according to the 
 New Testament teaching, as separate and dis- 
 tinct from God as ever he was. But, on the 
 contrary, all Hindoos intend by yoga^ '' union " 
 with God, the exact opposite ; namely, the ut- 
 ter loss of the separate personality of the 
 devotee, the absolute and final cessation of per- 
 sonal existence, through absorption in Brahma, 
 even as the wave becomes lost in the ocean. 
 
 Finally, to complete this part of our com- 
 parison, it must be added that whereas Chris- 
 tianity recognizes no waj of salvation apart 
 frQm„Ch]dst, Hindooism regards no man as ex- 
 cluded from the final possibility of imiUi, on 
 account of race or religion. Some will no 
 doubt regard this as a point wherein the Hin- 
 doo teaching, as being more broad, is superior 
 to that of Jesus Christ ; but the vital question, 
 after all, is not which is the broader, but which 
 is the true teaching. Nor can we credit this 
 belief to the superiority of the Hindoo to the 
 Christian in charity ; seeing that such an in- 
 
The Doctrine Begardiug Salvation. 79 
 
 ference necessarily follows from the pantheism 
 which is fundamental to the modern Hindoo 
 religion. 
 
 Turning now to Buddhism, we meet with a 
 doctrine concerning salvation Avhich is even 
 more remote from Christianity than that of 
 Hindooism. Salvation, in the Buddhist doc- 
 trine, is not absorption in the universal Divine 
 Essence, as in Hindooism, for Buddhism knows 
 of no Supreme Being, whether in a theistic or 
 pantheistic sense. Still less is it eternal resi- 
 dence in heaven, even such a heaven as is prom- 
 ised to the faithful Mussulman. It is simply 
 non-existence. It is deliverance from that ne- 
 cessity of repeated rebirth which is occasioned 
 by the presence of tanhd or " desire," and is 
 eternal cessation of being. This is nh^vdna or 
 tiihhdna ; ^ or, to be more precise, — since a lower 
 grade of nirvdna is recognized, — it \^ parinih- 
 hdna^ the supreme nirvdna. 
 
 I am well aware that this has often been 
 denied b}^ scholars of eminence ; but it is hard 
 to resist the feeling — if one may judge some 
 such by their own words — that they have often 
 been determined in their opinion more by their 
 western ideas as to the highest good, than by 
 a reference to the plain words of the ancient 
 
 • Nibbana is the Pali form of the Sanskrit word nirvana. 
 
80 Han'dhooh of Comparative Religion, 
 
 Buddhist Scriptures.^ It is hard to see how 
 the non-existence of him ^yho has attained 
 nirvana could be more categorically affirmed 
 than by the words attributed to the Buddha in 
 the Sutta Nipdta ; wherein one asking infor- 
 mation on this subject is answered by the Bud- 
 dha : " That by which they say ' He is ' exists for 
 him (the delivered or saved one) no longer."'^ 
 No less explicit are the Avords in another part 
 of the same Sutta^ where we are told that they 
 " who perfectly conceive the state (of nihhdna) 
 . . . are completely extinguished."^ So 
 again with equal explicitness, we read in the 
 Vinaya Pitaka^ " By the destruction of thirst 
 {tanhd\ Attachment is destroyed ; by the de- 
 struction of Attachment, Existence is de- 
 stroyed." 
 
 And indeed, when it is remembered that the 
 idea of the supreme good must needs be deter- 
 mined by the conception one may have of the 
 supreme evil, it is plain that granting the Bud- 
 dhist postulates constantly reaffirmed, that the 
 chief evil is pain or sorrow, and that sorrow is 
 a necessary and inseparable concomitant of ex- 
 istence, then salvation, at least in its strict and 
 
 'See, e. g., the language used by Sir Edwin Arnold, in the Pref- 
 ace to his Light of Asia; also the words used by Professor Max 
 iliiller, Science of'Relioion, p. 140. 
 
 "See Sutta Niputo ; Pdrai/anavaf/ffn, vii. 4-8. 
 
 ^Ib. Dvayatanii2yassana Sutta, 42. ' 
 
The Doctrine Begarding Salvation. 81 
 
 highest sense, mitst consist in the extinction of 
 existence. ^ 
 
 It is however true that nirvana is also rep- 
 resented in a different way in the Buddhist 
 authorities; namely, as the attainment of a 
 certain ethical state and temper of mind and 
 character; something, moreover, which is or 
 may be reached in this present life. We read, 
 for' instance : " The destruction of passion, | 
 and of wish for the dear objects which have ! 
 been perceived, O Hemaka, is the imperishable / 
 state of nirvdna:' ^ Here then we meet with • 
 a conception of salvation which in so far agrees 
 
 » Quite recently, Dr. Paul Carusjn The Ji"on/s^ has reiterated 
 the denial that 'nirvana consists in tlie extinction of existence. 
 But I find in his article nothing whicli sliould constrain one to l)e- 
 lieve that such eminent specialists in liiuldliist doctrine as Cliild- 
 ers Oldenberg. Rhys Davids. and others, are mistaken in this mat- 
 ter' He argues his iiosition from a passa^^e in the Samyntta 
 Nikaiicu wherein apparently, if it be understood according to our 
 western ideas, the continued existence of him who has attained 
 nirvana might seem to l)e taught. But Dr. <"arus' own interpreta- 
 tion seems to lead to the very conclusion which we maintain. For 
 we are told that all the constituents of man are "transitory," and 
 therefore "cannot be regarded as his . . . enduring self." 
 But if so, then if all the constituents of the man who has attained 
 nirvana are gone, how can the man himself be still regarded as 
 existing? Dr. Cams illustrates what he regards as the correct 
 understanding of this matter by a quotation from the Visuddhi 
 Maaga. which he takes to imply his own view of the nature of mr- 
 valid. Thus : 
 
 '•Misery only doth exist, none miserable. 
 No (loVr is there, naueht save the deed is found. 
 Nirvana /.s, but not the man who seeks it: 
 The Path exists, but not the traveler cm It." 
 
 But these words will seem to most of us as only a paradoxical ex- 
 presshm of the most extreme nihilism. The substance is perished, 
 but its attributes remain ! The deed remains, but not the doer ! 
 To attempt to distinguish such a condition from what in ordinary 
 language we call non-existence, seems to be a mere waste of 
 words. See The MoniM. ,Jan. 1897, pi). 265, 266. 
 '^Sulta Nipdta ; Parayanavagga, ix. 3. 
 
82 Handbook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 with that of Christianity that it is made to con- 
 sist in the attainment of a certain type of char- 
 acter ; a type, moreover, which is characterized 
 by the extinction of sin. But when we recall 
 to mind what has been set forth in the previous 
 chapter as to the Buddhist idea of sin, it is 
 plain that the resemblance herein between this 
 conception of the nature of salvation and that 
 which is presented in Christianity, is wholly 
 superficial and unreal. For sin is one thing in 
 Christianity, quite another in Buddhism. It 
 is true enough that certain things regarded 
 as sinful by the Buddhist, are held to be sin 
 also by the Christian ; but many other things 
 are held to be sin by the Buddhist, which ac- 
 cording to the gospel are not sin ; so that it is 
 very clear that the standard by which an ac- 
 tion or moral state was judged by the Buddha 
 to be sinful or otherwise, w^as very different 
 from that which determines this in Christianity. 
 Hence nirvana^ even if considered in its (lower) 
 sense of deliverance from sin, is something very 
 different from the salvation of the gospel. 
 The Buddhist w^ho is regarded as in this sense 
 a saved man, is not merely a man who has 
 ceased to hate, but who has ceased also to love ; 
 who has not only ceased to desire evil, but also 
 to desire good j and who, if delivered from the 
 
The Doctrine Regarding Salvation. 83 
 
 desire of long life in this sinful world, is equally 
 delivered from any desire to go to heaven ! 
 Assuredly, this ideal of salvation is only one 
 less degree removed from that of the gospel, 
 than that of absolute annihilation. 
 
 Again, it is also true, that the common 
 people, in Buddhist lands often conceive of 
 salvation as consisting in a residence after 
 death in a place of blessedness ; and for this 
 view also texts can be quoted from the Bud- 
 dhist Scriptures. Thus, we read : " Evil doers 
 go to hell ; righteous people go to heaven." 
 But it is immediately added in this text from 
 the DJiammapada, — as if to caution any one 
 from supposing that in its highest sense this 
 is salvation — " those who are free from all 
 worldly desires " (/. ^., from all desire for any- 
 thing, either good or evil in this world) " at- 
 tain nirvana?'' ^ 
 
 Furthermore, the Buddhist heaven is not a 
 place of eternal abode. No one can stay there 
 forever. To suppose this, were to contradict 
 directly the fundamental postulate of the 
 whole Buddhist system, that there is no per- 
 manence any^where in anything, either good 
 or evil. 
 
 Again, whereas the teaching of Christ was 
 
 ' Dhammapada, 126, 
 
84 Handbook of Coin^arative Religion, 
 
 that no man ever has saved or can save him- 
 self, and that the sole author of salvation is 
 God Himself in Christ, the Buddha taught, 
 and that with emphasis, the exact opposite, 
 that every man must be his own saviour. It 
 is written : 
 
 *' By one's self the evil is done ; l)y one's self 
 one suffers ; by one's self evil is left undone ; 
 by one's self one is purified. Lo, no man can 
 purify another." * 
 
 In nothing is the contrast between Bud- 
 dhism and Christianity more marked than just 
 at this point. The teaching of the gospel is 
 that God became man to save man : that of 
 Buddhism is, in effect, that man may make 
 himself God, thereby saving himself. The one 
 teaches a Divine self-humiliation to save sin- 
 ful man, the other a human self -exaltation 
 whereby the man may save himself. 
 
 One can scarcely speak of a " ground " of 
 salvation, when speaking of the Buddhist sal- 
 vation ; for this phrase implies a superior 
 Power who accepts or rejects a man on ac- 
 count of certain things done or suffered by 
 himself or another, whereas Buddhism knows 
 nothing of any such Power. It is taught, 
 however, that the means whereby one may 
 
 ' Dhammapada, 165. 
 
Tke Doctrine Reyannny Salvation. 85 
 
 attain to salvation is the practice of certain 
 good works. Not that there is any superior 
 I'ower which will reward the doer ; but there 
 is a certain necessary, though non-moral, nexus 
 between certain deeds or acts and certain re- 
 sults, which insures that, given certain acts, a 
 certain result will follow. But the reason of 
 this is not judicial or legal, but purely physical, 
 like that in virtue of which the planting of a 
 certain seed insures the appearance of a certain 
 kind of plant. 
 
 As for the means whereby one may secure 
 salvation, the biblical statements are plain that 
 the sinner obtains salvation by means of faith ; 
 that is, by trust in a crucified, but now risen 
 and living, Saviour, Jesus Christ the Lord, and 
 in virtue of His atoning death. The Buddha, 
 on the contrary, taught that salvation is to be 
 obtained by following the " Xoble Eightfold 
 Path." From the standpoint of the southern 
 and orthodox Buddhism, to speak of trust in 
 the Buddha were absurd ; for having attained 
 the ineffable nirvdna, he is now infinitely be- 
 yond reach. The '' Xoble Eightfold Path" 
 is declared by the Buddha to be : — Eight 
 views ; Eight aspirations ; Eight speech ; Eight 
 conduct ; Eight livelihood ; Eight effort ; Eight 
 mindfulness ; and Eight contemplation. Even 
 
86 Handhooh of Comjjarative Religion. 
 
 were we to assume that these several phrases 
 mean what the words naturally suggest to any 
 one brought up in a Christian land, it would 
 be plain that the Buddhist doctrine of salva- 
 tion, as contrasted with the Christian, teaches 
 instead of salvation by trust in another, salva- 
 tion by one's own works, in a word, by right- 
 ness of life. Even so, the two doctrines are 
 antagonistic, — if one is true, the other is false. 
 But the divergence is far greater than this. 
 For the Buddha did not intend to teach by 
 these words merely salvation by moral and 
 upright living, such as is the trust of so many 
 in Christian lands ; he meant something wholly 
 different. For Avhat these words may mean, 
 manifestly depends upon what is regarded as 
 the standard of right ness ; which in this case 
 is one nowhere recognized in Christendom. 
 For instance, when " right views " are enjoined 
 as fundamental to all the rightness, by this it 
 is meant that he wlio would be saved, must 
 hold those views of life which are set forth in 
 what are known as " the Four ]S"oble Truths," 
 namely: that existence of necessity involves 
 sorrow ; that this sorrow is caused by desire ; 
 that the extinction of sorrow, which is the 
 object of the doctrine of salvation, is therefore 
 to be attained through the extinction of all 
 
Tht Don trine Regarding Salvation. 87 
 
 desire ; and, finally, that this extinction of 
 desire will be brought about by walking in 
 the above described " Noble Eightfold Path." 
 These are the " right views," the adoption of 
 which is the first step in the " Noble Eightfold 
 Path " which conducts to nirvana. Similarly, 
 the " right aims " are described as ^' such as 
 tend to the renouncing of the world." But 
 this phrase is not intended in the ordinary 
 ethical sense as understood by Protestants ; 
 but in the most extreme monastic sense. By 
 '' rightness of livelihood," again, as another of 
 these means of salvation, it is intended that a 
 man shall gain his livelihood in such a Avay as 
 shall injure no living being. It is taught, for 
 example, that the emplo^^ment of a hunter, or 
 a fisherman, or a butcher, is incompatible with 
 walk in the " Noble Eightfold Path " ; and if 
 consistent, the Buddhist would also have to 
 say that the employment of a doctor com- 
 monly involves sin ; because, by giving quinine 
 to a patient suffering with intermittent fever, 
 he thereby destroys that low form of animal 
 life the presence of which in the circulation 
 causes the chill and fever ! 
 
 Such is the means of salvation as set forth 
 in the canonical books of orthodox Buddhism 
 as held in Ceylon, Burmah, and Siam. In 
 
88 Handhooh of Comparati've Religion. 
 
 Thibet, China, and Japan, however, Buddhism 
 has become greatly modified, and therewith 
 especially its doctrine as to the means of sal- 
 vation. The northern Buddhists believe that 
 a Buddha yet to be born on earth is at present 
 living somewhere in the heavens ; and this 
 imaginary being, called the Bodhisat, is prac- 
 tically regarded as a God to w^hom men in 
 their need may pray and look for help. xVnd 
 so it has come about that in consequence of 
 that ineradicable sense of the need of a Saviour, 
 which the orthodox Buddhism utterly refuses 
 to satisfy, man has evolved for himself, in the 
 northern Buddhism, a doctrine of salvation 
 which bears a considerable resemblance to 
 the Christian doctrine. Xot Christ, but the 
 heavenl}^ Bodhisat^ the so-called Amitaha Bud- 
 dhuy is the object of faith. He is supposed 
 through countless bygone ages to have been 
 accumulating for himself an infinite stock of 
 merit ; and it is believed that when a man puts 
 his faith in this imaginary being, all of 
 Amitaba's merit is, as it were, transferred to 
 him ; and so, released now from the necessity 
 of continued rebirth into this world of pain 
 and sorrow, the believer is at death received 
 into a heaven of everlasting blessedness. It 
 has with reason been remarked : " It is very 
 
Th<i Doctrine Regarding Salvation. 89 
 
 remarkable that Buddhism, beginning in sheer 
 atheism, should finally have reached the very 
 threshold of Christianity, without the Christ. 
 No other false system has ever paid so marked 
 a tribute, though involuntary, to the funda- 
 mental doctrines of Christianity." ^ 
 
 As for Confucianism, it cannot be said to 
 have a doctrine of salvation. Confucius con- 
 cerned himself exclusively with this present 
 life ; and, ignoring God and our relation to 
 Him, and with this the future and unseen 
 world, he had no place for any teaching as to 
 the saving of sinners. The question does not 
 even seem to have been within his horizon. 
 
 Taouism long ago borrowed from Buddhism 
 the doctrine of transmigration of souls, and 
 appears to teach that the deliverance of man 
 from evil is brought about through various 
 purgatorial sufferings. If these fail to bring 
 about a man's moral improvement, he is then 
 consigned to endless torment in hell. But so 
 inadequately have both Confucianism and 
 Taouism dealt with the question of what a 
 sinner must do to be saved, that practically, 
 the Chinese have fallen back for a doctrine of 
 salvation, on a Buddhism of the type just ex- 
 plained. 
 
