John P. Jones

“ Religious asceticism has been the ideal of the Hindu life from time immemorial. The man who has given up all earthly pursuits and wanders with beggar's cup in hand from place to place, making pilgrimages to the holy places of India, or who separates himself entirely from men and devotes years to the solitude of the wilderness in the cultivation of piety,—he it is who is the admiration of the whole Hindu community. And it is for this very reason that so many men in India to-day don the yellow robe of this profession, and make capital out of this sentiment of the people. ”

“ A man may write a tract in condemnation and ridicule of all the gods of the Hindu pantheon and still remain an acceptable Hindu; but if, in the agony of a burning fever, he should drink a spoonful of water from the hands of a Christian or of a Pariah, his caste would doom him to perdition for it.
In other words, the whole system directly cultivates, in all the people, a hollowness of life which does more than anything else to rob India of her manhood and which makes nobility of character and ethical integrity most difficult things among the Hindu community. ”

“ He may lead a life of rebellion against his Maker and Saviour; he may even deny the very existence of the Father of his being. But God, in the riches of His infinite patience, does not desert him to his own base thought and life. He follows him like a shepherd searching for his lost sheep. He longs for his return like a tender, forgiving father for the return of his prodigal son. Human life, according to this view, may be mean and sordid and may be spent in the grossest sin; but there is hope. All is not lost while there is a spark of life left. ”

“ There is hardly a river in the world which produces more fertility and which brings sustenance to more people than the divine Ganges. The river is not only deified, but is regarded as one of the most potent deities of India.
From time immemorial, Benares, or "Kasi," which is built upon the banks of the Ganges, has partaken of the sanctity of the river, and is regarded by devout Hindus as the most sacred spot in the world. To die within the radius of ten miles from its centre is sure and eternal bliss, even to the outcast and the defiling white man! ”

“ All the great founders of the World Religions were men of the East. This was doubtless because the East kept more closely than the West in touch with deepest religious thought and was animated with highest religious emotions and heavenly aspirations. Certainly the world owes more to ancient Asia for its religious life and spiritual attainments than to all the other continents put together. And Asia is to be thanked, above all, because she gave to mankind the Christ and the Buddha. For the eastern flavour of their messages and the Oriental tints of their life we are deeply grateful. ”

“ One should not abandon a natural duty though tainted with evil."
Thus the most stupendous system of social and religious evil that the world has ever known—the Hindu caste system—is here boldly taught and inculcated as the most sacred duty of life. One man is born for pious leadership, another born to fight, another born for menial service; and woe be to any one of them who abandons this so-called "natural [179] duty" and strives for a betterment or a change of life! This is the divinely inculcated system of bondage which has enthralled India for twenty-five centuries. ”

“ In the West the national evolutionist says to us, "Let the people of India alone, that they may evolve their own faith. It is not by cataclysmic change, but by growth, that they will ultimately find their true redemption." Others, who have listened perhaps to the pleasing words of a clever, yellow-robed Hindu Swami, ask the question, "Why should we spend our money in sending the Gospel to these wonderfully bright people of the East; are they not able to take care of themselves; and is not their faith adequate to their needs?" ”

“ I can conceive the possibility of there being a vast amount of Christianity—a living and a self-propagating Christianity—outside the pale of organized and institutional Christianity in India. It is so in the West to-day. The organized churches of the West have within themselves an ever diminishing portion of the vital Christian life and aspirations of the country. Christianity has overleapt ecclesiastic bounds. Its spirit is overflowing, in living streams, into the life of a thousand organizations which are altruistic and philanthropic, outside the limits of ecclesiastical Christianity. ”

“ If the highest struggle of the soul in this world is against existence and its human actions and conditions, it is to be expected that a complete riddance of life and of all its accompaniments will be the summum bonum of the final consummation. And if this struggle for emancipation is to continue through numberless births and earthly existences, it is natural that the coveted end should bring a loss of all that life connotes in highest sentiment as well as basest passion. I need not dwell upon the contrast between this and the anticipations entertained by every humble Christian. ”

“ There, on the other hand, we witness the spectacle of the Christ who so lived the divine life, and whose immaculate holiness is so overwhelming, that His claim to be one with the Godhead brings no shock or sense of incongruity to any one to-day. He has so impressed men of all generations that untold millions, in all lands, have felt no hesitation in believing Him when He says, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Here do we indeed find the supreme contrast between the manual of Hindu faith and the Gospels of Christianity; and it is a contrast at the most vital point of religion. ”

