THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 Jiawson, Swan, ,S-M.>rt;ai 
 Booksellersa',,
 
 ■r';v 

 
 
 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD.
 
 THE 
 
 RELIGIOiNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 AND THEIR 
 
 gelatians ta Cljristinnitg 
 
 CONSIDERED IN 
 
 EIGHT LECTURES 
 FOUNDED BY THE HON. ROBERT BOYLE. 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, M.A. 
 
 To yvto(TTOv TOu 0eou <f)avep6v to'Tiv ev auTOis" 6 yap ©ebs auTois t<pav€pia<Te.- 
 
 Rom. i. 19. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1877
 
 CLAY AND TAYLOR, BUNGAY.
 
 
 TO THE 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 CHARLES JAMES, 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF LONDOK 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 Through your Lordship's kindness I was 
 appointed to the Boyle Lectureship ; the same kindness 
 has permitted me to relinquish it at the end of one year. 
 I take the liberty of presenting to your Lordship the 
 Discourses of that year. The study of the subject which 
 is considered in them has been most interesting and com- 
 forting to myself; I shall be thankful indeed if it should 
 prove of any use to my coimtrymen. Desiring for the 
 Church universal, for that portion especially over which 
 your Lordship presides, and for your Lordship personally, 
 all the blessings of this season, 
 
 I have the honour to be. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 Your Lordship's very obliged Servant, 
 
 F. D. MAUEICE. 
 
 December, 1S4G. 
 
 662883
 
 COiNTENTS. 
 
 PAET I. 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Why these Lectures were founded. Design of the present Course. 
 Mahometanisni. Its successes. Reasons assigned for them. 
 Principle of the Faith ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 LECTURE IL 
 
 Character of tlie Hmdoo Faith. The Brahmin. Worship of the 
 Pui-e Intelligence. The popular re-action. Vishnu and Siva. 
 Relations of the English Government to HindooLsm ... 34 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Buddhism. Its origin and diffusion. Its various forms. The 
 Lama. Buddhism and its rivals ui China ... ... 66 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The Old Persian Faith, and its desti'uctiou. The Egyjjtian. The 
 Greek. The Roman. The Gothic. General Conclusion 96 
 
 PART II. 
 
 LECTURE L 
 
 Why Judaism has not occupied a separate place in these Lectures. 
 Mahometanisni related to Christianity on its Judaical side. 
 Nature of the relation indicated. Wherein Mahonietauism
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 differs from Judaism. Dangers to Christianity from the 
 forgetfuhiess or predominance of its Mahometan side. How 
 the Cliristian Faith and Church satisfy the cravings of 
 Mahometans ... ... ... ... ... 130 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 The relation between Clu-istianity and Hindooism generally com- 
 pared. ]\Iistakes concerning it. Investigation of its nature. 
 The twice-born man. The Image of Brahm. Incarnations. 
 Sacrifice. Dangers to Christianity from its Hindoo side. How 
 Chi-istianity can and cannot satisfy Hindoos ... ... 162 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 How this relation should be detected. The descent of the Spirit. 
 Relation of the Christian Church to the Jewish. Supposed 
 analogy to the relations of Buddhism with BrahmLnism. The 
 resemblances and difference between Christianity and Budd- 
 hism. The Buddliist side of Christianity tlu-eatening its exist- 
 ence. How Christians may speak to Buddhists elsewhere, 
 especially in China ... ... ... ••• 187 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The early preaching of the Gospel— how it affected Greeks, Egyp- 
 tians, Romans, Goths. Form of this preaching. Resistance 
 from the doctrine of an Evil Principle. Mahometan protest 
 agamst it, and for the sacredness of the outward world. Hindoo 
 protest on behalf of a Divme kmgdom. Buddliist protest for 
 an actual Indwellmg Spirit. IModern infidel protest for 
 humanity. Clu-istianity established by all. Conclusion 216
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 npHE substance of these Lectures was delivered, ac- 
 -*- cording to the directions of Boyle^s Will, in one of 
 the London Churches, on the first Mondays of certain 
 months in the years 1845 and 1846. Though it is not 
 imperative on the preacher to print his Discourses, it 
 has been the custom to do so. Indeed the intention 
 'of the Founder seems to be scarcely fulfilled by ad- 
 dressing a series of Sermons on subjects requiring some 
 attention, at distant intervals, to the eight or ten per- 
 sons who in the present times compose an ordinary 
 week-day congregation. In preparing them for public- 
 ation I have omitted the texts, which were little more 
 than mottoes, and have altered the forms of language 
 which belong especially to pulpit composition. 
 
 The object of the Lectures, will, I hope, be suffici- 
 ently intelligible to those who read them. But it is a 
 duty to speak of some writers who have discussed the 
 same subjects, and to whom I am indebted. 
 
 In the first Lecture I have not touched upon the 
 question which is considered in Mr. Forster's Mahomet- 
 anism Unveiled. My business was with popular views 
 upon the subject, not with learned and ingenious spe- 
 culations. Of Mr. Forster's theory I do not feel com-
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 petent to express an opiniou ; so far as it evinces a 
 desire to deal fairly with facts which Christian apolo- 
 gists have often perverted, and a confidence that the 
 cause of Christianity must be the better for such fair- 
 ness, it must, I am sure, have done good, even if the 
 basis upon which it rests should be found untenable. 
 
 Mr. Carlyle's Lecture on Mahomet in his Hero Wor- 
 ship, is probably much better known to my readers 
 than Mr. Forster's treatise. Some pei'sons may have 
 been led by that Lecture to identify Mahometanism 
 with reverence for the person of Mahomet ; they will 
 strongly object to the sentiments which I have ex- 
 pressed in one passage of this book. But I do not 
 anticipate any such objection from Mr. Carlyle himself. 
 No writer has more distinctly recognised the Islamite 
 principle of subjection to an absolute Will, as the vital 
 one in this faith ; or has exhibited a more earnest, I 
 had nearly said a more exclusive, veneration for that 
 principle. A man seems to him to be strong or weak, 
 admirable or contemptible, precisely as he is possessed 
 by it, or as he substitutes some notion of happiness, 
 some theory of the Universe, in place of it. Those who 
 feel that they ax-e under the deepest obligation to Mr. 
 Carlyle for the power with which he has brought the 
 truth of this principle to their minds, for the proofs 
 which he has given that, as much in the seventeenth 
 century as in the seventh, it could break down what- 
 ever did not pay it homage, cannot be persuaded to 
 look upon any phrases of his which appear to convey 
 an opposite impression, however much they may be
 
 PEEFACE. xi 
 
 quoted, liowever partial lie may seem to tliem himself, 
 as the most genuine expressions of his mind. They 
 rather recognise in these phrases an attempt, confess- 
 edly unsuccessful, to bridge over the chasm which se- 
 parates, as Mr. Carlyle thinks, the ages in which this 
 faith could be acted out from our own in which it has 
 become only a name. That no phrases or formulas, 
 from whatever period or country they may be borrowed, 
 can accomplish this object, Mr. Carlyle is a sufficient 
 witness ; that it must be accomplished in some way, 
 his lamentations over the present state of the world 
 abuudantly prove. Those who think that it is the first 
 duty of an author to provide them with sunshine, find 
 these lamentations intolerable ; thei-e are some who 
 seem to be pleased with them as they might be with 
 any unusually strong exhibition of passion upon the 
 stage. There are others who hear in his wailings the 
 echoes of their own saddest convictions, but who for 
 that reason cannot be content to spend their time 
 merely in listening to them or repeating them. One 
 who desires to lead an honest life, and learns that men 
 in former days were honest, because they believed in a 
 personal Being, who is, and was, and is to come, must 
 ask himself whether such a belief has become impos- 
 sible for him. And if we are assured by Mr. Carlyle 
 that under the conditions of Mahometauism, or even of 
 Christian Puritanism, it is now impossible, then we 
 must again ask. Why so ? Is it because the truth 
 which made these faiths so energetic is not what it 
 was ? or is it because it dwelt in them apart from other
 
 xii PEEFACE. 
 
 truths, without which, in our days, it can scarcely even 
 exist, much less live ? These questions may never 
 present themselves to a dilettante admirer of Mr. 
 Carlyle ; those whom his writings have really moved, 
 and who regard him with hearty, though perhaps 
 silent, gratitude and affection, are, I know, haunted 
 by them continually. If these Lectures should lead 
 any one such questioner even to hope for an answer, 
 they will do the work for which I especially designed 
 them. 
 
 In illustration of the remark that the Mahometan 
 conquerors were not merely ' Scourges of God,' how- 
 ever they may have deserved that title, I would suggest 
 to the reader a comparison of their wars with those of 
 Zinghis Khan. May I advise him also to read with 
 some attention the passage in Gibbon (Chap. lxiv. Vol. 
 XI. pp. 391, 392, 8vo Ed.) on the philosophical religion 
 of that Mogul whom Frederick II., the accomplished 
 Suabian, the enemy of Popes, the suspected infidel, 
 denounced as the common foe of mankind, against 
 whom he invoked a crusade of all princes ? Gibbon^s 
 panegyric, illustrated as it is by his faithful narrative 
 of the proceedings of Zinghis Khan and his successors 
 in Persia, Russia, Hungary, &c., of their incapacity to 
 preserve a record of their own acts, and of their ultimate 
 conversion by the bigoted Mussulman, is full of the 
 deepest instruction. 
 
 In connection with the remarks upon the constitu- 
 tion of Mahometan Society as exhibited in the Ottoman 
 Empire, I would recommend the study of Rankers
 
 PREFACE. xiii 
 
 excellent Essay upon that subject in his Fursten 
 und Vollcen. 
 
 The second Lecture is a collection of hints, which 
 may not, I hope, be quite useless to some whose 
 personal observations of India, or whose knowledge of 
 its languages, may enable them to detect my mistakes, 
 and, if they please, to laugh at my ignorance. The 
 scholars of British India and the intelligent natives 
 have good right to despise any one who sets up his own 
 notions in opposition to their testimonies, and who 
 makes these notions an excuse for severe reflections 
 upon a state of society with which he is unacquainted. 
 They may possibly be tolerant of one who by comparing 
 their testimonies, so far as he has been able to gather 
 them, has corrected many crude notions which he had 
 previously entertained, and who desires nothing more 
 than that any sentiments of disgust and contempt which 
 Englishmen in India may conceive for the notions and 
 practices which they witness, should rather be counter- 
 acted than strengthened by their English education. 
 Professor H. Wilson has undertaken an edition of Mr. 
 Mill's History of British India, in the hope, as he in- 
 timates in his preface, of correcting, by the evidence of 
 facts, the harsh judgments of the Hindoos, into which 
 the historian was led by theory. To the civil and mili- 
 tary servants of the Company such a work may be as 
 useful as the design of it is benevolent. But the mis- 
 sionary, though it is to be hoped he will not neglect to 
 profit either by Mr Mill's labours, or by the experience 
 and oriental wisdom with which Professor Wilson has
 
 xiv PREFACE. 
 
 enriched tliem, is open to another kind of temptation, 
 which the one will not much increase, nor the other 
 enable him to resist. The actual sight of a country 
 wholly given to idolatry, must be far more startling 
 and appalling to him than any pictures he can have 
 formed of it previously. Not to weaken these impres- 
 sions, but to prevent them from overwhelming him, and 
 so destroying that sympathy with the victims of idol- 
 atry, which is the most necessary qualification for his 
 task, should be the great object of his home instructors. 
 For this end, I think, we should aim, not merely at 
 cultivating Christian love and pity in his heart : these 
 will scarcely be kept alive, if there be not also an intel- 
 lectual discipline, (I call it intellectual, yet it is in the 
 very highest sense a moral discipline,) to show him 
 what the thoughts and feelings of which Hindooism is 
 the expression, have to do with himself, how they are 
 interpreted by the experience of individuals and the 
 history of the world. I look earnestly to St. Augus- 
 tine's College, in the hope that it may fulfil both these 
 tasks. Should it do so, it will be indeed worthy of its 
 name ; it may be the instrument of restoi'ing faith to 
 England as well as of imparting it to her dependencies. 
 For do we not need, as I have hinted in my last Lecture, 
 to be taught that the Gospel is not a dead letter, by 
 discovering what living wants there are in us, and all 
 men, which it meets and satisfies ? 
 
 It mio^ht have been desirable that I should have 
 appended to this, and the two following Lectures, some 
 illustrative notes : I had intended to do so, but I
 
 PEEPACE, XV 
 
 feared that I sliould increase the size and price of the 
 volume, without conferring a proportionate benefit 
 upon the reader. I can enumerate in a few lines the 
 books from which my proofs would have been drawn. 
 From them (and they are within the reach of persons 
 who are as ignorant of Oriental literature as I am) 
 much more may be learnt in the course of a few hours' 
 fair study, than from long appendices of extracts se- 
 lected at the pleasure of an Author. 
 
 The Essay of Mr. Colebrooke on the Yedas, in the 
 eighth volume of the Asiatic Researches, and Mr. Rosen's 
 Latin translation of the Rig Veda, are at present * the 
 chief helps which the Western student possesses for a 
 knowledge of the earliest Hindoo faith. It is import- 
 ant to observe that while Mr. Colebrooke's extracts 
 are chiefly taken from the liturgical part of the Vedas, 
 those upon which the late Rammohun Roy raised his 
 argument for the corruption of the later faith, were 
 doctrinal passages. His conclusion, as I have hinted 
 in my Lecture, is therefore unsatisfactory, though it 
 ought not to be called unfair or disingenuous. If he 
 had quoted the prayers which Mr. Colebrooke has 
 made us acquainted with, English readers would no 
 doubt have discredited his boast of the primitive Mono- 
 
 * I understand that a young German, now in London, whose 
 knowledge of Sanscrit is profound, and his industry plus quam 
 Ger-manica, has it in contemplation to publish and translate all 
 the Vedas. English money it is to be hoped will not be wantmg 
 when the other and more indispensable requisite is supplied by 
 a foreigner.
 
 xvi PREFACE. 
 
 theism of liis country. But they would have done so 
 hastily. Those prayers imply a Monotheism as certainly 
 as the direct teaching ; and the one may justly be ad- 
 duced as the interpretation of the other. The question 
 is, what Monotheism ? The prayers and doctrine I 
 think make the same answer: a Monotheism which 
 made it impossible to distinguish the object worshipped 
 from the mind of the worshipper, and therefore which 
 implicitly contained, and out of which was inevitably 
 developed, the later Polytheism. We may be thank- 
 ful to Rammohun Roy for helping us to detect the old 
 faith at the root of one which seems so unlike it, but 
 cannot allow him to confuse us, however innocently, 
 by the use of a phrase, which is susceptible of the 
 most opposite significations. 
 
 The translation of the Menu Code, by Sir W. 
 Jones, brings that part of the subject within the reach 
 of all. I hope the reader will verify the account I 
 have given of it by examining it for himself, together 
 with the excellent digest of it, in the first volume of 
 Mr. Elphinstone's history. 
 
 The third Appendix to the history of this eminent 
 statesman contains an admirable commentary upon the 
 Greek accounts of India, contained in the fifteenth 
 book of Strabo, and the Indica of Arrian. 
 
 The Vishnu Puraua, edited by Professor Wilson, 
 exhibits another and much more recent stage of the 
 mythology — that which I have spoken of as produced 
 by the artificial incorporation of the old faith with the 
 different kinds of worship which had arisen from popu-
 
 PEEFACE. xvii 
 
 lar movements and reactions. To trace tlie progress 
 of these movements witli little help from external 
 histoiy, is of course difficult ; no one solution of the 
 problem can be certain ; all as hints may be useful. 
 The one I have supposed seems to be internally 
 probable and consistent; still there is an objection 
 to it which I have no wish to conceal. Professor 
 Wilson offers reasons for thinking that the Puranas 
 which have the Siva element predominant in them, are 
 considerably older than those which have the Vaish- 
 nava characteristics. It may hence be concluded that 
 the Siva worship itself preceded that of Vishnu. If 
 this w^ere the case, I should be wrong in my fancy re- 
 specting the first transition from the merely abstracted 
 Brahminical religion to the popular ; at least, wrong in 
 assuming what may have been true in a particular case, 
 as explaining the history generally. Other authorities 
 think that the two forms of worship may have had a 
 contemporaneous development in different places ; a 
 view not incompatible with the one I have taken, 
 especially as it is assumed on all hands that the names 
 considered as attributes or characters of the Divinity, 
 as forms through which he was beheld, existed almost 
 in the first stage of the religion. 
 
 The subject of the Philosophical sects among the 
 Hindoos is treated by Mr. Colebrooke in a series of 
 papers in the first and second Volumes of the Royal 
 Asiatic Transactions. These papers (which should be 
 compared with the paper on the Vedanta System, by 
 Col. Vans Kennedy, Vol. iii. p. 412) are full of interest. 
 
 M. B. L. b
 
 xviii PEEFACE. 
 
 These writings of actual observers sh(?uld be studied 
 before tlie speculations of even the most intelligent 
 thinkers. But I should be ungrateful if I did not say 
 that the passages on India in the Mythologies of Baur 
 and Windischmann,and still more in JlegeV s Philosophy 
 of History, with the little book of Frederick Schlegel, 
 called Die Indien, have illuminated many dark and dull 
 reports^ and have enabled me to feelthe connection 
 between the thoughts of other periods and countries 
 and those which characterise our own times. 
 
 The temptation to speak of Buddhism merely or 
 chiefly in this connection, is one which I was aware of 
 when I entered upon the subject in my third Lecture, 
 and which I strove to resist. I am sure that any 
 advantage we may derive from a comparison of the 
 diflaculties which have beset Asiatics in different ages, 
 with those which are besetting Europeans now, must 
 depend upon the earnestness with which we determine 
 first to understand the former in themselves. If we 
 are more eager to make applications, than to ascertain 
 what we have to apply, we may write a polemical 
 treatise which will convince all who agreed with us 
 before, and will furnish writers in reviews, who have 
 exhausted their old arguments or invectives against 
 some opponent, with a set of new phrases; but we shall 
 not remove one perplexity from any earnest mind ; we 
 shall only throw into it a new element of confusion. 
 The ultimate tendencies of Buddhism to entire evapor- 
 ation, to mere negation, are manifest enough. The 
 like tendencies assuredly exist, perhaps are becoming
 
 PREFACE. xix 
 
 stronger every day, iu Christendom. But to take the 
 result of a certain doctrine or habit of mind, without 
 considering its stages, varieties, counteractions ; its 
 lio-hts as well as its shadows ; how it weaves for itself 
 at one time a dogfmatic or sacerdotal vesture, how it 
 sinks at another into a mere speculation ; above all, 
 what an Eternal Verity keeps it alive in all its forms ; 
 is not using it for the warning and instruction of men, 
 but turning it into a mask for frightening children. If 
 it is well for us to show what possibilities lurk in 
 Buddhism because they lurk in us, still more ought we 
 to consider its actual history, because it is the history 
 of a process which may be passing in the minds of 
 persons whom we are most ready to think of as having 
 reached the last development of unbelief; because it 
 may be going on in us when we are giving ourselves 
 credit for the greatest amount of faith. 
 
 Entering upon the subject with these feelings, I 
 desired to hear of Buddhism not in digests, Avhich 
 represented it as a system at rest, but from intelligent 
 observers who saw it in motion and described its 
 different appearances. The papers on the subject in 
 the Royal Asiatic Society are for this purpose invalu- 
 able, especially those of Mr. Hodgson, to which I have 
 referred in the text {Transactions, Vol. ii. p. 222) ; that 
 on Buddha and the Phrabat by Captain Low (Vol. iii. 
 p. 57) ; that on the consecration of priests by Mr. 
 Knox (Vol. III. p. 271) ; the disputations respecting 
 Caste by a Buddhist (Vol. in. p. 160). To these may 
 be added different accounts of the Lama in the Asiatic
 
 XX PREFACE. 
 
 Meseaorhes, Yo\. i. p. 197, and xvii. pp. 622 — 524,) and 
 the later narrative of Mr. Turner. For a general state- 
 ment, I know nothing better than the article on 
 Buddhism in the Penny Cydoj^cedia. Dr. Pritchard's 
 works will supply valuable information upon this as 
 upon most other subjects. Of course it would be 
 absurd to slight the French writers upon Buddhism, 
 though on a subject which offer such facilities for 
 systematising, and in which systematising is so likely 
 to mislead, it may be lawful to view them with some 
 suspicion. 
 
 Of the Confucian doctrine, on the other hand, they 
 are probably the best, as they are the most zealous 
 and enthusiastic expounders. The Quatre Livres of 
 Confucius, translated by Pauthier, is a moderately-sized 
 and readable book, and the preface to it is very useful 
 and instructive. The Chinese reverence of Fathers is 
 abundantly illustrated in the fourth volume of the 
 Memoires sur les Chinois, par les Missionaires de PeJdn. 
 All our recent writers, Davis, Medhurst, Gutzlaff, 
 though valuable in reference to China generally, are 
 rather vague and unsatisfactory on the subject of its 
 religion. The Chinese exhibition at Knightsbridge 
 was, in this respect, more valuable than any of them. 
 
 The recent interpretation of the arrow-headed 
 inscriptions by Major Rawlinson will add, no doubt, 
 greatly to our knowledge of the Persian or Zend 
 doctrines. They seem to confirm the opinion which 
 was so long entertained upon other grounds, that 
 Darius Hystaspes was an instrument in the restoration
 
 PREFACE. xxi 
 
 of the true Persian faithj after it had been subverted 
 by the Pseudo-Smerdis. It seems also clearer than it 
 was before, that the reformation, which is connected 
 with the name of Zoroaster, consisted mainly in the 
 assertion of the absolute supremacy of Oi-muzd. It 
 does not follow that Ahriman worship was prohibited 
 or wholly denounced ; that it was continually re-appear- 
 ing in the popular mind, is evident. The later Magian 
 faith may have been an attempt to reconcile the 
 reformed with the popular doctrine ; or rather, may it 
 not be supposed, that Zoroaster's was the regal creed, 
 and that the priests never more than partially recog- 
 nised it ? 
 
 What has been said respecting the three cycles of 
 Egyptian gods, is explained at large in the jEgyj^teii 
 of Chevalier Bunsen, Vol, i. pp. 423 — 433. He has a 
 remark (p. 432) upon the mistaken effort to form 
 Triads in different mythologies, by bringing together 
 gods from different localities, or periods of history, 
 which I have found very useful. Keeping it in 
 memory, I think I have learnt more to find in the 
 Triad, an interpretation of all mythology, than if I 
 had laboured ever so diligently to find parallels for it 
 in the external parts of the systems. 
 
 If I had been writing a history instead of a lecture, 
 it would have behoved me, when speaking of the 
 relations of Christianity with Persia, to have noticed 
 the Nestorian missions in that country. I beUeve the 
 history of these missions would throw an important 
 light upon the whole subject ; but it would have led
 
 xxii PEEFACE, 
 
 me into many details, which, especially in a recapitu- 
 lation, I was anxious to avoid. To pass over any 
 facts merely because they might tend to the honour 
 of heretics, would be grossly inconsistent with the 
 professions, and, I hope, with the spirit, of these 
 Lectures.* 
 
 * I ought perhaps to have iKjticecl two large Works, written 
 by Eiiglislmien, on the sul)ject of my second Lecture ; the 
 Hindoo Anticjuities of Mr. Thomas Maurice, and the work on 
 the Literature, Manners, and Eeligion of the Hindoos, by Mr, 
 Ward. They illustrate two habits of mind directly opposite to 
 each other ; almost equally unfavourable, I think, to a true 
 apprehension of the Brahminical faith, and of its relation to 
 Christianity. Mr. Maurice seems to regard the abominations of 
 idolatry as objects merely of literary interest and antiquarian 
 curiosity. Mr. Ward can see only the hateful and the devilish ; 
 of what good it may be the counterfeit, what Divine truth may 
 be concealed in it, and may be needed to supplant it, he has 
 not courage to inquire. Each, I think, is refuted on its own 
 ground. Dilettante scholarship is found not to be sound 
 scholarship. That which has no hold on the present, proves 
 not to be true of the past. Mere observers of evil do not 
 describe the evil accurately or vividly enough ; the points may 
 be correct, but the impression is false ; for want of light, we do 
 not feel the darkness. I believe most persons find it exceed- 
 ingly difficult to read either of these books ; quite impossible, 
 to remember them. 
 
 I ought to have said, when speaking of Rammohun Roy, 
 that his Tracts were written originally for his own countrymen, 
 not ■ for Englishmen. They were first printed in Calcutta ; 
 collected and re-published in London, I believe under his 
 direction, in 1832.
 
 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD.
 
 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Why these Lectures were founded. Design of the present Course. 
 ^ Mahometanism. Its Successes. Reasons assigned for them. 
 Princiide of tlie Faith. 
 