 ' Encyclopcedia of Missions, vol. I., p. 212. 
 
CHAPTEK YI. 
 
 THE DOCTEINE C01SrCER:N^ING THE FUTURE. 
 
 Of importance fully equal to the fascination 
 which it has had for the greatest minds in all 
 ages, is the question, What shall the end be ? 
 This question comprehends two questions: 
 first, What is the final destiny of the individual 
 man ? and, second. What is the destiny of this 
 world of men as a collective organism ? 
 
 In answer to the first of these two questions, 
 the gospel of Christ assures us that death does 
 not end all ; that the soul of man is immortal, 
 so that man will live forever, as a self-con- 
 scious personality ; and moreover that there 
 shall yet be, at a time unknown to all but God, 
 a resurrection to bodily life of all the dead, in 
 order that they may be judged according to 
 their works. It further teaches that until the 
 day of resurrection the souls of all penitent and 
 obedient believers in God, and — whenever and 
 wherever revealed — in His Son Jesus Christ, 
 when they die, " depart to be with Christ " ; 
 and that if their blessedness in this disem- 
 90 
 
The Doctt'ine Coiieenilny the Fttture. 91 
 
 bodied state be not yet complete, their condi- 
 tion is yet " very far better " than in this pres- 
 ent life.^ 
 
 It is taught, on the other hand, that the souls 
 of the departed ungodly and wicked — to use 
 the words employed by the Lord Jesus Christ 
 Himself, concerning the rich man who died — 
 are "in torment"; which He Himself also 
 chose to illustrate by the image of fire and ex- 
 treme thirst.'^ 
 
 AYith regard to that period called " the day 
 of judgment," it is taught that " all that are 
 in the tom])s shall hear His [Christ's] voice, 
 and shall come forth ; they that have done 
 good unto the resurrection of life, and they 
 that have done ill unto the resurrection 
 of judgment."^ In that day, we are told, 
 every man shall be rewarded according to his 
 works ; ^ that as for believers, while their ac- 
 ceptance before God on the ground of Christ's 
 atonement is the sole reason for their exemp- 
 tion from that " indignation and wrath, tribu- 
 lation and anguish " which shall overtake the 
 ungodly,' so that they are saved merely 
 through the grace of God; yet their reward 
 shall be strictly according to their works; one 
 
 • Phil. I. 23. (R. V.) " Luke xvl. 23. 24. 
 
 'John V. 28, 29. (r. v.) ' Matt. xvi. 27, and N. T. passim. 
 
 »Rom. ii. 8, 9. 
 
92 Handbook of Cohiparative Religion. 
 
 shall rule over five, another over ten cities ; ■ 
 while the work of others which they av rough t 
 in the days of their earthly life " shall be 
 burned," so that, although they themselves 
 shall be saved, it sliall vet be as "throuirh 
 hre." - 
 
 In like manner, it was taught by Jesus 
 C'hrist that there will be great differences in 
 tiie severity of the punishment of the finally 
 impenitent and condemned. The servant that 
 knew his master's will and did it not, shall be 
 beaten " with many stripes " ; while he that 
 knew not his master's will and did it not, shall 
 be beaten '' with few stripes." ^ And, according 
 to the teaching of the Scriptures, as under- 
 stood by the great majority of Christians in 
 all ages, not only the I'eward of the righteous, 
 but also the retribution of the ungodl}^ w^ill be 
 eternal. Eegarding this matter the Lord 
 Jesus used these most explicit words : " These '' 
 — ?*. <?., those just mentioned who had failed in 
 the law of love — ''shall go away into eternal 
 punishment : but the righteous into eternal 
 life." ' 
 
 It is of the greatest importance to observe, 
 in comparing Christian with non-Christian 
 
 Luke xlx. 17, 18. n Cor. Hi. 15. (r. v.) 
 
 " 46 (K. v.). 
 
 ' Luke xil. 47. * Matt. xxv. 
 
The Doctrine Concerning the Future. 93 
 
 teaching on this point, that, according to 
 Christian doctrine, in this final fixation of the 
 eternal destiny of men, there is nothing arbi- 
 traiy. The final destiny is determined by the 
 presence or absence of a certain type of moral 
 cliaracter, marked by purity of heart, and su- 
 preme love to God. That the salvation of the 
 believer is always said to be of grace, does not 
 affect this fact : for the Holy Scriptures every- 
 where teach that the grace which through 
 atoning blood justifies and pardons the be- 
 liever, does this in oi-der that by the inwork- 
 ing of the Holy Spirit, the teaching of the 
 Word, and the various discipline of life, the 
 once sinful man may finally come to be without 
 "spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." ^ Xor 
 does any word of Scripture ever hint that any 
 man will ever be visited with everlasting pun- 
 ishment in whom this holiness of character is 
 found. Such, in brief, is the teaching of Chris- 
 tianity, as commonly understood, regarding 
 the ultimate destiny of individual men. 
 
 As regards the final destiny of this world, 
 the Scriptures teach, as understood by all 
 Christians, that whereas now sin and unright- 
 eousness, and ignorance of God, prevail more 
 or less in all lands, a day is coming in which 
 
 ' Eph. V, 27. 
 
9-1: Hmidhook of Compavatvve Eelujlon, 
 
 all this shall be reversed ; " the earth shall be 
 full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the 
 waters cover the sea," ^ and "all nations shall 
 serve" and obey the Christ of God. '^ They 
 also teach that in that day of judgment wliich 
 brings in the resurrection and reward of the 
 righteous and the wicked, this material earth 
 in which we live shall be burned with fire.^ 
 But the same apostle who speaks most fully on 
 this subject, hastens to add that the result of 
 these last fires, shall be, not the annihilation 
 of the planet as a habitable globe, but the ap- 
 pearance of " a new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness." * And the sacred record closes 
 Avith a picture full of mysterious glory, in 
 which it is no doubt hard to say how much 
 is to be taken as literal, and how much as 
 figurative, but in which this at least seems 
 clearly to appear as the issue of human his- 
 tory : namely, a new heaven and a new earth, 
 from which all that is impure and unholy shall 
 be forever excluded, and whose blessed inhab- 
 itants shall live in the immediate vision and 
 fellowship of their God and Father to all eter- 
 nity.' Such, in a very general way, is the 
 teaching of Christianity concerning the last 
 
 *Is. xi. 9. '^Ps. Ixxll.ll. 
 
 ^2Pet. lil.7, 10. * 2 Pet. m. 13. 
 
 'Rev. xxl. 1-8; xxli. 1-6. * 
 
The Doctr'ine Concerni mf the Future. 95 
 
 things, as understood by the majority of Chris- 
 tian people. 
 
 As Islam has drawn so largely from the 
 Christian and Jewish Scriptures, we find in its 
 eschatology much that is in agreement with 
 these, though still more derived from the fan- 
 cies of rabbinical traditions. Like the Chris- 
 tian Scriptures, the Quran teaches, or rather 
 assumes, the immortality of the soul of man, 
 and the persistence forever of self-conscious- 
 ness and personality. Like Christianity, Islam 
 also teaches the resurrection of the dead, at a 
 certain preordained time, unknown to all but 
 God, and the eternal existence thereafter, in a 
 form of bodily life, of all men who shall have 
 ever lived. Islam adds, however, that not 
 only men, but also angels, the imaginary be- 
 ings called jinns, and even the brutes, shall 
 have part in the resurrection.' But as re- 
 gards the last named, it is taught that after 
 having been thus raised, and having taken 
 satisfaction for all that they had suffered, and 
 having been duly punished for all evil done 
 by them, their bodies shall be again reduced 
 to dust.^ 
 
 The Mohammedan religion also recognizes, 
 
 ' Sura vl. avs?; xvil. 52-54. 
 
 -See Sale's Preliminary Discourse to the Quran. 
 
96 Handbook of Comparative Religion, 
 
 of necessity, an intermediate state of the souls 
 of the departed, between death and the resur- 
 rection. As to its nature, and the condition of 
 man therein, the Quran has but little to say ; 
 though traditions of sayings attributed, with 
 more or less reason, to Mohammed, have vari- 
 ously supplied the deficiency. It is taught in 
 the Quran, however, that the angel of death 
 separates the soul from the body, with vio- 
 lence in the case of the wicked, and Avith gen- 
 tleness in that of the righteous.^ After the 
 corpse is placed in the grave, it is visited by 
 the two angels, Munkir and Xakir, who ex- 
 amine the dead man as to his religious stand- 
 ing. If he believe in the lialima^ they give 
 him no further trouble ; but if he be an unbe- 
 liever, they beat him cruelly with heavy 
 clubs.^ When this examination is completed, 
 the soul passes into Al BarzaM^ the Moham- 
 medan Hades.^ Concerning the condition of 
 the faithful who have departed this life, noth- 
 ing in the Quran is in higher tone than Avhat 
 is said of those who had fallen in battle at 
 Ohod : 
 
 "Thou shalt in no wise reckon those who 
 have been slain in the cause of God as dead ; 
 
 ' Sura xvi. 34, 35; Ixxix. 1, 2. ' Sura xlvii. 29; vili.52. 
 
 ^See Sura xxlii. lul, and the Rev. Dr. Wherry's Note thereon in 
 his Commentary on the Quran, vol. iii., p. 184. 
 
The Doctrine Concerning the Future. 97 
 
 nay, they are sustained alive with their Lord, 
 rejoicing for what God of His favor has 
 granted them ; and being glad for those, who, 
 coming after them, have not yet overtaken 
 them : because there shall no fear come upon 
 them, neither shall they be grieved. They are 
 filled with joy for the favor which they have 
 received from God and His bounty; and for 
 that God suffereth not the reward of the faith- 
 ful to perish." ^ 
 
 But Islam has not been content with this, 
 and the various traditions accounted authentic 
 by Mohammedans, add numerous particulars 
 as to the state of the dead, most of which are 
 in suggestive contrast with the I^ew Testa- 
 7nent on this subject. A distinction is taught 
 as to the condition of disembodied spirits. The 
 souls of prophets are admitted at once into 
 Paradise ; those of the martyrs are said to rest 
 in the crops of green birds in Paradise. As to 
 the souls of other Mohammedans, many be- 
 lieve them to linger around the graves where 
 the bodies are laid. Others teach that all 
 dwell in the lowest heaven with Adam, the 
 righteous on his right hand, and the wicked 
 on his left ; others, again, that they exist under 
 the throne of God in the form of white birds, 
 
 ' Sura lil. 170-172 
 
98 Handbook of Comparatim Religion. 
 
 The souls of the wicked, many believe to be 
 kept in durance in a dungeon in the lowest 
 earth; others believe that, according to a 
 tradition imputed to Mohammed, they dwell 
 under the jaw of Satan, and are tormented by 
 him until the resurrection. 
 y As to the nature of the resurrection, it is 
 taught that faithful Mohammedans are raised 
 in their own bodies, in various degrees of 
 honor, according to their merit. ^ Unbelievers, 
 on the other hand, will not in all cases be 
 raised in their own bodies ; some will be raised 
 in the form of apes, others as swine, others as 
 maimed or variously distorted.^ Of the teach- 
 ing of the Xew Testament, based on that of 
 our Lord, that the resurrection body shall be 
 a spiritual body, such that "in the resurrec- 
 tion . . . [they] neither marry, nor are 
 given in marriage,"^ there is not a trace in the 
 Quran. On the contrary, all the descriptions, 
 many of them in gross language, intimate that 
 the body shall be as truly an animal body as 
 this. Believers shall not only be delighted 
 with the pleasures of the palate, but shall be 
 capable as here of procreation ; and for their 
 
 'Suraxxxvi. 54. 
 
 ''See, for a detailed account of the teaching of the Traditions on 
 this whole subject. Sale's Preliminary Discourse to the Quran, 
 sec. Iv, 
 
 » Luke XX, 35. 
 
The Doctrine Concerning the Future. 99 
 
 enjoyment beautiful houris shall be assigned 
 to every true believer.^ 
 
 The resurrection is to take place in the day 
 of judgment, of which the purpose is declared 
 to be the reward of all according to their 
 works. Rightly enough, great emphasis is laid 
 on the certainty, and the unspeakable terror 
 of that day. Sura Al Haqqat opens with the 
 words : " The infallible ! the infallible ! What 
 is the infallible ? " '^ To which the answer is 
 given that it is the announcement of this great 
 day of judgment. The day is said in the 
 Quran to be preceded by signs, such as the 
 splitting of the moon,^ the appearing of a 
 great and awful smoke ; ^ to which the author- 
 ized traditions add many more: such as the 
 appearing of a portentous beast sixt\" cubits 
 high ; great distress among all nations ; the de- 
 cay of the faith ; sunrise in the west, the de- 
 scent of Jesus from heaven, who will marry 
 and live on the earth for fortv years,' kill 
 antichrist, etc., etc. During this short period 
 of His sojourn, the earth shall enjoy great 
 
 'The grossiiess of the descrii)tions of these sensual enjoyments 
 of good Mussulmans in Paradise, which are found in the "Quran, is 
 astounding. See (e. gr.), Suras Iv. 41-78; Ivii. 11-39; Uvi. 12-22, e? 
 
 ''Hence the name, Al Haqqat, of this Sura. 
 
 'Suraliv. 1.2. 
 
 *Suraxliv. 9, 10. 
 
 *Some say, twenty-four years. 
 
100 Handhook of CornjKtrative Religion. 
 
 peace, so that even camels and sheep shall live 
 with lions and bears, and little children shall 
 play with serpents. Beasts and even inanimate 
 things shall use articulate speech ; the Imam 
 Mahdi shall appear ; the moon shall be eclipsed 
 when in conjunction with the sun ; ^ etc., etc. 
 
 As to the adjudications of that day, it is 
 taught : " The weighing of man's actions on 
 that day shall be just ; and they whose bal- 
 ances laden Avith their good works shall be 
 heavy, are those who shall be happy ; but 
 those whose balances shall be light, are those 
 who have lost their souls." These " shall re- 
 main in hell forever." ^ Great pliysical con- 
 vulsions shall occur : " The earth shall be shaken 
 with a violent shock, and the mountains shall 
 be dashed in pieces, and shall become as dust 
 scattered abroad. And ye shall be separated 
 into three distinct classes : The companions of 
 the right hand — how happy shall the compan- 
 ions of the right hand be ! And the companions 
 of the left hand — how miserable shall the com- 
 panions of the left hand be ! And those who 
 have preceded others in the faith, shall pre- 
 cede them to Paradise."^ 
 
 'Siu-a Ixxv. 8, 9. See Rale's Preliminary Discourse, etc., seo.lv. 
 In whicli seventeen such signs are enumerated. 
 -Sni;is vil. 8, 9; xxiii. 104. 
 ^Suralvi. 4-10. 
 
The Doctrine Concerniuy the Future. 101 
 
 The duration of the day of judgment is said 
 in one place to be " the twinkling of an eye, 
 or even more quick " ; elsewhere, a thousand 
 years, and again, in another place, fifty thou- 
 sand years.* 
 
 The issue of the day will be the driving of 
 the wicked into hell, and the reception of the 
 righteous into Paradise.^ According to the 
 authoritative "Traditions," all will have to 
 pass the bridge Si rat, no broader than a hair, 
 and shar})ev than a sword, which the righteous 
 shall cross safely, while the unbelievers shall 
 fall off into hell.^ It should be added, how- 
 ever, that Islam teaches that wicked Moham- 
 medans will have to expiate their sins in the 
 hell Q.2W^^ jahiuvnam ; but that finally all, 
 even of such Mussulmans, will be delivered, 
 while, on the other hand, no one who was not 
 on earth a true Moslem, will ever be delivered 
 from the torments of hell. 
 
 In nothing is there a greater contrast be- 
 tween the Christian Scriptures and the Mo- 
 hammedan Quran and traditions, than in the 
 way in which the pains of hell are described. 
 The few statements in the Xew Testament are 
 awful indeed ; but there is a holy reticence on 
 
 ' Suras xvi. 79 : xxxii. 4 : Ixx. 4. 
 
 *Sura Ivi. 11-43, et. seq.: also ci. 6-9 etpnsmyi. 
 
 »A notion probably derived from the Magians. 
 
