all forms of idolatry-in a word, their strong emphasis on every thing which the new theism has in common with Christianity—are in every way calculated to make the natives regard for a moment the cause as identical with Christianity. The most specious of all the arguments employed by the preachers of the Arya Samaj, and by the great body of Hindu people and priests who are still in the toils of the old idolatry, is the claim that all the best forms of Christian civilization and of Western culture have their real basis in the eldest Vedas. No Hindu doubts the great superiority of the new age to any former one. He knows that without the Englishınan his India would be as far in the background as it was a thousand years ago. But how has it all come about? To whom does India owe even the civilization of the Englishman and even the American? To none other than to the far-back founders of his own faith. The apostles of the Arya Samaj declare that every modern conquest over the brute forces of nature was anticipated by their seers and foretold in their Vedas. It is difficult, even when they quote these precious promises, for a dull Western mind to see the appositeness of the prophecy. But that is the misfortune of the Anglo-Saxon's dull perception. Here is where Dayanand finds the Vedic formula which lies at the root of all medical science: "O God, by thy kindness whatever medicines there are, for us they are givers of ease; and for those who are injurious, evil, and our enemies; and with what injurious ones we keep hatred, for them they are injurious." Far journeys were known-so says the founder of the Arya Samaj-to the primeval teachers of his faith. In the chapter "Concerning Travel," in the Satyarth Prakash, Dayanand says that the Munis, and Rishis, and others used to travel in foreign countries. Viyashi Muni, who lived five thousand years ago, and translated the Vedas, and his son Sukhdeo and their disciples, went to Patal-that is, America— and dwelt there! One day the son asked the father for knowledge, and received for answer that he must go to Hindustan and ask the raja. It is related that Krishna went to America and brought back Udalak Muni, to the sacrifice prepared by Raja Udhistir. At another time an Indian raja went to America, fought and overcame the American raja, who gave his daughter in marriage to the conqueror. Dayanand declares that all the English knowledge of the railway, the steamship, fire-arms, and the telegraph has come from the Vedas, and that the English have only developed this knowledge received from the Aryan Vedas. In his chapter on "The Science of Traveling" he holds "this science of rapid transit in the sea, on the earth, and in the sky as taught in the Vedas." He says: "Whatever man is a desirer of excellent knowledge, and of gold, and of other things from which his nourishment and pleasure arise, he may fulfill his desire for the acquisition and enjoyment of that wealth and success by means of the things that are written further on. Whoever, having made various kinds of steamships of gold, silver, copper, brass, iron, wood, and other things, and having added fire, air, water, as wanted, and having filled up with cargo for merchandise, comes and goes in the sea and rivers, then there is increase in his wealth and other things. Whoever spends his manhood in this way acquires these things, and cares for them, and will not die in misery. For he, being in full manhood, is not sloth ful." + Dayanand explains that the vehicles for rapid transit are of three kinds for travel on land, in the sea, in the sky. Now Dayanand says that Ashwi, found in the Vedas, means the motive power for all these vehicles! It is either fire, flame, water, wood, metals, horses, lightning, air, earth, day, night, sun, or moon! Therefore, we have the railway-car, the telegraph, the universal application of steam for "traveling." The same apostle of modern Hinduism finds in the Vedas a description of the division of the Indian railway carriage into six compartments; the speed with which it is drawn; the machinery for drawing and backing a train. He even describes a sky-vehicle. It is to rest on twelve pillars, must have machinery in sixty parts, which must be fastened by three hundred large nails or screws. If, therefore, we are destined to be blessed with comfortable and safe flying-machines, the quick-witted Aryan will be ready to say, "Did we not tell you so? Lo, it lies in the Vedas of our ancestors." The Hindus not affected with the theistic heresy of the Samajes go further than Dayanand or any of the Brahmists. They hold not only that the Vedas contain prophecies of all modern inventions and discoveries, but that Brahma is a being of various incarnations. The application of steam is a recent incarnation, and therefore is a part of the Hindu system. When the railway was introduced into India the high-caste Brahmans would not ride in them. To travel in contact with one of lower caste, and especially with foreigners, was regarded as a mortal sin. The difficulty was great. The pundits rolled their eyes in ecstatic wonder. The waiting for reply was intense. At last it came, substantially as follows: "The Vedas prophesied the railway. Brahma has undergone a new, blissful incarnation. Hurry up! Get aboard." Therefore the most exclusive Hindu can now crowd into any railway of India or Burmah, and from Bombay to the Mandalay can coolly take his tramway ticket from the dog-paw of an Englishman or an American. Taking the theistic movement, prompted by the four great Samajes, as a whole, it must be admitted that the missionaries are greatly divided in their estimate of it. Some regard it as a great evil, promising no good. But there are others who take a more hopeful view. They can see in the three progressive Samajes, especially, some elements of advantage to the good cause