 TN the year 1691 Robert Boyle directed by a Codicil 
 to Ms Will " that Eight Sermons should be preached 
 each year in London for proving the Christian Religion 
 against notorious Infidels, to wit, Atheists, Theists, 
 Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans; not descending lower 
 to any controversies that are among Christians them- 
 selves.^' He desired '^that the preacher of these 
 Sermons should be assisting to all companies, and 
 encouraging of them in any undertaking for propagat- 
 ing the Christian Religion to foreign parts ; " and 
 '' farther, that he should be ready to satisfy such real 
 scruples as any may have concerning these matters, 
 and to answer such objections and difficulties as may 
 be started, to which good answers have not yet been 
 made/^ 
 
 The second of these clauses seems to explain the 
 intention of the first. The objections to Christianity 
 
 M. B. L. c
 
 2 THE EELIGIONS OP THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 urged by Jews, Pagans_, and Maliometans were not, 
 perhaps, likely to perplex an ordinary Euglisliman. 
 But England, in tiie 17th century, was becoming more 
 and more a colonising country. The Amei'ican settle- 
 ments were increasing in importance every year. The 
 East India Company had already begun its career of 
 commerce, if not of conquest. In his own particular 
 department of natural science Boyle observed the 
 most steady progress ; no one was doing more to 
 accelerate it than himself. He would naturally divine 
 that an advancement, not less remarkable, must take 
 place in another region, in which the interests of men 
 were far more directly engaged. He must have felt 
 how much the student in his closet was helping to give 
 speed to the ships of the merchant, and to discover 
 new openings to his ambition. As a benevolent man 
 he could not contemplate accessions to the greatness 
 and resources of his country, without longing that she 
 might also be conscious of her responsibility, that she 
 might bring no people within the circle of her govern- 
 ment whom she did not bring within the circle of her 
 Light. Accordingly, we find him offering frequent 
 encouragement by his pen and purse to the hard- 
 working missionaries who were preaching the Gospel 
 among the North American Indians. Cheering words, 
 pecuniary help, and faithful prayers, might be all which 
 these teachers of savages could ask from their brethren 
 at home. But Boyle knew that difficulties which they 
 would rarely encounter must continually present them-
 
 LECT. I.] SEASONS AGAINST CHEISTIAN MISSIONS. 3 
 
 selves to those who came in contact witli the Brahmin 
 in Hindostan, with the Mussulman both in Europe and 
 Asia, with the Jew in every coi'ner of the globe. A 
 man who thought lightly or contemptuously of any of 
 these, or of their arguments — who had not earnestly 
 considered what they would have to say, and what he 
 had to tell them — could not be expected to do them 
 much good. Moreover, Boyle was too well acquainted 
 with philosophical men, with the general society of 
 England, and with his own heart, not to be aware that 
 there was another kind of opposition more formidable 
 than this, which the proposal to diffuse Christianity 
 abroad must struggle with. Was the gift worth be- 
 stowing ? Were we really carrying truth into the 
 distant parts of the earth when we were carrying our 
 own faith into them ? Might not the whole notion be 
 a dream of our vanity ? Might not particular soils 
 be adapted to particular religions ? Might not 
 the effort to transplant one into another involve the 
 necessity of mischievous forcing, and terminate in 
 inevitable disappointment ? Might not a better day be 
 at hand in which all religions alike should be found to 
 have done their work of partial good, of greater evil, 
 and when something much more comprehensive and 
 satisfactory should supersede them ? Were not thick 
 shadows overhanging Christendom itself, which must 
 be scattered before it could be the source of light to 
 the world ? 
 
 Such questions as these Boyle must often have heard
 
 4 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 propounded by others ; but the deepest and most pain- 
 ful suo-cvestion of them had been to himself. lie tells 
 us, in the sketch of an European tour written under 
 the name of Philaretus, that ''when he was still a 
 young man^ after he had visited other places, his 
 curiosity at last led him to those wild mountains 
 where the first and chiefest of the Carthusian abbeys 
 is seated ; where the devil, taking advantage of that 
 deep raving melancholy befitting so sad a place, his 
 humour, and the strange stories and pictures he found 
 there of Bruno, the father of that order, suggested 
 such strange and hideous thoughts, and such distract- 
 ing doubts of some of the fundamentals of Christianity, 
 that though his looks did little betray his thoughts, 
 nothing but the forbiddingness of self-despatch hin- 
 dered his acting it. But, after a tedious languish- 
 ment of many months in this tedious perplexity, at 
 last it pleased Grod one day he had received the 
 Sacrament to restore unto him the withdrawn sense 
 of his favour. But, though Philaretus ever looked 
 upon these impious suggestions rather as temptations 
 to be resisted than as doubts to be resolved, yet never 
 did these fleeting clouds cease now and then to darken 
 the clearest serenity of his quiet ; which made him 
 often say that injections of this nature were such a 
 disease to the faith as toothache is to the body, for 
 though it be not mortal, it is very troublesome. 
 However, as all things work together for good to 
 them that love God, Philaretus derived from this
 
 LECT. I.] BOYLE'S PERSONAL CONFLICTS. 5 
 
 '^ anxiety tlio advantage of groundedness in Ms reli- 
 "gion; fertile perplexity liis doubts created obliged 
 " him to remove tliem — to be seriously inquisitive of 
 '' the truth of the very fundamentals of Christianity, 
 "and to hear what both Jews and Turks, and the 
 " chief sects of Christians, could allege for their several 
 " opinions ; that so, though he believed more than he 
 " could comprehend, he might not believe more than 
 " he could prove, and not owe the steadfastness of his 
 '' faith to so poor a cause as the ignorance of what 
 " might be objected against it. 'He said, speaking of 
 " those persons who want not means to inquire and 
 " abilities to judge, that it was not a greater happiness 
 " to inherit a good religion, than it was a fault to have 
 '' it only by inheritance, and think it the best because 
 *' it is generally embraced, rather than embrace it be- 
 " cause we know it to be the best. That though we 
 " cannot always give a reason for what we believe, yet 
 " we should be ever able to give a reason why we be- 
 " lieve it. That it is the greatest of follies to neglect 
 "any diligence that may prevent the being mistaken 
 " where it is the greatest of miseries to be deceived. 
 " That how dear soever things taken upon the score 
 " are sold, there is nothing worse taken up upon trust 
 " than religion, in which he deserves not to meet with 
 " the true one that cares not to examine whether or no 
 " it be so." (Works, Vol. i. p. 12.) 
 
 It is evident, I think, that a comparison of religious 
 systems undertaken by a man who had just passed
 
 6 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet i. 
 
 tlirougli so tremendous a conjElict, and who liad no 
 professional motive for entering upon it, must have 
 been something very different from a dry legal inquiry 
 respecting the balance of probabilities in favour of one 
 or the other. I do not mean that Boyle will not have 
 brought to this subject all the habits of patient investi- 
 gation which he ordinarily applied to the study of 
 physical phenomena. The very anguish of his mind 
 made it essential that he should seek for a real stand- 
 ing-ground ; and that he should not therefore strain 
 facts for the sake offarriving at an agreeable conclu- 
 sion. Indeed, it is difficult to say which conclusion 
 would seem most agreeable to a man exercised as he 
 was : there would be at times a bias of understanding, 
 and even affection, as strong against Christianity, as 
 his education could create in favour of it. But, un- 
 doubtedly, his object in questioning these different 
 schemes of belief will have been to ascertain what each 
 of them could do for him : what there was in it to meet 
 the demands of his heart and reason. It was no 
 occasion for clever special pleading ; the question was 
 to him one of life and death : when he had once 
 resolved it, the next duty was to act upon his convic- 
 tion, and to strive that all men should be better for 
 that, which he, because he was a man, had found to be 
 needful for himself. Upon this principle he founded 
 these Lectures. The truth of which he had become 
 assured, was, he believed, a permanent one ; the next 
 generation would need it as much as his own. He did
 
 LECT. I.] FAITH, IN THE LAST CENTUEY. 7 
 
 not suppose that the actual relation in which that truth 
 stood to different systems of belief could alter. But 
 it did not follow that the inquiry respecting the nature 
 of that relation would be exhausted in his day. As 
 new regions unfolded themselves to European adven- 
 ture, new facts modifying or changing previous notions 
 respecting the faiths which prevailed in them might 
 come to light ; fresh and more trying experiences 
 might make the past more intelligible; the same doubts 
 respecting the justice, wisdom, or possibility of bring- 
 ing other men into our religious fellowship which 
 presented themselves to his contemporaries, might 
 appear again and again in very different shapes, ap- 
 pealing to even opposite feelings and tempers. 
 
 The event, I believe, has proved that he was right. 
 Within fifty years a prodigious change has taken place 
 in the feelings of men generally — of philosophical men 
 particularly — respecting Religious Systems. In the 
 latter part of the 17th century, still more during a 
 great part of the 18th, they were regarded by those 
 who most gave the tone to popular thinking and who 
 had the highest reputation for wisdom, as the inven- 
 tions of lawgivers and priests. Men cleverer and more 
 dishonest than the rest of the world found it impos- 
 sible to build up systems of policy or to establish their 
 own power, unless they appealed to those fears of an 
 invisible world which ignorance so willingly receives 
 and so tenderly fosters. This being the admitted 
 maxim respecting religions generally, it seemed tha
 
 8 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 office of the Christian apologist to show that there 
 was one exception ; to explain why the Gospel could 
 not be referred to this origin ; how entirely unlike it 
 was to those forms of belief which were rightly con- 
 sidered deceptions. That many dangerous positions 
 were confuted by works written with this object ; that 
 many of the distinguishing marks of Christianity were 
 brought out in them ; that many learnt from them to 
 seek and to find a standing-ground in the midst of 
 pits and morasses, it is impossible to doubt. But the 
 demonstrations of God's providence were in this case, 
 as in all others, infinitely broader, deeper, more eflPect- 
 ual than those of man's sagacity. The evidence 
 furnished by the great political Eevolution at the close 
 of the last century seems slowly to have undermined 
 the whole theory respecting the invisible world and 
 men's connection with it, which possessed the teachers 
 of that century. Men are beginning to be convinced, 
 that if Religion had had only the devices and tricks of 
 statesmen or priests to rest upon, it could not have 
 stood at all; for that these are very weak things indeed, 
 which, when they are left to themselves, a popular 
 tempest must carry utterly away. If they have lasted 
 a single day, it must have been because they had 
 something better, truer than themselves to sustain 
 them. This better, truer thing, it seems to be allowed, 
 must be that very faith in men's hearts upon which so 
 many disparaging epithets were cast, and which it was 
 supposed could produce no fruits that were not evil
 
 LECT. I.] CHAEACTEE OF MODEEN OBJECTIONS. 9 
 
 and hurtful. Faitli it is now admitted has been the 
 most potent instrument of good to the workl; has 
 given to it nearly all which it can call precious. But 
 then it is asked, is there not ground for supposing 
 that all the different religious systems, and not one 
 only, may be legitimate products of that faith which is so 
 essential a part of man's constitution ? Are not they 
 manifestly adapted to peculiar times and localities and 
 races? Is it not probable that the theology of all alike 
 is something merely accidental, an imperfect theory 
 about our relations to the universe, which will in due 
 time give place to some other ? Have we not reason 
 to suppose that Christianity, instead of being, as we 
 have been taught, a Eevelation, has its root in the 
 heart and intellect of man, as much as any other 
 system ? Are there not the closest, the most obvious 
 relations between it and them ? Is it not subject to 
 the same law of decay from the progress of knowledge 
 and society with all the rest ? Must we not expect 
 that it too will lose all its mere theological character- 
 istics, and that what at last survives of it will be some- 
 thing of a very general character, some great ideas of 
 what is good and beautiful, some excellent maxims of 
 life, which may very well assimilate, if they be not 
 actually the same, with the essential principles which 
 are contained in all other religions, and which will 
 also, it is hoped, abide for ever ? 
 
 Notions of this kind will be found, I think, in much 
 of the erudite as well as of the popular literature of
 
 13 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [p.mit i. 
 
 tins clay ; tliey will often be heard iu social circles ; 
 tliey are undoubtedly floating in the minds of us all. 
 While we entertain them^ it is impossible that we can, 
 with sound hearts and clear consciences, seek to evan- 
 gelise the world. Yet they are not to be spoken of 
 as if they proceeded from a merely denying, unbelieving 
 spirit : they are often entertained by minds of deepest 
 earnestness; they derive their plausibility from facts 
 which cannot be questioned, and which a Christian 
 should not wish to question. They may, I believe, if 
 fairly dealt with, help to strengthen our own convic- 
 tions, to make our duty plainer, and to show us better 
 how we shall perform it. All their danger lies in their 
 vagueness : if we once bring them fairly to those tests 
 by which the worth of hypothesis in another department 
 is ascertained, it may not perhaps be hard to discover 
 what portions of truth, and what of falsehood, they 
 contain. I think I shall be carryiug out the intention 
 of Boyle's Will, if I attempt, in my present course, to 
 make this experiment. I propose to examine the great 
 Eeligious Systems which present themselves to us in 
 the history of the world, not going into their details, 
 far less searching for their absurdities, but inquiring 
 what is their main characteristical principle. If we 
 find, as the objectors say, good in each of them, we 
 shall desire to know what this good is, and under what 
 conditions it may be preserved and made effectual. 
 These questions may, I think, be kept distinct from 
 those which will occupy us in the latter half of the
 
 LECT. I.] M.VnOMETANISM-ITS PEOGRESS. 11 
 
 com'se. In what relation does Christianity stand to 
 these different faiths ? If there be a faith which is 
 meant for mankind, is this the one or must we look 
 for another ? 
 
 I shall not take these systems in their historical 
 order, but rather according to the extent of the in- 
 fluence they have exerted over mankind ; a reason 
 which would at once determine me to begin in the 
 ' present Lecture with Mahometanism. 
 
 For the first ninety years after the publication of 
 this religion in the world, the Christians of Europe 
 could do little more than wonder at its amazing and, 
 as it seemed, fatal, progress in Asia and Africa. 
 Before the end of a century it had obtained a settle- 
 ment in a corner of their own Continent and threatened 
 every part of it. But the new Western Empire estab- 
 lished itself. Christian champions appeared in Spain, 
 the power of the Caliphs declined. Then Islamism 
 appeared again in another conquering, proselytising 
 tribe. For two centuries the European nations wres- 
 tled to recover its conquests in the Holy Land. A 
 period followed during which the disciples of both 
 religions seemed almost equally threatened by Tartar 
 hordes. These stooped to the Crescent; in the 15th 
 century a mighty Mahometan government was seen 
 occupying the capital of the East, threatening the 
 Latin world, profiting by the disputes of Christian 
 sovereigns with one another, exhibiting its own order 
 and zeal in melancholy contrast to the quarrels, un-
 
 12 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [pabt i. 
 
 belief, aud heartlessness of inonarchs and prelates. 
 It became a question witli tlie tlioughtful men of tliat 
 time, whether the Ottoman empire did not possess a 
 polity which was free from the tendencies to weakness 
 and decay that had existed in all previous govern- 
 ments, and whether it might not last for ever. 
 
 In the 17th and 18th centuries, when the fallacy of 
 this notion was making itself evident, Christians began 
 to speculate coldly and quietly upon the causes which 
 had given such prevalency to this faith in past days, 
 and which still kept it alive in their own. It may b^ 
 well to consider a few of the explanations which differ- 
 ent persons, according to their diffei-ent observations 
 or habits of mind, have offered of this fact, that we 
 may not lose the benefit of any light which has been 
 thrown from any quarter upon the nature or principle 
 of the religion itself. 
 
 I. It was an easy and obvious method of solving 
 the difficulty, to say that the Mahometans had tri- 
 umphed by the force of their arms ; personal valour and 
 a compact military oi'ganisation being comprehended 
 under that term. That they were warriors from the 
 first, that their courage was often amazing, and that 
 the Ottomans for a long time possessed the secret of 
 military subordination, as scarcely any nation has ever 
 possessed it, is evidently true. And it is a truth of 
 which Christian apologists would very naturally avail 
 themselves. The opposition, not in some accidental 
 points, but in their whole scheme and conception, be-
 
 LECT. I.] FIEST MODE OF EXPLAINING— CONQUEST. 13 
 
 tween tlie Sermon on tlie Mounts and tlie doctrine 
 which could require or sanction such methods for its 
 diffusion, would of course be carefully noted. Plain 
 men would be asked to declare which teaching bore 
 clearest tokens of belono^ino^ to the earth, which of a 
 Divine origin. Nor was this argument an unfair one, 
 however it might be, and has been again and again, 
 traversed by an appeal to the practice of Christians, 
 and the weapons to which they have resorted for the 
 defence and propagation of their faith. For it is quite 
 clear that the Mahometan wars were no accidental out- 
 growth of the system — that they were not resorted to 
 with a doubtful conscience, with any uneasy feeling 
 that they might by possibility be inconsistent with the 
 intentions of their Founder. On the contrary, the 
 very spirit and life of Mahometanism exhibited them- 
 selves in these wars. In them came foi'th all the most 
 striking and characteristic virtues which the doctrine 
 has a right to boast of. 
 
 The Mahometan ruler felt that he was fulfilling his 
 vocation when he was going forth against the infidel; 
 he could scarcely fulfil it in any other way. We know 
 indeed that Bagdad and Cordova became celebrated 
 for all graceful refinements, for letters, even for tolera- 
 tion. We know that science, physical and metaphy- 
 sical, became a distinctive mark of the Arabians. 
 Where a book like the Koran, writteh in a beautiful 
 language, is regarded with unbounded reverence, by 
 degrees it will be studied ; and out of that study will
 
 14 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 be produced a literature which may spread itself in 
 various directions. Monarchs would feel the influence 
 of such pursuits, and would consider it their chief 
 honour to direct them. But though periods like those 
 of Haroun-al-Easchid were sure to occur in the history 
 of Mahometanism, though in one sense they may be 
 considered natural developments of it, they assuredly 
 do not belong to the religion as such ; they rather 
 showed that the original spirit which possessed its 
 disciples was becoming feeble ; they portended a 
 further decline of it, and probably its revival in some 
 more vigorous form. Whenever a Mahometan ruler 
 quite allows his arms to rust, whenever he does not 
 feel that it is his main work in the world to difi'use his 
 doctrine by those means which are most simple and 
 direct, we may be sure, whatever temporary prosperity 
 may be vouchsafed him, that his dynasty cannot last 
 very long. 
 
 But though on these grounds it may be fair to re- 
 present Mahometanism as essentially warlike, it is 
 surely a great mistake to suppose that by saying so we 
 have accounted for its spread over so large a portion 
 of the earth. No thoughtful man could accept such a 
 solution, because, when he hears of valour in men and 
 discipline in armies, he must ask himself whence these 
 proceeded, how they came to attach themselves to this 
 particular faith, and because that question must inevit- 
 ably lead him to seek for the real ground of success 
 elsewhere. It cannot satisfy any Christian, because
 
 LECT. I.] SECOND— PO^rER OF IMPOSTUEE. 15 
 
 the very belief which he opposes to that of the Ma- 
 hometan must teach him that arms are not the most 
 mighty things ; that there are secret invisible influences 
 which are stronger than they. 
 
 II. The proneness of the human mind to embrace 
 any imposture was resorted to as a second method of 
 accounting for this phenomenon, one which might per- 
 haps combine with the former and help out its weak- 
 ness. Of this pi'oneness, the records of the world's 
 history seem to supply abundant proofs — our own 
 daily experience of others, and of ourselves, still more. 
 All men, in one kind of language or another, have 
 confessed that there is something in man which tempts 
 him to entertain falsehood and disown truth, to follow 
 deceitful guides, to reject the honest and true, to make 
 a lie and to love it. And yet I think all confess, in 
 one kind of language or another, that whenever any 
 man, or any body of men, has learnt to relish what is 
 false, and dislike what is true for its own sake, that 
 man, or that body of men, is in the last stage of cor- 
 ruption and degradation — is approaching a point in 
 which manliness, faith, and union become impossible 
 — in which the death of all individual power, of all 
 social existence, is at hand. That the elements of such 
 destruction are in every human being and in every 
 human fellowship at every moment, and that they are 
 often gathered up in religious systems, none will dis- 
 pute. But that they can account for the existence of 
 any thing which has endured for a long time, which
 
 16 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 has manifested great power ; that in them lies the 
 source of a vigour and concentration which they are 
 perpetually threatening to extinguish, I think no sane 
 person who sets the question fairly before himself can 
 believe. We may need the propensity of men to be- 
 lieve impostures, as a key to many portions of the his- 
 tory of the Mahometan faith, to many circumstances of 
 its present condition ; we shall not find therein the 
 secret of its diffusion and predominance. 
 
 III. Led by these or other considerations, to feel 
 that what is right must be recognised in this faith, 
 as well as what is wrong. Christians have sometimes 
 explained its influence, by speaking of the plagiarisms 
 in the Koran from the Old and New Testament Scrip- 
 tures. That Mahometauism derived much from its 
 connection with the older faiths of the world, would 
 be confessed, I suppose, even by the philosophers 
 who have least veneration for those faiths. They 
 would easily acknowledge, nay, have often acknow- 
 ledged, how much historical dignity and sacredness an 
 Arabian teacher must have acquired by connecting 
 himself with patriarchs who had lived two thousand 
 years before ; who were attached, by closest links of 
 association, to the very soil his countrymen trod ; 
 whose doctrine he could speak of as the truth given 
 to their fathers, now revived in its purity by himself. 
 Nor would it be denied by these philosophers, that 
 one living not only among Sabean worshippers, but 
 amongst Christians and Jews^ might advance his
 
 LECT. I.] PLAGIAEISMS OF THE KOEAN. 17 
 
 <iause by professing liis sympathy with much of the 
 teaching in their holy books; by saying, that he 
 came to restore their systems to purity, while he 
 delivered his countrymen from idolatry. But though, 
 perhaps, thus much might be conceded by all, far 
 more by a firm believer in the Bible, it may be firmly 
 doubted whether the word " plagiarism ^^ is one suited 
 to the case ; or whether, so far as Mahomet was a 
 plagiarist, he could have exerted any influence. If he 
 had merely transfei'red passages from our Scriptures 
 to his, merely adopted formal doctrines which they 
 set forth in living power, to mix them with his own 
 notions, one cannot believe that he ever would have 
 moved the heart of a single nation or of a single man. 
 A teacher may, indeed, exercise a much greater 
 power by reviving what is old, than by inventing 
 what is new ; but to revive a principle he must have 
 been penetrated by it, it must have taken possession 
 of him, it must have inspired his whole being ; other- 
 wise he could never impart it to others. Something 
 of this sort must have been the case with Mahomet ; 
 and therefore his plagiarisms, great as they may 
 have been, do not account for his success. 
 
 IV. The same answer may serve for those persons 
 of a very difierent temper who are disposed to dwell 
 with complacency upon passages in the Koran which 
 contain just and benevolent sentiments, and who 
 believe that these were not merely transferred from 
 Jewish or Christian sources, but actually exhibited the 
 
 M. B. L. C
 
 18 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 heart of the writer. We may admit the existence of 
 such sentiments; we need not^ in the least, wish to 
 represent them as insincere or hypocritical; we may 
 believe that they have exercised a real influence over 
 the minds of Mussulmans, who constantly repeat 
 them, and look upon them as proceeding from a 
 prophet of God. But we cannot believe that mere 
 phrases and sentiments, be they ever so good, nay, 
 even if they did not occur in the midst of any that are 
 fond or trivial and contradictory to themselves, could 
 have wrought a deep conviction into the minds of 
 men previously indisposed to them. A precept may 
 be of vast weight when we have bowed to the pre- 
 ceptor ; otherwise it is weak : it may be respected and 
 praised, but it will not be followed; nothing will be 
 abandoned for the sake of it. 
 
 V. There would seem then to be far more plausi- 
 bility in the opinion of those who attribute great 
 weight to the character of Mahomet itself, believing 
 that however it may have been mixed of good and 
 evil qualities, it was of a kind to act mightily upon his 
 own countrymen, and through them upon mankind. 
 He has been spoken of as one of the great governing 
 and leavening minds of the world, one able to stamp 
 his own image upon nations and generations. Men 
 did homage to him, it has been said, as they always 
 will do homage to one who they feel is their master, 
 who is stronger than they, because his convictions are 
 stronger, because he has grappled more with realities.
 