102 Handbook of ComjjatuUive Religion. 
 
 the subject, and always an undertone of yearn- 
 ing pity and longing for the salvation of all ; 
 as also a careful justice which declares that 
 but "few stripes " shall be visited on him who 
 did not his Master's will through ignorance. 
 l\\ terrible contrast with this, in the Quran the 
 tortures to be inflicted on men in hell are 
 dwelt upon to weariness, and with a gross- 
 ness of detailed description and an utter ab- 
 sence of any trace of pity that any must so 
 suffer. Thus we read: *' Yerily, those who 
 disbelieve our signs, we Avill cast to be broiled 
 in hell-fire; so often as their skins shall be 
 well burned, we will give them other skins in 
 exchange, that they may taste the sharper 
 torment; for God isAvise."^ "Transgressors 
 shall be cast into hell to be burned ; and a 
 wretched couch it shall be. This let them 
 taste, to Avit: scalding water and corruption 
 flowing from the bodies of the damned." For 
 refreshment they shall have the fruit of the 
 tree Al Zaqqum, which is described as a "tree 
 that issueth from the bottom of hell : the fruit 
 thereof resembleth the heads of devils, and 
 the damned shall eat the same and shall fill 
 their bellies therewith, and there shall be given 
 them a mixture of filth and boiling water to 
 
 'Sura iv. 64. 
 
Tfu- Doctrine Concerning the Fxiture, 103 
 
 drink : and af terAvards, they shall return into 
 hell." ^ Instead of a justice tempered with holy 
 pity, they are represented as taunted in their 
 helpless agony. AVhen the unbelievers shall 
 be cast into a fire " furiously raging and roar- 
 ing; . . . they shall call -for death." It 
 shall be answered them, " Call not this day 
 for one death, but call for many deaths." " It 
 shall be said to the tormentors, ' Take him and 
 drag him into the midst of hell and pour on 
 his head the torture of boiling water, saying. 
 Taste this ! for thou wast that mighty and 
 honorable person.' " '^ 
 
 Equally gross are the descriptions constantly 
 recurring in the Quran, of the enjoyments of 
 Paradise. The ISTew Testament dwells on the 
 spiritual fellowship Avith God, and Avith all the 
 earthly imagery that is employed, never once 
 uses an image which could suggest an evil 
 thought. Very different is it with the Quran. 
 It is true indeed, that now and then is found a 
 not unworthy description of heaven, as : " They 
 shall be introduced into gardens of perpetual 
 abode ; . . . and they shall say. Praise be 
 to God who hath taken sorrow from us. Yer- 
 ilj^ our Lord is ready to forgive the sinners 
 and to reward the obedient, who hath caused 
 
 'Sura xxxvii. 60-66. *Sura xliv. 47-49. 
 
104 Handbook of Cotnjjarative lieligion, 
 
 us to take up our rest in a chvelling of perpet- 
 ual stabilit}^ through His bounty, wherein shall 
 no labor touch us, neither shall any weariness 
 affect us." ^ 
 
 Far more frequent, however, are such de- 
 scriptions of the pleasures reserved for the 
 faithful as the following : " They shall repose 
 on couches the linings of which shall be of 
 thick silk interwoven with gold. 
 Therein shall receive them beauteous damsels 
 refraining their eyes from beholding any be- 
 sides their spouses, whom no man shall have 
 deflowered before them."^ Elsewhere, we 
 read concerning " the companions of the right 
 hand " : " They shall repose themselves on 
 lofty beds. Yeril}^, we have created the dam- 
 sels of Paradise by a peculiar creation : and 
 we have made them virgins, beloved by their 
 husbands, of equal age with them, for the de- 
 light of the companions of the right hand."^ 
 
 An eternity of sensual enjoyment — this is 
 the heaven set forth in the Quran for the re- 
 ward of them that please God, as the passages 
 are naturally interpreted by all orthodox ^lo- 
 hammedan interpreters. 
 
 As to the future of this earth and the world 
 
 ' Sura XXXV. 30-32. 'Sura Iv. 66. 
 
 «Siu-alvi. 33-37. 
 
Tlie Doctrine Concert dug the Future. 105 
 
 of men, Islam holds out no bright prospect. 
 Where the Holy Scriptures tell of the coming 
 and permanent triumph of the kingdom of 
 God on earth, of this Mohammed seems to 
 have known nothing. This world is to go on, 
 much as now, in all its evil, until the break of 
 the day of judgment. The traditions indeed 
 say that Jesus will come again into the world, 
 and continue here for an ordinary lifetime, 
 and that during this short period universal 
 peace and harmony will prevail. But I have 
 never fallen in witJi a Mohammedan who 
 seems to have had this creed. And whereas 
 after the liery judgment wherein '' the earth 
 and the works that are therein shall be burned 
 up," the ISTew Testament bids us anticipate 
 " new heavens and a new earth, wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness," ^ and which shall en- 
 dure forever;^ Islam knows nothing of this 
 hope. So to the dark enigma of human history 
 with all its sin and suffering, Islam returns no 
 answer and offers no solution, other than that 
 the ages of sin and agony were what they were 
 simply because it so pleased God, who willed 
 that the hell which He had created should be 
 filled. All is because of a horrible caprice of 
 absolute and arbitrary almightiness. 
 
 '2Pet. iii.l3. "Is. Ixvi, 22. 
 
1U6 Handbook of Comparative Beliyion. 
 
 To all this, the eschatology of Hindooism, in 
 every form, offers a great contrast. As to 
 the future of individual men, whether, as the 
 Xyayiks believe, the souls of men are distinct 
 from each other and from God ; or whether, 
 as is the common Yedantic belief, all souls are 
 really parts of the Divine essence, all agree 
 that the soul exists eternally. With equal 
 unanimity, however, is denied the continuance 
 of personality. The transmigration of souls 
 is universally believed ; but it is not claimed 
 that either the recollection of past forms of 
 existence abides in the present, or that the 
 memory of the present life shall survive into 
 the next stage of being. 
 
 Hindooism speaks of a heaven and a hell to 
 which many go, but these are by no means 
 the only places or states of post-mortem ex- 
 istence. I nuiy after death assume some 
 heavenly or some infernal form, in one of the 
 heavens or hells, or I may reappear here on 
 earth, in the form either of a human being or 
 some other living creature. Even though one 
 go to heaven or hell, no one there abides for- 
 ever. For the whole Hindoo theory of rewards 
 and punishments is based on a system of salva- 
 tion by merit. If any one goes to hell, or is born 
 in some form again on earth or in the highest 
 
Tlo Doctrine Conceruiny the Future. lUT 
 
 heavens, this state of being will endure only 
 until the amount of happiness or of suffering 
 which is the necessary fruit of his works here, 
 shall have been exhausted. But inasmuch as 
 in each new state of being new actions, good 
 or evil, are done, this necessitates yet another 
 birth, as and where one's merit may determine. 
 Apart from the interposed effect of any saving 
 mode of religious life, this continual succession 
 of births and rebirths is supposed to go on, 
 until the transmigration shall have been re- 
 peated unto eighty-four lakhs, i.e., 8,400,000 
 times. Hence a common colloquialism for the 
 attainment of salvation is "to cut short the 
 eighty-four." After this, at latest, each soul 
 is reabsorbed into the unconscious Brahma, 
 even as a wave after rolling on and on for 
 months is at last reabsorbed and lost in the 
 ocean out of which it arose. Obviously, while 
 this eschatology, in its steadfast insistence 
 upon the necessity of recompense for works 
 good or evil, seems to lay stress on at least 
 one ethical element, in reality it deprives tlie 
 doctrine of the hereafter of all moral character 
 and power. For evidently, if either reward or 
 punishment is to have any moral effect either 
 on myself or another, I must recognize myself, 
 and others must be able to recognize me, as 
 
108 Handbook of Coniparatlve Heliyion, 
 
 the self-same person who in this life did that 
 of which in the next life I reap the fruit. But 
 the doctrine of transmigration does not con- 
 template this. No one pretends to have such 
 memory of those deeds of a previous life, be- 
 cause of which he enjoys or suffers what he 
 does ; nor is there left an}^ room for believing 
 that in the case of a next birth, the memory 
 of the present will survive the change called 
 death. 
 
 For the world of men at large, or for the 
 earth in which we live, Hindooism holds forth 
 no more hope than Islam. The history of the 
 world is believed to be divided into four ages; 
 Satya, Dwapur, Treta, and Kali. Of these four 
 each in succession is worse than that which 
 preceded it, till now has come the Kali Yug, 
 which is the worst of all, and which will be 
 terminated by the Mahapralaya, or "Great 
 Catastrophe," in which the world of men, with 
 the earth on which they live, shall finally 
 perish. This shall no doubt be succeeded by 
 another world, but that has no connection 
 with the present, and so far as anything is 
 taught or believed, is destined to have no 
 different history. Of a final everlasting tri- 
 umph of righteousness, Hindooism, like Islam, 
 knows nothing. 
 
The Doctrine Concerning the Future. 109 
 
 No more satisfactoiy than the teaching of 
 Hindooism is that of Buddhism regarding the 
 last things. What is fundamental on this 
 point has been of necessity anticipated, and a 
 brief recapitulation will suffice. According 
 to orthodox Buddhism, for the individual man 
 there is no future life. It is repeatedly taught 
 that man consists of merely ndmarupa^ '' name 
 and form." He is merely the result of the 
 combination of certain skandhas ; and when 
 these are separated in death, nothing of the 
 man can remain any more than — to use the 
 common Buddhist illustration— when a wagon 
 is taken to pieces anything of the wagon can 
 remain except the mere idea. 
 
 Transmigration is held, but in a sense dis- 
 tinctly diiferent from that of Hindooism. As 
 according to the original teaching of the Bud- 
 dha, the doctrine of an abiding soul is one of 
 "the ten heresies"; therefore, there is not 
 supposed to be any substantial essence w^hich 
 passes from one body to another. The con- 
 nection between this body and that which 
 shall follow it, is therefore not physical, but 
 merely ethical, not real, but ideal. That is, 
 the works which I do, necessitate the produc- 
 tion after my death of another body in which 
 their fruit can be realized. Hence, to speak 
 
110 Handbook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 with accuracy, this is not so much a transmi- 
 gration of souls, as a transmigration of karmina 
 action, or of merit. 
 
 Obviously such teaching as this deprives the 
 doctrine of future reward and punishment of 
 all ethical character and moral power. So far 
 as a man is concerned, regarded as a conscious 
 responsible person, death for him ends all. 
 
 But as already remarked, despite the clear 
 teaching of the Tripitaka, this doctrine is re- 
 jected by millions of Buddhists to-day. The 
 masses in most Buddhist lands believe in the 
 transmigration of souls in the same sense as 
 the Hindoos. Like them, the}- also believe in 
 various heavens and hells, into one or other of 
 which any one, according to his merit or de- 
 merit, may be born. But, as in Hindooism, so 
 in Buddhism, even as thus understood, there is 
 no eternal heaven, any more than an eternal 
 hell. 1^0 matter what summits of celestial 
 bliss in one of the highest heavens a man may 
 attain, and no matter how many ages he may 
 live there, VA'hen his merit is exhausted, which 
 brought and kept him there, he must again be 
 born, in heaven, earth, or hell, according to 
 his deeds. And so must the weary sequence 
 of birth and death go on, until at last, per- 
 chance, in some one of these myriad births, by 
 
The Doctrine Concerning the Future. Ill 
 
 following and walking steadfastly in the '^ Ko- 
 ble Eightfold Path," the poor soul may attain 
 nirvana^ and know no more of bliss or woe 
 forever. 
 
 This supreme attainment, however, we are 
 assured, is very rarely reached. Theoretically, 
 it is within the reach of every man : but, in 
 fact, we are told that in all the ages only two 
 men outside the monastic order have ever at- 
 tained iKtriniljldna ; and, even of the monks, 
 only two since the time of the Buddha have 
 achieved this consummation. 
 
 Buddhism has a doctrine of the future of the 
 world and the race as well as of the individual, 
 but it is by no means cheerful and inspiring. 
 Indeed, granted the Buddha's fundamental 
 postulate of the necessary impermanence of all 
 things, and the necessary evil of all existence, 
 a cheerful eschatology is impossible. And so 
 Buddhism teaches that from the time of the 
 Buddha onward to the end, the tendency of 
 the human race, religiously considered, will be 
 downward, until at last, the state of things 
 shall have become so very bad, as to necessi- 
 tate the appearing upon earth of another Bud- 
 dha again to preach the Wa3\ This will help for 
 a time ; but soon a similar retrogression will be- 
 gin, and the same dreary history shall repeat 
 
112 Handhooh of Com.jparative Religion, 
 
 itself, and so on and so on, for no one knows 
 how long. Of an unending age of a holy hu- 
 manity on a glorified earth, such as the E"ew 
 Testament predicts, there is not a suggestion 
 in orthodox Buddhism. 
 
 In a very late work, however, the Saddhar- 
 "tnajnindariha, " The Lotus of the Good Law," 
 which can scarcely be older than a. d. 200, 
 six or seven hundred years after the Buddha, 
 an eschatology is set forth, which, in contrast 
 with the above, presents an outlook more 
 cheerful, and more in accord with the biblical 
 teaching. In this book it is represented indeed 
 tliat the process of moral degeneration will go 
 on until the end of this l-aJjKi or world-period, 
 when this world will be destroyed by fire, 
 Mara, the Spirit of Evil, having been destroyed 
 previously. Thereafter will appear a better 
 world, in which purity and righteousness shall 
 prevail. Such a representation is of much in- 
 terest, as so closely agreeing to the represen- 
 tations of the [N'ew Testament ; but it can 
 hardly be fairly credited to Buddhism, with 
 the original doctrine of which it is in direct 
 contradiction. In fact, when we remember 
 that according to evidence of considerable 
 weight, the gospel w^as preached through India 
 already before this book was written, it is 
 
The Doctrine Concerning the Future. 113 
 
 scarcely possible not to believe that as in the 
 Krishna legend of Hindooism, so in this teach- 
 ing, we may justly trace a historical connec- 
 tion with the gospel doctrine, which, before 
 the above named book had been written, had 
 been undoubtedly preached in India. 
 
 As for the earth, it has been alread}^ noted 
 that Buddhism, like the New Testament, pre- 
 dicts a future destruction of this earth by fire, 
 and the appearing thereafter of j^et another 
 earth. But this teaching diverges widely from 
 that of the New Testament. For according 
 to the latter, the new earth, though material, 
 is not to be like this present earth, but in 
 bright contrast with this, in that in it righteous- 
 ness is to abide ; whereas, it is the general 
 Buddhist teaching that the earth which shall 
 succeed the present, shall be in all respects like 
 unto this. Sin and evil shall rule in that earth 
 as in this. Man shall go from bad to worse ; 
 from time to time a new Buddha shall appear 
 to preach the Way, and stay for a little the 
 downward course of men, and again and again 
 shall men soon forget his teaching, and go on 
 their downward way as before, till at last an- 
 other world catastrophe shall occur as before, 
 and thereafter a new I'alpci and a new earth, 
 in which the whole dismal movement shall be 
 
114 Handbook of Conhjjarative Religion. 
 
 repeated. And so shall it go on, for all that 
 Buddhism teaches to the contrary, forever and 
 forever. 
 
 Such is the teaching of Buddhism regarding 
 the future, whether of the individual, or of the 
 earth and world of collective humankind. 
 
 From what has been before said, it will be 
 clear that Confucianism has no eschatologv. 
 Confucius concerned himself wholly with this 
 world and with our life here and now. The 
 questions what shall be after death for the in- 
 dividual, or to what consummation the history 
 of the world is moving, he simply ignored. 
 
 Taouism has ventui'ed more. The Taouists 
 teach that each man has three souls, one of 
 which abides with the dead body, another 
 near the "spirit-tablet," while another is suj)- 
 posed to be taken to purgatory, where it is 
 made to undergo various disciplinary suifei-- 
 ings ; and if at last, after all the transmigra- 
 tions and the pains of purgatory, the sinner 
 prove irreformable, he is sent to an endless 
 hell. But it is said that in genei'al these post- 
 mortem penalties are little thought of, and the 
 penalties attached to sin in " The Book of Re- 
 wards" consist merely in the shortening of 
 the sinner's earthly life. It should be said 
 
The Doctrine Concerning the Future. 115 
 
 ho^vever that some scholars, like, e. g.^ Pro- 
 fessor Douglas, deny that the doctrine of a 
 heaven and a hell is anj^ part of Taouism. 
 As to the future course of human history on 
 earth, Taouism is as silent as the doctrine of 
 Confucius. 
 