“ For there is in this world no means of sanctification [170] like knowledge, and that one perfected by devotion finds within one's self in time. He who has faith, whose senses are restrained, and who is assiduous, obtains knowledge. Obtaining knowledge he acquires, without delay, the highest tranquillity.... Therefore, O descendant of Bharata! destroy with the sword of knowledge these misgivings of yours which fill your mind, and which are produced from ignorance." "He who is possessed of knowledge, who is always devoted, and whose worship is addressed to one only, is esteemed highest. ”

“ And so long as Hindus continue to worship this demon, caste, it is impossible for them to become a united body to which, with any courtesy, the name Nation can be applied. Nor can they blend into such action as can in any sense be called National or patriotic. India is wofully lacking in the first essential of self-government—public spirit.
In other words, the most urgent need of India at present is social reform, which depends entirely upon the people, and not political reform, which must come from the State. ”

“ He felt the adequacy of this life as a determiner of the eternal destiny of all men. And He felt that the salvation which He wrought and offered to all was able to carry man through the single portal of death into unending bliss. Why another entrance into this world, if by passing through the world God could bring into the life the seed and power of His own grace and life which would blossom and bear fruit in the soul throughout eternity? ”

“ The petty, grotesque, and local "descents" of India will satisfy no one in these days of growing breadth and union, when the people are aspiring after an all-India nationality.
In Christ only is India finding the perfect revelation of God, because He alone revealed Him as the Father of boundless love; God, the Father of all men, loving them with an infinite passion and seeking them even unto death,—that is the message of the Christian [439] Incarnation. And how strangely does it contrast with the moral obliquity and selfish indifference to human interest which characterize Hindu incarnations! ”

“ Hence we are compelled to look in India to-day upon the saddest spectacle of abject manhood the world has known. To those who, like the writer, have spent a lifetime in trying to raise the outcasts and the lower strata of Indian society, the most difficult and discouraging obstacle is the inertia and the abjectness of the people themselves. Through a bitter experience of many centuries they have learned that it does not pay for the individual to assert himself against the dictates of the caste, or for the lower castes to rise in rebellion against their lot. ”

“ It is enough to remember that the western conception of Christianity, which the missionary has inherited and which he is eagerly presenting, and can hardly avoid presenting, to the people of this land, is far removed from what the Hindu has always been taught to believe that a religion should bring into a man's life and possession.
It is easy enough to prove to the man of ordinary intelligence the debasing influence of idolatry, the accursed slavery of the caste system, the gross immorality of the Hindu pantheon, and the dwarfing and degrading character of the ceremonialism of modern Hinduism. ”

“ Only let us understand that God may enter into each life to enable man to face successfully that law, and it is all right. But condemn man to everlasting isolation; cut away from him every ray of Divine help, and the working out of his Karma becomes a terrible and an almost unending tragedy—a Sisyphean task with no hope of release save in the wiping out of life itself. And this is what the great Soul of the East believed and taught. ”

“ Its monolithic carving is exquisitely fine, as it is most abundant and elaborate. Hinduism may be moribund; but this temple gives only intimation of life and prosperity as one gazes upon its elaborate ritual, and sees the thousands passing daily into its shrine for worship. It represents the highest form of Hindu architecture, and, like almost all else that is Hindu, its history carries us to the dim distance of the past. But the great Tirumalai Nayak, the king of two and a half centuries ago, spent more in its elaboration than any one else. ”

“ Hindu Swamis, who have been educated in Christian mission schools, and have spent a few years in the far West, surrounded by a Christian atmosphere, imbibing Christian sentiments, and unconsciously adopting the Christian viewpoint, return to India upon a wave of popular excitement and give public addresses and receive the plaudits of their grateful countrymen. But what is it that such men as Vivekananda and Abhedananda, and all the rest of the Ananda tribe, teach upon their return to India? It is certainly not an orthodox Hinduism, nor is it the pure philosophy of the East. ”

“ It is for this reason that Burma is called "The Silken East." Her dress is clumsy and uncouth in form, and, in this respect, is incomparably inferior to the graceful cloth of India. But the woman herself is lovely, and the taste which she displays in her personal adornment is very attractive. It does not surprise one to know that not a few Europeans marry these Burmese ladies of beauty. But above her beauty is that pose of freedom and self-respect which commends her everywhere. ”

“ What would be intolerably irksome to a Westerner is to the Hindu a matter of course. To the rank and file of the Hindus, caste has ceased to be a matter of question. It is the only order of life with which he is conversant; and while he may be convinced by arguments which prove its cruelty and its many evils, he still clings to it as the only system under which he knows how to live and which he cares to obey.
As we have already seen, the ramifications of caste are more numerous and its authority more general to-day than at any former time. ”