 LECT. I.] EEVERENCE FOE MAHOMET. 19 
 
 because he lias faitli iu unseen substances, of which 
 they see little more than the shadows. Such asser- 
 tions may be at variance with many conceptions we 
 have formed of this man, but there is much in his 
 biography to bear them out ; there is nothing in them, 
 I believe, to startle any Christian who knows the 
 grounds of his own belief. At what point the strong 
 conviction of a truth which must be divine, which 
 must be given us from above, becomes mixed with 
 self-exaltation, with the desire of showing how wise 
 we are, and of exercising a dominion over others for 
 our own sakes, it is hard to determine in any case. 
 The more we know of ourselves, the more we shall 
 understand how it is possible to vibrate between 
 the certainty we have of principles, which for the 
 sake of our moral being we cannot part with, and a 
 positiveness about notions which we have grounded 
 upon them. When the conscience is clear, v/hen the 
 man is lowly, when he has been subdued by discipline, 
 the opposition seems clear to him as between day and 
 night; the delusion of his own heart is manifested to 
 him by the light which God has kindled there. But 
 amidst the noise of human applause the distinction 
 which was so definite vanishes, the precious and the 
 vile become hopelessly mingled. Such personal expe- 
 riences, which all have had in a greater or less degree 
 — which earnest and thoughtful young men especially 
 require to be schooled in, because it depends upon the 
 way they use them whether strong and clear and
 
 20 THE RELIGIONS OE THE WOELD. [pakt i. 
 
 briglit impressions in tlieir minds shall destroy their 
 docility, shall make them merely utterers of some ne\T 
 notion, or shall ripen into blessed discoveries of that 
 which is true — these experiences, I say, may help us 
 to read the biographies of men who have had a great 
 influence upon the world, with a kindlier and truer 
 feeling. Their impressions were, doubtless, more 
 overpowering than ours, their conflicts gToater, their 
 temptations severer. It is hard to say, that because 
 they called themselves inspired, they meant to deceive ; 
 that language might be the language of humility, not 
 of arrogance — the confession that every good gift, 
 above all every illumination respecting any invisible 
 reality, cometh from the Father of Lights. Not in 
 this conviction, but in that pride which forgets Him — 
 in the desire to be something in themselves — do we 
 trace the beginning of all imposture ; in the blending 
 of the two together, the melancholy mixture which re- 
 ligious systems present to one who studies them in 
 themselves or in their effects. I am far then from 
 wishing to deny that Mahomet's character may have 
 met with unfair treatment at the hands of Christians. 
 And it is, without doubt, one of the most noticeable 
 circumstances in the history of his religion, that his 
 own person should have been so much bound up with 
 it ; that every caliph or sultan who has reigned over 
 any tribe of his followers should have reigned in his 
 name; that the recollection of a man should have so 
 much more power than even the book which Mussul-
 
 LECT. I.] HEEO-WOESHIP.— MONOTHEISM. 21 
 
 mans regard with such profound reverence ; that the 
 honour of a human chieftain should so markedly dis- 
 tinguish a religion which looks upon man as separated 
 by an immeasurable distance from the object of his 
 worship. But this last remark shows that the person 
 and character of Mahomet^ important as they may 
 have been in their practical influence, cannot satis- 
 factorily explain the charm by which his religion 
 worked its way. In fact, it is one of the anomalies 
 which requires to be accounted for, that a human 
 leader should win this reverence. He himself declared 
 and felt that he was nothing but a witness for God ; 
 his followers received and honoured him as holding 
 that office. All the worth he had in him was derived 
 fi'om that of which he testified. When he began con- 
 sciously to take up any other position it was one of 
 weakness. We may consider Mahomet a hero if we 
 please ; we may regard the reverence for him as a 
 proof of men^s tendency in all circumstances to worship 
 heroes ; but we cannot, without denying the plainest 
 facts of the case, say that the success of his doctrine 
 was a consequence of this disposition. His teaching 
 was emphatically the denial of that worship ; every 
 Mahometan sword was drawn to prove that it was 
 false, and to put it down. 
 
 YI. It might seem to follow inevitably, from what 
 has just been said, that the Monotheism of Mahomet, 
 and his hatred of idolatry, constituted the strength 
 and vitality of his system. This opinion has often
 
 22 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet i. 
 
 been maintainecl, and a reader of the history is con- 
 tinually tempted to adopt it. As we follow any of the 
 earlier conquerors through Persia, through Egypt, 
 through the Greek empire, we feel that the enthu- 
 siasm of the chief and of the soldier is connected with 
 what they believe to be the destruction of false 
 worship, the carrying out of the first and second Com- 
 mandments. All the enemies of the Prophet are 
 regarded alike as infidels, because all are thought to 
 have raised something created into the place and glory 
 of the Creator. The belief that nothing in the earth, 
 nothing in the heavens, not even light, is a symbol of 
 God; that not even man himself can be looked upon 
 in any other character than as a minister of the one 
 Supreme Being, evidently inspires every enterprise. 
 In the strength of it they destroy temples, idols, 
 priests, plunder cities, make slaves of their inhabit- 
 ants, turn their children into soldiers of the Crescent, 
 All this is true, and yet I think no considerate person 
 will suppose that mere opposition to the grossest forms 
 of false worship could give nerve to any arm, far less 
 permanence to any society. If Monotheism means the 
 not believing in many gods, it could, as little as the 
 other causes we have enumerated, be the root of the 
 Mahometan faith and the Mahometan power. 
 
 VII. But these sweeping conquests of Mahomet 
 are susceptible of yet another interpretation, which 
 has sometimes been applied to the whole history of 
 their dominion : they may bo regarded as the righteous
 
 LECT. I.] THE SCOUEGE OF GUILTY NATIONS. 23 
 
 judgments of God upon guilty nations, wlietlier tliese 
 were the idolaters of India, tlie fire-worsliippors of 
 Persia, the corrupted Greek, or the Visigoth. It is 
 difficult, I should think, for any person really taking 
 the Bible as his guide, nay, for any person recognising 
 a Divine Providence at all, not to look upon every 
 great earthquake which has shaken kingdoms as a 
 Divine visitation ; not to see a Divine hand regulating 
 outward circumstances, and the wills of men. Nor can 
 we go so far without going farther, and asking what 
 the state of those nations was on which the scourge 
 descended? If we pursue the inquiry fairly in this 
 case, we shall be led, it seems to me, to the discovery 
 of the real ground of the Mahometan might, and 
 perhaps to regard the continuance of that might 
 through so many ages not wholly as a calamity. In 
 the Christian nations which were permitted to fall 
 under the armies of Islam, almost as much as in those 
 which were avowedly Pagan, the sense of a Divine 
 Almighty Will, to which all human wills were to be 
 bowed, had evaporated amidst the worship of images, 
 amidst moral corruptions, philosophical theories, reli- 
 gious controversies. Notions about God more or less 
 occupied them; but God Himself was not in all their 
 thoughts. The awe of an Absolute Eternal Being, to 
 be obeyed as well as to be confessed, was passing away 
 in some — had scarcely been awakened in others. The 
 soldiers of Mahomet said, by their words and acts, 
 " God verily is, and man is his minister, to accomplish
 
 24 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 his will upon earth." This we shall find was the in- 
 spiring thought in the warriors of the Crescent — this 
 gave them valour, subordination, discipline. This, 
 where it encountered no like or equal feeling in the 
 minds of those among whom they came, made them in- 
 vincible. We must not be content with talking of 
 their armies ; here was the life of their armies. We 
 must not speak of men's readiness to receive an im- 
 posture ; in yielding to this assertion they were bowing 
 to a truth. This was no verbal copy fi'om ancient re- 
 cords ; it may have been the oldest of all verities, but 
 it was fresh and new for every one who acted upon it. 
 It was no mere phrase out of a book — no homage to a 
 mortal hero — no mere denial of other men's faith. Let 
 us go yet farther and say, It was a mercy of God that 
 such a witness, however bare of other supporting 
 principles, however surrounded by confusions, should 
 have been borne to His Name, when His creatures 
 were ready, practically, to forget it. The first 
 Mahometan conquest, the continued Mahometan do- 
 minion, prove the assertion ^' God is " to be no dry 
 proposition, but one which is capable of exercising a 
 mastery over the rudest tribes, of giving them an 
 order, of making them victorious over all the civilis- 
 ation and all the religion which has not this principle 
 for its basis. 
 
 I think that most persons studying the history of 
 Mahometanism without prejudice, will feel that this 
 is the principle which confronts them at every turn.
 
 LECT. I.] IXPEEENCES FEOM THESE STATEMENTS. 25 
 
 and to wliich eveiytliing else is subordinate. And 
 if so, the consideration is surely a very important one 
 for our purpose. We are told tliat the mere theolo- 
 gical part of religious systems is only a loose, flimsy 
 drapery for certain maxims of morality, or certain 
 ideas about the nature and spiritual destinies of man. 
 How does the study of Mahometanism bear out this 
 opinion ? Is it a collection of moral maxims which 
 has been its strength ? Is it some theory or con- 
 ception about the nature of man ? Precisely the 
 opposite assertion is true. All mere maxims, all mere 
 ideas about the nature of man, have proved weak and 
 helpless before this proclamation of a living and 
 Eternal God. The theological transcendent principle 
 is just the one which has stood its ground, which has 
 re-appeared age after age, which the most ignorant 
 warriors felt was true and mighty for them, for which 
 no cultivation has provided any substitute. We are 
 told, again, that the character of particular localities 
 and races determines what shall be the character of a 
 theology ; that that only is universal which concerns 
 the laws of outward nature or the life of man. How 
 does the history of Mahometanism bear out this 
 opinion ? Let it be granted that the soil of Arabia 
 was one on which it was fitting that such a doctrine 
 as that of Mahomet should be first preached : let it be 
 allowed that the Semitic race has been especially 
 distinguished from every other by an interest in what 
 is purely Divine, by a comparative indifference to
 
 26 THE EELIGIONS OP THE WORLD, [part i. 
 
 what is liuman. Bat here is an assertion which tribes 
 the most remote from this are compelled to recognise ; 
 which establishes itself in India, in Syria, in Egypt, in 
 Greece. And it is remarkable that, while numerous 
 sects and parties have been called into existence by 
 questions respecting the proper successors of Ma- 
 homet, or the interpretation of the Koran, the Divine 
 principle among them has been the uniting one. It 
 is said again, that the great doctrines which have 
 been embodied in religious systems are the creations 
 of the religious principle in man; that his faith 
 moulds the object which it worships : in other words, 
 that what is called theological truth is but some 
 outward expression of our feelings or habits of mind. 
 Look again at the history of Mahometanism ; con- 
 sider the facts steadily : there are none to which 
 the. supporters of this theory should more gladly 
 appeal. They can find no instance of a race of which 
 faith in an unseen object has been more characteristic. 
 '^ Faithful ^^ is the very name by which the Islamite 
 warriors proclaim themselves to the world. But what 
 was the nature of this faith? It meant nothing, it 
 was nothing, except so far as it asserted a Being not 
 dependent on itself; the ground of man^s being; one 
 of whom he was the minister, not the creator. The 
 Mahometan believed that the God whom he wor- 
 shipped must have revealed Himself — that man could 
 not have discovered Him. He went forth to beat into 
 powder all gods which he supposed man had invented.
 
 LECT. I.] WILL THE SYSTEM PROTECT ITSELF? 
 
 •:.t 
 
 Take away tliese cliaracteristics from his faitli and it 
 vanishes^ with all the doings which were the fruits of it. 
 
 One question still remains to be considered before 
 I close this Lecture. May not the principle which 
 Mahometanism embodies be left to the protection of the 
 system which it seems to have created for itself? — We 
 must look into Mahometan history for the answer. 
 
 When I spoke to you of the great power by which 
 the Mahometan soldier was carried along in his enter- 
 prises, of the principle which gave him strength and 
 endurance, you may have wondered that I did not 
 dwell more upon the rewards which were promised to 
 him after death, upon the Paradise of sensual felicity 
 for which the brave man was encouraged to hope. I 
 did not allude to this motive, because I do not believe 
 that it was the one by which the Mahometan hosts 
 were really inspired. The mighty conviction that they 
 were then, at that very moment, called by God to a 
 work, — that they were His witnesses and were the 
 ministers of His vengeance, — was, I believe, immeasur- 
 ably more effective than any dreams, were they ever 
 so gross and palpable, of what might be given to 
 them hereafter. When they had already cast them- 
 selves away to live or die, they had a sense of immor- 
 tality which no such visions could impart, which alone 
 made them credible. 
 
 But when the Mahometan was at peace, the belief 
 of a mighty Sovereign to whom he was doing homage, 
 no longer sufficed him ; he began to ask himself what
 
 28 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [parti. 
 
 he was living for ? To the multitude these sensual 
 promises were a tolerable answer. These were the 
 things to be desired ; for these, by whatsoever means 
 the Koran or its interpreters prescribed^ if they were 
 in earnest^ they were to labour. Some, with higher 
 apprehensions, would feel that such rewards were not 
 satisfying ; they would explain away the language of 
 Mahomet, and pursue the practices, to which the 
 others submitted in hope of earthly gratifications, that 
 they might attain the knowledge or vision of God. 
 The former would fall into gross moral corruptions, 
 the latter would indulge in philosophical speculations 
 — would found sects — would substitute theories and 
 notions for that Being in whose name their fathers 
 had fought. This has actually been the case, and 
 hence it has been proved that Mahometanism can only 
 thrive while it is aiming at conquest. Why ? Be- 
 cause it is the proclamation of a mere Sovereign, who 
 employs men to declare the fact that he is a Sovereign, 
 and to enforce it upon the world. It is not the pro- 
 clamation of a great moral Being who designs to raise 
 His creatures out of their sensual and natural de- 
 gradation ; who reveals to them not merely that He 
 is, but ivhat He is — why He has created them — what 
 they have to do with Him. Unless this mighty chasm 
 in the Mahometan doctrine can bo filled up, it must 
 wither day by day — wither for all purposes of utility 
 to mankind; it can leave nothing behind but a
 
 LECT. I.] BLANKS IN MAHOMETANISM. 29 
 
 wretclied carcase^ filling tlie air witli tlie infection of 
 its rottenness. 
 
 For, secondly, see how tliat wliicli gave all the 
 dignity and glory to this system becomes, from its 
 want of some other element^ the very cause of its de- 
 gradation. The absolute government of the unseen 
 Being had presented itself to the Mussulman, iu every 
 age^ in the absolute, visible government of his caliph 
 or sultan. While the divine feeling was strong and 
 alive, the subjection to the human ruler was an affec- 
 tionate, dutiful, entire submission. The ruler was, in 
 very deed, the centre of his warriors. He felt towards 
 them as a protector, sharing their toils, bound to the 
 same Master, enduring hardships in the same cause. 
 But the battle over, he becomes the absolute monarch 
 in the midst of his seraglio — they are merely his 
 slaves. There is no such connection between him and 
 the Being whom he worships as permanently to check 
 this tendency — to make the monarch feel that he is 
 set over them to do them good, or the subjects that 
 they have an appeal against him to a higher Ruler. 
 
 The very nature of the Ottoman government — and 
 that government is the perfect development of the 
 Mahometan idea — excludes the possibility of orders 
 and gradations in society. Its strength lies in all 
 being simpl}^ subjects of the one ruler, holding their 
 offices not in virtue of any hereditary ranks or privi- 
 leges, but only at his pleasure. When therefore the
 
 30 THE EELIGIONS OP THE WOELD. [paut i. 
 
 one principle whicli quickened the wliole society waxes 
 feeble^ of necessity it becomes the most intolerable of 
 despotisms. Elsewhere there is a balance and conflict 
 of powers, which even in the dreariest periods pro- 
 daces struggles or paroxysms of life ; here, if the 
 monarch do not inspire his people with strength, all is 
 dead. And the same cause which destroys what may 
 be called the family bonds of civil society, destroys 
 equally the family itself. Polygamy is no accident of 
 Mahometanism : a careful consideration of the system 
 will show that it must fall to pieces the moment any re- 
 former shall attempt to remove this characteristic of it. 
 But again, the first principle of Mahometanism 
 wanting the support of some other which it does not 
 acknowledge, must change, and is continually chang- 
 ing, into one which is the counterfeit and direct 
 opposite of itself. The belief of a living, acting Will 
 passes into the acknowledgment of a dead necessity, a 
 Fate, against which there is no struggling, which 
 drives the soul not to energy for some great object, 
 but to indifference, languor, and the submission that 
 means despair. Oftentimes indeed the patience of a 
 Turk must even yet awaken our homage and our 
 shame. Joyfully would we confess that God has not 
 suffered the true principle to be wholly extinguished 
 by its bastard product. But we would draw from that 
 confession not a pretext for leaving this, or any feeble 
 and beautiful plant of a better soil, to the hot-bed 
 which has always impeded its growth, and now
 
 LECT. I.] ITS YICTOEIES NOT COMPLETE. 31 
 
 threatens to stifle it altogether; but a cei^tain hope 
 that it is intended to receive culture from without^ and 
 that, by help of that culture, it may yet blossom and 
 bear fruit abundantly. 
 
 These remarks may prepare us to take notice of 
 one great fact in the history of Mahometanism, which 
 is the connecting link between it and the other systems 
 of which I propose to speak hereafter. 
 
 I have talked of the victories of the Crescent in 
 different quarters of the globe, and it is not easy to 
 exaggerate the greatness of those victories. Yet we 
 all know they were not complete ; thej^ did not ex- 
 terminate that which they were meant to extermin- 
 ate. I do not speak now of the resistance which 
 this great power encountered from the hammer of 
 the Mayor of Paris, or from the heroes in the 
 Asturian mountains. I do not speak of anything 
 which is directly connected with Christianity. I mean 
 that the most remarkable of the old polytheistic faiths, 
 though crushed, were not cast out; that some of the 
 countries which yielded to Mahometans are not 
 Mahometan. It behoves us to inquire into the mean- 
 ing of this fact — to ask ourselves, what there was in 
 their doctrines, compounded of all strange elements, 
 sanctioning so many fearful crimes, for which the 
 simple and purer Mahometan faith could provide no 
 satisfaction. We may find that convictions which the 
 Mahometan trampled down, do as much require re- 
 cognition as those which he enforced ; that man has
 
 32 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [part i. 
 
 demands foi* himself wliicli will not be satisfied by 
 being told that he is the sei'vant of an absolute Will 
 — demands which must, somehow or other, find their 
 explanation, must in some way or other be reconciled 
 with that great truth. 
 
 I will not anticipate the nature or the results of 
 that inquiry ; but I hope we may gather something 
 from the one in which we have been engaged. You 
 have found a set of men brought up in circumstances 
 altogether different from yours, holding your faith 
 in abhoi'rence, who say in language the most solemn 
 and decisive, " Whatever else we part with, this is 
 needful to us and to all human beings — the belief that 
 God IS — the recognition of Him as a living personal 
 Being." You have seen this faith growing weak for 
 a time, and everything else growing weak with it ; 
 you have seen it reappearing, finding a new set of 
 champions to assert it, compelling nations to bow be- 
 fore it. Be sure that here is something which the 
 heart and reason within you have need of — which they 
 must grasp. Be quite sure, that if you give them in 
 place of it any fine notions or theories ; if you feed 
 them with phrases about the beautiful or the godlike 
 when they want the source of beauty, the living God ; 
 it you entertain them with any images or symbols of 
 art or nature when they want that which is symbolised; 
 if you talk about physical laws when you want the law- 
 giver, of mechanical properties when you want him 
 who set them in motion, of secret powers when you
 
 3LECT. L] ITS LESSONS. 33 
 
 want Kim who acts by tliem and upon you, you are 
 cheating yourselves — cheating mankind. Remember 
 further, that the acknowledgment of this Being may 
 imply much more than the Mahometan perceived, but 
 that it does imply that which he perceived. If such 
 an One is, His will must be the law of the universe. 
 Every creature in the universe must be in a right or 
 wrong position, must be doing his work well or failing 
 in it, as he yields himself to this will, or as he resists 
 it. And let us not fancy that the early Mahometan 
 was entirely mistaken as to the way in which this will 
 ought to be obeyed. He may not have understood 
 luhat enemies he had to fight with, what weapons he 
 had to wield, but he did discover that the life of man 
 is to be a continual battle, that we are only men when 
 we are engaging in a battle. He was right that there 
 is something in the world which we are not to tolerate, 
 which we are sent into it to exterminate. First of all, 
 let us seek that we may be freed from it ourselves ; 
 but let us be taught by the Mussulman that we shall 
 not compass this end unless we believe, and act upon 
 the belief, that every man and every nation exists for 
 the purpose of chasing falsehood and evil out of God's 
 universe. 
 
 M. B. L. 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 PAET I.— LECTURE II. 
 
 Cliaracter of the Hindoo Faith. The Brahmin. Worship of 
 the Pure Intelligence. The pojndar re-action. Vishnu and 
 Siva. Relations of the English Government to Jlindooism. 
 
 rpHE remarks wliicli I made at the close of my last 
 -^ Lecture will prepare you to expect that I should 
 speak in the present of Hindooism. That faith has 
 been brought into conflict with Mahometanism, has 
 succumbed to it, and yet has maintained its ground, 
 leaving the victorious religion the religion of a small 
 minority. Though it may pretend to an antiquity 
 which it does not possess, it has certainly lasted three 
 thousand years. The language in which its holy books 
 are composed is the mother-tongue — if I may use that 
 phrase in its literal, rather than its ordinary sense — of 
 the Greek, the Latin, and the dialects of our Gothic 
 ancestors ; consequently, of nearly all which are spoken 
 in Western Europe at this day. From this fact it 
 might, I think, be inferred, if other evidence were 
 wanting, that the mythologies of these nations could 
 be traced to an Indian source. But there is abundant 
 evidence, so much as to have misled those scholars 
 who were first struck with it into a forgetfulness of the 
 important historical principle, that we cannot deter- 
 mine the character of nations, or of their belief, merely 
 by finding the point from which they started ; that
 
 LECT. n.] IMPORTANCE OF HINDOOISM. 35 
 
 each must be studied in itself, and in its own utter- 
 ances, and tliat we gain only a secondary aid in our 
 investigations when we have the means of affiliating it 
 to some other. That this mistake was committed by 
 some of the great Orientalists of the last century, I 
 think is now generally acknowledged ; they seemed to 
 suppose that they could learn more of the Greeks from 
 Sanscrit books than from their own. But an extrava- 
 gance which is natural to all discoverers does not make 
 the discovery itself less valuable ; in fact, we are only 
 beginning to appreciate its importance. The more 
 practically we learn to sympathise with our fellow-men 
 in all countries and in all ages, to cultivate such sym- 
 pathy for our own sake and for theirs, and for the 
 glory of God, the more will all such hints respecting 
 the relationship between different nations be reflected 
 on and prized. And this remark suggests another and 
 much weightier reason, why a Boyle Lecturer should 
 address himself to the subject of Hindooism, and why 
 we all should take an interest in it. It is the faith, to 
 say the least, of between eighty and ninety millions of 
 people, subjects of the British Empire. By conquests 
 scarcely paralleled for rapidity in the annals of the 
 world, we have obtained supremacy over them, and by 
 civil policy we have tried to preserve it. As to the 
 right character of this policy there has been the 
 greatest variety of opinion; but I think intelligent 
 men are now well agreed, tiiat whatever it be, it must 
 be grounded upon a knov^'ledge of the character, insti-
 
 36 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part I. 
 
 tutions, faith of the people who are to be influenced 
 by it. Civilians^ military officers, and missionaries in 
 India, have exerted themselves to acquire this know- 
 ledge, and to make it available for us. Their theories, 
 as well as their facts, when they seem most contra- 
 dictory, are worthy of study and of comparison ; they 
 may all help us in finding the principle of Indian life 
 and belief, and that principle, when we apprehend it, 
 may make the differences in their observations and 
 opinions more intelligible. 
 