of the Gospel. The Rev. Mr. Neeld finds in even the grossest and worst Samaj, the Arya, some indications of help to Christian work. I believe the latter class are correct, and for the following reasons: 1. Every thing which tends to break up the solidarity of the polytheistic mass of the Hindu faith must be advantageous to the spread of the Gospel. The whole history of the territorial expansion of Christianity shows that every disintegrating factor proved a blessing. It caused weakness, a loss of confidence, a fear that Christianity would find an entrance wherever an open door was left. 2. The reforms at which the four Samajes have aimed are not only in harmony with missionary work, but actually parts of regular missionary operation. The education of girls, temperance, opposition to child-marriage, the founding of schools, and the printing of books and newspapers are alike parts of Christian enterprise and the theistic machinery. 3. The many discussions and publications of the preachers of the Samajes relate to European topics, and familiarize the native mind with the advance of Christian nations. Every new piece of information concerning any part of the Christian world, every recognition of a direct or indirect triumph of the Gospel, is only a new reminder of what the human mind achieves when blessed with the light of the Gospel. 4. The forms of service in all the Samajes are merely feeble imitations of Christian worship. Many natives who attend the theistic service see a world-wide difference between it and the idolatrous temple-service, and, being accustomed to the new order, can never again feel at home in an idolatrous temple. The estrangement is final and complete. 5. Through the emphasis of the Samajes on the Vedas it will yet appear to the whole Hindu mind that the Vedas are empty fables, and deserve to stand beside the myths of Hesiod and the visions of Muhammed. The awe with which the typ ical Hindu regards the Vedas is amazing. The Vedas are in Sanskrit, and not one learned Hindu teacher in a hundred knows that language. It is to him what the Greek and Latin are to the Englishman and American. It is a dead language, and was dead fifteen centuries before the Christian era. Those who translate it, as Dayanand and others, do as they please with it. They make its Ashwi mean steam, and its Patal mean America, and the poor uneducated native must believe it. But others are translating the Vedas, and showing that even the Hindu translators have been only playing on the blind credulity of the natives. Amazing progress has been made by the missionaries, since the rise of the Samajes, in unfolding the true meaning of the Samajes. Dr. Martyn Clark, of the Church Missionary Society, has published at Lahore a most valuable series of pamphlets on the "Principles and Teaching of the Arya Samaj," in which he shows, by exact reproduction of the language of the Vedas, that the Arya Samaj cannot find authority for its principles in them, but that they teach idolatry and many of the grosser forms of the present polytheistic worship in India.* Is he not right? Is it * Some of Dr. Clark's Lectures, which I have before me, are fine specimens of critical skill. Among them may be mentioned the following: "The Origin and Age of the Vedas," "The Justice of God," "The Nature of God," "The Knowl not safe to judge the tree by the fruit? Every temple in India is the natural child of the Vedas. Hence, by going back to them it is only a return to the corrupt fountain of a corrupt faith. Had the Arya Samaj done nothing else than to bring the missionaries now laboring in India to take up the Vedas for a new study, not because they are a Sanskrit classic but because of their theological absurdities, and subject them to the burning lens of Christian examination, its indirect and undesigned service would have been incalculable. 6. All the Samajes repudiate the temple. They build their own prayer-houses, or churches. Now the very sight of these new edifices is a reminder to every native passer-by that here is a structure in opposition to the temple. It is a drawn sword against the faith which underlies the Golden Temple of Amritsar and the holiest fanes of Benares. 7. The divergences among the Samajes are an open declaration of the fruitless search for unity even in a return to the Vedas. There are minor divisions among even members of the same order. When the leading teacher dies the Samaj is lost for a time. When Chandra Sen departed his Samaj lost all aggressive power. Since Dayanand's death some of his followers declare that he has come to life again. At this time there is a serious division among the Aryas on this very ground. The attacks of these Aryas on Christianity are becoming so violent as to affect even the persons of missionaries. They have stirred up mobs, who have assailed and beaten Christians. In Lucknow they have abused also the Mohammedans. Strange to say, the latter are now joining hands with the Christians against their persecutors, and say to the Aryan preachers, "You may speak against Christians as much as you like, but not against Christ; we hold him a sinless prophet, and when you attack him you will have us as well as the Christians to oppose." * 8. The brotherhood of man preached by all the Samajes is an edge of God," and "The Vedic Doctrine of Sacrifice." All these are published in Lahore, and the first four in a second edition. These little works, unfolding the inner absurdities of the Vedas, and the absolute antagonism of them to the very doctrines which the Brahmas would draw from them, would be good reading for some of the English and American admirers of the early sacred literature of India, who profess to find in the Vedas a very fine and about equal companionwork to that other Oriental work, the Old Testament. * Rev. B. H. Badley, D.D., in letter from India. |