CHAPTEK VIL 
 
 PRACTICAL MORALS. 
 
 The moral teachings of Christianity are 
 summed up in the Ten Commandments, as 
 illustrated and explained by our Lord. As 
 regards our duties to one another, all is 
 summed up in the words : ^' Whatsoever ye 
 would that men should do to you, do ye even 
 so to them." And lest even this might be mis- 
 interpreted into a merely outward regulation, 
 concerning external acts alone, in another pas- 
 sage our Lord has laid down the principle 
 that all true morality, all the commandments 
 of God regarding our duties to Himself, and 
 our duties to each other, are summed up in 
 these memorable words : *' Thou shalt love 
 the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
 all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and 
 with all thy mind ; and thy neighbor as thy- 
 self."^ 
 
 From this it follows that a mere external keep- 
 ing even of the Ten Commandments, or a merely 
 
 ' Luke X. 27. 
 
 116 
 
Practical Morals. . 117 
 
 outward observance of the ordinances of re- 
 ligion is very far from satisfying the moral 
 ideal set before us in the gospel. Hence, we 
 find that Christ taught that even the feeling 
 of hatred in a man's heart, in God's sight 
 makes him a murderer ; and the indulgence of 
 the lustful look, makes a man in God's sight 
 an adulterer. ^ 
 
 It is again most characteristic of the moral 
 teaching of the Xew Testament, that stress is 
 everywhere laid rather upon principles than 
 on the literal and punctilious observance of a 
 multitude of minute regulations. Slavery is 
 not prohibited ; Onesimus is even by an in- 
 spired apostle commanded to go back to his 
 master, nor is Philemon commanded to eman- 
 cipate him ; and yet in commanding him to 
 treat Onesimus as a brother beloved, he used 
 words which, as they have worked on through 
 the ages, have put an end to the institution of 
 slavery in all Christian lands. This is but 
 a single instance out of the many with which 
 history is filled, that show with more than 
 noonday clearness how the elevating and re- 
 forming power of the moral teaching of Christ 
 is no less conspicuous than its singular purity 
 and nobility. 
 
 'Matt. V. 21. 12. 27. -'S. 
 
118 Handbook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 In Mohammedanism, we may readily admit 
 that many precepts can be found, as indeed in 
 all religions, Avhich are in full accord with the 
 law of the gospel. The best of Islam is ex- 
 pressed in the following passage in the Surat 
 ul Baqr : 
 
 " It is not righteousness that ye turn your 
 faces in prayer toward the east and the west ; 
 but righteousness is of him who believeth in 
 God, and the last day, and the angels, and the 
 Scriptures, and the prophets; who giveth 
 money for God's sake unto his kindred, and 
 unto orphans, and the needy, and the stranger, 
 and those who ask, and for redemption of cap- 
 tives ; who is constant at prayer, and giveth 
 alms ; and of those who perform their cove- 
 nant when they have covenanted, and who be- 
 have themselves patiently in adversity, and 
 hardships, and in time of violence ; these are 
 they ^vho are true, and these are they who fear 
 God.'' ^ 
 
 To refer to particulars, willful murder is pro- 
 hibited in the Quran, and especially infanti- 
 cide ; also adultery, theftj.and taking of usury ; 
 and believers are directed to treat with kind- 
 ness the wives whom they may have. Not 
 only drunkenness, as in the ISTew Testament, 
 
 ^Suia ii. 177. 
 
F met teal MoraU. 119 
 
 but unlike the Xew Testament, all use of wine 
 is absolutely prohibited. 
 
 All this and much more is well ; but now 
 many things must be added which will show 
 how very much lower is the moral standard 
 of the Quran than that of the gospel. If will- 
 ful mur der is prohibited, yet it is commanded 
 in the/case of unbelieveTs in Mohammed, who 
 will neither accept\I.sUini nor pay tribute, and, 
 in particular, in the case of every Moslem who 
 may embrace another religion. In Sura ul 
 Maida, we read that "the recompense of those 
 who fight against God and His apostle shall 
 be that they shall be slain, or crucified, or 
 have their hands and feet cut off on opposite 
 sides, or be banished the land." ^ 
 
 Again, t heft is prohibited, which is well ; but 
 for this the cruell punishment is said to be 
 "'^appointed by God," that both of " the hands 
 of the thief shall be cut off." ^ Slavery is not 
 only negatively tolerated, l)ut is coimnanded ; 
 in that the Moslems are directed to make 
 slaves of the women and children of heathen, 
 Jews, and Christians, conquered in battle. 
 
 It is urged by some, however, that Moham- 
 med at least ameliorated slavery ; and this 
 
 ' Sura V. 87, See also Suras iv. 28; ix. 5, 29. 
 'Sura V.42. 
 
120 Handbook of ComparoMve Religion. 
 
 claim is supported, e, g., by the fact that the 
 prophet said, on the occasion of the Farewell 
 Pilgrimage : " See that ye feed your slaves 
 with such food as ye eat yourselves, and clothe 
 them with the stuff ye wear." So also there 
 is avqualigeclj[)rohibition of prostitution of fe- 
 male slaves, thus : " Compel not your maid- 
 servants to prostitute themselves, if they be 
 willing to live chastely " ; ^ and in the same 
 verse it is said to be an act of merit to give 
 slaves " of the riches of God, which He hath 
 given," in order to help them to redeem them- 
 selves from slavery. 
 
 Again, the law was given i*egai'ding slaves : 
 "If they commit a fault which ye incline not 
 to forgive, then sell them; for they are the 
 servants of the Lord, and are not to l^e tor- 
 mented." ^ 
 
 Nevertheless, no one familiar Avith the facts 
 can deny that up to this present time, there is 
 no indication that the Mohammedan world 
 even desires to give up the institution of 
 slavery ; and, as a matter of fact, Islam is di- 
 rectly responsible for about all the slavery 
 
 »Snra xxiv, 33. 
 
 '^Mr. Boswortli Smith's statement that Mohammed laid down the 
 principle that the captive wlio embraced Islam sliould l3e ipso 
 facto free, is simply incomprehensihle. In Surat un Nisa, vs. 24, 
 explicit reference is made to snch female slaves "as are true be- 
 lievers " ; nor Is this a solitary reference to such slaves. 
 
Practical Morals. 121 
 
 that exists in the woi'ld to-day. Moreover, 
 that slavery throughout the Mohammedan 
 world is of an exceptionally cruel and debas- 
 ing type, as witness the facts of the African 
 slave trade Avith which we are only too pain- 
 fully familiar — " the open sore of the world." 
 
 Especially notorious is the fact that under 
 the explicit and repeated instruction of the 
 Quran, formally authorizing unlimited concu- 
 binage with female slaves, slavery has been 
 made to pander to all the basest lusts. For 
 while polygamy was autliorizecf7y^tTEe num- 
 ber of wives was limited to four : but the ap- 
 parent limitation on sensuality w^as nullified 
 by the explicit declaration in the Quran that 
 as to "the carnal knowledge of . . . the 
 slaves which their right hands possess" the 
 good Mussulman " shall be blameless." ^ 
 
 It is sometimes urged, in comparing Moham- 
 medan with Christian social morality, that as 
 regards the sin of prostitutipn^^ the case is not 
 so bad in Mohammedan as in Christian lands. 
 After living for many years in a land where 
 Mohammedanism prevails, the writer can see 
 nojideguate ground _f or jyijssta^^^^ It is 
 
 true that the form under which licentiousness 
 prevails, may in some places be modified ; but 
 
 ' Sura Ixx. 29, 30. 
 
122 Ihuulbook of Compai'at'hoe Religion. 
 
 it is to be declared Avith emphasis that Mo- 
 hammedanism has not diminished licentious 
 ness, but increased it. Xot only so, but in 
 Mohammedan communities it appears under 
 fomis more revolting than anywhere in Chris- 
 tendom. We agree entirely with the strong- 
 language used by the Rev. Dr. Henry Jessup, 
 of Beirut, Syria, who has said : " In these days 
 when so much has been written about the 
 high ethical tone of Islam, we shall speak 
 plainly on this subject, unpleasant though it 
 is. . . . Polygamy has not diminished li- 
 centiousness among the Mohammedans. The 
 sin of Sodom is so common among them as to 
 make them in many places objects of dread to 
 their neighbors. The burning words of the 
 apostle Paul in Eom. i. 24:-27, are applicable 
 to tens of thousands in Mohammedan lands 
 to-day.'' ' These statements are substantially 
 Avarranted as regards the state of society in 
 India to-day. It is here generally agreed that 
 in respect of licentiousness, the Mohammedans 
 of India compare very unfavorably with their 
 Hindoo neighbors. 
 
 Ifjin jthing.couldMcLta Jh e debasement of 
 the family as unalterably determined by the 
 
 *See The Mohaivmednn Mis^sionary Problem, p. 46 et seg. 
 Also comi)ave tlie remarks of the llev. Dr. Wlierry, in his Com- 
 mentary on the Quran, Note on Sura iv. 3, in vol. ii., p. 69. 
 
Practiad Morals. 128 
 
 legislation of the Quran, it is found in the 
 regulations regaTdmg divorce. It is in all 
 Mohammedan lands permitted to a man to 
 divorce a wife merely by a word, and for no 
 cause but a caprice. He may even do this 
 twice, and take her back again ; but if he do 
 this a third thne, then he cannot take her back 
 until she shall previously have been married 
 and cohabited with another man, who may 
 then in turn divorce her, when the former 
 husband may take her back again. ^ And in 
 Moslem lands, such marriages of temporary 
 convenience are often formally arranged to 
 suit the wish of some capricious and tyrannical 
 husband. In a word, wom an, in the ethics of 
 the Quran, is not practically ^j^egarded as a 
 human being, but as an aiiimal^ to be used 
 merely for the service and pleasure of her 
 master ; who, while he is charged to treat her 
 with kindness, is yet formally invested with 
 unqualified authority to beat or confine her 
 whenever he judge her to be perverse ; and 
 abandon her when he please.^ If anything 
 were needed to the stimulation of the animal 
 passions by the moral (?) law instituted by 
 Mohammed, it is found in this, that whereas 
 
 » Sura ii. 229, 230. Compare this with the Old Testament view of 
 such an action ; .Ter. iii. 1. 
 ' Sura iv. 33. 
 
124 Ilandhook of Com/parative Reliyion. 
 
 there is some nominal restriction on unbounded 
 licentiousness on earthy in the limitation of the 
 numV)er of wives ; the pious Moslem is taught 
 that when he shall reach Fara;dise, all restric- 
 tion shall be removed, and the faithful are 
 proiiiised that they shall delight tliemselves 
 with thousands of beautiful virgins.^ 
 
 To give a just and complete account of the 
 ethical teachings of Hindooism in any short 
 space is impossible. Xot only is there no one 
 authority on the subject to which one might 
 refer, but the differences in moral teaching in 
 different forms of Hindooism are so many and 
 great, that ^comparatively few statements can 
 be jnade of universal application. To repre- 
 sent the morality of Hindooism by the un- 
 natural orgies of the Bam-margis or followei's 
 of the Tantrik Hindooism, would be as unfair 
 as, on the other hand, it Avould be to take the 
 often lofty morality of the eclectic Bhagavad 
 Gita, as representing the average moral code 
 of the millions of India. 
 
 In general, one may say that not a few 
 moral duties are generally recognized and the 
 merit of observing them extolled. The dut^y 
 of children to honor and obey their parents, 
 
 * See the passages from the Quran cited above, pp. 98, 104. 
 
Practical Morals, 125 
 
 howsoever often neglected— as, alas, even in 
 Christian lands— is much emphasized by all. 
 Equableness of temper is enjoined by writers 
 oT^every school, though on grounds widely 
 different from those exhibited in the Kew 
 Testament. Xeithei- is one to be easily ruffled 
 by provocations or by trouble of any kind, nor, 
 on the other hand, should the wise man be 
 greatly elated by what is pleasant and agree- 
 able. Truthfulness, though little enough ob- 
 served by mo«{ people, is in theory ranked as 
 avery great virtue. The greatest stress is laid 
 on the inviolability of the marriage relation ; 
 and one may well "believe that the women of 
 India are generally loyal to their husbands. 
 Polygamy, if allowed, is not extensively prac- 
 ticed ; the disloyalty of a wife is regarded with 
 the strongest feelings of reprobation. 
 
 ^iLii^J^tlier^sLde. however, not so much 
 can be said. The frequency" of violations of 
 the seventh commandnientTs sadly evidenced 
 as medical friends tell us, by the exceeding 
 prevalence of the disease which is its common 
 penalty. More strikingly suggestive still is 
 the fact that in Hindi there is no word an- 
 sNvering to the English word ''chaste," which 
 can possibly be applied to a man. The only 
 word of such meaning which is in the Ian- 
 
126 Ilandhook of Coinparative Rernjion. 
 
 guage, can only be used of a woman. Ob- 
 scenity in speech i^ one of the crying sins of 
 tKe~ rand, and is confined to no class or sex. 
 But this is not strange, when we note to what 
 an extent obscenity^ is connected with Hindoo- 
 isin. In the Penal Code of British India, in 
 the section regarding obscene pictures, carv- 
 ings, etc., the government was obliged, out of a 
 prudent regard to the feelings of the people, 
 to enter a clause to the effect that the prohi- 
 bition and penalty attached was not to be 
 understood as applying to the carvings of 
 temples and idol cars, etc. 
 
 Nor can it be said that this is merely char- 
 acteristic of the modern corrupt Puranic Hin- 
 dooism. In the course of a quarrel in the 
 Panjab a few years ago between the oi'thodox 
 Hindoos and the Keformed Hindoos of the 
 Arya Samaj, wlio insist that the Hindoos 
 ought to return to the religion of the Yedas, 
 it came about that a part of the Sanskrit text 
 of the Yajur Yeda relating to the Asvamedha,, 
 or Horse Sacrifice, of ancient times, together 
 with the Commentary of Mahidhar upon it, 
 was translated into the vernacular of the 
 people, for general circulation. A complaint 
 was made against the Aryas for an alleged 
 false translation : with the result that when 
 
Practicdl Mo/'aIs\ 127 
 
 examined by Sanskrit experts, the translation 
 ^yas declared accurate ; and thereupon the gov- 
 ernment, although always cautious of doing 
 anything to offend the religious prejudices of 
 the natives, to the dismay of the Aryas, pun- 
 ished those concerned in the translation and 
 publication of this part of the Yeda, as having 
 violated the law against obscene literature! 
 Writing of this matter, the Kev. T. Williams, 
 C. M. S., of Eewari, Panjab, says, in the Indian 
 Evangelical Bevieio ; ^ "I dare not give, and 
 you dare not print, the ij^sissinia verba of an 
 English version of the original Yajur Yeda 
 mantras. . . . Even a Latin translation of 
 these scandalous mantras, would not, I im- 
 agine, be tolerated in a newspaper." 
 
 Yet _all this only agrees with the repre- 
 sentation of the character of God which is 
 given" in some of the authoritative "sacred 
 books '-of the Hindoos. It is safe to say that 
 the view which any religion gives of the I)i^dne 
 character may be fairly taken as indicating the 
 moral standard accepted by the people who 
 follow such religion. If Hindooism be thus 
 judged, it is found terribly guilty. It is indeed 
 true that the character of the incarnation 
 known as the Kam Avatar, presents many at- 
 
 ' Jan., 1891. 
 
128 Handbook of Comjparative Religion, 
 
 tractive features ; but Ram is by no means free 
 from deceit and other human frailties ; and if 
 the character of Krishna as placed before us in 
 the Bhagavad Gita, be pure from sensuality, 
 the character of the ^ame supposed incarna- 
 tion as presented, e. g.^ in the Bhagavat Purana, 
 is distinguished by the uttermost licentiousness 
 conceivable. Eam and Krishna present tEe 
 incarnations of Yishnu, the second member of 
 the Divine Triad. Many however adore the 
 Divine ideal as presented in the god Shiva or 
 Mahadev, the third member of the Triad/ .In 
 him, that ideal is represented in a character 
 which combines in the highest degree the traits 
 of a revolting asceticism and of unspeakable 
 filthiness and cruelty. What then must be the 
 moral ideals of the mass of the people, who be- 
 lieve that such characters as these are worthy 
 manifestations of the Deity ? It is true that 
 in one of the Puranas, readers are cautioned 
 that they are not to suppose it permissible to 
 ordinary people to imitate these Divine Beings 
 in such things. But the caution is not care- 
 fully observed even noAv, and in earlier days, 
 when English law was not supreme in India, 
 far less than in these times. 
 