 There are, unquestionably, considerable difficulties 
 in the investigation. This ancient people is strictly 
 speaking without a history. "No date of a public 
 event," — I use the words of Mr. Elphinstone, — " can 
 be fixed before the invasion of Alexander ; no con- 
 nected relation of the national transactions can be at- 
 tempted until after the Mahometan conquest.'^ Yet it 
 would seem that we were in the greatest need of such 
 records to connect the phenomena which offer them- 
 selves to the eye of the traveller in this day with the 
 early books which are still regarded with the pro- 
 foundest veneration. A Hindoo will sometimes tell 
 us in wild language that he acknowledges three 
 hundred millions of gods ; he means, of course, that 
 the number is indefinite, that any object or power in 
 nature, any heroic man, may be a god. And those 
 who trace Oriental extravagance in such a description, 
 will, nevertheless, remember to have heard of various 
 beings who are acknowledged objects of Hindoo adora-
 
 LECT. II.] ITS APPAEENT CHANGES. 37 
 
 tion — of Brahma tlie Creator, of Vislinu the Preserver, 
 of Siva the Destroyer, of ludra, the Lord of the Ele- 
 ments, of the fearful goddess Devi, of the beautiful 
 hero Krishna, and a multitude more. Yet learned and 
 trustworthy critics, Asiatic as well as European, con- 
 fidently affirm that the ground of the Brahrainical 
 faith is Monotheistic ; that One Being is assumed in 
 the earliest of the sacred books to be the origin of all 
 things ; that this was no lazy, inoperative tenet, but 
 penetrated the whole system of worship, and the life 
 of the worshipper. Putting such facts and such state- 
 ments together, you might be ready to conclude that 
 there was no real identity between the faith of one of 
 these periods and of the other; that either by con- 
 quest, or some strange process of degeneracy, the 
 character and feelings of the people had become so 
 changed as to make the notion of one Hindoo or 
 Brahminical religion a mere delusion. But many con- 
 siderations will show us that this opinion, however 
 plausible, is untenable. I have said that the early 
 Vedas, composed, perhaps, fifteen hundred years be- 
 fore the time of Christ, be their tenets what they may, 
 are still regarded with unbounded veneration by the 
 religious men among the Hindoos. The Menu code or 
 institute, which is probably about six hundred or seven 
 hundred years younger than these, and which indicates 
 some, though not radical, alterations of practice and 
 opinion during the interval, must still be the great 
 study of every English jurist who wishes to understand
 
 38 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet r. 
 
 the grounds of Hindoo law and life at the present day. 
 Five or six centuries after the composition of this 
 code the troops of Alexander crossed the Indus. The 
 picture which the Greeks give us of society as they 
 observed it, accords with that which we gain from the 
 earlier native source; but, what is still more to the 
 point, it also accords in essentials with what our own 
 countrymen tell us of India now. With the advan- 
 tages we possess from the actual occupation of the 
 country, from being able to examine parts of it which 
 the Greeks never visited, and from modern habits of 
 critical investigation, we must see many things much 
 more clearly than they did ; and therefore, even when 
 their reports are different from the present state of 
 things, it is not necessary to assume that there must 
 have been really a great change. It is hardly needful, 
 however, to take this remark into consideration, for 
 we are assured, by those who have the best opportuni- 
 ties of judging, that one of the most remarkable fea- 
 tures of Hindoo life, the constitution and government 
 of the villages, is exhibited with surprising faithfulness 
 in narratives which were derived from observations 
 made more than two thousand years ago. Such per- 
 manence in social habits would surely lead us to expect 
 something corresponding to it in the inward convictions 
 of a people ; and we are not left to conjecture. The 
 soldiers of Alexander found a set of men whose great 
 business was contemplation, who submitted to nu- 
 merous privations and austerities that they might
 
 LECT. II.] CHAEACTER OP TKE BRAHMINS. 39 
 
 pursue it more effectually. The Brahmins they found 
 were the leading class in the country; military, 
 ao-ricultui'al, commercial occupations were all subordin- 
 ate to theirs — all society had, in fact, organised itself 
 in conformity with their ideas. The Greek fancied 
 they had less to do with civil affairs than we know, 
 from their own code, that they must have had. But 
 the general conception which he formed of the Brah- 
 mins was singularly accurate. He called them Sophists, 
 a name which, in his own country, often denoted mere 
 sceptics ; here it had no such signification ; it implied 
 that the Brahmins were not merely priests, such as 
 were to be seen elsewhere ; that their first business 
 was study, and that the purely sacerdotal office was 
 secondary to this. As the accounts which the Greek 
 writers give of the objects of Hindoo worship are 
 meagre, and evidently distorted by the desire of find- 
 ing resemblances to their own mythology, we might 
 suppose that, for our purpose, we could not learn much 
 from them. But I believe we shall find that their re- 
 port of the Brahmins is, in fact, the key to the whole 
 system ; one which, if we use it rightly, will enable us 
 to discover its leading characteristics, and to under- 
 stand, however little we may be able to trace, the 
 varieties of form which it has assumed. 
 
 The name of Brahmin at once suggests that of 
 Brahm. The resemblance is no accidental one ; nor 
 does it merely signify that the Brahmin is the minis- 
 ter or priest of Brahm. The connection is of a far
 
 40 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD, [part i. 
 
 more intimate and wonderful kind. The learned man, 
 the contemplative sage, aspires to be one with him 
 whom he adores — to lose his own being in his. And 
 what is this being ? He is the Absolute Intelhgence ; 
 the Essential Light. Rest, Contemplation : this is his 
 glory, his perfection. You will feel at once the direct 
 opposition between this idea and that of the Ma- 
 hometan. I bring it before you just at this point, that 
 you may see how much we may impose upon ourselves 
 by the word Monotheism, which is often used as if it 
 were common to these two faiths, at least in their 
 origin ; that you may see at the same time in what 
 sense it has been honestly and rightly applied to 
 Hindooism. Mahometanism began with a Prophet, 
 but we saw the Prophet soon merged in the Khalif or 
 Sovereign. This Sovereign was the organ of a 
 mighty Will, which had called all things into exist- 
 ence, and of whom all men are servants. He fulfils 
 his service in perpetual conflict ; only in such conflict 
 does his faith make its meaning intelligible. There 
 are no natural gradations of society, no hereditary 
 ranks; all are merely officers holding their position 
 under the one ruler. The priest is an insignificant 
 person. Strictly speaking, there is no priesthood. 
 The dervish or learned man may be an important 
 adviser of the Sovereign : in times of quiet he may 
 promote learning, or become the head of a sect ; but 
 when he is most regarded it is only as an interpreter 
 of the Divine Will. The first principle of Mahomet-
 
 LECT. II.] GEOUND OF THIS FAITH. 41 
 
 anism would be violated if he aspired to be himself 
 divine. Here, on the contrary, the priest, the stu- 
 dent, the beholder is judge, lawgiver, everything. 
 The God is an Intelligence, not a Will — himself a 
 higher priest — a more glorious student — a more per- 
 fect contemplator. You can scarcely conceive a man- 
 date issuing from such a being : all things must flow 
 from him as light from the sun, or thoughts from a mus- 
 ing man. Such an idea is ever implied in Hindooism ; 
 but it may not have been frequently expressed ; it may 
 sometimes have been contradicted, in the earliest 
 stage ; for the rapt student, feeling it his highest 
 calling and privilege to meditate on an Absolute 
 Being in silence and awe, will have had such a prac- 
 tical reason for not confounding him with the icorld 
 around, as no theoretical consistency could outweigh. 
 It was far otherwise with the feeling of a relation 
 between the human worshipper and the object of his 
 adoration. This feeling was not resisted, but strength- 
 ened by this practical discipline. He was taught that 
 he was intended to rise into the closest communion, 
 nay, into actual identity with the Divinity : to realise 
 such a state was the effort of his existence. 
 
 The Brahmin believed that there was in man a 
 capacity for such intercourse or absorption as this ; but 
 surely not in all men. Some are merely animal: there 
 must be a race intended for this high converse, there 
 must be a race excluded from it. One would not say, 
 however, that the highest sage is the only man who is
 
 42 THE EELIGIONS OP THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 not merely animal. The warrior must have something 
 of the higher diviner faculty ; it may be cultivated and 
 ripened in him. Even the merchant, the traveller into 
 other lands, must be more than a merely earthly crea- 
 ture. These orders of men should be kept apart from 
 the lowest of all — the mere human animal, the Sudra. 
 Yet the purely contemplative man should not be al- 
 lowed too much intercourse even with these. He may 
 educate them to be such men as they are meant to be, 
 but he must keep himself and his race pure : this race 
 must be carefully trained to be the model of humanity 
 — to rise above humanity — by perpetual meditation 
 on the unseen Brahm. 
 
 The so-called laws or institutes of the Hindoos are 
 all designed for this purpose. They are, properly 
 speaking, a system of education or discipline ; a method 
 of fitting the highest man for fulfilling his vocation, 
 and all the others for preserving their proper relation 
 to him. The idea of a separation between the twice- 
 born man and the merely animal man, is the funda- 
 mental one ; all the arrangements are for the purpose 
 of giving effect to this idea — all other distinctions are 
 secondary to it. The twice-born man must, by certain 
 services or sacraments, the principal of which is read- 
 ing the Vedas, maintain his relation to the unseen 
 object. He must practise certain plans for lessening 
 his dependence on mere material gratifications ; he 
 must cultivate rather the passive than the active 
 qualities. In the progress of ages the two middle
 
 XECT. II.] CASTES— THEIE OEIGIN. 43 
 
 classes seem to have disappeared, or at least this is 
 the prevailing Brahminical opinion. The system has 
 undergone other modifications, till at length, in some 
 places at least, it has so adapted itself to the different 
 pursuits and occupations of men, as to offer an excuse 
 for the European notion, that it was invented in au 
 early stage of society by some legislator, who observed 
 that labour must be divided in order to be successful, 
 and that there is likely to be an hereditary aptitude for 
 particular professions or trades. Such a notion seems 
 to be refuted by the fact that, according to the early 
 arrangement of castes, there was no accurate division 
 of employments ; that persons of the same order were 
 allowed to perform many which were unlike and in- 
 compatible. Nor does another plausible hypothesis, 
 that the Brahmins were a conquering tribe and the 
 Sudras a conquered one, seem to be more tenable. 
 Those who have the best opportunities for comparing 
 them, say that they can discover no such differences 
 between them as would warrant the supposition of 
 their belonging to a different race, none greater than 
 are naturally produced by meaner occupations and a 
 sense of degradation during a long course of years. 
 But the great objection to this opinion is, that the 
 Sudras are not in any sense slaves, and never can have 
 been such; the Greeks were surprised to find all classes 
 in India free citizens in some sense, in however low a 
 one. So that probably we cannot get much further 
 than the religious principle as the basis of the distinc-
 
 44 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. [part i. 
 
 tion — than the idea^ I mean, that there is a tendency 
 in men to become purely animal, and that there is a 
 race of men in which this tendency is realised and 
 perpetuated; that there is in man that which may be 
 raised to fellowship with the Divine ; and that there is 
 a race in which this capacity is exhibited and trans- 
 mitted. 
 
 In spite then of the fact, that there are in the very 
 earliest Hindoo Yedas prayers and hymns to light and 
 fire, and to many natural powers, nay, though the 
 liturgical part of them consists mainly of such px'ayers, 
 we may fully admit the assertion, that the Brahmin is 
 seeking after One Divine, unseen object; that he is 
 only asking these different creatures to tell him what 
 that object is, and how He is to be found ; nay, that 
 his aim in his whole life and discipline is to purify 
 himself from outward sensible things, that he may 
 approach nearer to this One Source of Illumination. 
 
 But then how can we explain the fact, that men 
 setting this end before them, looking upon the most 
 mysterious powers in the universe as at best ladders 
 to ascend to the highest region — ladders which the 
 wise men could generally, in time, throw away — should 
 have become so utterly entangled in sensible, outward 
 idolatry as the modern Hindoo seems to be ? The 
 explanation often given, that the ordinary gods are but 
 the gods of the vulgar, that the learned man has alto- 
 gether another view of them which he keeps to himself, 
 is quite unsatisfactory. For the point we want to
 
 LECT. II.] CASTES— THEIR PEINCIPLE. 45 
 
 ascertain is this, how the Brahmin came to suppose 
 that the divers and manifold beings of whom the 
 Hindoo Pantheon consists, could be helps to the dis- 
 covery or the presentation of the One Being ; how he 
 could possibly be induced to reverse the whole order 
 and object of his studies and discipline ; to inti^oduce 
 variety, that he might suggest the idea of unity ; to 
 bring in a host of visible forms, that he might lead 
 his disciples more certainly to that which is beyond 
 their senses. I do not deny the possibiHty of such a 
 scheme, but the origin and the steps of it should be 
 explained. If a modern Brahmin confesses that he 
 attaches no importance to the things to which he 
 seems to attach the greatest, we may accept his testi- 
 mony against himself. Still more willingly we may 
 believe one who says that he loves the simple faith 
 which he thinks has departed, and that he will spend 
 his life in eSbrts to restore it. But we cannot take 
 the witness of either respecting their fathers. The 
 process by which they arrived at one strange conclu- 
 sion after another may have been as simple and natural 
 a one as that by which their traditions are discarded, or 
 that by which they are traced to a deliberate purpose 
 of imposture. 
 
 And this, I believe, is actually the case. While 
 the Brahmin was learning, by various arts, to prac- 
 tise abstraction of spirit; was searching, by various 
 helps, to arrive at the perception of the Pei-fect One ; 
 he felt that the light, the intelligence which entered
 
 46 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet i. 
 
 into liis own heart — that which raised him above his 
 fellows — that which enabled him to see mysteries, 
 must be the great expression of the Divine Being. 
 Brahm becomes Brahma; the light which flows from 
 the source of light, the wisdom which comes from the 
 fount of wisdom is that which declares him — this is 
 his Name. In that character the initiated disciple is 
 to worship him : no sacrifices need be offered to him, 
 no temples need be raised to him. It is the inward 
 and pui'ified intellect which does him homage. A 
 very sublime conception, you may be inclined to say ; 
 one which it is no wonder that enlightened Brahmins 
 in our day should wish to reproduce. 
 
 But imagine yourselves in the school where this 
 sublime doctrine was taught; look at the self-satisfied, 
 self-glorified person who is proclaiming it ; see how 
 he has gone on, step by step, till, from a profound 
 idea of some awful, absolute Being, he has passed into 
 the habitual conviction that this Being is himself; he 
 has become his own God. Mark what contempt he 
 manifests for persons about him, what utter in- 
 humanity has grown out of this notion that he is the 
 very perfection of humanity, that he is above it. 
 Suppose an earnest, enthusiastic disciple, struck with 
 the contradiction, saying to himself, '' Is this the 
 devout, the self-losing, absorbed Brahmin whom I 
 was taught to wonder at — whose teaching at first 
 seemed to me so sublime ? " In the tumult of his 
 feelings, in the sadness of his disappointment, he goes
 
 LECT. II.] THE EEFOEMEE— VISHNU WOESHIP. 47 
 
 forth from the school into Nature. What a change 
 he finds there ! What a sense of refreshment, free- 
 dom, calmness, penetrates through his whole being ! 
 Surely he has been living till this time in a close, pent- 
 up atmosphere, thinking only of himself; ever hoping, 
 and hoping in vain, to find his God in himself But 
 is he not here ? What a wonderful order there is 
 through this wide universe; an order of day and 
 night ; of seasons of heat and seasons of rain ; an 
 order in the planets over our heads ; an order in the 
 growth of the flowers at our feet; an order in the 
 overflowings of the mighty river. Yes, his name is 
 the Preserver ! Conceive of him under that name — 
 worship him under that name — call him Vishnu : bid 
 men rejoice that they have such an One caring for 
 them. The name, perhaps, had been known before in 
 the Brahminical school. It had been one thought, 
 among many, that Brahma was the preserver of 
 things : now it becomes the name. Hundreds of 
 hearts are ready to welcome it : even the poor Sudra 
 can look up, and feel that it has a sound of blessing to 
 him. And now the older worship becomes, compara- 
 tively, obsolete; the young reformer has prevailed. 
 The Brahminical order must take up his doctrine, and 
 proclaim it, and reconcile it as they can with that 
 which they held before : if they do not so, a sect of 
 Vishnu worshippers will form themselves — men will 
 go out into the deserts and proclaim this faith, with- 
 out respect to the laws of family or caste at all.
 
 48 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet i. 
 
 In some sucli way as this, I conceive, tlie popular 
 Vishnu worship may have supplanted the original 
 Brahma worship. It would be surely hard to say that 
 the alteration was in itself for the worse; yet the 
 effect of it must, undoubtedly, have been to withdraw 
 the idea of divinity from the inner sanctuary in which 
 it had dwelt ; to bring it forth into the world. Then 
 temples would be raised, the fruits of the earth 
 offered, with songs and symbols, to the great Pre- 
 server. But soon there will have been a fearful re- 
 action against this kind of service. How could the 
 mere feeling of a beneficent Guardian of the Earth 
 help men who were tormented with a sense of inward 
 evil ? What was !there in such a Being at all corre- 
 sponding to the dark visions which continually rose 
 before them, whether they looked behind or before, to 
 the past or the future ? But was there nothing in 
 Nature which did correspond to these inward agonies, 
 which seemed to be the very echo of them ? Wei'O 
 there no frightful floods and earthquakes — was there 
 not a continual process of destruction going on in the 
 universe ? Is not death the mighty king to whom all 
 must do homage ? Poor worshippers of Vishnu, how 
 miserably you are striving to hide the realities of the 
 world from your eyes — to strew garlands over the 
 grave ! You have never yet dared to pronounce the 
 real name : it is Siva the Destroyer. If you know 
 your own state, and what you have to fear, you will 
 invoke that name — you will propitiate that divinity.
 
 LECT. II.] THE DESTROYEE— THE DELIVEEEE. 49 
 
 And do not think to approach him with such oblations 
 as are signs of plenty and gladness. It is blood he 
 craves for; the blood of your children and of your- 
 selves. No sacrifices but these can appease his wrath, 
 or abate the misery which he is sending to you, and 
 designing for you. Here was another deep conviction 
 working in the heart of the Hindoo, and destined to 
 produce the most fearful fruits, from generation to 
 generation. The Brahmin could not allay it — could 
 not reduce it under his old notion of the Brahma, the 
 one celestial Intelligence, who spoke only in the Wise. 
 The Siva sect rose up in fierce antagonism to the 
 Vishnu sect. He must endeavour to bring the 
 different ideas into reconciliation ; to assign the 
 Brahma, the Vishnu, the Siva, each a part in the 
 arrangement of Nature, and in the different ages of 
 the universe. Eeligious books are composed, some 
 with the Vishnu, some with the Siva element predomi- 
 nant in them ; the former with a gracious, the latter 
 with a stern, forbidding aspect ; the first not denying 
 the dark principle — only keeping it in the back- 
 ground ; the latter doing homage to the Preserver, 
 but confessing the greater inight of the Destroyer. 
 
 Soon the unsatisfied heart feels another necessity. 
 If it be true (and can it be denied ?) that the Power 
 which divides and annihilates has such a direct in- 
 fluence over the destinies of the world, may not the 
 Preserver yet have somewhere an undisturbed reign ; 
 and may he not descend from that region, at certain 
 
 M. B, L.
 
 50 THE EELIGIOXS OF THE WOELD. [rirt i. 
 
 periods^ to claim his riglita over this eartli too — to 
 create again that which has perished ? Is there not a 
 principle of Restoration implied in Preservation ; nay, 
 in Destruction itself? The animals die, but the race 
 survives : and have there not been in the ages of man 
 periods of deepest calamity, when all things seemed to 
 sink in utter ruin, followed by bright sunny days — 
 the earth coming forth out of dai'kness into light ? 
 These must have been the times of Vishnu's descent. 
 The animals, we have been told, all exhibit some side 
 or aspect of the divinity; may have been, originally, 
 portions of it. In these he may have appeared. Men 
 may have been able, without becoming absorbed, to 
 behold him, and converse with him. Again, the 
 priest will partly have led the popular conviction, 
 partly have been led by it. He will have arranged 
 the number and method of these'Yishnu incarnations, 
 reducing dreams to a system, and sanctioning the 
 hope that there might be an avatar, which should re- 
 store all things. 
 
 But these dreams were not sufficient. Was not a 
 kind and gracious Rajah who felt for his poor subjects 
 one in whom the Divinity was more likely to manifest 
 himself, than in any of those creatures, however 
 sacred, of which man is practically the master ? Have 
 we not always felt that a man was permitted, in some 
 mysterious way, to contemplate the Divine Being — to 
 become one with him ? Why may not He in such a 
 form, so much more beautiful than any other, appear
 
 LECT. II.] THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW. 51 
 
 to us ? The Lriglit Krishna becomes the centre of in- 
 numerable legends. He is felt to be the true form of 
 the divine Deliverer. As other dreadful apparitions 
 rise up beside Siva, and claim the kind of worship which 
 is offered to him — as there comes forth even a Kali to 
 be a patroness of murder, to make strangling a virtue ; 
 this image of a friend and protector of the helpless is 
 the moi'e eagerly sought after, and delighted in. 
 
 At each step in this process more of the forms and 
 images of outward nature will have been called in, to 
 express the conception of which the heart was full ; at 
 each step the theoretic man will have been obliged to 
 incorporate new schemes of the universe, new specula- 
 tions upon all questions — astronomical, geological, 
 physiological, metaphysical — into his theology, in 
 order to connect the later and more popular out- 
 growths of it with the original root. Nevertheless, 
 it is certain that, amidst all these definite conceptions 
 and idolatrous forms, the pi-imary Idea of an Incon- 
 ceivable, Absolute, Unseen Being, whom it is the 
 highest glory of the holiest man to behold, and in 
 whom he is to be lost, has survived — survived not as 
 a theory of some learned Brahmin, but as so deep and 
 essential an article of popular faith, that all other 
 habitual convictions, nay, the reverence for the Brah- 
 minical order itself, which seems worked into the veiy 
 tissue of Hindoo society, must give place to it. Re- 
 ligious orders, formed without any reference to dis- 
 tinction of castes, shall be followed and reverenced in
 
 52 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet i. 
 
 proportion as this seems to be the end of their existence : 
 the perfectly abstracted Yogi shall be looked upon as 
 greater^ because in the way to a higher knowledge, 
 than he who can explain all the order of nature. In 
 fact, in the worst form of what may be supposed 
 modern corruptions we may trace the original feeling 
 at work. The woman who gives up herself to death 
 on her husband's funeral pile, is exhibiting the same 
 deep sense of the necessity of self-abandonment, self- 
 sacrifice, which is implied in the desire of the con- 
 templative man to be absorbed into the Divine Essence. 
 "We have, then, a faith presented to us here, which 
 the more we think of it, the more fairly we consider 
 its apparent auomaUes, the more light we receive 
 respecting it from different and contradictory reports, 
 the more heartily and affectionately we sympathise 
 with the feelings of our fellow-men, the more we 
 know of ourselves, will awaken in us the more of 
 reflection, and wonder, and awe. It is the faith 
 not of savages, but of men in whose minds respect 
 for learning has occupied all but the highest place ; 
 men whose whole commonwealth is modelled upon the 
 notion, that the seer, the learned man, ought to be at 
 the head — that all other people should look up to him. 
 At the same time, these learned men have not been 
 able to devise a belief at their pleasure for those whom 
 they have governed. Strong necessities have come 
 forth out of the heart of the people, demanding satis- 
 faction — compelling the wise men to remould their
 
 LECT. II.] niNDOOISM APART FROM ITS THEOLOGY. 63 
 
 system, yet recognising the worth and reality of that 
 higher, older principle, which they seem to set at 
 nought. I do not think it would be easy to find a 
 fairer test of those assertions respecting the religions 
 of mankind which I propose to examine. 
 
 The first of them — that there are deep truths im- 
 plied in each of these systems — receives, it seems to me, 
 abundant confirmation from even the hasty glance we 
 have been able to take of Hindooism. In the midst 
 of the extravagances and horrors which the most 
 favourable testimonies prove it to have brought forth, 
 and which have multiplied, not diminished, as it has 
 expanded, we have been able to trace some convictions 
 so sacred, so bound up in the heart of the people for 
 thousands of years, as to sustain the credit of monstrous 
 fictions, to make tormenting practices endurable ; con- 
 victions which have been able to create and perpetuate 
 a complicated form of society, and to defy the power of 
 victorious invaders. 
 
 But it is affirmed next, that these deep convictions 
 will in time disengage themselves from the theological 
 element in which they dwell ; that theology being only 
 an inadequate attempt to explain the phenomena of 
 the universe. Now, I have been careful that you 
 should notice how much of the Hindoo system is an 
 attempt to explain the phenomena of the universe ; it 
 was scarcely necessary for me to remark how ineffect- 
 ual a one. But, if you have followed the course of my 
 observations, still more if you have made observations
 
 54 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i, 
 
 for yourselves, you will, I think, be convinced that these 
 theories about the world are precisely the non-theologi- 
 cal element of the system; precisely that which has been 
 added to the theology, and become a part of it, in con- 
 sequence of the inability of the Hindoo to distinguish 
 between God and the world. His inward convictions, 
 from first to last, have had reference to the Absolute, 
 Unseen God, and to his relations with man. The 
 drapery of these convictions has been his doctrine about 
 Nature. Nor can that idolatrous, degrading, often 
 filthy drapery ever be cast away, unless it can be shown 
 him that the theological riddles, for which he has been 
 seeking a solution in Nature so long and not finding 
 it — which are bound up with the deepest wants of his 
 heart — can receive their explanation somewhere else. 
 
 But, most of all, the notion that all ideas respect- 
 ing an unseen world, are produced by the religious 
 faculty in man, might seem to receive countenance 
 from the Hindoo records. How active that faculty has 
 been, what worlds it has called into existence, whilst 
 there were no outward transactions to relate or no one 
 to relate them, we have seen. The Hindoo, in action 
 the idlest, is in imagining, dreaming, combining, the 
 most busy of all human creatures. But is this all we 
 have learnt ? Have we not found also an assurance in 
 the mind of these people that all the efforts of thought 
 in them must originate in a communication from above, 
 and require fresh communications to meet them ? In 
 the thinking, or reasoning, or religious faculty, ca,ll it
 
 LECT. II.] THE EELIGIOUS FACULTY. oo 
 
 what you will — or, as I sliould say, in the man's own 
 heart, in his inmost being — have arisen desires and 
 longings after converse with the unseen world, with 
 some living being in the unseen world, with some 
 one between whom and himself he feels there is 
 a relation. His religious books echo the cry ; they 
 mutter a half-response to it : but the response is only 
 the question thrown into a more definite form. The 
 highest student meditates on the problem, and I'epeats 
 his own thoughts ; or, more probably, what some 
 ancient person, who meditated and conversed with the 
 Divinity, said about it ; or what some other said that 
 he said. The circle is a very weary one ; if we calmly 
 consider it, and what kind of comfort those receive 
 who are ever revolving in it, we shall confess that the 
 Hindoo is right in his belief, that the wisdom of which 
 he sees the image and reflection must speak and declare 
 itself to him ; that he cannot always be left to grope 
 his way amidst the shadows which it casts in his own 
 mind, or in the world around him. I ask nothing 
 more than the Hindoo system and the Hindoo life as 
 evidence that there is that in man which demands a 
 Revelation — that there is not that in him which makes 
 the Revelation. I ask no clearer proof of the fact, that 
 whenever the religious feeling or instinct in man works 
 fi'eely, without an historical revelation, it must beget a 
 system of priestcraft. It must be satisfied by God, or 
 overlaid by man, or stifled altogether. 
 
 The question still remains : Is the help to this state
 
 56 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOKLD. [part i. 
 
 of things to come from witliin the system ? I hinted 
 that there are, or have been, Hindoo patriots who have 
 dreamed of bringing back the first state of Brahmin- 
 ism, setting up the Monotheism of the older Vedas, 
 sweeping away the accumulations of centuries. But if 
 the original Brahminism itself contained the great 
 puzzle of all subsequent ages ; if the Monotheism of 
 the Vedas admitted the doubt whether man, nay, 
 whether all things might not be a part of the Divinity ; 
 if those accumulations of centuries were the inevitable 
 results of anxieties which men could only quell by 
 destroying themselves, it seems somewhat unreason- 
 able to go back to the beginning of a series, every step 
 of which, so far as we can tell, would have to be re- 
 peated. Or, if the notion be that some form of Mono- 
 theism, not involving the idea of direct connection 
 between God and Man, or God and Nature, might 
 supersede the existing superstition, is it not playing 
 with words to speak of this as a revival or restoration ? 
 must it not be simply a denial of the fundamental 
 principle of the whole system ? We need not, however, 
 enter upon this subject at present, for both these ex- 
 periments have been made under every possible advan- 
 tage. Buddhism, a doctrine to which I hope to de- 
 vote a separate Lecture, may, at least under one of its 
 aspects, be regarded as a formal effort to revive the 
 original Brahminical idea ; an effort not without very 
 important results, which have affected a large portion 
 of the world ; but which has not displaced Hindooism
 
 LECT. II.] CAN THE OLD PAITH BE EESTOEED ? 57 
 
 on its proper soil, and which, I think, we shall find is 
 scarcely the doctrine any modern Hindoo reformer 
 would desire to produce. To the other experiment I 
 have alluded already — it is that of Mahometanism. A 
 considerable number of the Hindoo race were con- 
 verted to this faith, and profess it to this day. But it 
 could take no hold of the heart of the people, for it 
 solved no one difficulty which was perplexing them ; it 
 affirmed a truth which staggered them, and before 
 which they bowed ; one, however, which in this form 
 coalesced with scarcely any conditions of their intel- 
 lectual or of their moral being. 
 
 Whether Christianity can do for the Hindoo what 
 these systems have not done, is a question for our 
 future consideration. One or two remarks I would make 
 here which may remove some difficulties from that in- 
 quiry, and which seem to arise naturally out of the 
 present subject. I cannot feel surprise that the states- 
 men and scholars of British India, observing the failure 
 of the Mahometans to overthrow the faith and institu- 
 tions of this strange people, should have pressed 
 strongly upon their own government the duty of re- 
 specting what it had not power to subvert. I cannot 
 believe that an indiffijrence to evils which were con- 
 tinually before their eyes, or a feeling that the safety 
 of English dominion is the highest of all considerations, 
 can have induced men often of the greatest cultivation 
 and humanity to protest against the efforts which some 
 of their countrymen were making to spread the faith
 
 58 THE RELIGIONS OF THE ^yOELD. [part i. 
 
 of Europe in tlie East. It is much pleasanter, and 
 surely more reasouablej to believe that they felt there 
 was something hard-hearted, almost impious, in tramp- 
 ling upon convictions which had struck root into the 
 soil for many thousand years, which had created the 
 whole fabric of society. For such a feeling one is 
 bound to entertain the greatest respect ; only I think 
 men generally so clear-sighted must by this time have 
 perceived that there was an important oversight in the 
 inference which they drew from it. No doubt it is a 
 very serious thing to assault the belief, even the preju- 
 dices, of any ancient people. But this assault had 
 already been made ; every circumstance which brought 
 Englishmen into contact with the Hindoo was a repeti- 
 tion of it. When all nature is peopled with divinities 
 it does not require an adverse theologian to wound the 
 prejudices of the worshipper, — the army-commissary, 
 the judge, the ordinary traveller, must interfere with 
 them continually. Above all, when it came to be per- 
 ceived, as it would of course be in time perceived by 
 any benevolent government, that EogKshmen ought 
 not to be settled in a country without communicating 
 to its inhabitants some portion of that knowledge 
 which they possess, or rather, when it was found that 
 a people so eager for information, so quick in receiving 
 it, as the Hindoos, would not be content until they 
 had learnt the secret of our mechanical achievements, 
 — it was certain that some cherished tenet must be 
 outraged, some express statement in the religious books
 
 LECT. II.] DANGER OF THE HINDOO FAITH. 59 
 
 contradicted, if the teaclier of European science sliould 
 advance beyond Lis alphabet. Such considerations 
 do not prove that the idea of respecting a people^s 
 convictions is a false one ; they show only that there 
 are certain accidents of these convictions which we are 
 not only permitted, but obhged, to make light of. 
 Just in proportion to that necessity which is laid upon 
 us for showing the Hindoo that visible things cannot 
 be treated with the reverence which he has been taught 
 to feel for them, should be our desire and determin- 
 ation to preserve him from the danger to which he is 
 certainly exposed, of thinking that all the questionings 
 of his fathers respecting the invisible world had no 
 purpose or meaning. These questionings belong to 
 the most radical portion of the Hindoo mind ; in them 
 you see what the Hindoo is, what his existence means, 
 and how he has been able to stamp such an image of 
 himself upon society. To these questionings he owes 
 the activity of his intellect and imagination when all 
 his other tendencies and his outward circumstances 
 would make him indolent ; hence have arisen his love 
 of letters and his desire for science. But the time 
 has evidently come when he cannot be questioning 
 merely; he must have answers. I contend that he 
 who is able to give them is not a destroyer, but a pre- 
 server : that he will have a right to boast of having 
 upholden all that was strongest and most permanent 
 in the Hindoo life and character, while English influ- 
 ences in general were, however innocently and inevit-
 
 60 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 ably, tlireateniug to undermine them. I concede with 
 equal readiness, tliat if Christianity do not offer these 
 answers, it cannot make this boast; it must leave to 
 some other instrument the work of reo'enerating- Hin- 
 dostan. As the question is brought to this test, let us 
 gather up in a few words the enigmas which have tor- 
 mented the Hindoo so long, and of which, for the sake 
 of his practical life, he demands a solution. 
 
 First, he has had the deepest assurance that God 
 must be an Absolute and Living Being, who can be 
 satisfied with nothing less perfect than himself; and 
 yet he has an equally deep conviction that this Abso- 
 lute and Eternal Being cannot merely live in self-con- 
 templation ; that there must be some object in which 
 he sees his image reflected. The thought is expressed 
 with great earnestness and beauty in one of the early 
 Vedas, where Brahm is introduced seeking for the 
 image of himself. The words which are imputed to him 
 express the strong feeling, that a merely solitary, self- 
 seeking, abstracted being would be one whom a man, 
 experiencing his own need of sympathy and fellowship, 
 could not bear to contemplate. The thought expands 
 itself through the whole Hindoo mythology. It utters 
 itself from the beginning in the idea of a Brahma, as 
 well as a Brahm ; it gives birth to all the later notions 
 of goddesses dwelling beside the gods. If no voice 
 comes from the secret place to interpret this mighty 
 contradiction which the learned man has perceived, 
 which the most ignorant Hindoo feels, their thoughts
 
 LECT. n.] THE BEAHMIN AND SUDEA. 61 
 
 of God and their human life must continue a hopeless 
 maze. 
 
 For the perplexity which grows out of this lies 
 close to personal, as well as social, existence. May 
 not man himself be this partner of the Divinity ? If 
 he is, what means that deep assurance of a Divinity 
 retired within the sanctity and awfulness of his own 
 nature ? — if he is not, what means these yearnings in the 
 spirit after the knowledge of him ; this promise in the 
 heart that it may be attained ; this discontent while it 
 is wanting ? It is an idle thing to cut this knot by affirm- 
 ing either principle and denying the other ; all confu- 
 sions, theoretical and practical, of the Hindoo, arise from 
 the attempt to do this, and from the experience of its 
 impossibility ; only if you can show that they have 
 been reconciled, and how, will you lead him to any 
 clearness or freedom. 
 
 Again, man has this glorious faculty ; but a portion 
 of men seem without it. It must dwell in a caste ; the 
 rest must be cut off from it. Leave this thought to 
 work, and it will bring forth the fruits which it has 
 brought forth hitherto. The modern Hindoo, with his 
 European culture and science, will be just as contempt- 
 uous to all who want his information and intellect as 
 the Brahmins of old ; the twice-born notion may change 
 its form, in effect it will be as rampant and tyrannical 
 as ever. You cannot extirpate it, until you justify it 
 — until you can show that some eternal truth lies in the 
 distinction, and yet that it excludes no human creature ;
 
 C2 THE RELIGIONS OE THE WORLD. [part i. 
 
 that it asserts tlie common privilege of Brahmin and 
 Sudi'a. 
 
 Then we come to another set of questions — This 
 Absolute Being, what manner of being is he ? If it be 
 true that he stands in some relation to us and the world, 
 in what relation ? Is he benignant or hateful ? is he a 
 preserver or destroyer ? You cannot answer the ques- 
 tion with any vague flourishes of rhetoric. The Hindoo 
 is willing enough to acknowledge a kind and gracious 
 ruler, but the worshipper of Siva meets you with a set 
 of facts. Here is misery, here is death. You must en- 
 counter these facts — you cannot blink them. You must 
 I be able to say — "^ I can show that tins misery and death 
 do not interfere with the idea of a God of Order, Mercy, 
 ' Love ; I can show it by practical tokens and demon- 
 strations ; " otherwise you must leave the sects to fight 
 on for ever, with a tolerable certainty that the darker 
 will in general have the ascendency. Again, the idea 
 of a struggle between life and death, order and disorder, 
 good and evil, and of the victory having been achieved 
 by the God actually descending into the battle-field, 
 and himself taking part in the strife ; the idea that he 
 must assume some form which is subject to all the acci- 
 dents of earthly calamity ; this is one which a European 
 may easily scoff at, when he sees it presented to him in 
 the Hindoo stories, and, doubtless, he will find many a 
 learned Brahmin who is ready, with more or less reserve, 
 to scoff too, nay, to represent such a notion as quite in- 
 compatible with the higher Brahminical theology. But
 
 LECT. II.] PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED. 63 
 
 let it be well considered tliat a stern demand of tLe po- 
 pular conscience carries with it a very mighty witness ; 
 if tlie learned order bows to that demand, allows the 
 people to clothe their inward belief in their own shapes, 
 and reduces tbeir crudities to a system, we may be sure 
 that the faith of the taught is stronger and more vital 
 than that of the teacher ; it may be grosser, but it must 
 contain, at least, as real an element. Except this part 
 of the Hindoo conviction can be recognised ; unless it 
 can be shown how the belief of such a divine descent is 
 compatible with the highest idea any Brahmin can en- 
 tertain of the divine perfection, or of man's spirit being 
 intended to ascend to the apprehension and participa- 
 tion of it ; I cannot see how the Hindoo race can ever be 
 permanently raised above its present degradation, or 
 how that respect and justice, which have been so pas- 
 sionately demanded for the faith and institutions of cen- 
 turies, can be practically rendered. Once more — It is, 
 undoubtedly, a right thing in a government to suppress, 
 by actual edict and physical force, human sacrifices. 
 The Eoman, tolerant as he was of all polytheistic sys- 
 tems in the provinces, took this course in our own 
 country when he was dealing with the practices of 
 Druidical worship. But neither by this act, nor by 
 establishing municipal institutions in Britain, nor by 
 building and encouraging the natives to build baths 
 and porticoes and temples, did he provide any real sub- 
 stitute for those dark, mysterious thoughts of the 
 unseen world, which had haunted the mind of the Celt
 
 64 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paut i, 
 
 under his oaks, and wliicli found a fearful expression in 
 the sacrifices of children or of men. Those thoughts 
 were the stamina of the British heart ; when an exter- 
 nal civilization expelled them, what remained was a 
 feeble colony, groaning for help to the masters who 
 could give it help no longer; a colony which needed to 
 have all its arts and polish destroyed by a people pos- 
 - sessing some real faith, some inward strength, that the 
 soil might, b}^ this process, be prepared to bear genu- 
 ine native fruits. It will be the same with Hindostan, 
 if, while we put down the burnings of widows, and 
 bestow a culture which makes such practices disgusting 
 to its inhabitants, we are not able to show them what 
 is the true form of self-immolation, and how wife, and 
 maiden, and widow — how men, whether called to the 
 contemplative, or active life, may practise it. 
 
 I know that I am asking no light thing of any faith 
 w^hen I say, All this it must do if it is to satisfy the 
 heart and conscience of this Asiatic people. But let 
 me ask you, before I conclude, whether a faith which 
 does less than this can satisfy your hearts and con- 
 sciences ? We are in a world of action, and energy, 
 and enterprise, more unlike that dreaming and specu- 
 lative world we have been hearing of than the soil and 
 climate of England are unlike those of Hindostan. 
 I And yet I will be bold to say it, the same thoughts 
 ' which stir the spirit of the Indian sage and the Indian 
 Sudra, are working secretly beneath all our bustling 
 life, are affecting the councils of statesmen, are enter- 
 ing into the meditations of the moi'alists and metaphy-
 
 LECT. II.] THE GREAT HUMAN QUESTION. 65 
 
 sicians who most despise theology ; in another form, 
 are disturbing the heart of the country peasant, and 
 of the dweller in St. Giles's. They are such questions 
 as these — What do we worship ? A dream, or a real 
 Being ? One wholly removed from us, or one related 
 to us ? Is He a Preserver, or a Destroyer ? Has 
 Death explained its meaning to us, or is it still a 
 horrible riddle ? Is it still uncertain whether Life or 
 Death is master of the world, or how has the un- 
 certainty been removed ? What is the evil which I 
 find in myself? Is it myself ? Must J perish in order 
 that it may perish, or can it be in any wise separated 
 from me ? Can I give up myself and yet live ? W^hat 
 are these desires which I feel in myself for something 
 unseen, glorious, and perfect ? Are they all phantasy, 
 or can they be realised ? If they can, by what means ? 
 Has He to whom they point made himself known to 
 me ? How am I connected with Him ? Must I utterly 
 renounce all the things about me, that I may be ab- 
 sorbed into Him, or is there any way in which I can 
 devote them and myself to Him, and only know Him 
 the better by filling my place among them ? These 
 are the great human questions ; distance in time and 
 space does not affect them ; if we are not concerned 
 with them it is because we have not yet ceased to be 
 savages, or because we are returning, through an ex- 
 treme civilisation, into the state of savages : if they do 
 occupy us, we shall find that there can be but one 
 answer to them for the Englishman and the Hindoo. 
 
 M. B. L. F
 
 66 
 
 PART I.— LECTUEE III. 
 
 B^iddJiism. Its 01 igin and diffusion. Its various forms. The 
 Lama, Buddhism and its rivals in China. 
 
 TN my former Lectures I have spoken of two religions, 
 -^ very opposite in their character, which have ex- 
 ei'cised an influence over a large portion of the world — 
 the Mahometan and the Hindoo. The former, we said, 
 could only thrive when it was in action ; the proper 
 element of the other was rest. They were brought 
 face to face in Hindostan. The Islamite triumphed, as 
 might have been expected ; but there was a passive 
 strength in the Hindoo, which ultimately kept its 
 ground, and enables him to say that his system has 
 endured for three thousand years. 
 
 I hinted that it had had struggles with a very 
 different kind of enemy from the Mahometan — with a 
 doctrine in many of its essential peculiarities like its 
 own. That doctrine is the Buddhist, the faith of Thibet, 
 of Siam, of the Burmese Empire, of Cochin China, 
 Japan, Ceylon ; the popular, though not the state, faith 
 of China. It is said to number above three hundred 
 millions of people among its disciples ; to be, therefore, 
 by far the most prevailing religion which does exist, 
 or ever has existed, in the world. It is surely, then, 
 deserving of earnest investigation ; there must be 
 something in it which has given it this wide diffusion.
 
 LECT. III.] POEMS OF BUDDHISM. 67 
 
 It must express some necessities of man's heart, some 
 necessities of our own. 
 
 I propose, in the present Lecture, to inquire what 
 these are ; to search for the main principle of Buddhism ; 
 to consider in what relation it stands to those religions 
 of which we have spoken ; lastly, to inquire how it is 
 connected with two other systems which divide with it 
 the Celestial Empire. 
 
 A faith which is spread over such a number of 
 countries, many of them very different from each other 
 in outward circumstances, perhaps even in race and 
 early cultivation, must present great varieties, which 
 may seem to make the use of a common name rather a 
 convenient refuge for our ignorance, than a proof that 
 they have really any connection. Undoubtedly our 
 information respecting the different forms of Buddhism 
 is still very imperfect, and we have not the same means 
 of correcting and enlarging it as in the case of coun- 
 tries which have fallen under our own dominion. 
 Ceylon is, I believe, the only British possession in 
 which pure Buddhism is professed. Nevertheless, I 
 am convinced that the intelligent travellers and re- 
 sidents who have given us accounts of what they have 
 seen or heard in the different countries I have enumer- 
 ated, or what they have read in the books which these 
 countries account sacred, have not been mistaken in 
 believing that the fundamental doctrine is the same in 
 all. The opposition between different views of the 
 system, gi-eat as it is, admits, I think, of a tolerably
 
 68 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [taut j. 
 
 easy explanation; easy^ at least, if we do not merely look 
 to find a meaning in the dry records of other people^s 
 notions or practices, but compare them with what we 
 have felt and experienced in our own lives. The 
 numerous phases, however, which the system assumes, 
 make it very desirable that we should ascertain from 
 what country it was derived, where we may seek for 
 the first form of it. On this subject there is some, but, 
 I think, now not much difference of opinion. The 
 external arguments which induced Sir "William Jones, 
 and some eminent scholars of the last century, to sup- 
 pose that its native seat could not have been Hindostan, 
 have given way to later and fuller information. There 
 was a stronger internal argument, arising from a com- 
 parison of the Brahminical and Buddhist faith, which is 
 also, it seems to me, untenable ; but which is well worth 
 considering, and which at once connects the present 
 subject with that of the last Lecture. 
 
 We do not adequately describe the condition of 
 Hindostan, by saying that the priests constitute its 
 leading caste. The whole form of society has a 
 sacerdotal stamp upon it; it has moulded itself in con- 
 formity with a religious idea ; not, as some have fancied, 
 with a professional or mercantile one. And yet, when 
 we look into the meaning of this system it explains it- 
 self, by the doctrine that there is in man a capacity for 
 beholding the Unseen Being, and that there is in man 
 an animal nature which admits of no Divine converse. 
 The Brahmin is the learned^ divine, absorbed man_, the
 
 LECT. III.] BR-UIM. 69 
 
 end of wliose existence is to become one with Brahm. 
 
 Bralim himself, I observed^ was emphatically an 
 Intelligence, a thinking, not a commanding being — 
 One from whose thoughts all the universe has flowed 
 out, not one by whose will it has been created. He 
 is a higher priest, not in any sense a sovereign ; herein 
 standing in the most direct contrast to the object of 
 Mahometan worship. Between, then, the God and the 
 worshipper there is the most direct affinity, which may 
 become identity. IntelHgence is to be the characteris- 
 tic of both. The hereditary caste is to preserve this In- 
 telligence ; its discipline to prevent it from being de- 
 based by mixture with people in whom the lower nature 
 is predominant, or by contact with things which may 
 make it predominant in themselves. 
 
 Now that any set of men should arise in a society 
 constituted like that of Hindostan, to deny the existence 
 of a special caste of priests, might not seem surprising ; 
 for one might conjecture that there would be popular 
 reactions against so very strict and exclusive a system. 
 We saw that there had been such popular reactions 
 in Hindostan. They took this form. They demand- 
 ed a being less abstract than Brahm ; not a mere 
 thinking being, but one who should exercise actual 
 influence over the arrangements of Nature and the 
 world — one to whom its good or its evil might be 
 ascribed — one who should not merely cultivate inter- 
 course with an absorbed devotee, but should enter into 
 fellowship with human creatures iu their ordinary
 
 70 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [part i. 
 
 condition. To such strong workings of popular feel- 
 ing, to sucli cries of the popular heart, we traced the 
 Vishnu and Siva worship, which the priests had been 
 compelled to incorporate with that older principle it 
 seemed striving to subvert. In these cases the priestly 
 caste, whatever rude shocks it may have sustained, 
 nevertheless kept its ground, even in the hearts of the 
 people who assailed it. In fact, nothing proves more 
 clearly than such changes, how much the reverence for 
 a priestly order has been bound up with the sympathies 
 and character of this nation. Neither the awakening 
 of impulses which the priests could not control, nor 
 conquest by such an utterly unsacerdotal people as the 
 Mahometans, have availed to weaken this reverence. 
 The priests have adapted themselves to feelings which 
 they could not subdue ; their authority has waxed 
 stronger by a doctrine which threatened to crush it and 
 the popular faith together. 
 
 But the Buddhist doctrine cannot in any wise be 
 identified with this kind of movement. The word 
 Buddha, it seems to be admitted on all hands, means 
 Intelligence. That men ought to worship pure Intelli- 
 gence, must have been the first proclamation of the 
 original Buddhists. The deduction from this must 
 have been, that no caste of priests was necessary for 
 such worship. Could this doctrine have originated on 
 the soil of Hindostan ? I do not wonder that thought- 
 ful persons, especially those whose experience made 
 them aware of the facts I have just alluded to, should
 
 LECT. III.] TWO CO-EXISTENT PRINCIPLES. 
 
 have said that it could not : that a theory so contrary 
 to the tendencies of Hindoos from generation to gen- 
 eration, must have come from some other region, and 
 been rudely forced for a time upon this. But, plausible 
 as such an hypothesis may seem, I think I have given 
 you sufficient reason for distrusting it. The sacerdotal 
 principle has indeed struck its roots very deep into the 
 Indian soil, probably from as early a time as any to 
 vsrhich we can look back. It has shown itself to be, in 
 some form or other, inseparable from that soil. But it 
 has grown up side by side with another principle, from 
 which, at times, it is hardly distinguishable ; the rever- 
 ence for human intelligence ; the disposition to make 
 this the great Brahminical characteristic. It is quite 
 conceivable, then, that froin a very early time two sets 
 of men may have co-existed in Hindostan; one com- 
 posing an hereditai-y order of priests, the other a mere 
 order of sages or devotees. They co-exist in India to 
 the present day, on terms not probably of sympathy, 
 but also not of absolute opposition or repulsion. The 
 Greek writers allude to two classes seen by the soldiers 
 of Alexander, between whom it has been reasonably 
 enough supposed that a relation similar to this may 
 have subsisted. 
 
 Both will alike have aimed at converse with the 
 pure Intelligence, absorption into him. Both, there- 
 fore, will have been far removed from any wish to sub- 
 stitute for this object of worship one of a more visible 
 and earthly character. But different circumstances
 
 72 THE RELIGIONS OP THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 may have operated to draw each, of them iuto closer 
 connection with that which is visible. The hereditary 
 priest Avill have maintained his position by taking part 
 in civil employments — will gradually have exhibited 
 less of the higher and more abstracted character. The 
 devotee will have been reverenced by the people for 
 retaining and carrying out this character. Thus he 
 will have been brought into greater sympathy with 
 them ; will have been induced to symbolise the object 
 of his worship, that it might be more apparent to 
 ordinary men. In this way, perhaps, we may account 
 for the appearance of temples, possessing the charac- 
 teristics of Buddhism, which must have existed in 
 Hindostan from a very early period. Gradually the 
 distinction between these classes will have become 
 more marked and definite. Sages will have appeared 
 calling upon men to adore Buddha in purity and sim- 
 plicity, denouncing the hereditary caste, denouncing 
 the books upon which they rested their pretensions, 
 acknowledging a modified sj^mpathy with the worship 
 of the people as opposed to that of the Brahmins. In 
 what light these sages were regarded we shall consider 
 hereafter; now it is only necessary to observe that 
 there are the widest differences of opinion among 
 Buddhists respecting the time in which the original 
 sage, the first Buddhist teacher, floui-ished. That one 
 Sakya Muni appeared in the sixth century before 
 Chinst, who produced an effect upon the inhabitants of 
 India of the kind I have just described, and that he
 
 LECT. III.] OPJGIXAL SEAT OF BUDDniSM. T3 
 
 left a series of successors, seems to be ascertained. 
 But he was in all probability only tlie rekindler of 
 feelings, which had been existing previously ; only the 
 person who formally set them in opposition to the 
 Brahminical tendencies with which they had been 
 hitherto, though by somewhat loose and fragile links, 
 associated. Although, then, I would by no means 
 support a paradox which has had some countenance 
 from learned men, but not from the most learned 
 or those who have examined the subject most, that 
 Buddhism was the original doctrine, of which Brah- 
 minism was a depravation — though such an opinion 
 has to struggle with the greatest opposition of outward 
 facts, and is, I think, also quite inconsistent with the 
 respective character of the two systems ; yet I imagine 
 we must look upon Hindostan as the place from which 
 both have started, must assume that they were 
 branches from the same root, and that their separa- 
 tion, however decided at last, was a slow and gradual 
 work. Ultimately the systems did come into direct 
 collision, and it became evident that they could not 
 dwell together on the same soil. The Brahminical 
 succeeded in expelling its rival from Hindostan, and it 
 went forth to seek and to find an asylum, first in one, 
 then in another of those numerous Asiatic countries 
 which it now claims as its own. 
 