 Again, in contrast with practical Christian 
 ethics, it is the great outstanding fact that the 
 
Practical Morals, 129 
 
 system of caste , alike in the laws, written and 
 unwritten, "> by which it is regulated, and in 
 their practical application in the India of to- 
 day, is nothing less than the formulated rejec- 
 tion of the fundamental principle of morals 
 laid down by Christ, " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself." How merciless has been 
 the t yran ny which the Brahmans of India have 
 exercisecl over the castes below them, is a mat- 
 ter of common knowledge among intelligent 
 people. It may be added that the members 
 of each lower caste, taught by their exam- 
 ple, in their turn, as they liave opportunity, 
 are no less m.erciless in their enforcement of 
 caste laws on those avIio may be still lower in 
 the social scale than themselves. It is also 
 worthy of notice that while a few advanced 
 thinkers, especially in the Brahmo Samaj and 
 a few similar associations, repudiate caste laws, 
 yet the most of the highly educated men in 
 India still feel that, practically, whatever else 
 of Hindooism they may reject, they must by no 
 means break the bonds of caste. Indeed a re- 
 cent Bengali writer strenuously maintains that 
 it is the recognition and acceptance of the rules 
 of caste, and not any particular theological be- 
 lielTTIiat constitutes a man religiously a Hin- 
 doo. He says^: " The Hindoo system is a hier- 
 
130 Handbook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 archy of caste, and those who belong to this 
 hierarchy of caste are Hindoos." ^ 
 
 Injustice belongs to the very essence both 
 of tlie teachings and the practice of Hindooism 
 concerning caste. Manu declares that a king 
 " should not slay a Brahman, even if he be oc- 
 cupied in crime of every sort ; but he should 
 put him out of the realm in possession of all 
 his property, and uninjured." ^ Again, he says : 
 " If a low-born man, a Shudra, assault one of 
 the twice-born castes, he ought to have his 
 tongue cut out." If a man be of a caste lower 
 than the Brahman, he is not to be taught the 
 law of the Yeda nor is any religious observance 
 to be enjoined upon him ; and the man who 
 teaches him religion is to be cast, together with 
 his pupil, into " the darkness of hell." ^ Instead 
 of the law which teaches that we are to seek 
 every one another's good, and in honor to 
 " prefer one another," it is the law^ of Manu 
 that " a Brahman may take possession of the 
 goods of a Shudra with perfect peace of mind, 
 since nothing at all belongs to this Shudra as 
 his own." ^ Instead of giving a poor Shudra 
 what is good, he is to receive from the Brahman 
 
 ^Introduction to the Study of Hindooism by Guru Prosad Sen, 
 p. 25. 
 « Tnsfltuten of Manu, Book i. 380. 
 » Code of Manu, Book iv. 81. 
 *Ib. Book viii. 417. 
 
Practical Morals. 131 
 
 " the blighted part of the grain, and one's old 
 clothes and furniture." ^ 
 
 It will be said, and truly, that such laws as 
 these are not actually carried out. But the 
 reason is obvious. Under the British rule in 
 India, the Brahman Avho should attempt to act 
 toward the lower castes in all respects accord- 
 ing to the authoritative law of Manu, would 
 soon find himself in the penitentiary. But this 
 undoubted improvement in the situation can- 
 not be fairly credited to Hindooism. And of 
 caste, even as it exists to-day, under the British 
 administration of India, not a Christian, but a 
 Hindoo reformer has said : " That caste is a 
 frightful social scourge, no one can deny. 
 . . . When we view it on moral grounds, it 
 appears as a scandal to conscience, and an in- 
 sult to humanity, and all our moral ideals and 
 sentiments rise to execrate it." ^ 
 
 Hindoo ethics is again to be contrasted with 
 Christian morals, in the position which is as- 
 signed to woman. iSTo doubt excellent things 
 may be quoted even from Manu, as to the 
 honor in which v^'omen should be held ; as 
 when he says that " women are to be honored 
 by fathers and brothers, by husbands, as also 
 
 » Code of Manu, Book x. 125. 
 
 ^ Keshub Chuiider Sen, in his Appeal to Young India. 
 
132 Handbook of Comjyarative Religion, 
 
 by brothers-in-law who desire much prosperity, 
 etc." ^ But then the same authority teaches 
 that on occasion " a wife . . . should be 
 beaten with a cord or a bamboo cane." ^ If 
 loyalty to a husband is enjoined by all Hindoo 
 authorities, the duties required by that loyalty 
 are exaggerated to the utmost. Thus in the 
 Skanda Purana it is said : " Let the wife who 
 wishes to perform sacred oblations wash the 
 feet of her lord, and drink the water. . . . 
 The husband is her god, her priest, and her re- 
 ligion ; wherefore, abandoning everything else, 
 she ought chiefly to worship her husband." ^ 
 
 The treatment of widows in India, even of 
 those who are mere children, is a matter which 
 is notorious. It is indeed sometimes charged 
 that missionaries exaggerate the evils incident 
 to Hindoo widowhood ; but it was not a mis- 
 sionary, but a Hindoo ^ who has used the fol- 
 lowing strong language: "An adequate idea 
 of the intolerable hardships of early widow- 
 hood can be formed only by those whose 
 daughters, sisters, daughters-in-law, and other 
 female relations have been deprived of their 
 husbands during infancy." 
 
 But worst of all in Hindoo ethics is the de- 
 
 ' Code 0/ Manu, Book iii. 59. 'lb. Book iv. 299. 
 
 ^Op. cit. iv. 135. 
 
 * Pundit Iswaia Chundra Vidyasagar. 
 
Practical Morals. 133 
 
 nial of the necessary and essential distinction 
 l^jetween" rlgEFaSd^'wrong. This vitiates every- 
 thing-. As already observed, the Eamayan for- 
 mally teaches the doctrine that " might makes 
 right," and in the Bhagavad Gita, which is 
 probably the purest and noblest production of 
 Hindoo literature, the doctrine is most fully 
 and plainly taught that actions in themselves 
 defile no one, so that they are but performed 
 in the state of mind which is enjoined in the 
 poem. Krishna is therein said to declare of 
 himself as God incarnate, " Actions defile me 
 not ; " and of his worshipers, " He who know- 
 eth me thus, is not bound by actions." ' 
 
 That this belief is not merely the teaching 
 of the sacred books of the Hindoos, but is the 
 actual creed of many of the educated Hindoos 
 of to-day, is an indisputable fact. In a book 
 published by S. C. Muhopadhaya, M. A.. The 
 Imitation of Sree Krishna^ this educated Ben- 
 gali gentleman says : " To our mind virtue and 
 vice being relative terms can never be applied 
 to one who is regarded as the Supreme Being. 
 . . . Conceive a man who is trying his ut- 
 most to fly from vice to its opposite pole vir- 
 tue; , . . imagine a being to whom vir- 
 tue and vice are the same ; and you will find 
 
 •Op. clt. iv. 14. 
 
134 Handhooh of Comjxirative Religion. 
 
 that the latter is infinitely superior to the 
 former." (!) Nothing then is of necessary and 
 unalterable obligation; and to do right or to 
 do wickedly, is merely a question of expedi- 
 ency ! '^"'"^ '^~ 
 
 If this be so, then it follows that the idea 
 of moral obligation is simply an illusion. ^ Ac- 
 cording to Christian ethics, the ultimate reason 
 ys\\\ this or that should be done or not done, 
 is found in the fact that such is the will of an 
 infinitely good, wise, and holy God, to whom 
 we are bound by an indissoluble bond, to whom 
 Ave owe everything, and on Avhom we abso- 
 lutely depend. Hence the profound moral sig- 
 nificance of our common words to denote this 
 moral obligation. "Duty" is that which is 
 '*• due " from, or is owed by me to another. In 
 the word "ought" the same thought is ex- 
 pressed in Anglo Saxon, as in the other case 
 in a word of Latin origin. For "ought" is 
 " owed,"^ and what I ought to do is what I owe 
 to some one ; so that sin in this aspect becomes 
 a debt {clebitmii) even as our Lord taught in 
 the Lord's Prayer. Xow it is a very striking 
 fact that in Hindi, the language of full one- 
 third of the population of India — and, to the 
 
 'As in Tynflnle's New Testament, LnUe vii.41. ''There was a cer- 
 tain lender which had two debtors, the one ought five hundred 
 pence." 
 
Practical Morals. 135 
 
 best of my knowledge, in the other Aryan 
 languages of India — there is no term which 
 really corresponds to this class of words in 
 English. Every preacher and translator in 
 India has painfully felt his impotence when 
 attempting to express in the vernacular, these 
 profound moral conceptions. Of such words 
 in North India the most common is chdMyey 
 which however only means " that which is to 
 be desired " [ thus tacitly implying that only 
 what_one may >vish to.dg.is what he ought to 
 do. The story is told of an eminent mission- 
 ary translator into Bengali, who was seeking 
 for a Bengali equivalent for the w^ord "con- 
 science ", to Avhom his native pundit replied, 
 after the missionary had tried to explain to 
 him the content of this English term : " Sahib, 
 where there is not the thing, how can one 
 have the Avord ? " Yet this is not strange : 
 for Avhere pantheism has become the faith of a 
 people, how can such ideas as " duty " or " con- 
 science," in the Christian sense of those terms, 
 have any longer a place? All such terms 
 connote relations to a Being who is personal, 
 and whose wall is and must be for us law. But 
 when the Person has vanished from the spiritual 
 vision, the relationship to Him also of neces- 
 sity disappears. 
 
136 Handbook of Comparative Religion, 
 
 In our day the ethics of Buddhism has 
 been by many extolled almost without limit. 
 We can readily admit that when contrasted 
 with the moral system of the Hindooism 
 ao^ainst which it was a revolt, it is in many 
 ways far superior. It was a noble and right- 
 eous protest against the tyranny of caste, and 
 boldly asserted the equality of all men.^ It 
 was also a protest against the degrading cere- 
 monialism of the popular Hindooism, and de- 
 clared most truly, in words which remind us 
 of the teaching of our Lord : " Anger, 
 intoxication, obstinacy, deceit, envy, gran- 
 diloquence, pride and conceit, intimacy with 
 the unjust; this is uncleanness, but not the 
 eating of flesh." ^ Hence, in contrast with 
 Hindooism, niany moral duties are placed in 
 the foreground of the Buddhist system, and 
 their observance declared essential to salva- 
 tion. Its first five commandments forbid 
 lying, stealing, kiliing7d"f inking what can in- 
 toxTcate, and adultery. Kot only so, but Bud- 
 dhism teaches that not merely outward actions, 
 
 »Biit, not the " brotherhood '* of men. as somelimes represented. 
 For brotherhood implies a common f.ither; but of a Ciod :iiid 
 Father of men, of whom all men are in a trne sense '-tiie oh- 
 spriiifr," the Buddlia, with all his supposed enliglitenment, knew 
 iiothini;. 
 
 2 Suita Nipata ; Amaqandha Sutta, 7. Yet the Buddhists of to- 
 dnv lav the greatest stress on abstinence from eat inp; flesh, as a 
 high relitiions duty: and are indeed in this In full accord with 
 otlier teachings of the Buddliist Scriptures. 
 
Practical Morals. 137 
 
 but als o inner states and feelings constitute 
 sin. Instead of retaliating for injuries, it is 
 written : " Let a man overcome anger by 
 love; let him overcome evil by good." Ve 
 are to "leave the sins of the mind," as well as 
 those which are outward : ^ the lustful look at 
 the wife of another, is sin. 
 
 But, for all this, very deep and significant is 
 thejjontrast between Buddhist and Christian 
 e^ics. First and most fundamental is the fact 
 th^ since Buddhism ignores the being of a God, 
 the moral " law " of Buddhism knows nothing 
 of any duty that a man owes to Him. From 
 which it follows immediately that God being 
 thus ignored, the ground of obligation, even 
 as regards undoubted duties of man to man, is 
 not found in the will and command of an 'in- 
 finitely good and holy God. In fact, it is 
 quite correct to say that, if one will speak ac- 
 curately, there is no such thing as "law," in 
 our sense of the word, in Buddhist ethics. ' All 
 is merely advisory. The word is constantly 
 used in translating Buddhist works, but this 
 must never be forgotten, that it connotes noth- 
 ing mandatory. 
 
 Again, while we may gladly admit that 
 many counsels are given in Buddhist books 
 
 ' Dhammapada. 222, 232. 
 
138 Handhooh of Comj^avative Reliyion. 
 
 which are most excellent, and while passages 
 may be produced in which, as remarked, a 
 merely ceremonial righteousness, as compared 
 with moral purity and righteousness, is depre- 
 ciated utterly : yet in utter inconsistency with 
 this, it is taught that whoever wishes to attain 
 to the summit of Buddhist saintship, must at- 
 tend to a variety of ceremonial observances, 
 many of which are ^most^ puerile, and some 
 even revolting to decency. Thus, in Buddhist 
 ethics, injunctions most excellent are mingled 
 with others to observances utterly trivial and 
 indifferent, and in some instances even degrad- 
 ing ; as, for example, the direction to the saint 
 to go clad in rags and lead a mendicant life. 
 If it is written that no one should lie, or steal, 
 or commit adultery; it is added that if one 
 would attain to a still higher degree of saint- 
 ship than the observance of such duties alone 
 would make possible, he must not use tooth- 
 powders, nor sleep on a bed which is broad or 
 high ! 
 
 This utter confusion of the moral sense 
 which is evidenced by the ethics of Buddhism, 
 is well illustrated by the well-known enumer- 
 ation of 'Hhe Ten Sins," which the Buddhist 
 saint must overcome. Among these we find, 
 quite rightly, hatred, pride, and self-righteous- 
 
Practical Morals. 139 
 
 ness, a nd dependence on rites : but on the other 
 hand lire enumerated^ " doubt," nanielv, of the 
 truth of the atheistic and pessimistic teaching 
 offfie Buddha ;''' the delusion of self," that is, 
 the belief in the existence of the Ego as a 
 permanent subsistence; " sensuality "—not in 
 our sense of the word— but all gratification of 
 the senses; and finally all love of life on 
 earth, and all desire for life anywhere else, 
 even in heaven. 
 
 Finally, whereas in the Christian system of 
 morals, the highest motive to all right living 
 is found in supreme love to a God who is both 
 the absolutely perfect expression of all moral 
 beauty and excellence, and our Father in 
 heaven, in the Buddhist ethics, the higliest 
 motive is found in the desire to'escape, by 
 obedience to the Buddha's "law," from the 
 misery which in greater or less degree is said 
 to be inseparably connected with existence 
 even in heaven itself. Thus while the Chris- 
 tian moral ideal is found in perfect love to an 
 absolutely perfect Being, leading to utter self- 
 forgetfulness for His sake, in Buddhism, the 
 ideal is found in an absolute and selfish as- 
 ceticism, Avhich in its fullest realization regards 
 virtue and vice alike Avith indifference. 
 
 To the ethical system of Confucius one may 
 
140 Handbook of Convparative Religion. 
 
 rightly give much praise. If all men were to 
 obey his precepts, one may safely say that this 
 would at least be a far happier world than it 
 is. All men, Confucius taught, should s eek t o 
 live a virtuous life. All virtue, he said, begins 
 with knowledge, and knowledge is obtain- 
 able only through learning. Only, according 
 to Confucius, the source of knowledge is not 
 independent thought, but the careful study of 
 the teachings of the great sages of antiquity. 
 By this a man may hope to arrive at truth, 
 and especially the knowledge of his own 
 defects and shortcomings. Attaining to this 
 knowledge, the superior man will above all be 
 sincere. His supreme affections and his high- 
 l?^tr desires will be set on what is riglit. He 
 will be "gentle, forbearing and forgiving." 
 Asked by one to give him a rule of moral con- 
 duct which might serve to regulate all one's 
 life, Confucius answered : " Reciprocity. AVhat 
 y ou do not want done to yourself, do not do 
 to _ othe rs." It must be admitted that this 
 falls below the " Golden Rule " of the :N^ew 
 Testament, in that it does not positively en- 
 join one to do what he wishes that another 
 should do to him, but only, negatively, to ab- 
 stain from what he would not like to have 
 done to himself; still, one cannot but recog- 
 
Practical Morals. 141 
 
 nize with thankfulness the approximation to 
 the teaching of Christ. 
 