 This view of the origin of Buddhism may be a 
 great help, I think, in reconciling the very opposite 
 reports of it which we obtain from those who have
 
 74 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paut i. 
 
 seen it in different, or even in the same, localities. 
 The extreme Polytheism of India we found was not 
 so incompatible with what was said of its original 
 Monotheism, as it appeared at first. But what are we 
 to say of a doctrine which is sometimes represented as 
 one of almost perfect Theism ; sometimes as direct 
 Atheism ; sometimes as having the closest analogy to 
 what in a Greek philosopher, or in a modern philoso- 
 pher, would be called Pantheism ; sometimes as the 
 worship of human saints or heroes ; sometimes as alto- 
 gether symbolical; sometimes as full of the highest 
 abstract speculation ; sometimes as vulgar idolatry ? 
 Strange as it may seem, the same doctrine is, I be- 
 lieve, capable of assuming all these difTerent phases ; 
 no one of them can be thoroughly understood without 
 reference to the other. Each is very imperfectly 
 denoted by the names which I have used; for the 
 feehngs, good and evil, which work in the hearts of 
 human beings, can never be satisfactorily expressed 
 by mere labels describing a notion or theoiy. 
 
 1. Thus, to begin with the first supposition. Budd- 
 hism is, as we have seen, an attempt at the highest, 
 least material, idea of divinity. Buddha is clear light 
 perfect wisdom. You must not try to conceive of him 
 as doing anything. Eest is not so much his attribute 
 as his very essence. Ho is One, the One ; and it is 
 only with the inward eye, purged from sensual cor- 
 ruptions, and steadily fixed on the contemplation of 
 unity, that he can in any wise be apprehended. For
 
 LECT. III.] THE BUDDHIST'S BELIEF IN GOD. 7j 
 
 the natural eye of the ordinary man views a multi- 
 plicity of things, each thing divided and separate 
 from the other. The natural eye takes account only 
 of appearances ; it requires the severest discipline for 
 a man to behold the Keality. This is surely Theism 
 in its highest form and conception. It is something 
 much more than we are wont to mean by that word, 
 for by a Deist or Theist we often describe a person 
 who does not deny the existence of God ; who admits 
 it as a sort of ultimate fact, as the Hercules^ pillar of 
 the universe. But to the Buddhist, the belief in God 
 is the most awful, and at the same time the most real, 
 of all thoughts; one not thrust back into the corner 
 of a mind which is occupied by everything else, but 
 Avhich he thinks demands the highest and most refined 
 exercise of all the faculty that he has. It is some- 
 thing which is to make a change in himself, which is 
 at once to destroy him and to perfect him. And the 
 effect is a practical one. Buddha is ever at rest. Can 
 his worshipper be turbulent ? Can he admit any rude 
 or violent passions into his heart ? He must cultivate 
 gentleness, evenness, all serene and peaceful qualities, 
 reverence and tenderness to all creatures, or he is not 
 in his rightful state. He is not tempted, or obhged, 
 as the Brahmin is, to look upon any human creature 
 as merely animal, as excluded even from the highest 
 privileges. He denies the natural difference of the 
 Sudra ; the poorest man of the vilest race may become 
 one with Buddha. Hence, though he belongs to no
 
 TO THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [part i. 
 
 priestly family, all liis functions are more essentially 
 those of a priest than the Brahmin's can be. He 
 claims no civil distinction; he is to be reverenced 
 simply as offering up prayers for the peace and 
 prosperity of all other people. He must abstain from 
 much speech. In silence he may best hope to know 
 the Unseen Intelligence. This is one aspect of the 
 doctrine, and surely a very interesting one. 
 
 II. But if the Buddhist sage asks himself, " What 
 is it that I am contemplating : I cannot see it, or hear 
 it, or handle it ; I dare not conceive it ; it is alto- 
 gether inconceivable, and yet I know of it only by this 
 mind of mine : " he is likely to find himself in a strange 
 perplexity. Or, if he puts the case thus to himself: 
 " The end I propose to myself is to become absorbed, 
 lost, that is to say, nothing. Can it be Something 
 which is to work this result ? Can it be Something I 
 am contemplating ? '' He must say at length, " No, it 
 is Nothing. Nothing must be the gx'ound of my life, 
 of my being — of the being of all the things I see ! " 
 Here is Atheism ; a deep, hopeless void, yet touching 
 on the borders of that doctrine which implied real 
 belief in a living Divinity. 
 
 The transition to such Atheism is, no doubt, possible 
 in the Brahminical doctrine ; but here it is much easier. 
 For the existence of a continuous caste preserves the 
 tradition of a Divinity, invests it with a reality in some 
 sense independent of the mind of the beholder. Here 
 all rests upon that mind. The light seems to be pro-
 
 LECT. in.] THE BUDDHISM TEIAD. 
 
 jected from the eye ; now it uiay be a bright sun in the 
 heaven; now it may shrink into a speck ; now it may 
 vanish altogether. Yet we should draw a wrong in- 
 ference from the incapacity of the Buddhist in this state 
 of mind to give any form, to his belief, if we said that 
 it is wanting. He may even declare in honesty, " I 
 see nothing/' and the words being the utterance of 
 despair, not of triumph or satisfaction, may themselves 
 contain a sure witness, even to himself, that there is 
 that which no words or thoughts of his can comprehend ; 
 an eternal absolute ground of all words and thoughts. 
 III. And soon the Buddhist discovers an escape 
 from this void of nothingness. He began with look- 
 ing upon the One Intelligence as alone real ; all out- 
 ward nature he discarded, as merely apparent. But 
 the visible world claims its rights ; he cannot disown 
 it ; he must, in some way or other, take it into his 
 system. The Intelligence, therefore, the pure Buddha, 
 must have a partner of his throne. It is Dharma ; the 
 principle of Matter ; that out of which all things are 
 formed. But these two powers, Intelligence and 
 Matter, seem essentially opposite : if they are co- 
 workers, how can they be reconciled ? There must be 
 another power, Sanga, the mediating influence, which 
 binds the informing mind to the dead formless thing 
 upon which it woi'ks. This is nearly the explanation 
 which a Buddhist priest gave to the English resident 
 at Nepaul of a subject which has occasioned much con- 
 troversy. It is borne out by the symbols in the
 
 78 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [fxrt i. 
 
 Buddhist temples. They seem contrived to express 
 the idea of some active, productive power; of some 
 passive, merely receptive power ; again, of something 
 which is the joint result of both. If we compare the 
 Buddhist Triad with the Hindoo Triad of Brahma, 
 Vishnu, and Siva, the Creator, Preserver, Destroyer, 
 we are struck rather by their difference than their re- 
 semblance. The powers of preservation and destruc- 
 tion are militant powers ; each is continually invading 
 the kingdom of the other : Brahma is looked upon as 
 the common origin of both. Here the Intelligent 
 Power is considered as balancing, or sustaining, the 
 Passive, Material Power ; and a third as necessary to 
 their fellowship. The latter idea is, I think, by far the 
 deeper, and more suggestive ; but then it is abstract, 
 rather than personal ; more of a philosophical specula- 
 tion ; less of a practical belief. And it leads very 
 directly to the next side of Buddhism — what is called 
 its Pantheistic side. 
 
 IV. Beginning with the notion that the Intelligence 
 is entirely separated from the world — that He is One, 
 and it multiform — the Buddhist may arrive, by a series 
 of easy steps, at a conclusion which would seem most 
 opposed to this, that the Intelligence is essentially one 
 with the world : in fact, that it can only be considered 
 as the informing life or soul of the world. As in the 
 case of Brahminism, it may be rightly said that this 
 doctrine was latent in the Buddhist from the first : in 
 other words, that the moment he began to think upon
 
 LECT. III.] HUMAN BUDDHAS. 79 
 
 Nature •with no otlier data than the behef which he 
 possessed, he must inevitably terminate in this scheme. 
 But it should be said at the same time, that he has 
 struggled earnestly, even heroically, with this tend- 
 ency ; that his effort to contemplate the pure Essence 
 indicates a genuine desire to see something above the 
 world, not merely dwelling in it and actuating it. How- 
 ever true, then, it may be that Buddhism often becomes 
 a mere notion of a God diffused through all things, I 
 cannot believe that this is its characteristic principle. 
 To ascertain what that is, we must examine the next 
 allegation respecting it, that it is especially the deifica- 
 tion of human saints or heroes. 
 
 Y. We can scarcely speak of this as a phase of 
 Buddhism. Everywhere you will find certain human 
 beings called Buddhas. You will find Europeans ask- 
 ing such questions as these, When was Buddha born ? 
 How many Buddhas are there ? And those who are 
 asked seem not astonished at the inconsistency of the 
 two inquiries, or of either with that idea of a pure 
 essential Intelligence, sometimes the fixed only reality, 
 sometimes so divested of all qualities as to become 
 nothing, sometimes diffused through all things. If 
 yon consider the starting-point of the doctrine, you 
 will see that the departure from it, which is in- 
 volved in this notion of human Buddhas, is far less 
 than it seems. The abstracted man was to be- 
 come one with the Divinity. In the mind of the 
 Hindoo a whole caste is marked out for that glory.
 
 80 THE EELIGIOXS OF THE WOELD. [rAET i. 
 
 But a wliole caste evidently does not attain it ; tliere 
 must be immeasurable differences of taste, earnestness, 
 wisdom, in the priests of one generation, still more in 
 those of successive generations. So it comes to pass, 
 that there is much feeling of a divine character diffused 
 through a great many ; not so much belief of actual 
 divinity in particular individuals. Here, on the con- 
 trary, there is no check to the conviction that a man 
 has risen to the state of Godhead — may be a God. In 
 proportion as the Infinite Object fades into obscurity, 
 or waxes fearful, the vision is more cherished of his 
 appearance in some man, who in this or that period 
 confers blessings on some particular country ; traverses 
 different countries ; now mounts into the regions where 
 Indra the Lord of the Elements dwells — now descends 
 to earth, like Vishnu ; (for these powers have passed 
 from the Hindoo into the Buddhist legends;) and 
 leaves here and there, in some mountain or valley, 
 footmarks which may be noted, and become the sym- 
 bols of his continual presence. For as he has moved 
 through space, passing rapidly from one portion of the 
 globe to another, so does he live through different 
 periods of time, the same principle inhabiting various 
 forms ; the same Buddha, though there may have been 
 a number of Buddhas — though they may appear even 
 now. 
 
 YI. And now we can understand how idolatry, the 
 worship of different outward natural things, may be at- 
 tributed to this Theistic, Atheistic, Pantheistic, Human
 
 LECT. III.] SYMBOLISM OF SENSIBLE OBJECTS. 81 
 
 Doctrine. Through all nature, above and beneath, 
 Buddha has journeyed ; everywhere he has left his foot- 
 marks ; everywhere we may find tokens of him. Sun, 
 moon, and stars, all things on this earth, may speak of 
 him. Or we may think of him as the fixed Immove- 
 able Past, as the Actual Present, as the dim Future of 
 fears and hopes. But these sensible objects are too 
 distant and vague ; these Past, and Present, and 
 Future, too abstract. And we want to feel that we 
 are not contemplating them in themselves, or for their 
 own sakes, but the living, quickening Intelligence 
 which has stamped its form upon them. They 
 must be changed into symbols ; in that character we 
 must approach them and revere them. They must 
 assume shapes which, are given to them by the kindred 
 Intelligence in ourselves. 
 
 Oftentimes these shapes will be animal; for how 
 ought we to think of the creatures around us, with 
 those half-human faculties and affections which we 
 discover in them ; with the ferocity and cunning which 
 are surely not peculiar to them ? Must not they be 
 inhabited by a human spirit in some degraded, fallen 
 condition ? Are they not wandering about as signs to 
 us of what we may become ; of that state to which, 
 by cultivating the lower and baser qualities of our 
 nature, we may reduce ourselves ? So reasons the 
 Buddhist ; he reveres and fears the animals as meaner 
 forms of that Intellect, of which he sees the highest 
 form in the glorified man, the Buddha. 
 
 31. B. L. Q
 
 82 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 VII. I have not yet spoken of Buddhism as a social 
 system. I described its ministers as forming an order 
 of devotees, so distinguished from a caste of priests. 
 It is necessary to speak thus of them, for we must not 
 suppose because they have no hereditary vocation, that 
 they take their office at hazard, or that they have no 
 communion with each other. We have a very accurate 
 description of the ceremonies which are observed in 
 some countries at their consecration, of the questions 
 which are asked to ascertain that they have no bodily 
 or mental disqualification for the task. Such cere- 
 monies, though they may vary in their forms, exist 
 wherever Buddhism exists. In Thibet, which must be 
 regarded, as the centre and proper home of the religion, 
 the priests are called Lamas ; it is they who decide 
 who the Lama, the true high priest of the universe, at 
 any given time is. I say they decide who he is ; for 
 they could never allow that the faculty of choosing the 
 chief Lama resides in them. In some person or other 
 the spirit of Buddha dwells ; he is meant to be the 
 head of the universe ; to him all owe homage. This 
 Lama, therefore, never dies ; he is lost sight of in one 
 form, re-appears in another. The body of some old 
 man who has had this honour loses its breath, is laid in 
 the tomb. The Lama has passed into some infant, who 
 is brought up in a convent with special care, preserved 
 from sensual influences, taught from the cradle to look 
 upon himself as the shrine of the Divinity, and to re- 
 ceive the homage of rajahs, nations, even of the Celes-
 
 LECT. III.] THE DIAGNOSTIC OF BUDDHISM. 83 
 
 tial Empire ; nay, even of European mouarclis. Some 
 of you may remember to have read of a solemn em- 
 bassy sent by the English government at Calcutta, in 
 the days of Warren Hastings, to the court of the Lama. 
 A very aflFectiug letter had been addressed by him to 
 the English authorities in India, asking their help in 
 checking quarrels between certain native sovereigns, 
 an object, he said, which he sought diligently in prayers 
 by day and night. An old man was the author of this 
 letter ; before Mr. Turner, the English envoy, arrived 
 he had left the world ; and a child of eighteen months 
 was acknowledged as his successor. It reigned by no 
 hereditary right ; but the other Lamas presented him 
 with unquestioning faith as the representative of the 
 Perfect Intelligence through whom it would most 
 surely utter itself. 
 
 If we now try to sum up the evidence which we have 
 gathered from different indications respecting Budd- 
 hism, I do not know that we can do it better than in 
 the words of Mr. Hodgson, the resident at Nepaul, to 
 whom I have already referred. " The one infallible 
 diagnostic of Buddhism,'^ he says, with an emphasis 
 and decision which were the result of patient inquiries, 
 conducted during many years, " is a belief in the infi- 
 nite capacity of the human intellect." This is the con- 
 clusion to which all our inquiries into the system have 
 conducted us. The idea of an Adi Buddha, or Abso- 
 lute Eternal Intelligence, is there, but it is hidden ; it 
 gradually evaporates. The possibility of utter Atheism
 
 84 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. [paet i. 
 
 is there ; but the heart flies in dismay from it. The 
 vision of a Unity resulting from the reconciliation of 
 opposites is there ; but it either passes into a mere 
 theory, or seeks for images to express it, which make 
 it material. The conception of an intelligent soul iu 
 nature is there ; but it quickly resolves itself into a 
 recognition of all Nature as symbolising human deeds 
 and attributes. Lastly, the idea of deified men is 
 there ; but this loses itself in anothei-, that there is in 
 man, in humanity, a certain Divine Intelligence, which 
 at different times, and in different places, manifests 
 itself more or less completely, and which must have 
 some one central manifestation. The Human Intellect 
 is first felt to be the perfect organ of worship ; finally, 
 its one object. This is Buddhism ; this is the con- 
 viction which, with more or less of confusion, is work- 
 ing in the hearts of three hundred millions of people 
 on this globe of ours. 
 
 I greatly desire to ask this doctrine, what testi- 
 mony it bears for or against that hypothesis which it is 
 the purpose of these Lectures to examine ; the hypo- 
 thesis, I mean, that the Divine portion of the faith of 
 different nations signifies nothing ; that it is only an 
 attempt to explain the phenomena of the universe ; 
 that there is no need of a Revelation to man, because 
 in himself, in his own heart there is a sufficient reve- 
 lation of all the truths he wants to know ; that we may 
 safely leave this to work itself out as it can in the 
 different religious systems^ without pretending to incul-
 
 LECT. III.] CHINA.— SOCLIL OEDER. 85 
 
 cate notions of our own, which, perhaps, ai^e only a 
 little better than those we should displace. But I be- 
 lieve we shall be in a fairer condition to meet these 
 questions, when we have considered the circumstances 
 of a country in which Buddhism does not exist alone ; 
 in which it is counteracted, and yet, I think, also illus- 
 trated, by the presence of systems older, in that 
 country at least, than itself. 
 
 Numerous as are the puzzles which the history and 
 actual condition of China may present to European in- 
 quirers — even to those few who are acquainted with 
 •its language, and have had opportunities of closely ob- 
 serving it — 1 do not think that there is much differ- 
 ence of opinion respecting its main and distinguishing 
 characteristic. Its learned men, we are told by the 
 most respectable authorities, say, without exception, 
 *' a principle of Ordef' is that which we discover and 
 reverence in the world : " and every act of their lives, 
 the construction of their society, their art, their most 
 minute ceremonies, bear out the assertion. If you hear 
 their choicest phrases reported to you, or look at the 
 works they have produced, or remember the duration 
 of their empire, or think how many shocks from with- 
 out it has withstood, or even read one of their 
 singular state papers, you can scarcely avoid saying 
 within yourself: here is a people which, success- 
 fully or unsuccessfully, is striving to be orderly, which 
 for generations has been carrying on this struggle, 
 -which hates everything that interferes with its success,
 
 86 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 would gladly obtain it by any sacrifice. Hence the 
 preservation of historical records in their driest form 
 has been as important a purpose in their eyes as it has 
 been an indifferent or impossible one to the Hindoo. 
 Hence, from first to last, we discover among them pre- 
 cisely the opposite view of social life to that which we 
 have noticed in the conception of the Buddhist Lama. 
 The Chinese does not first ask where Spiritual Intelli- 
 gence dwells, and then confess that to this he must 
 submit. But he starts with the belief in Government 
 or Society ; and then demands that all study and intel- 
 ligence should be applied to the preservation of it. 
 The emperor is the datum or postulate from which the 
 speculations of philosophers, as well as the arrange- 
 ments of society, begin. He is put into the position 
 which he holds that he may be the spring and soul of 
 Order to the commonwealth. How he may be so he is 
 to inquire very diligently. All the functionaries of 
 government are to be chosen according to their fitness 
 to preserve that order, according to their knowledge 
 of the maxims upon which it rests. To prevent any 
 infractions of it by themselves, or those over whom 
 they rule, is to be their incessant study. Instruction 
 therefore, it would seem, has been from the earliest 
 period a primary condition of all civil duties and em- 
 ployments. The Chinese have not anticipated the 
 West more in other machinery than in that of edu- 
 cation, and in the importance which they have attached 
 to it. Schools, great and little, especially for the in-
 
 LECT. III.] CONFUCIUS.-EOOT OF HIS SYSTEM. 87 
 
 struction of those wlio shall have any offices in the 
 state, were the great distinction of those dynasties, 
 which we should call in the history of any other 
 people — here the name would be strikingly inap- 
 plicable — the heroic period of the Empire. Because 
 they fell into decay, and the fabric of social order 
 with them, it was necessary that a Reformer should 
 appear. 
 
 Confucius appeared, not to introduce new maxims, 
 but to revive the old — to explain what he saw to be the 
 conditions and first principles of Chinese government, 
 and to embody them in books. These books have been 
 for two thousand years the school-books of China : the 
 maxims of society and practical conduct possessing an 
 authority higher than any decrees, because they explain 
 that which must make decrees stable, and procure 
 obedience to them. The education of Confucius was 
 one in state affairs. He was strictly a government 
 functionary. He was disgusted with the confusion and 
 disorder which he found in all departments of the state, 
 and he retired to meditate in secret the grounds upon 
 which a reformation must be undertaken. He did not 
 trust solely to his own reflection, or to Chinese antiquity^ 
 There was an old man, Laoutsee, who spoke much of 
 the Divine Reason which dwelt within each man, of its 
 being the first object of every man to cultivate this, 
 and to bring all his faculties of body and mind under 
 its rule. This he seems to have set up as the maxim 
 of life, in opposition to the political notions of it, which
 
 88 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. [part i. 
 
 prevailed among his countrymen generally. To his 
 words Confucius listened respectfully ; though far from 
 admitting his doctrine, he turned it to account by 
 subordinating it to his own. He taught also that a 
 man must cultivate this reason in himself — must try to 
 arrive at self-government, even at perfect self-govern- 
 ment ; but all for social ends and purposes, all that he 
 mio-ht be better able to contribute towards the rational 
 administration of the state, towards the preservation of 
 public order. But where lay the root of this order ? 
 Its first ground, Confucius, still professing only to be 
 an interpreter of old and admitted doctrines, said, 
 must lie in actual relationships ; the family must sus- 
 tain the state. The authority of the father must be the 
 root of all other authority. The emperor must be re- 
 garded, must regard himself, as the common father. 
 He was set to keep his people in order, and upon this 
 principle he must order himself. These were not mere 
 words. They actually express that which has been the 
 binding principle of Chinese society, from generation 
 to generation. Jesuit missionaries, Protestant mis- 
 sionaries, English travellers, French philosophical 
 admirers of Confucius, have all alike confessed it. The 
 maxims of Confucius are faithful results of the observa- 
 tions of a man honestly desirous to make use of the 
 experience that is given him for a moral purpose ; they 
 may generally be read with interest, often with admira- 
 tion, as hints for conduct — even as helps to internal 
 self-discipline. But they would be feeble ajid unmean-
 
 LECT. III.] CONFUCIUS NOT AN ATHEIST. 89 
 
 iug, and could scarcely have exercised any great influ- 
 ence on tlie mind of a nation^ if they had not rested 
 upon the recognition of a real and eternal principle of 
 order, lying far deeper than all Chinese formalities, or 
 than the formalities in the mind of Confucius himself. 
 Fatherly authority was his ultimate principle. Practi- 
 cally, he went not a step beyond it. What he heard of 
 divine, unseen, mysterious powers above man, or above 
 nature, or even in man and in nature, of some thing or 
 person beyond the earthly emperor, or the earthly 
 father — he by no means denied. Whatever faith his 
 countrymen had respecting the invisible world, he 
 would have wished to confirm. But he did not see his 
 way in such inquiries : he could not trace the actual 
 connection between them and practical life. And the 
 sincerity of his mind revolted against the notion of 
 merely using them as artifices, to keep up respect for 
 human institutions. On this ground he has, I think, 
 been too hastily condemned as an atheistical philosopher. 
 I cannot feel any desire to make good such a charge. 
 It is a pleasanter, and also a truer course to admit that 
 his confession of ignorance may have been a genuine 
 one ; and may even have implied that he had deeper 
 thoughts than he knew how to express. We may be 
 sure that what there was weak and maimed in his 
 scheme will discover itself in the course of history, and 
 that this discovery will be far more valuable than any 
 rash conclusions of ours respecting it. 
 