 Chief among the virtues, according to Con- 
 fucius, stand courage and benevolence. Un- 
 der the latter term, however, he included 
 much more than the word commonly connotes 
 with us. It is explained as having relation 
 not only to those who are below us, but no 
 less to those who are above us ; in a word, it 
 is said to consist in "love to all men." As 
 exemplified in life, it includes the rule of 
 " reciprocity ." as above given, then " l oyalt y," 
 "r^yerencej" and "faith." By loyalty is in- 
 tended not merely loyalty to one's sovereign 
 or ruler, but no less to equals and inferiors ; in 
 a word, faithfulness in the performance of all 
 the duties owed by man to his fellow in every 
 relation of life. Eeverence is explained as 
 first exemplified in the feeling of the son to- 
 ward his father ; then, of all subjects to their 
 rulers; and then, of the emperor himself to 
 heaven. By "faith" is apparently intended 
 sincerity in the performance of all these 
 duties. 
 
 Among all the vii'tues in which the per- 
 formance of these duties will be exemplified, 
 filial piety is given a foremost place. This is 
 said to be indeed " the beginning of all virtue," 
 
14:2 Eandhook of Compamtive Religion. 
 
 and brotherly love "the sequel of vu-tue." 
 FiliaLpiety is said to consist in serving and 
 obe3TDgLQne!a-^wents_^^ as thej^ live, and 
 in giving them a suitable burial when they 
 die ; to which it is added that it also requires 
 that after their death men shall offer to them 
 sacrifices. On this exaggerated idea of what 
 the duty of filial piety requires, is based the 
 whole system of anc£str al wo rshi|3 prevalent 
 in China. Confucius declared that in filial 
 obedience there was nothing "so essential 
 as to reverence one's father"; and that "as 
 a mark of reverence there is nothing more im- 
 portant than to place him on an equality with 
 heaven." Great stress was laid by Confucius 
 on the duties, not only of subjects toward 
 their rulers, but on the duty of the emperor 
 toward his subjects. 
 
 Such, in brief, are the chief points in the 
 moral teaching of Confucius, and in them we 
 all will admit there is much to commend. 
 
 On the other hand, as in Buddhism, so in 
 Confucianism, duties to God, if not absolutely 
 ignored, are relegated to the background. It 
 ^vould probably not be correct to say that 
 Confucius was an atheist ; but, if he endorsed 
 the ancient rule of reciprocity, he seems to 
 have utterly failed to discover that other rule 
 
Practical Morals. 143 
 
 which requires us not only to love our neigh- 
 bor as ourself, but also to love the Lord our 
 God with all our heart, mind, and strength ; 
 and which also rightly places this first, as the 
 root from which the love to one's neighbor is 
 sure to spring. 
 
 As in Buddhism, so in Confuc ianisni , ^\[oman 
 is de preciated, and the duties arising out of 
 the relations of man and woman are very im- 
 perfectly apprehended. The sister, for ex- 
 ample, is not contemplated when Confucius 
 extols fraternal affection. Kot until a girl be- 
 comes a mother, does she acquire any proper 
 claim to regard. In the opinion of Confucius, 
 the most difficult people of all to manage, are 
 " women and servants." 
 
 Marriage, with the Confucian, is not, as in 
 the InTcw Testament, in order that husband 
 and wife may live together in mutual helpful- 
 ness, " as being heirs together of the grace of 
 life " ; ' but is simply in order to the procre- 
 ation of children. It naturally follows from 
 this conception of the ideal and object of mar- 
 riage, that both divorce for many reasons, and 
 also polygamy, are sanctioned. If a wife bear 
 no children, her husband may at his pleasure 
 either divorce her, or may take another wife. 
 'IPet. m.7. 
 
144: Handbook of ComparoMve Religion. 
 
 The " Rites of the Chow Dynasty " enact that 
 since it is of special importance that the em- 
 peror should have a son to succeed him, he 
 should have beside the empress, one hundred 
 and twenty concubines. For divorce, Confu- 
 cius enumerated seven sufficient reasons, 
 namely : disobedience to either of the wife's 
 parents-in-law ; barrenness ; lewdness ; jeal- 
 ousy ; leprosy ; garrulousness ; and stealing. 
 As the pi-ocreation of sons is the chief object 
 of marriage, it is made the duty of the child- 
 less widower to marry again ; while, on the 
 contrary, if a widow remarry, this is held to 
 be a sign of a bad and lustful character. To 
 sum up in the words of Professor Douglas, 
 from whose valuable little Handbook I have 
 largely drawn : " The failure to recognize the 
 sanctity of the marriage bond is a great blot 
 on the Confucian system. It has in a great 
 measure destroyed domesticity, it has robbed 
 women of their lawful influence, and has de- 
 graded them into a position which is little bet- 
 ter than slavery." 
 
 The ethics of Jaouism_is represented in tjvo 
 small books, the Yin chili vmn, or " Book ^f 
 S^cr^Blessings," and the Kan ying jyeen, or 
 "B^ok__of_ Ee wards .^and Punishments. " A 
 translation of the whole text of the last named 
 
Practical Morals. 145 
 
 booklet is given by Professor Douglas, '^ and 
 consists of two hundred and twelve precepts, 
 a large part of which are every way commend- 
 able, and enjoin most of those natural virtues 
 which the common conscience of mankind re- 
 quires. Thus we read : " Practice righteous- 
 ness an<l filial piety, be affectionate toward 
 your younger brothers, and respectful toward 
 your elder brothers." " Have pity for orphans, 
 and cherish widows." " Kespect old men, and 
 cherish infants." "Pity the misfortunes of 
 others." "Kejoice in the successes of others, 
 and sympathize with their reverses." "Xever 
 boast of superiority." "Bestow favors Avith- 
 out expecting recompense." " Do not calum- 
 niate your fellow-students." "Be not hard, 
 violent, or inhuman." "Be not forgetful of 
 benefits." " Commit not murder for the sake 
 of gain." " When you know what is right, do 
 it." "Do not separate husband and wife." 
 " T\nien you see others possessed of riches, do 
 not desire that they may lose them." 
 
 While the duties of man to man are thus 
 fully set forth, we find in this book only two 
 allusions to any duty to a Supreme Being, 
 thus: "Do not murmur against Heaven at 
 your lot." " Do not seek to obtain anything 
 
 ' Confuciayiism (mcl Taouism, pp. 257-271, 
 
146 Handhooh of Comjjarative Beligion. 
 
 beyond the lot appointed \^ou by Heaven." 
 Moreover, as so often in other non-Christian 
 religions, with such commendable precepts as 
 the above, are mingled others which are merel}^ 
 silly and puerile. Thus : " Do not leap over 
 a well or a hearth." " Do not shout or get 
 angry on the first day of the month." " Do 
 not spit toward shooting stars." "Do not 
 weep or spit toward the north." "Do not 
 point at a rainbow." " Do not stare at the sun 
 or moon." 
 
 Shnjlarrenuaiv^ be made, in general, 
 
 as to the contents of the other ethical book of 
 the Taouists, the Yin ckih wan. In it we 
 read : " Devote your w^ealth to the good of 
 your fellow-men." " In all your actions fol- 
 low the principles of Heaven, and in all your 
 words follow the purified heart of man." 
 "Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and bury 
 the dead." But also : " Xever destroy paper 
 which is written upon." " Be careful not to 
 tread upon insects on the road " ; etc., etc.^ 
 
 Not to enter into further detail as to the 
 ethics of the various non-Chi'istian religions, it 
 is to be observed, in general, that in all, to a 
 great extent in theory — as universally in prac- 
 tice — m oral i ty i s d i sse v er e d__f r om religion. In 
 
 'See C<mfueianism and Taoidsm, pp. 272-274. 
 
Practical Morals. 147 
 
 all alike, it js true th al-a jiian ma ^v_be^very re- 
 ligious, and_j^t inone wa3^oiv-iLiiather, very 
 wicked. To be a Confucian in good standing, 
 if only" the authority of the sage is recognized, 
 it is not necessary to recognize God in any 
 way. The fearful prevalence of infanticide in 
 Confucian China, is a sad illustration of our 
 remark. To be a Hindoo in good repute as 
 regards religion, it is by no means necessary 
 to abstain from lying, stealing, or even murder. 
 This is evident from the fact that while in 
 India there are very many things because of 
 which a man may be excommunicated from 
 caste fellowship, violations of the moral law 
 are not among these. 
 
 But this is only the natural consequence of 
 the fact that in the preceptive part of the best 
 of the ethnic religions, the observance of vari- 
 ous ceremonial injunctions is practically made 
 of much more consequence than the keeping 
 of the law of morality. The effect of this 
 upon the people is most manifest everywhere, 
 in all non-Christian lands. I have known a 
 man, while in the midst of lying to me about 
 work which he had done for me, to refuse to 
 touch a piece of old dry bone, on the plea that 
 it was contrary to religion. In all the great 
 world-religions except Christianity, the moral, 
 
148 Handbook of Cum])arative Religion, 
 
 the immoral, and the morally indifferent are 
 hopelessly confounded. 
 
 Most noteworthy, again, is the fact that 
 whereas the ethics of the Xew Testament, 
 while no doubt teaching a certain subordina- 
 tion of woman to man, yet ever regards 
 woman as the equal of man, as an heir to- 
 gether with him of the grace of life ; on the 
 other hand, in all the other great world-reli- 
 gions, in one way or another, and more or less 
 formally, woman is debased. Most commonly 
 this is brought about through concubinage and 
 polygamy, which, as already shown, have the 
 formal sanction of the Quran; while also 
 among the Hindoos of all schools, as among 
 the followers of Confucius, polygamy is more 
 or less formally recognized as lawful. 
 
 Even the modern reformed schools of Hin- 
 dooism have not always been able to free 
 themselves from this reproach. It is, more- 
 over, to the special infamy of the Arya Samaj 
 of North India, that while in many ways this 
 Samaj encourages the education and elevation 
 of women, yet the Aryas earnestly uphold and 
 justify the infamous Hindoo rite of niyoga ; 
 which may best be descri})ed as an arrange- 
 ment by which a childless husband, in order to 
 secure offspring and so continue his family, ar- 
 
Practical Morah. 149 
 
 ranges for the adultery of his wife through her 
 temporary union with anotlier man. 
 
 Buddhism wouhl seem to deal better with 
 woman, in some respects, than Mohammedan- 
 ism and Ilindooism. The cruel seclusion of 
 women which in accordance with the Quran, is 
 the rule in :Mohammedan lands, and to so great 
 extent in India— where :\loslem violence and 
 licentiousness made it necessary after the Mo- 
 hammedan invasions— is unknown in Buddhist 
 countries like Burmah and Siam, where in this 
 respect women have all the liberty which is 
 enjoyed by their sisters in Christian lands. 
 Xevertheless, Buddhism does not exalt, but 
 debases woman. Instead of elevating and 
 glorifying the marriage relation, as does the 
 gospel law, it declares in its authoritative 
 Scriptures that " the house life is the seat of 
 impurity " ; ' and teaches that " so long as the 
 love of man toward women, even the smallest, 
 is not destroyed, so long is his mind in bond- 
 age." ^ He who would attain to any high de- 
 gree of saintship is charged that he have noth- 
 ing to do with any woman, not so much as to 
 speak to one.^ With the idea of woman which 
 such injunctions imply, it is not strange that 
 
 ' Sutta Nipata ; Pabbajja Sutta, 2. 
 
 ■D/iammapada.2Si. 
 
 'See Mafiaparinibbana Sutta, v. 23. 
 
160 Handbook of Lknuparative Religion. 
 
 Buddhism, at its best, has never succeeded in 
 elevating woman to her proper place. If it 
 has not enjoined polygamy or polyandry, it 
 has not succeeded in suppressing them; and 
 the laxity of morals in Buddhist lands is 
 notorious. 
 
 Most striking, again, is the contrast that 
 appears between Christianity and other re- 
 ligions as regards the place which they 
 severally give to man's duties to God. As 
 already seen, in both Buddhism and Con- 
 fucianism, these are ignored. In Hindooism, 
 if not ignored, they are grievously misrepre- 
 sented ; as indeed it is easy to see that they 
 must be, when we remember how grievously 
 Hindooism errs in its representations of God. 
 Mohammedanism no doubt very fully recog- 
 nizes the fact that man has duties to God, but 
 strangely fails to inculcate the chief duty : 
 namely, to love the Lord our God with all the 
 heart, which alone is the root and the bond of 
 all moral perfections. But how indeed could 
 a God such as is exhibited in the Quran, be 
 loved ? He might no doubt, be regarded with 
 great awe ; and may be very greatly dreaded ; 
 but never loved. 
 
 Again, the great religions of the world 
 stand contrasted with Christianity in respect 
 
Practical MoraU. 151 
 
 to the highest motive which they severally 
 place before man. 
 
 The chief motive which is brought before us 
 in the ethics of the gospel is that of grateful 
 love to a God who has not only made, and ever 
 upholds us, but has given llis only Son for our 
 salvation. Other motives are doubtless recog- 
 nized, Ixit to this one supreme motive all 
 others are made subordinate. 
 
 On the other hand, no other religion knows 
 in its S3'steni of morality any motive higher 
 than that of expediency. The morals of Con- 
 fucius, which contain so much that is excellent, 
 nevertheless never rise above the motive of 
 the politic and ex})edient. If you live so and 
 so, it will be better for you, and better for the 
 8tate. Buddhism, knowing nothing of a God, 
 obviously can know nothing of the love of God 
 as a motive. Over and over, on the other 
 hand, the Buddhist authorities represent the 
 ultimate motive for all action or abstinence 
 from any action as " the quieting of pain." If 
 self-restraint in all things is extolled, it is be- 
 cause such a man is " freed at last " through 
 the attainment of the unconscious nirvana,, 
 " from all pain." * 
 
 Xor can better be said for Hindooism. Not 
 
 ' Dhammapada. 361, 
 
152 Hciiidbook of Cotivparative Religion. 
 
 holiness, nor even happiness, but rather free- 
 dom from pain, is the great motive. This 
 takes the form of desire for exemption from 
 further transmigration. If a man is exhorted 
 to live so and so, this is in order that he may 
 thus bring to an end the wearisome succession 
 of repeated births, and therewith the inevi- 
 table pain and suffering which birth insures. 
 
 Very touching is the expression of this long- 
 ing, this dread of an earthl}^ existence rencAved, 
 which is sometimes found in Indian literature. 
 Thus in a song of South India one moans : 
 
 '' A weary and brokeu-down man, 
 With grief I come to thy feet ; 
 Subdued by the pain and the ban 
 Of a sorrowful, infinite life," 
 
 It is true that much is made of union with 
 God as the chief object after which a man 
 should strive. But when we learn the mean- 
 ing of the words employed, it becomes evident 
 that not a moral, but a physical, union is in- 
 tended. The Hindoo devotee seeks that he 
 may in such a sense become united with the 
 infinite Brahma, tliat he shall have no exist- 
 ence as separate and distinct from him ; but 
 lose at once self-consciousness and personality 
 in Him, or rather, in that eternal, unconscious 
 impersonal Essence, and so end pain forever. 
 
Practical Mo rah. 153 
 
 It should hardly be necessary to add that in 
 nothing do the best of the non-Christian reli- 
 gions stand more strikingly contrasted Avith 
 Christianity, than in the fact tliat not one of 
 these religions, either in modern or in ancient 
 times, has ever shown any power to realize in 
 the lives of its followers any high moral ideal ; 
 not even in so far as that ideal has been dimly 
 perceived. It is no doubt true that for almost 
 every precept of Chi-istianity which concerns 
 the duty of man to man, a parallel can be shown 
 in the ethical teachings of other religions. 
 Purity, truth, generosity, forgiveness of in- 
 juries, patience, benevolence, — all these are in 
 all religions extolled greatly. N'or is it denied 
 that liei'e and there in the non-Christian world 
 individuals appear in whose character there is 
 much to admire, and who are often much bet- 
 ter than the religions they profess. But it is a 
 simple matter of historic fact that outside of 
 Christianity the general failure of the accepted 
 religion to realize theie virtues, andliflrsociety 
 in general out of the mire of sin and impurit}^ 
 is nothing less than appalling. 
 
 This may seem to some very harsh and un- 
 charitable ; but let us hear what is confessed 
 by intelligent men among these same peoples. 
 In a recent article on the late ^Ir. Gladstone 
 
154 Handhooh of ComjMirative Religion. 
 
 in the Urdu paper, The Hindustani^ of Luck- 
 now, the editor, who is not a Christian, writes 
 as follows with regard to the moral condition 
 of his countrymen : 
 
 " We Indians are yet far from true progress. 
 Englishmen rule over us because they are pos- 
 sessed of those high moral virtues of which we 
 have not a vestige, nor are likely to acquire 
 them for centuries yet. Leave alone political 
 matters, is there among us a pious and highly 
 moral man ? Does he get justice done him ? 
 Are not people ready everywhere to put him 
 into trouble ? . . . It is impossible for our 
 narrow minds to understand how a man can 
 devote himself to the service of his nation. It 
 is very essential that before we demand polit- 
 ical rights and privileges from Englishmen (our 
 rulers) we should endeavor to acquire those 
 virtues which alone have made Englishmen 
 great among the nations of the world." 
 
 So writes this Indian gentleman of the moral 
 condition of his countrymen, and such admis- 
 sions are far from uncommon. Yet no one Avill 
 claim that as compared Avith China, Africa, 
 and other non-Christian lands, the moral con- 
 dition of India is exceptionally bad. AYe do 
 not forget that much gross sin is also practiced 
 among peoples whom we call Christian. But 
 
I^raftical Morals. 155 
 
 in estimating the significance of this, it must 
 be kept in mind that according to the teaching 
 of the Xew Testament, men are not horn Chris- 
 tians, nor are they true Cliristians in virtue of 
 education or baptism, but only thi'ough re- 
 pentance and a new birth b}' the Holy Ghost. 
 It is the undoubted fact that as a rule, 
 where we meet with those who intelligently 
 profess to have known the saving power of 
 God's Holy Spirit, and to have experienced 
 this transcendent change, we do see such a de- 
 gree of deliverance from the power of sin as 
 we look for in vain among the most devoted 
 adherents of other religions. 
 
 AVhen we take a broader view, and regard 
 the stat(^ of society in Christian communities, 
 in which true Christians and unbelievers are 
 mingled together, even then what a great and 
 marvelous contrast wath the condition of things 
 in lands in no sense Christian ! Despite the 
 existence in such communities of many great 
 sins and crying evils, how different is the state 
 of society and the atmosphere of public opin- 
 ion in America or Great Britain, from that 
 which exists in India, China, and other like 
 countries, none assuredly can realize who have 
 not lived in other than Christian lands. From 
 Christian communities, slavery and polygamy 
 
156 Handhooh of Comparative Religion. 
 
 have disappeared. The horrible unnatural 
 crimes of which the apostle Paul speaks in 
 Rom. i., common enough in communities not 
 Christian in profession, have so completely dis- 
 appeared from Christian lands where an open 
 and free Bible is found, that the most of those 
 who read the terrible description of Roman 
 society as given in that chapter, do not even 
 understand what the apostle means. Where, 
 in a word, is there a spot on the whole earth 
 outside of Christian lands, where a decent man 
 would of choice bring up his children ? 
 
CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 THE RELATION OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS TO 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 What is the true relation of the non-Chris- 
 tian religions to the religion of Christ ? Very 
 commonly, and in our day more and more, it 
 is maintained that the various religions of man- 
 kind, from fetich ism up to Christianity, repre- 
 sent successive stages of progress in the natural 
 evolution of religious thought. All alike are 
 the product of the operation of the human 
 mind upon the phenomena of the material and 
 spiritual Avorld ; and thus represent a progress- 
 ive approximation to the absolute truth, which 
 many tell us has probably not even yet in Chris- 
 tianity been reached. Hence, to speak of the 
 various ethnic religions in relation to Chris- 
 tianit}^ as religions of nature contrasted with 
 revealed religion, or as the " false " religions, 
 in contrast with the " true," we are assured, is 
 wholly unwarranted, unscientific, and erro- 
 neous. 
 
 For the discussion of the question thus I'aised 
 157 
 
158 Handhook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 an entire book would be required, and we can- 
 not pretend to enter into it in this place. 
 Only, in general, as against the view above set 
 forth, we place the indisputable facts of the 
 history of religions. There is not the slightest 
 evidence that, as a law of evolution, the gen- 
 eral tendency of religious thought among men 
 has been from lower to higher and more cor- 
 rect thinking and belief as to God and the re- 
 lation of man and of the world to Him. On 
 the contrary, there is no exception to the rule 
 that from the earliest beginnings of authentic 
 histor}^ to the present time, the history of each 
 and every religion has been a history of de- 
 cline and increasing obscuration of right con- 
 ceptions of God, interrupted only at rare inter- 
 vals by the appearing of one or another to re- 
 call to the minds of men, at least in some im- 
 perfect degree, almoiit forgotten truths. 
 
 It was so in Egypt, where the earliest ex- 
 pressions of religious thought are incomparably 
 the purest and noblest.' It Avas so in India 
 also. For whatever may be said as to the 
 excellencies and defects of the ancient Yedic 
 religion, it was assuredly much purer and 
 nearer the truth in its conceptions of the 
 
 ' See Reuoixl : Hibbert Lectures, on The Ongin and Oroioth of 
 jReligion, etc., pp. 91, 249. 
 
The Relation of the World-Religions. 159 
 
 "Heaven-Father " than the vulgar Ilindooisni 
 of modern India.^ The Chinese, again, unani- 
 mously testify to the same effect ; that the I'e- 
 ligion of the earliest days of their nation was 
 much purer than the religion of modern 
 China.^ No less certain again is it that mod- 
 ern Buddhism has fallen far below the origi- 
 nal faith as proclaimed by Gautama Muni. 
 The Buddha thought he saAv no one anywhere 
 whom he ought to worship ; ^ but his followers 
 of to-day are practically as truly idolaters as 
 any people in the world/ l^ot to multiply il- 
 lustrations, to represent the various religions 
 of mankind as indicating successive stages of 
 religious progress, and as showing a continuous 
 advance in the apprehension of religious truth, 
 is to confound movement with progress. Move- 
 ment there has undoubtedly been, but the law 
 of the movement has ever been backward and 
 downward, and not forward and upward.^ To 
 maintain the contrary, one must ignore his- 
 
 'See the explicit admission of this by Professoi- Mux Miiller. 
 HMory of Sanskrit Literature, i>. 559. . 
 
 '^See Pioiessor Doughis on the worship of Shaiig Te, in Conjii- 
 cianism arul Taouism, pi). 82. 83. 
 
 3 In the Fardiika of the Vinaya Texts. 
 
 *For n full account of the i)i()cess of this degradation from the 
 orisjinal Biuklhisni, see Rhys Davids' Buddldmi, chaps, vii.. viii. 
 
 "For a more detailed account of the facts wiiicli justity these 
 statements see tlie author's GenefUftand Growth of Religion, Lon- 
 d(m, Macmillan & Co., pp. 203-247: and especially the whole sec- 
 ond volume of Ebrard's Apoloqetik, which contains an exhau.stive 
 presentation of the historical facts that justify the statements 
 made in the text. 
 
160 Handbook of Compcvrative Religion, 
 
 tor}^ and set at naught the testimony of human 
 experience for bygone millenniums. 
 
 As Christians, we do well also to keep in 
 mind that not only is the fashionable modern 
 view as to the evolutionary religious progress 
 of mankind, and the relation of the various 
 ethnic religions to Christianity, contradicted 
 by the facts of history, but also, no less cer- 
 tainly, is it in the most direct opposition to the 
 teachings of those Scriptures which as Chris- 
 tians we profess to receive as the Word of God, 
 In both the Old and the Xew Testaments, there 
 is much about the religions which surrounded 
 the writers of the various books ; and never 
 once do those writers, speaking "as they 
 were moved by the Holy Ghost," exhibit that 
 broad " sympathy " with the ethnic religions 
 which, we are now taught by many, it is 
 the first duty of the intelligent Christian to 
 cherish. 
 
 On the contrary, the rich resources of the 
 Hebrew language in terms relating to the 
 moral an<l spiritual life are taxed to the utter- 
 most, by the writers of the Old Testament 
 books, to express the severity of their con- 
 demnation, and the depth of their loathing and 
 contempt, for the religions of Babylon, Assyria, 
 Canaan, and Egypt. This is true both as re- 
 
The Relation of the World-Eeligions. 161 
 
 gards idolatry of the grosser form, and all 
 nature worship as well, together with the false 
 philosophy by which these were popularly jus- 
 tified. Yeiy~ striking is the phrase so con- 
 stantly recurring in the Books of Kings and 
 Chronicles concerning the apostatizing kings 
 of Judah and Israel: not merely, as in our 
 authorized version, " he did evil in the sight of 
 the Lord," but always in Hebrew with the 
 definite article, ''tlie evil"— R. v., "that 
 which was evil", in other words — as often 
 explained by themselves — the king in question 
 was an idolater. Instead of looking with a 
 kindly sympathy on the Assyrian bowing be- 
 fore some visible symbol of the Creator, his 
 idol is stigmatized as "an abomination," a 
 "stum])." Or, again, the idol is contemp- 
 tuously termed dven^ " a nothing," ayim^ " a 
 bugbear," or elM, with ridicule, as "a wee god, 
 a godling " ; and — with special reference, prob- 
 ably, to phallic images such as are common 
 in India to-day — miphletseth^ "a horror." In- 
 stead of recognizing in the worship of idols a 
 reaching out of the soul after God, the Holy 
 Scriptures represent idolatry as rebellion 
 against Him. It is reckoned a sin of such 
 enormity as to be properly classed with witch- 
 craft, stubbornness, hatred, lying, and murder, 
 
162 Ilandhook of Comjxirative Religion. 
 
 etc., etc.^ Most frequently of all it is repre- 
 sented by the Old Testament writers as a 
 veritable adultery of the soul, provoking God 
 to a fiery heat of jealousy ; a crime which 
 therefore, like the type, is deserving of the 
 most condign punishment. Never once in the 
 whole Old Testament is the Assyrian, Egyp- 
 tian, Phenician, or any other religion of the 
 old world, represented as expressing an effort 
 of man after communion with God, but, in- 
 stead, as formal revolt against Him ; not as 
 marking an approach of the soul to God, but 
 as a guilty departure from Him. When the 
 prophet Isaiah saw the men of his time bow- 
 ing down and worshiping carved pieces of 
 wood as emblems of the invisible God, instead 
 of expressing an}^ sympathy with this kind of 
 worship, as being well-intended, even though 
 so imperfect in form, he poured upon such a 
 man the most scathing ridicule and contempt ; 
 that he should actually bow down to a part of 
 a stick of wood, from another part of which 
 he had cooked his dinner ! ^ 
 
 The apostle Paul, in a more formal manner 
 than any other of the sacred writers, has set 
 forth the genesis of the religions of the ancient 
 
 » See Gal. v. 20: 1 Cor. vi. 9, etc., etc 
 'Seels, xliv. 10-17. 
 
The Relation of the Wo rid- Religions. 163 
 
 world as they existed around him.^ He declares 
 that they all had their origin, not in love to 
 God, and the aspiration of the soul after Him, 
 but in alienation from Him. He teaches that 
 they had arisen because men "did not like to 
 retain God in their knowledge " ; that, instead 
 of representing the progress of man in religion, 
 they expressed progressive moral and spiritual 
 degracUition ; that, instead of having their root 
 in what was good in man, they grew out 
 of man's aversion to God, and his ungrateful 
 ignoring of Him. Instead of making ex- 
 cuses for tlie multitudes who were in his day 
 bowing before idols, or worshiping various 
 objects in nature, he expressly declared that 
 the light of nature is so clear in its rev- 
 elation of the being and character of God, 
 that the votaries of these various idolatrous 
 religions were without excuse for their error*. 
 It is in full keeping with all these re]iresentn- 
 tions of the Old and Xew Testaments, thnt 
 the sacred Book closes with a declaration 
 which associates all who in any religion wor- 
 ship and adore aught but the invisible Creator, 
 with "liars, whoremongei-s, and murderers"; 
 for it is written that, equally with such as 
 these, the idolater shall be excluded forever 
 
 » Rom. 1. 19-25. 
 
164 Handbook of Comjyarative Religion. 
 
 from the Holy City, and have his portion, 
 with such like men, " in the lake which burn- 
 eth with fire and brimstone." ^ 
 
 ]S'or is it merely the grosser forms of the 
 ethnic religions which are thus condemned. 
 Ko distinction is made as regards the fact of 
 condemnation. One may adore as a symbol 
 of Deity, a stone or a stick ; another, more 
 enlightened, may adore a deified hero ; an- 
 other still, may worship the sun ; but all alike 
 fall under the same unsparing condemnation. 
 Nor has the apostle any gentler or more toler- 
 ant words for the philosophy which underlies 
 these various religions. On the contrary, he 
 asserts that as an attempt to attain to the 
 knowledge of God, it had been a failure;^ 
 and that the supposed philosophic wisdom of 
 the ancient Greeks, Eomans, and others, was 
 in God's sight mere "foolishness."^ In a 
 word, as regards all forms of the ethnic re- 
 ligions, the whole teaching of the Christian 
 Scriptures stands in the most complete and 
 unqualified opposition to the modern view, 
 which, in a spurious charity, maintains that all 
 religions alike present a means, more or less 
 perfect, of attaining to communion with God, 
 and in their history afford cheering evidence 
 
 »Rev. xxi. 8. n Cor. i. 21. n Cor. iii. 19. 
 
The Relation of the World -Religions. 105 
 
 of the ii'rnrliinl religious progross of the human 
 race. 
 
 Bui it will be said, and truly, that such rep- 
 resentations as the above respecting religions 
 characterized by idoltary, cannot hold good 
 against the religion of Islam ; which, it is sup- 
 posed, we may therefore regard with a larger 
 degree of charity and sympathy ; since Islam 
 everywhere and always protests against all 
 worship of any other than the one invisible 
 God, in as emphatic terms as Christianity. 
 But if Mohammedanism is happily strong in 
 its utterances on this point, it is no less em- 
 phatic in its uncompromising denial of the 
 holy incai'nation of the Son of God, and of 
 atonement as made through His sacrilicial 
 death. AYhen this is remembered, it will be 
 clear at once that ^Mohammedanism falls under 
 no less unsparing condemnation, in tlie Xew 
 Testament, than the other non-Christian re- 
 ligions. For not only are we told that " the 
 Word '' who " was in the beginning with God " 
 who " was God," " the only begotten Son which 
 is in the bosom of the Father " " became flesh," ' 
 and also that " His [God's] Son . . . was 
 born of the seed, of David according to the 
 flesh ; ^ that to deny, as do the followers of 
 
 'John i. 1. 14, 18 (R. v.). -Kum. i 3 (K. v.). 
 
166 Handbook of Co)njjarative Religion, 
 
 Mokamiiied, that Jesus of Xazareth was the 
 Son of God in the sense for the affirmation of 
 which He was declared by the high priest and 
 the sanhedrin to be guilty of blasphemy and 
 was condemned to death/ is to deny the Father 
 also who sent Him ; ^ but we are further taught 
 that " many deceivers are entered into the 
 world who confess not that Jesus Christ is 
 come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an 
 antichrist." ^ 
 
 These considerations have now prepared the 
 way for an answer to the question whether or 
 not it is correct, in the light of the facts which 
 the comparative study of religions has brought 
 l)efore us, to distinguish other religions from 
 the Christian religion as the false from the 
 true. Only let the question be rightly appre- 
 hended. It is not, as sometimes assumed, 
 whether other religions than the Christian rec- 
 ognize important inoral and spiritual truths. 
 xVbout this there is no dispute. Indeed, ex- 
 ce[)t for this, they would not have had the 
 power they have to attract the millions of 
 
 ' Matt. xxvi. 63-65: Mark xiv. 61-64; Luke xxii. 66-71. 
 