 Not many centuries after this reform, a Chinese
 
 90 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 emperor became aware that there was som.e blank in 
 the doctrine of Confucius ; a blank which was not filled 
 up by turning him into a god, and raising temples to 
 him. Side by side with the Confucian, or State- worship, 
 dwelt the Taou sect, the disciples of that old philosopher 
 with whom Confucius had conversed, men who still 
 maintained that the Reason was something divine and 
 mysterious in each person, and would lead him into 
 inward contemplation, not make him the handy instru- 
 ment in a State machinery. But these people had 
 little faith, except in themselves. The effect of their 
 mysterious knowledge upon others seemed chiefly ex- 
 hibited in charms and incantations and magic arts, 
 which interfered with the good order of the State, 
 rather than promoted it. Something else was wanted. 
 The emperor heard of a great teacher and prophet 
 somewhere in India. In spite of the remonstrances of 
 wise men, who showed him how grievously he was de- 
 parting from Chinese maxims in preferring foreign to 
 native culture, the Buddhist faith was imported into 
 the empire. A religion resting upon communion with 
 the unseen world, in all its outward and many of its 
 inward characteristics the direct opposite of the Con- 
 fucian system, gained footing on the soil which that 
 system ruled. The result was what might have been 
 expected. The new faith took hold of popular sympathy, 
 and has retained that sympathy to the present day. It 
 was and is despised by the great mandarins, by the 
 functionaries of government, by the adorers of social
 
 LECT. III.] BUDDHIST AND CONrUCIAN DOCTRINE. 91 
 
 order. But it is more than tolerated by the government 
 as such ; it is recognised as deserving of respect, even 
 of homage. Though the emperor cannot allow the 
 Lama to interfere with his own supreme rule^ and has 
 procured the appointment of a deputy Lama who shall 
 be really the head of the Buddhist society in his 
 dominions, and his subject, he yet sends embassies to 
 the high priest in Thibet, and asks his intercessions for 
 China. Evidently Buddhism is felt, even by the dis- 
 ciples of Confucius, to be an element of society in 
 China which cannot be dispensed with, and for which 
 their own system, much as they may prefer it, offers no 
 substitute. 
 
 I have said, that in most of its inward, as well as 
 outward characteristics, the Buddhist and the Confucian 
 docti'ine are opposed. I used this language, because 
 it is evident that in one respect they are not opposed. 
 Different as are the functions which are assigned to the 
 intellect of man in the three Chinese systems, that in- 
 tellect is still an object of profound veneration to all. 
 Wisdom is viewed as wholly social and experimental in 
 the first, internal and mystical in the second, strangely 
 mixed with the idea of what is superhuman and eternal 
 in the third. Had it been otherwise, had there been 
 nothing common in these faiths, it is scarcely possible 
 to conceive of them dwelling together in such an empire; 
 or to svippose that one should at all supply the gaps in 
 the other. 
 
 And which, then, of these three faiths shall we say
 
 92 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 can be described by that compreliensive formula, " a 
 mere attempt to explain the phenomena of the uni- 
 verse ? " All three do attempt that, doubtless, — Budd- 
 hism, especially. But, does the faith of the Buddhist 
 consist in this ? Is it this which in his inmost heart 
 he wants to know ? Every inquiry we have made has 
 led us to the opposite conclusion. He is obliged to 
 question the universe, because he does not know what 
 else he should question. He has questioned it, and to 
 every problem which disturbs him it has returned a 
 more confused answer. He has asked, what that is 
 within him which is higher than it, what that is which 
 seeks a knowledge which it cannot give ? He is sure 
 that he is above the world — that it was never meant to 
 be his master — that the spirit in him must have its 
 ground elsewhere. But where ? What is this ground ? 
 Is it anything ? Is it nothing ? Who will tell him ? 
 That which has asked the question cannot give the 
 answer. With deepest solicitude, he cries, " Do Thou, 
 of whom I see the footmarks in natural things, but 
 most of all in human beings, in those who have thoughts, 
 and reasons, and wills, — in those who feel that these 
 are not meant to be the servants of their senses or of 
 the things with which their senses deal, — do Thou tell 
 me who Thou art, and how I may draw nigh to Thee. 
 Tell me what Thou hast to do with man, for something 
 Thou must have. Tell me if there be a man, and where 
 he is, in whom I may behold Thee ; One who is not 
 here to-day, and gone to-morrow ; but who, amidst all
 
 LECT. III.] THE RESULTS OP BUDDHISM. 93 
 
 changes of timeSj the disappearance of generations, 
 lives on. Tell me if there be indeed a King and High 
 Priest of the universe — a man actually Divine. And 
 this, too, I need to know: What that Light is which 
 dwells in me ; whether it is self- derived, or, as my in- 
 ward heart tells me, derived from Thee. Whether 
 there be any Spirit coming forth from Thee to dwell 
 in men, and bind them together — to make them gentle, 
 and gracious, and wise — to be the common life of all, 
 and still the life of each. And if these things be so, 
 tell me how these things can be reconciled, as my 
 reason has whispered that they can be, though as yet 
 I see not how, with that Unity — the essential condition 
 of Thy Being — that which divides Thee from all the 
 multitude of things and persons with whom in this 
 world we converse.^' I say that Buddhism, rightly in- 
 terpreted, is a prayer of this kind — an earnest prayer, 
 consciously or unconsciously uttered by three hundred 
 millions of people. And yet we are told that it is 
 honouring the faith of these people, showing tender- 
 ness and respect for them to believe that there is not 
 any Revelation, save that which man procures for him- 
 self. In other words, that this prayer never has been, 
 never can be, answered. Only if we have really 
 brought ourselves to this contempt for the thoughts of 
 so many human beings, can we patiently think of this 
 faith working out, as the phrase is, its own results. 
 It has been working out its results for all these thou- 
 sands of years — and what have they been? The
 
 94 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. [part i. 
 
 •worsliip of the intellect lias not caused the intellect. to 
 gYow — not even to grow to an ordinary human or 
 earthly stature ; I say nothing of that Divine stature 
 which it feels that it may reach. The priest of Buddha, 
 of the Intelligence, is rarely an intelligent man. That 
 mighty portion of the globe over which Buddhism rules 
 is nearly the most ignorant portion of it. And yet in 
 it lie the seeds of all highest, noblest culture, if only 
 we can reallv address ourselves to that which is within 
 the hearts of those who hold this faith, if we can only 
 tell them that which they crave to know. That it is a 
 vain and cruel thing merely to carry our own notions 
 among them — our notions upon any subject, divine, 
 human, earthly, I admit readily. If we do not know 
 that which will solve their riddle — if we cannot tell 
 them — Here is that which will turn doubt and confusion 
 into clearness ; here is that which is not our notion, 
 but which has come from God to confound our notions, 
 to confound our pride ; and which is meant, not for us, 
 but for mankind : for mercy's sake, let us be silent— 
 the Buddhists are better as they are. 
 
 So also of the Confucian scheme. That cannot be 
 charged with want of practical results. Yet that some- 
 thing is wanting, China itself has confessed. Can it 
 be supplied from within ? When we fancy it I think 
 we commit a great injustice. Mr. Medhurst, the author 
 of an interesting book on China, the result of his own 
 observations, expresses his wonder and even indigna- 
 tion, that Confucius, having dwelt so beautifully on the 
 ritrhts and duties of a father, should not have carried
 
 LECT. III.] WHAT THE CHINESE EEQUIEE. 95 
 
 up his tliouglits to the Great Father of all. I confess 
 that I feel quite unable to adojDt this language. It 
 seems to me evidence of Confucius being a sincere man, 
 that he did not allow himself to use mere figures of 
 rhetoric upon this subject, for such in his lips they 
 would have been. If having spoken of one holding an 
 actual relation under the name of Father, he had after- 
 wards used that word as a synonym for a Creator or 
 for an unknown Being, the pleasure which such ex- 
 pressions might have caused us would have been dearly 
 purchased by the loss of reality in the mind of him 
 who resorted to them. If you can tell the Chinese 
 that this is an actual relation, that it has been proved 
 to be so, that our human relation is the image of it, 
 that the reality of one gives reality to the other, that 
 the honour paid to relationships is not incompatible 
 with that seemingly abstract, unsocial, unreal view of 
 the Reason of which the Taou sect has been the 
 champion; and that the Buddhist spiritualism is not 
 an element of new confusion, but of reconciliation — 
 you will indeed discover to him that deepest foundation 
 of order which he is looking for — you will show him 
 that way from the visible to the Invisible which he has 
 never yet discovered. But any teaching short of this, 
 that hard and formal and yet withal practical and 
 serious mind of his will repel. You will find that you 
 have not learnt the spell which can break the heavy 
 yoke of custom from off his neck, and change him from 
 the most perfect of living machines into a living Man.
 
 96 
 
 PAET I.— LECTURE IV. 
 
 The Old Persian Faith and its Destruction. The Egyptian. 
 Tlie Greeh The Roman. The Gothic. General Conclusion. 
 
 npHE Mahometan, the HiudoOj and the Buddhist, are 
 -"- the great prevailing faiths of the world. A person 
 indeed who should insist upon reducing all the religious 
 thouo-hts and convictions he met with in different places 
 under one of these three heads, would exhibit great 
 practical ignorance ; for the feelings and apprehensions 
 which belong to actual human beings will not bear to 
 be so treated. A man will not really be intelhgible to 
 you, if, instead of listening to him and sympathising 
 with him, you determine to classify him. But it is 
 true, that one who has patiently studied and livingly 
 realised the characteristics of these wide-spread beliefs, 
 will not be hopelessly puzzled by the notions of men 
 in any part of the globe, civilised or savage. There 
 are no other existing forms of rehgious thought suffi- 
 ciently distinct from these to deserve a separate exam- 
 ination in such a course of Lectures as this ; none which 
 have not grown out of them, or have not been rapidly 
 absoi'bed into them. And it is of existing systems 
 ■ that I wished first and chiefly to speak, because for 
 the practical object I proposed to myself, and which 
 Boyle desired we should keep in sight, these must be
 
 LECT. IT.] PERSIA. 97 
 
 the most important. I could not^ however^ do proper 
 justice to the subject, if, before I enter upon the second 
 division of it — the consideration of the way in which 
 Christianity is related to different religions — I did not 
 touch upon what may be called the defunct systems, 
 those which belong to history, and which have yielded 
 to the might either of the Crescent or the Cross. The 
 word '''' defunct," we shall soon find, is only in one sense 
 applicable to them ; they had that in them which is 
 not dead, and cannot die ; that which is exerting an 
 influence upon the mind and education of Christendom 
 at the present day. Still, as systems, they belong to 
 the past ; they will therefore supply a new kind of test 
 for trying the maxims respecting the worthlessness 
 and transitoriness of what is merelv theoloo^ical, which 
 I have been examining in former Lectures. For the 
 reason I have given they ought not to be treated in the 
 same detail as those which have occupied us hitherto : 
 indeed, I do not think we should gain so much by con- 
 sidering them in detail, as by glancing at them side by 
 side ; so that the principles which distinguish them, 
 and those wherein they are alike, may be more readily 
 discerned. I shall therefore endeavour to compress 
 what I have to say of them into a single Lecture. 
 
 I. The old Persian religion is the first which offers 
 itself to our notice, as standing in a close relation, both 
 outwardly and inwardly, to the Hindoo. The Zenda- 
 vesta, the religious book in which this faith is profess- 
 edly set forth, cannot be appealed to as a very certain 
 
 jr. B. L. H
 
 98 THE EELIGIONS OP THE WOELD. [p.uit r. 
 
 authority respecting it ; what we possess is confessedly 
 a compilation from earlier sources ; and though critics 
 think that they can detect older fragments in the midst 
 of it, there is great difficulty in separating them from 
 the mass, or in determining the time when it was put 
 together. The age and history of the man who is 
 spoken of as the great prophet of this faith, Zerdusht 
 or Zoroaster, are equally obscure. It has even been 
 questioned whether such a man ever existed — whether 
 he does not merely represent a divine principle, or a 
 stage in a nation's history. It might seem, then, as if 
 this doctrine, of which we have such vague records, 
 must have exercised but a slight influence ; at all events, 
 that its essential character cannot be ascertained. 
 Both conclusions would be erroneous. Whatever 
 authority the Zendavesta may have, whatever kind of 
 person Zoroaster may have been, the Persian faith has 
 been bound up with the life of a great portion of Asia, 
 and has left as strong evidences as any both of its 
 nature and of its power over the minds of men, even in 
 generations far removed from each other. 
 
 The readers of Gibbon will remember a splendid 
 passage of his history describing a great Asiatic revo- 
 lution which took place in the third century after 
 Christ. The old Persian empire was then ruled by the 
 Parthians. Their dynasty had lasted for several cen- 
 turies : it had been set up after the Greek armies had 
 conquered Asia ; after they had established their own 
 habits and civilisation in the midst of it. Their wor-
 
 LECT. IV.] CHAEACTER OP THE PERSIAN FAITH. 99 
 
 ship the Parthians to a considerable extent adopted ; 
 the old faith of the Persians they crushed. At the 
 period I speak of it was found that this faith had lain 
 hidden under the soil, but had never been destroyed. 
 The Magi came forth and proclaimed that which they 
 affirmed to be the original teaching of Zoroaster. The 
 innovations of five centuries were swept away ; a dyn- 
 asty which the Persians recognised as the continuation 
 of the old kingdom of Cyrus was established, and the 
 nation's old belief was the foundation upon which it 
 rested. This power became the great Eastern antago- 
 nist of Rome : at a later period it had nearly wrested 
 the empire of Asia from Constantinople : it sunk at 
 last under the irresistible strength of the Mahometan 
 armies. For a time, those whom the Mahometans 
 called fire-worshippers struggled hard : at length they 
 vanished into an insignificant sect ; Persia acknow- 
 ledged the Prophet of Arabia as its one divine teacher. 
 But what was the faith which governed the old 
 Persian while he ruled the world — which dwelt so 
 deeply in the heart of a people that it could revive 
 after a lapse of centuries — which perished all but ut- 
 terly at last ? We have seen that the Brahm of the 
 Hindoo, the Buddha of that mighty sect which arose 
 out of Hindooism, is especially the Intelligent Being, 
 He in whom light dwells, and by communication with 
 whom men become enlightened. Observe how natur- 
 ally, how inevitably, one uses this word Light for In- 
 telligence. We feel instinctively that it is much the
 
 100 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [past i. 
 
 better word of the two ; tliat one is hard and abstract, 
 the other living and real. So men have felt in all 
 countries and ages. Their bodily eye distinguished 
 one thing from another — could exert itself in the day, 
 was useless in darkness. They had as certainly some- 
 thing within them which could discern a sense in words, 
 a meaning in things. This surely was an eye too. 
 There was no better way of speaking about it : And 
 there must be some light answering to this eye, older 
 than it, otherwise it could not be. They discovered, 
 too surely also, that there was a state in which this eye 
 saw nothing, a state of darkness. If we keep these 
 very simple thoughts in our minds, (I say, keep them 
 in our minds, for they are there already ; we are obliged 
 to make use of this language — it belongs to us all, to 
 prince and peasant alike) ; and if we recollect that what 
 we are apt to overlook as too simple is oftentimes just 
 the most important thing of all — the key which unlocks 
 a multitude of treasure-houses — we shall be able to 
 enter into the belief of different people, and to trace 
 the transition from one to another far more easily. The 
 conviction which we have found dwelling so strongly 
 in the minds of Brahmin and Buddhist, though taking 
 different forms, was this — " he who has the inward eye 
 most opened, must be the greatest man : he in whom 
 it is quenched, must be the lowest and most miserable 
 man." And the puzzle which we saw tormenting them 
 both, in different ways and different degrees, was this. 
 But where is this light ? Is it only in the eye ? What
 
 MCT. IV.] ORMUZD AND AHRIMAN. 101 
 
 then does the eye behold ? Is it not in the eye ? 
 How then can I call that a light ? A very deep ques- 
 tion indeed ; the answers to which, in every case, are 
 full of practical significance. The Persian solution 
 was the most simple of all. He felt that his whole life 
 was precisely this debate between light and darkness. 
 There must, he said, be Lords over this light and over 
 this darkness. This had probably been his oldest and 
 
 strongest conviction. 
 
 The nights in Persia are clear and beautiful. The 
 stars were a language which spoke to peasant and 
 priest alike of light coming out of darkness. On 
 these the one will have meditated till he thought them 
 powers and rulers of the world; the other will have 
 paid them actual homage. The Magians, the servants 
 of the Light, will have devised a system of worship 
 addressed to these. If Zerdusht or Zoroaster were a 
 real man, he probably arose at a time when this 
 worship had become very general, and when the mind 
 of the people had become much debased by it. To 
 some man, or some men, it was given to perceive that 
 the ministers of light had become ministers of dark- 
 ness. Those things which symbolised a Divine Ligh* 
 had been substituted for it. He rose up as the wit- 
 ness for Ormuzd, the Lord of Light, to testify that 
 lio-ht comes from him, and not from the outward, 
 material things ; that whoso serves them is the servant 
 of Ahriman, the Px'ince of Darkness. While Ahriman 
 teaches his servants to bow down before visible things.
 
 102 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 Ormuzd communicates to men his living Word, (that 
 is the meaning of Zendavesta,) speaks to their hearts, 
 teaches them the laws of justice and order. The 
 battle between Ormuzd and Ahrimau will be long, but 
 Ormuzd must triumph at last. The kingdom of light 
 is mightier than the kingdom of darkness. This was 
 the substance of the Persian faith, to the revival of 
 which, in its strength and simplicity, all that was 
 vigorous in the Persian character and government 
 seems to have been owing. There was the greatest 
 difference between it and the Hindoo — precisely this 
 difference. The Hindoo thought of light and dark- 
 ness as the opposition between cultivation and ignor- 
 ance — between the Brahmin and the Sudra; the 
 Persian looked upon them as expressions for right and 
 wrong. Far less refined and intellectual than the 
 Indian, far less capable of mere speculation, he had a 
 sense of practical, moral distinctions to which the 
 other was almost a stranger, or, at least, which never 
 presented themselves to him, nakedly and directly, as 
 the foundation of all other distinctions. Hence a 
 difference in their scheme of life. Right must be pro- 
 claimed by some one ; not merely recognised or per- 
 ceived. The Persian, therefore, looked much more to 
 an authority which should command men, or to a 
 teacher who should impart wisdom, than merely to a 
 thinker or devotee. He regarded the king, from 
 whom the law and words of grace proceeded, with 
 more reverence than the priest. There might be
 
 LECT. IV.] THE PEESIAN PUZZLE. 103 
 
 many conflicts between tlie two, at times tliey might 
 work in harmony, but this was the abiding, character- 
 istic Persian feeling. 
 
 But there were two or three difficulties specially 
 besetting him who held this faith. The Persian felt 
 that visible things were not to be adored. It was the 
 worship of Ahriman to set up them as the lords of 
 men. Yet he had more need than the Hindoo to feel 
 that the object he was worshipping was above himself, 
 not merely in himself. He must speak of the Light 
 as coming to him, not merely as proceeding from him. 
 But if so, how shall he realise it ? Must not the light, 
 or must not the fire, or must not the sun, be in some 
 sense or other an object for him to fear and obey ? 
 This thought would be always re-appearing in the 
 popular mind, nay, in the mind of the teacher who 
 most protested against it, when he was struggling 
 with the tendency in himself and other men to set up 
 their own thoughts as if the true Light was in them. 
 To meet it the Magian devises a theory. These out- 
 ward objects are but images or counterfeits of some- 
 thing within ; they are the productions of the king of 
 darkness : the good and great beings who appear iu 
 the world come forth from the inner kingdom to sub- 
 vert these. Starting from such a notion as this, it 
 was easy to produce a universe of phantasies ; the 
 simple and earnest mind of the Persian, struggling 
 against them, and struggling in vain, would plunge 
 into direct idolatry. Another awful question there 
 
 /
 
 104 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet i. 
 
 was : Did tliis power of good originate tlie power of 
 evil, or is each self- created ? Or whence do they 
 come ? Some hidden being there must be — some 
 deeper ground than all that man could conceive. They 
 tried to express it in some name — they called this 
 ground of all things, Time without Bounds. 
 
 Under this last form the Persian faith came into 
 contact with the Christian Church of the first ages. 
 The influence of the Gospel over Persia was slight and 
 partial; but the preachers of it perceived a deep 
 meaning in the Persian speculations. Gradually some 
 appeared who thought the speculation beautiful, who 
 cared little for the solution. These produced some of 
 the darkest of the early heresies. When the Mussul- 
 man encountered the Persian faith he felt no such 
 temptation. "Is this your God — this Time without 
 bounds, this phantasy the Living Being? It is im- 
 possible. No ! pretend what you will, you are wor- 
 shippers of fire, or of the sun, or of the stars. With 
 our swords we cut through your webs of sophistry — 
 through your worlds seen and unseen — your good and 
 your evil principles. There is one God, and Mahomet 
 is his prophet. Yield to that belief, or perish ! " 
 
 The victory was very complete; such an one is 
 hardly recorded in the annals of the world. But when 
 it was effected there was found to be something im- 
 perishable in Persian faith and feelings which could 
 changre the characteristics of Mahometanism itself. 
 To it we owe those stoi"ies of fairies and genii, which
 
 LECT. IV.] EGYPT. 105 
 
 mix with our earliest impressions of Mahometanism. 
 In a later time Persia became tlie home of the great 
 Sofi schism, which has introduced a new Pantheistic 
 element into the doctrine of the Koran. Under the 
 Mahometan teaching, which in Turkey has certainly 
 been favourable to veracity, the strong sense of moral 
 right and wrong which distinguished the Old Persian 
 has deserted him. He who was celebrated by Xeno- 
 phon as above all men the speaker of truth, has 
 become proverbial for lying. 
 
 II. The history of Persia at a certain period becomes 
 connected with that of Egypt. The connection is a 
 religious one. The Persian king, Cambyses, seems to 
 have been a fanatic, and to have carried on wars, if not 
 for the propagation of his own faith, at least, for the 
 punishment of those who held what he thought a false 
 one. The Egyptian pxnests were especial objects of 
 his abhorrence. If we ask on what grounds, we shall 
 be led into the consideration of another faith of the 
 old world, which has left the most singular records of 
 itself; which at different periods of its existence is 
 bound up with Jewish and with Greek history ; which 
 was an object of profound interest to students two 
 thousand years ago, and is scarcely of less interest to 
 the students of our own century. 
 
 One subject immediately suggests itself to most of 
 us when we think of Egypt. I mean its hieroglyphics, 
 or sacred symbolical writing. And as the deciphering 
 of this writing has been the key to all modern dis-
 
 106 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 coveries respecting the details of tlie history of this 
 people, so the mere fact itself that they did use such a 
 character, is, perhaps, the most helpful of all to the 
 understanding of its princijile. We have seen what a 
 puzzle it was to the Persian to connect the outward 
 things which he saw with those which were objects of 
 his thought; how continually there seemed to be some 
 light very near to his mind and heart which was re- 
 vealing itself to him ; how, while he realised this con- 
 viction, the outward sensible things which withdrew 
 him from this light, were regarded as dark and evil ; 
 and yet how difficult he found it to express his thoughts 
 about that inward light, except in terms which soon 
 became confused with sensible images. The Egyptian 
 never seems to have had this horror of visible things. 
 He felt that something very sacred lay beneath them, 
 and was expressed by them. To discover what this 
 was, to read what was hidden in the objects of nature, 
 was, in his apprehension, the function of the wise man. 
 Then he was to translate back these perceptions of his 
 into outward forms and images, that the vulgar might 
 be able to profit by them so far as it was meant that 
 they should. Hence, there grew up an order of priests 
 in Egypt, as separate from the rest of society as the 
 Brahmins. A caste system organised itself in the 
 African, as in the Asiatic, nation. But the Egyptian 
 priest was not an abstracted man in the same sense as 
 the Hindoo ; he did not so much withdraw himself 
 from the contemplation of outward things, as seek to
 
 LECT. IV.] HIEROGLYPHICS— WHAT THEY IMPORT. 107 
 
 extract a virtue and a ineaniug from them. His first 
 thought of all seems to have been that there was a 
 Being hidden from man^ but who was making himself 
 manifest in different forms and signs. His operations 
 in nature, the power which is exerted over the earth, 
 and the life which goes on within it, might, especially 
 in a country of such unparalleled fertility as Egypt, 
 present themselves as objects of wonder and witnesses 
 of a Divine presence. But it would be impossible to 
 think of these powers in the earth, without thinking 
 of the animals which dwell upon it, of the dilFerent 
 powers and qualities which they display, of their birth, 
 and decay, and renewal. These animals supply him 
 with more distinct and definite symbols than the vague 
 expanse of the heaven or earth. Different kinds of 
 power are more concentrated and expressed in them ; 
 they can be far more easily exhibited in stone or in 
 writing. Hence these became predominant objects of 
 meditation to the priests. The various characteristics 
 of the Godhead very soon become Gods. Students of 
 Egyptian monuments discover three stages in the 
 worship — three different cycles of gods. In the earli- 
 est cycle the idea of the Ammon, the hidden god, is the 
 predominant one ; and his manifestations are them- 
 selves rather in active energies, in vital operations, 
 than in outward objects. The third cycle is the one 
 most dii'ectly outward, hinting, however, at principles 
 which in the first period were less perceived. As might 
 be expected, different cities are found to have different
 
 108 THE EELIGIONS OP THE WORLD. [part i. 
 
 classes of symbols ; those in Upper Egypt to be charac- 
 teristically diverse from those in the Lower ; though at 
 some period an attempt must have been made to bi"ing 
 all into one system. 
 