 -1 John ii. 22. 23. I'lie Rev. Dr. Robsoii, of Aberdeen, for many 
 years a missionary in India, lias truly s;iid,— as illustrating this 
 connection of tlie denial of the Son with the denial of the Father: 
 "It is of the essence of Christianity to affirm the Fatherliood of 
 God. It is of the essence of Mohanuiiedanism to deny the Father- 
 liood of God." British and Foreign Evangelical Review; as quoted 
 by IkmIs in MohamiDPr], BucWah, and Christ, pp. 10. 11. 
 
 ' 2 Jolm 7 (u. V.) ; and 1 John iv. 1-;J (R. v.) where same Is Implied. 
 
Tilt' Rtdat'ioh. of the Wufld-Jicligto/t.s. 107 
 
 mankind. Moreover, it may be remarked in 
 passing, that it is of great importance that all 
 Christians, and missionaries especially, recog- 
 nize and heartily acknowledge such truths as 
 they may find more or less clearly admitted in 
 the religions of those among whom they labor. 
 Let us l)y all means acknowledge witli thank- 
 fulness the fact that Islam insists on the 
 unity and spirituality^ of God, as opposed to 
 all polytheism and pantheism; and no less, 
 on His absolute supremacy and sovereignty 
 over all that is. Let us rejoice again, that 
 in Hindooisni Ave find so many intimations 
 of that other profound truth, of which Islam 
 seems never to have caught a glimpse, the im- 
 manence of God in the world. Let us even 
 thank Buddhism for its continual insistence 
 on the utter vanity and the unsatisfying na- 
 ture of the Avorld and all that is in it, and for 
 its assertion of the equality of all men, as 
 against the intolerable pretensions of caste. 
 
 Kor have we the least reason to fear, lest by 
 such frank recognition of any truth to which 
 any non-Christian religion may give witness, 
 we detract aught from the Divine authority 
 and unique supremacy of Christianity. If the 
 teaching of the Holy Scriptures is to be re- 
 ceived, it were even incredible that some frag- 
 
168 llandhook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 meats of spiritual trutli should not be found in 
 all religions. For the teaching of the Word is 
 explicit that all men alike have a moral na- 
 ture, and that humanity began its history with 
 a true, if imperfect, knowledge of God. We 
 are told that the invisible things of God, from 
 the time of the creation itself, have been 
 clearly revealed, 'M3eing understood by the 
 things that are made " ; ^ and that men who 
 have not the revealed law of God, are yet " a 
 law unto themselves " ; inasmuch as the}^ show 
 the operation of a "law written in their 
 hearts," when their thoughts within them ac- 
 cuse or else excuse them for what they have 
 done. ^ l^Loreover, the same Scriptures teach 
 no less clearly that the working- <yf (rod's Holy 
 Spirit is by no means confined to those who 
 have the revealed Word, but that the etei^nal 
 Word "lighteth every man.'' ^ And since 
 the same Scriptures also teach that even be- 
 fore God separated Israel to be the special 
 vehicle and channel of His supernatural reve- 
 lation. His will for our salvation was made 
 known to the children of men ; therefore, in 
 the light of all these facts, we need not be sur- 
 prised that among religions other than the 
 Christian we should find, as w^e do find, some 
 
 'Rom. i. 20. "Rom. ii. 14. 15. 'John i. 9. 
 
The Relation of the World- Religions. 109 
 
 vestiges of God's ancient revelation and many 
 most impressive suggestions of t iths which 
 are commonly regarded as belonging, not to 
 natural, but to revealed religion. 
 
 Then we have further to remember that by 
 the dispersion of the Jews after the Babylo- 
 nian captivity, in the first instance, and after 
 that, by the preaching of the apostles and 
 their associates and immediate successors, the 
 distinctive facts of the gospel were very widely 
 spread abroad in the world of that time. That 
 such truths, so extensively proclaimed, should 
 have everywhere utterly perished from the 
 memory of men, in those various lands where 
 they labored, had been truly astonishing ; and 
 the evidence is all to the contrary. 
 
 As is well known, Aloliammedanism accepts 
 as infallible truth very much of the history 
 and doctrine of the Old and Xew Testaments. 
 Hindooism, with its teaching concerning Pra- 
 japati, who sacrificed himself in behalf of the 
 gods, recognized in its most ancient days, the 
 doctrine of a Divine Atoner and atonement ; 
 and at this present time, in its doctrine of the 
 avatars, confesses to the fact that if the world 
 is to be saved, an incarnation of the Deity is 
 required. These two ideas have been strik- 
 ingly combined in the Bhagavad Gita, where 
 
17«) Handhook of Co'tnjKU'atAve Religion. 
 
 Krishna, as an incarnation of the Deity, is 
 represented as saying, in language which 
 might be applied without moditication to our 
 Lord Jesus Christ : " I am the offering ; I am 
 the sacrifice ; I am the burnt offering." ^ The 
 poem is of later origin than the Chinstian era, 
 and this teaching with regard to Krishna, like 
 some of the incidents of his life as given in the 
 Ehagavad Purana, may indicate faint recol- 
 lections of Christian preaching by the apostle 
 Thomas, or other early missionaries to India. 
 Bat the funcUimeutal idea thus expressed had 
 found striking ex|)ression even in India before 
 the incarnation of our Lord ; as in one of the 
 Brahmanas previously cited : " The Lord of 
 creatures gave Himself for them, - for He be- 
 came their sacrifice."^ 
 
 Not to multiply illustrations, let it then be 
 granted, once for all, that in all the great re- 
 ligions of mankind uiay be discovered more or 
 less important fragments of Divine truth ; and 
 even of such truths as are distinctive of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 But it by no means follows from this that 
 it is therefore wrong to speak of the various 
 ethnic religions as " false," and of Christianity 
 
 ^Bhagavad Git a. ix. 16. 
 
 'I. e.. tlie pods; but these were originally mortal men. 
 
 ^ Satapatha Brahmana, xiv. 3. 2, 1. 
 
Tht iiilitttoii of the Woihl-Jic/Hjlon.s. 171 
 
 aloneas the .'.^ true.'' religion. For, in the first 
 place, it is to be noted that even where a truth 
 is recognized in any one of the non-Christian 
 religions, it is very commonly exaggerated out 
 of all proportion to other truths, or utterly 
 erroneous inferences are drawn from it ; or, 
 again, the representation itself is distorted, like 
 the image of the full-orbed sun upon a tossing 
 sea. Thus, if Islam insists on the unity of God, 
 as we have seen, it misapprehends this, as be- 
 ing a unity such as excludes the possibility of 
 a threeness of personality in the one God. If, 
 again, it makes much of His absolute power 
 and sovereignty, it so caricatures this doctrine 
 as to make it essential to believe that God is 
 the author of evil, and even when it most 
 loudly extols Him as " the Merciful and the 
 Compassionate," quite loses sight of the depths 
 of His pardoning grace and loving-kindness. 
 
 Hindooism, again, holding so firmly to the 
 truth of an immanence of God in the world, 
 has identified His relation to the soul with His 
 relation to matter, has lost. .sight of His per- 
 sonality, and ])y making God the agent in all 
 acting, makes Him to be the author of all sin. 
 If Buddilsni has rightly said much of the van- 
 ity and unsatisfying nature of all earthly 
 things, in doing this, it has missed of the mo- 
 
1Y2 Ilandhooh of Comparative Religion. 
 
 mentous truth that the evil which pertains to 
 this earthly life, is not because existence — even 
 bodily existence — is of necessity evil ; but is 
 because of man's sin, which has turned what 
 God made " very good *' into evil. 
 
 But not only are the truths wliicli are recog- 
 nized in the various religions thus either dis- 
 torted, or separated from their proper place in 
 the system of truth, but the system of religious 
 teaching in Avhich they are made to take some 
 place, in each and every case, as a system, is 
 diametrically opposed to Christianity. And 
 this is the real question as to the truth or fal- 
 sity of any religion as compared with Chris- 
 tianity. It is not Avliether in such religion 
 many religious trutlis are recognized; it is 
 whethei' the system of teaching represented in 
 that religion, as a whole, is true or false. Now 
 surely it is quite inconceivable that a religion, 
 for example, which is based on the denial of 
 the personality of God. and therewith also of 
 man and of his i-esponsibility to God, and a 
 religion in which, as in Christianity, all this is 
 affirmed, can both be true. It is impossible, 
 again, that a religion which affirms an incar- 
 nation of the Deity in order to the salvation 
 of men through a Divine atonement for sin, 
 is affirmed as a historic fact and fundamental 
 
The Relation of the World-Iieligions. 173 
 
 truth, and a religious system like that of Islam, 
 wherein the denial of the possibility of either 
 incarnation or atonement for sin is made an 
 element integral and essential, can both of 
 them be true. It is, again, no less certain 
 that, i^ ia one religion, as in Buddhism, God 
 is ignored or denied, and it is assumed as fun- 
 damental truth that existence, everywhere and 
 alwa3^s, is of necessity an evil, and the whole 
 doctrine of salvation is based on this assump- 
 tion ; and if in another religion, as in Chris- 
 tianity, we have a system of teaching which 
 assumes the existence of a personal God, the 
 (Creator of all, and teaches the original excel- 
 lence of all things as made by Him ; then it 
 should be as clear as the noonday that these 
 two religions cannot both be True. 
 
 Hence, being assured that as an organized 
 and self-consistent system of related truths, 
 Christianity is to be held a true religion, it is 
 not through any lack of charity, but under the 
 constraint of an imperious logical necessity, 
 that we allirm that Islam, Hindooism, Bud- 
 dhism, Confucianism, in a word, all religions 
 whatsoever other than that of Christ, must be 
 regarded as false. Howsoever they may all 
 incidentally acknowledge many important 
 truths, nevertheless, as systems of religion^ 
 
174 Ilandhooh of Cornjyamtlce Relifjion. 
 
 we must pronounce them false. Contradic- 
 tories cannot both be true. 
 
 Finally, in the light of these facts, we are 
 now prepared to consider the question so often 
 debated in Christian circles, whether men can 
 be saved by other religions than that of 
 Christ. There are many who tliink that this 
 is quite possible, if only a man live up to 
 the injunctions of the religion which he pro- 
 fesses ; and there are many still who deny 
 this. Let it be carefully observed, however, 
 that this question is quite distinct from another 
 with which it is often confounded ; namely, 
 whether men who are outwardly numbered in 
 a body professing other than the Christian 
 faith can possibly be saved. This may safely 
 be said, to preclude any misconception, that it is 
 perfectly certain that whenever and wherever 
 a man truly repents of all his sin and turns 
 unto God, he will be saved. Only the ques- 
 tion may fairly be raised just here, whether a 
 man can repent of sinning against God, who, 
 like a Buddhist, is not assured of His exist- 
 ence; or who, like a Brahman, is unable to 
 believe that God is a personal Being. How- 
 ever, the question immediately before us is 
 not whether, as a matter of fact, individuals 
 not professedly Christian have ever truly 
 
Tliii Ilelation of the World- ReJigirms. 175 
 
 turned from all sin unto God; but the very 
 distinct question whether a man can be 
 saved from sin here and hereafter ly means 
 of a diligent ohservance of the prescriptions 
 of some other religion than that of Jesvs 
 Christ. 
 
 In answer to this question we remark first 
 — what is very little understood — that reli- 
 gions other than the Christian do not even pro- 
 pose salvation from sin as the object to be at- 
 tained. As has been already fully shown, the 
 salvation proposed by the world-religions is, 
 in every case, merely a salvation from those 
 sufferings here or hereafter, which are caused 
 by sin. Let it be remembered that, for instance, 
 the Mohammedan idea of salvation, like that 
 of too many nominal Christians, is merely sal- 
 vation from hell-fire. The Hindoo idea of sal- 
 vation is deliverance from the necessity of 
 going through the eighty-four lakhs of trans- ■ 
 migrations, and therewith, speedier deliver- i 
 ance from suffering by the final loss of self- ' 
 conscious personality through absorption in 
 the infinite Brahma. The Buddhist idea of 
 salvation, in the highest sense apprehended by 
 the Buddha, the i^arinihhdnd., is to cease to 
 be eternally, to reach that state wherein 
 " That by which they say ' He is,' exists for him 
 
176 Handbook of Com/parative Religion. 
 
 no longer." ^ Even though we should grant 
 that any one religion is adapted to the attain- 
 ment of salvation in the sense in which its 
 votaries understand that term, surely it would 
 not follow that they were therefore adapted to 
 the attainment of a salvation from sin, when 
 this is not even contemplated therein as the 
 end of the religious life. 
 
 Again, to suppose that by obedience to the 
 prescriptions of any religion other than the 
 Christian, men may attain to acceptance with 
 God, is to assume that God can be pleased and 
 satisfied by actions and observances of dia- 
 metrically opposite moral character; with 
 human sacrifices, or with no sacrifice; with 
 reliance upon His incarnate Son, or without 
 it. Is this conceivable ? If Ave accept Chris- 
 tianity as true, then we must admit that it 
 teaches that the Divine verdict is that no man 
 can possibly attain to salvation through efforts 
 of his own, and that salvation therefore is of 
 necessity through God's free grace alone. But 
 every other religion, without exception, in so 
 far as it teaches anything on the subject, 
 teaches with all possible emphasis that salva- 
 tion, of whatsoever sort it be, is to be attained 
 through something done or suffered by the 
 
 ' Sutta Xtpdta: Parayanavagga, vll. 8. 
 
The Relation of the WoHd-Ileligioiis. 177 
 
 man himself. Can these contradictory teach- 
 ings both be true ? 
 
 Finally, as Christians, we are bound to 
 admit that for all who honestly receive the 
 Xew Testament as the Word of God, this 
 question should be regarded as settled. Noth- 
 ing could be more explicit than the words of 
 the apostle with regard to Jesus Christ : " In 
 none other is there salvation : for neither is 
 there any other name under heaven, that is 
 given among men, wherein we must be saved." ^ 
 
 This statement of the apostle, together 
 with all the foregoing arguments, is also justi- 
 lied historically. For it must ever be borne in 
 mind that salvation consists essentially, not so 
 much in escaping the retributions of eternity, 
 as in the production of a certain type of char- 
 acter, which is described by the term " holy," 
 taken in the biblical sense of that Avord. 
 Xow there is no want of charity Avhen we 
 affirm that among the votaries of other re- 
 ligions Ave do not, as a matter of fact, find this 
 special type of character. We doubtless find 
 among them all, here and there, men who may 
 be rightly described as brave, or generous, or 
 benevolent, or moral, but for holiness we look 
 in vain. When and where has Islam, for ex- 
 
 ' Acts iv. 12. (R. V,) 
 
178 TIandhook of Comparative Religion. 
 
 ample, ev^er produced a Saint John? AYhen 
 has Hindooism ever shown the world an 
 Isaiah ; or Buddhism, a Saint Paul ? And if 
 the world-religions do not develop such a type 
 of character here and now, what possible 
 reason is there to believe that by devotion to 
 them here, a man may at last secure complete 
 deliverance from sin, and personal holiness of 
 character in the life to come ? 
 
 The practical consequence of the argument 
 of this book is so evident that it needs only to 
 be mentioned. If the differences between the 
 various religions of the world and the religion 
 of Jesus Christ are such as have been herein 
 set forth, and if the teaching of Christianity 
 be accepted as undoubted truth, then Chris- 
 tian missions to the followers of other religions 
 become a duty so clear that it should be self- 
 evident. If the words of the Tamil poet be- 
 fore quoted be true, and 
 
 " Purification before the great God 
 Is greater than life and is stronger than death ; 
 Is the hope of the wise and the prize of the saint," 
 
 and if, as both the history of our race and the 
 Holy Scriptures clearly testify, all religions 
 except that of Jesus Christ have utterly failed 
 to secure for man this supreme blessing, then 
 
The Relation of the Wo rid- Religions. 1 79 
 
 manifestly it is the first duty of the Church to 
 let all the world know, without any further 
 delay, that w^hat neither the Buddha, nor any 
 of the deified heroes of liindooism, nor Mo- 
 hammed, nor Confucius, nor any other teacher 
 of religion has ever proved able to do, has 
 been done by Jesus Christ our Lord ; who in 
 very truth saves His people from their sins,' 
 and whose gospel is shown by the history of 
 almost nineteen hundred years to be of a 
 truth " the power of God unto salvation to 
 every one that belie veth." ^ 
 
 » Matt. i. 21. 2 Rom. i. 16 ; 1 Cor. I. 24. 
 
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