 Here, then, we seem to be in i/ie idolatrous country 
 — the country of divided worship : that which teaches 
 us what idolatry means; how man loses sight of a 
 centre : how every separate thing about him may be- 
 come his master. And yet, throughout the whole of 
 this idolatry, there is a perpetual questioning of an un- 
 known power to tell what this visible creation means. 
 Each thing that is beheld is a riddle, an oppressive, 
 tormenting riddle, of which some solution must be 
 found. The Egyptian priest feels that the riddle is m 
 the things. He does not put it into them, and it is 
 not for him to do more than catch a stray hint of what 
 each is denoting. But there is some object, some 
 centre. The Pyramids point up to heaven as if they 
 would say, " We are in search of it, we would reach it 
 if we could. ^' 
 
 Such a system as this, on whatever side he viewed 
 it, would be very offensive to a Persian king, especi- 
 ally if he lived shortly after the revival of his own faith, 
 and before it had undergone any of its later changes. 
 The Egyptians would seem to him worshippers of those 
 outward things, which he was taught to regard as in 
 some sort the possessions of Ahriman. And all their 
 mystical wisdom would look like miserable attempts to 
 bring light out of darkness. It was far otherwise with
 
 LECT. IT.] LATER EGYPTIAN HISTOEY. 109 
 
 tlie Greek. Tlie inquiries and speculations of the 
 Egyptian priests were listened to by him with atten- 
 tion and wonder. He thought they had a secret which 
 he did not possess ; he eagerly, but often in vain, 
 questioned them to learn what it was. In later times, 
 when a Greek kingdom had established itself in the 
 heart of Egypt, under the Ptolemies, both Jews and 
 Greeks met upon that soil, and the old Egyptian feel- 
 ing, of a mysterious meaning lying at the root of all 
 things, exercised a remarkable influence over both. 
 The influence was felt by the Christian Church which 
 established itself afterwards there, and which consisted 
 of both elements. It has left deep traces in the thoughts 
 of men during all subsequent periods. But Christi- 
 anity, which had a strong hold upon the Greek cities 
 of Egypt, seems never to have penetrated into the 
 heart of the country population. The symbolising 
 tendencies which it had inherited from the old faith led 
 to divisions on most momentous points, which ap- 
 peared to lose their momentousness in the violent 
 party strifes and intellectual subtleties to which they 
 gave rise. Egypt became sectarian and demoralised ; 
 the Mahometan power established itself there. Various 
 dynasties and various forms of Islamisra have possessed 
 it at difiei-ent times; the arms which swept away 
 subtleties and janglings were utterly unable to cultivate 
 the mind of the Egyptian. All the European refine- 
 ments and material wisdom of its present ruler have not 
 awakened one thought in the people^s heart, or done
 
 no THE EELIGIONS OP THE WOELD. [part r. 
 
 aught but make their slavery more ignominious and 
 hateful. If the Memnon lyre is again to give forth any 
 music, it must be touched by the rays from some sun 
 which is not yet visible in that heaven. 
 
 III. To understand the difference between the 
 Egyptian and the Greek faith, it is not necessary to 
 study a great many volumes, or to visit different lands : 
 our own British Museum will bring the contrast before 
 us in all its strength. If we pass from the hall of 
 Egyptian antiquities into the room which contains the 
 Elgin marbles, we feel at once that we are in another 
 world. The oppression of huge animal forms, the 
 perplexity of grotesque devices, has passed away. 
 You are in the midst of human forms, each individu- 
 ally natural and graceful, linked together in harmoni- 
 ous groups; expressing perfect animal beauty, yet 
 still more the dominion of human intelligence over the 
 animal. You perceive that the Greek is not mainly 
 occupied with spelling out a meaning in the forms of 
 nature : their symmetry and harmony present them- 
 selves to him as delightful and satisfying. He is not 
 trying to find out the natural characters in which he 
 shall utter his thoughts : he feels that he is able to 
 write them in a character devised by themselves, upon 
 nature. He can take the forms of the world and 
 mould them into expressions of the spirit that is work- 
 ing in himself. The Brahm or Buddha of the East, 
 the God of Intelligence, is with him. At Delphi, the 
 centre of the world, he utters his oracles of wisdom,
 
 LECT. IV.] APOLLO— ZEUS. Ill 
 
 by which states and men are to rule themselves. But 
 he is no mere formal, abstract Divinity : He is all 
 Light like the Persian God ; you may see him in the 
 sun j but he himself is a beautiful human being, with 
 his quiver and bow, destroying the creatures that 
 ofleud the earth, or punishing human wrongs ; with 
 the lyre, at the sound of which cities spring up and 
 men are brought into order and harmony. Apollo 
 seems to be the central figure in Greek mythology, 
 that around which the others have disposed them- 
 selves. The idea of Light and Wisdom, which is 
 concentrated in him, is diffused in different forms, 
 male and female, through the rest of the mythology, 
 each having some particular locality, and presenting 
 some different aspect to the Greek mind. 
 
 But it is felt that this bright, clear, human form 
 cannot be the ground of all things, A Hindoo might 
 have said that he was an emanation from the First 
 Principle ; but a Greek, with his strong human feel- 
 ings, at once refers him to a Parent, and says that he 
 must be the Son of Zeus, the Lord of All. And what 
 is He, and where does He dwell ? On a high Thessalian 
 hill, out of the sight of men. There his thunders are 
 heard ; thence his decrees come forth. An awe sur- 
 rounds his habitation, but he too very speedily be- 
 comes a clear, definite conception. He is seen in a 
 human form, presently figured in sculpture. Human 
 acts and passions are ascribed to him. The thought 
 of mere solitary, self-subsisting grandeur is intolerable
 
 112 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD, [part i. 
 
 to the Greek ; around him therefore must be a council 
 of chiefs. And since the upper world seems his pos- 
 session, since it is impossible to conceive of him 
 otherwise than in the World of Light, the nether 
 world, the dark world, must have its own ruler, and 
 that other strange region, which seems neither to 
 belong to the world above nor to the world below, the 
 illimitable ocean, on which the Greek gazed with 
 delight and child-like wonder, which was ready to 
 swallow him up, and yet which owned his rule, which 
 he could traverse with his ships, which gave him a 
 sense of unbounded freedom and communion even 
 while it shut him in, and separated him from his 
 fellows — this too must have its Monarch. 
 
 There was delight in forming these conceptions, in 
 moulding them into actual shapes ; and yet the heart 
 craved for something else, something that it could not 
 thus conceive and mould. Dreams came to them of 
 an earlier period, when another divinity, older than 
 Zeus, had dominion — Chronos, or Time, was his name. 
 Of such a one Zoroaster had spoken, but his abstrac- 
 tion of time without limits is quickly moulded by the 
 Greek into an outward form, — an old man with a 
 scythe, who devours his children as soon as they are 
 born. So quickly did these visions of a world above 
 man, or of a world in the past, take their shape and 
 colouring from the actual world, and from the mind of 
 him who observed it. And other visions there were, 
 which confessedly belonged to earth, though they
 
 LECT. IV.] PEOMETHEUS, DIONYSUS. 113 
 
 bco-au and ended with heaven. The Greek Hercules 
 is the head of a whole class of human benefactors and 
 heroes, who tilled and subdued the earth, drained 
 marshes, destroyed beasts and oppressive men, one of 
 whom also penetrated into the lower world, delivered 
 the victims of death, so proving his title to be a son of 
 the god, and, ultimately, rising into fellowship with 
 the gods. With these were mingled men who aspired 
 rashly and presumptuously to that glory — Titans, who 
 strove to overcome the Lord of Heaven by pure 
 strength — one who was sentenced to perpetual thirst 
 for seizing the divine nectar — one whose name declares 
 him to be the representative of wisdom and foresight, 
 who opposed the brute strength of the Titans, but 
 who, because he stole fire from heaven for the good of 
 man, must be fastened to a rock, and be the prey of a 
 vulture, till a predestined deliverer should come. 
 
 All these conceptions could harmonise very well with 
 that worship of Apollo which seems to have been 
 characteristically the Greek worship. But at some 
 time or other a mysterious divinity appeared, who 
 possessed men with an inspiration which raised them 
 into gods, or degraded them into brutes — a power to be 
 felt rather than beheld. The Greek imagination was 
 able to give even this Deity a form and a name ; to in- 
 vest him with ivy-leaves, and describe him as coming 
 amid sonsfs and shoutino's from India. But the idea of 
 such a power, so near to man, so deep and inward, 
 could not forsake them. It uttered itself in poems, 
 
 M. B. L. I
 
 114 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [riet i. 
 
 wliicli were of a very different character from the free 
 sono-s of early times ; which spoke of man as carrying- 
 on a conflict with himself and with the world ; which 
 spoke of a deep, unknown Fate, whereto even the gods 
 must bow. This faith associated itself also with 
 Mysteries, which imparted to the mind of the whole 
 nation a sense of something too sacred for words to 
 utter, or images to represent, and which must, never- 
 theless, lie at the root of human life and society. 
 
 Meantime the feelings which these mysteries con- 
 veyed to the popular mind were realised in another way 
 by thoughtful men ; they began to say within them- 
 selves. The origin of the things we see, of our own lives, 
 of human society, cannot be in those persons to whom 
 the traditions of our ancestors have ascribed them. 
 The authors, they said, of these traditions were poets, 
 who created our creators. But where is that which is 
 not conceived, not created ? Is it in the things them- 
 selves — in water, or earth, or air, or fire ? Is it in our 
 own mind ? Is it in some principle which unites these 
 too-ether ? These were the questions which the Greeks 
 asked themselves, when they could be no longer con- 
 tent with the vision of a fair-haired Apollo, but must 
 find out what that Light or Intelligence was of which 
 his name testified. In pursuing such inquiries, some 
 were willing to seek aid of those Egyptian priests who 
 seemed to have discerned the meaning of things, and 
 not to have invented a meaning for them. Some 
 wished to turn the stories of their childhood into mere
 
 LECT. IV.] LATER GREECE. 115 
 
 abstract speculations; some discarded them and all 
 belief together. The wisest of them laboured to show 
 the Greek youths that their Conscience and Reason 
 demanded something which they did not create for 
 themselves -, that all faith and reverence and worship, 
 the words which they spoke, their own existence, their 
 very doubts and questionings, pointed to a deep, 
 eternal ground, which could not be a visible phantom, 
 nor a theory, nor an abstraction — which must be the 
 Being. 
 
 AVe may possibly persuade ourselves that with 
 this record of human thoughts we have nothing to do. 
 But with it is bound up the history of one of the most 
 remarkable people that has ever existed upon the earth. 
 Their inward history is necessary to interpret the out- 
 ward one. From it we must learn why the Greeks 
 were so mighty, and why they were so weak ; why their 
 intellect asserted such a dominion over the greatest 
 physical power, and why it could not be victorious over 
 the animal nature in themselves ; why, when they were 
 feeble, they seemed capable of ruling the world, and 
 why, when they became its masters, they were broken, 
 in pieces. And this inquiry has not become an obso- 
 lete one even in reference to Greece itself; the last 
 thirty years have given it new interest. The Greek 
 mythology, after some desperate efforts to ally itself 
 with philosophy, and in that shape to put itself forth as 
 an antagonist to Christianity, sunk into insignificance ; 
 the last school of purely Greek philosophy was closed-
 
 116 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [pabt i. 
 
 in tlie reis:n of Justinian. But tlie habits and character 
 ■which that mythology and philosophy embodied, ex- 
 hibited themselves most remarkably in the history and 
 controversies of the Christian church, were preserved 
 at Constantinople through the whole of the middle ages, 
 penetrated into the West at the revival of letters, have 
 survived on their own soil three centuries of Mahometan 
 dominion, and must be earnestly studied by all who 
 desire that the new Greek kingdom should not exhibit 
 all the vices and none of the merits of the old Greek 
 republics ; who desire that it should be, as it may be, 
 an efficient bond between the European and the Asiatic, 
 the Western and the Eastern world. 
 
 IV. The faith which is embodied in the acts and 
 literature of the Romans is often supposed to be the 
 same with that of the Greeks. But this opinion arises, 
 I think, from the habit of comparing the systems to- 
 gether, instead of seeking the main and central object 
 in each. The majority of the Latin books which we 
 read belong to a period after the Greeks had become 
 the teachers of Eome, and after its own faith had in a 
 great measure disappeared. Yet even from these, it 
 is easy to perceive that Apollo, who, as the teacher of 
 wisdom, the model of human beauty, the source of 
 harmony, was the prominent Greek Divinity, never 
 could have occupied any similar place in the Latin mind. 
 In the system of the Greeks the father of Gods and men 
 was of course the centre. He was so, I believe, practi- 
 cally and vitally to the Roman. But lie did not habit-
 
 LECT. IT.] BELIEF OF GEEECE AND EOME. 117 
 
 ually think of Jupiter as seated on a mountain, as the 
 lord of earth and air. Such notions might gradually 
 develop themselves in his mind; but, hrst of all, he 
 believed there was One in the capitol of his own city ; 
 a presence there from which all law and government, 
 the right of the father, the authority of the consul, 
 proceeded. These different conceptions — of a Being 
 dwelling in the centre of the world, and uttering oracles 
 of wisdom to guide the thoughts and understandings 
 of men — of one dwelling in the centre of the city, and 
 issuing words of authority and law to bind citizens to- 
 gether, to restrain, mould, organise societies, seem to 
 mark the diiference between the characters and doings 
 of the two nations; each wonderfully asserting the 
 power of man over natural thiugs, aud ascribing this 
 power to his connection with a divine ruler, or teacher, 
 or inspirer : but the one using nature to set forth man's 
 thoughts, the other making it the servant of his pur- 
 poses J the first creating statues, the -other roads and 
 aqueducts ; both aiming at unity, but the one always 
 ready to sacrifice actual unity to an ideal, the other 
 considering everything subordinate to the object of 
 keeping man practically at one ; each alike disturbed 
 by the oppositions of self-will and individual interest ; 
 but these concealing themselves, in the Greek, under 
 the pretence of defending some Principle ; in the 
 Roman, under the ambition of upholding the rights of 
 some Order. 
 
 This distinction is apparent in every part of the
 
 118 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [faet i. 
 
 Eoman faith. A God wlio defines and preserves 
 boundaries is more sacred in his eyes than the teacher 
 of the divinest art. If he honours any God as a teacher 
 it is Mercury, because he imparts the gift of eloquence, 
 by which bodies of men are swayed — by which armies 
 are moved or regulated. This result, and not the 
 cultivation of any faculty for its own sake, is what he 
 seeks. The god of war, who is often utterly contempt- 
 ible in the Greek legends, is his great patron and de- 
 fender. The first king in old Roman heroic traditions 
 is his son, though it is not as a conqueror, but as the 
 organiser of an infant community, that those traditions 
 present him to us. War, in the Eoman conception of 
 it, is not an exhibition of individual prowess, however 
 such prowess may be called forth by it ; but a means 
 of subduing restless, striving atoms into order. It is, 
 then, not at all inconsistent with his reverence for Mars, 
 that a feeling of the sanctity of domestic ties should 
 especially belong to his faith. Virgil, who, though as 
 a writer he may have copied Greek models, was in heart 
 a Roman, and entered into the spirit of his country's 
 traditions better than any man, lays the foundation of 
 it in filial reverence, in the care of household gods. If 
 the Roman entertained any of the Persian awe of fire, 
 as the symbol of light and penetrating power, it was 
 expressed in his worship of Vesta, the goddess of the 
 hearth, the preserver of family purity, and in the fire 
 which was ever to be kept burning within her temple. 
 The power of the father lay at the root of his law and
 
 LECT. IV.] DECAY OF EOMAN BELIEF. 119 
 
 life ; and it was not, like tlie Chinese, a mere human 
 apprehension, it was practically and essentially con- 
 nected with all his thoughts of a Divine Being. He 
 looked upon the bonds of family life as implied in the 
 existence of a commonwealth — as its necessary basis 
 and continual support. Upon any less real foundation 
 so mighty a power could not have stood. Having such 
 a ground, whatever threatened it with dissolution ulti- 
 mately contributed to its strength. Conflicts of differ- 
 ent orders of society brought out principles of the 
 constitution which were previously latent ; opposing 
 principles, yet necessary to each other. And soon it 
 seemed as if a power which had grown up by such 
 regular and mysterious processes must be irresistible. 
 Carthage, Egypt, Greece, bowed before it. The 
 Parthian Empire disputed with it the sovereignty of 
 Asia. The countries of Western Europe it appeared 
 specially appointed to subdue and civilise. The belief 
 of Rome gave it, as we have seen, its centre : in the 
 capitol where Jove dwelt^ the nation and the world 
 which it ruled found the principle of their cohesion. 
 The statesmen saw that it was so ; they lost the belief, 
 but determined that it must be upheld for the state's 
 sake. The Family they would have acknowledged it 
 was expedient' to uphold for the same reason ; but that 
 refused to stand upon a fiction, to live merely because 
 it was wanted by the politician. As all domestic bonds 
 became relaxed, the forms of the religion became more 
 consciously unreal. Then it was seen that the state
 
 120 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [paet I. 
 
 could not exist any longer upon its old ground. A 
 visible Emperor must supply the place of an invisible 
 Law and Presence. The military sacrament of the 
 soldiers to the commander must be the one substitute 
 for the ancient reverence. And such was the force of 
 this bond, so much of the feeling and principle of order 
 still survived in it, that the state could last even for 
 centuries with this thin plank separating it from the 
 abyss. The plank cracked often — gave way at last ; 
 and the nations, which had been prepared for the day 
 and the hour, seized the spoil. Before that catastrophe 
 the proclamation of a set of Galilean fishermen, that a 
 crucified man was the Lord of the World, had been 
 believed by the Emperors. Roman paganism seemed 
 to disappear from the earth. But its peculiar character, 
 the secret of its power, the cause of its decay, should 
 be carefully reflected on, or the History of Western 
 Christendom for twelve hundred years will be to us an 
 inexplicable riddle. 
 
 V. Very soon after Rome became an empire it was 
 discovered that there was a part of Eui'ope which was 
 more formidable to it than even the Parthian empire 
 in the East. Intelligent Romans began to inquire 
 very earnestly what that German race was which 
 seemed to present the newest and strangest obstacle 
 to Roman ascendancy. They had a prophetic feeling 
 that the question would be a very interesting one in 
 after days to their own country and to mankind. They 
 found a people who recalled to them the traditions of
 
 LECT. IV.] THE GOTHS.— THEIR MYTHOLOGY. 121 
 
 their own ancestors; rude and scattered, full of in- 
 dividual energy, severe and chaste, reverencing family 
 bonds ; with a sense, however imperfectly developed, 
 of social order. A few observations they made upon 
 the faith of this people, which are well worthy of note. 
 " The Germans looked upon day," says Tacitus, '' as 
 coming out of night, the last as the ground of the first. 
 They appeared to pay a kind of worship to the earth. 
 They looked upon themselves as descended from Man- 
 nus." It seemed to the E-oman, trying to translate 
 their notions into his own, that Mercury was their 
 chief god. These hints, slight and imperfect as they 
 are, throw great light upon the mythology of Germany 
 and the North, as we receive it from those who lived 
 under its influence. To trace it through all its mazes 
 may be difficult, and not very profitable ; but there 
 are certain great features in it which are worthy of 
 earnest consideration. 
 
 I did not endeavour to disconnect the Mythology 
 of Persia from its climate and scenery. The thoughts 
 of the Magian were wonderfully affected by Eastern 
 nights and days, and Eastern earth and sky. So like- 
 wise were the thoughts of the Goth, by the murky 
 atmosphere in which he dwelt, by the dark woods 
 which he must fell, by the seas out of which the solid 
 land emerged or which broke in upon it. Doubtless, 
 the phenomena of the world occasioned the Northerns 
 great perplexity ; all the powers of earth and air and 
 fire and water are at work in their tales and poems.
 
 122 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WO ELD. [part i. 
 
 The conflicts of these powers may, in one sense, be 
 said to be the subject of them. 
 
 But we know httle, indeed, about our ancestors, if 
 •we suppose that they were thinking merely about such 
 matters. They described wars of giants, of good and 
 evil powers. It is easy to say these giants only 
 express the struggles and throes of nature — cultivation 
 contending with barrenness, spring succeeding winter. 
 But why are they giants ? Why do they take this 
 personal form ? Why, if winter and spring were 
 chiefly in their minds, did they not speak of winter 
 and spring ? Tacitus is most right in saying that the 
 earth is the object of their study, perhaps of their 
 worship ; but he is still more right in saying that they 
 felt themselves derived from Mannus. Man is the 
 subduer of the earth ; because he lives upon it, tills it, 
 sows it, rescues it from the waters, brings the harvests 
 of autumn out of the frosts of winter ; therefore do 
 these Goths care about the earth. And those battles 
 which they see going on upon it or beneath it, those 
 struggles of gigantic powers of evil with deliverers 
 and benefactors, are interpreted to them by what they 
 feel going on in themselves ; they are the wars of 
 Mannus, much more than of the earth, and sea, and 
 sky. Bead them in this light, and every Northern 
 saga is full of profoundest interest and instruction. 
 A mighty power of death and of darkness struggling 
 to draw all creatures into itself; mightier powers of 
 good struggling against it; consuming fires, that are
 
 LECT. IV.] ODIN.— VAEIOUS THEORIES. 123 
 
 to destroy what is coiTupt ; life coming- out of deatli^ 
 second birth, resurrection — these are ideas by which 
 you see that they were haunted and possessed. They 
 could find no clue to the strange mystery, yet they felt 
 that it w^as near them, and about them, and that there 
 must be some bright sun, which would come forth 
 one day to scatter the shadows, and show all things in 
 their true relations and proportions. Yet it is equally 
 true that Mannus himself and his origin are lost in the 
 Infinite. Tacitus expresses the idea of the mythology 
 in this respect too distinctly and definitely, but not 
 unhappily, when he speaks of Mercury the messenger 
 of gods and men, who passes rapidly from heaven to 
 earth, and from earth to the shades below, who con- 
 nects each with the other, as the object of Gothic 
 reverence. Such a being, only surrounded with 
 vagueness and mist, not capable of being exhibited in 
 a form like the Greek Hermes, or the Roman Mercury, 
 is the Northern Odin. Each new theorist about him 
 will present him in a different aspect, one as a mere 
 mortal, to whom a history may be ascribed — one as a 
 mere Divinity — one as a teacher of human wisdom — 
 one as merely the ideal of wisdom — one perhaps as the 
 representation of some physical pi'ocess — one as the 
 establisher of a political order. Each may give plausi- 
 ble reasons for his opinion ; no worshipper of him 
 could have told you which was true; he would have 
 felt that in some sense all must be true. Precisely 
 the necessity of his mind was to find some object in
 
 124 THE EELIGIONS OF TKE WORLD, [part r. - 
 
 which these characters might really meet : who should 
 bring the clear light out of the darkness, and be a 
 conqueror in that war with the earth^s tormentors. 
 
 I have now completed this division of my subject, 
 and I may ask you for a moment to consider how the 
 different portions of it are connected together, and 
 what is the general result. Mahometanism, we see, 
 stands upon a different ground from all the rest. It 
 starts from the Divine Will, it assumes a declaration 
 of that Will to men, it affirms men to be the servants 
 of God to execute His Will. Hindooism has only the 
 faintest conception of a Divine Will ; but it recognises 
 a Divine original Light or Intelligence from which the 
 intelligence in man proceeds, and which it is to con- 
 template. In striving to ascertain what this Light is 
 — how it is distinct from the human intelligence — the 
 Brahmin becomes lost in speculation. The Buddhist 
 cuts the knot, practically makes man's intellect the 
 origin of all things ; yet recognises a certain universal 
 Intelligence dwelling in the race, and concentrated 
 from time to time in some person. Hindooism and 
 Buddhism have been compelled in different ways to 
 come down from the merely abstract region, and to 
 speak of the Divinity as concerned with the doings of 
 ordinary men ; as exercising influences beneficent or 
 pernicious over them ; each has been obliged to explain 
 what the universe has tj) do with the original Intelli- 
 gence; each has been compelled into an idolatry of
 
 XECT. IV.] SUMMARY. 125 
 
 material things against whicli_, in its first conception, 
 it is a protest. Both have struggled with Mahomet- 
 anism, and been overcome by it ; neither has been 
 able to amalgamate with it ; for neither has it been 
 found to be a substitute. Buddhism in China has 
 established itself side by side with a system of social 
 order, the basis of which is the recognition of paternal 
 authority, and which regards the knowledge of the 
 invisible as unattainable. Entirely opposed to this 
 system. Buddhism has been found nevertheless an 
 indispensable supplement to it : even for the accom- 
 plishment of its own purpose. These different faiths, 
 which exercise a dominion over so large a portion of 
 the universe, claim something to satisfy them, some- 
 thing to unite them. Not one of them contains the 
 solution of the difficulties which it has raised ; each 
 testifies that there is a chasm which the other seems 
 meant to fill up; but it remains a chasm still. Not 
 one of them can be satisfied by any philosophical 
 theory about the universe, or about man, or about 
 God, or about all of them. Mahometanism meets such 
 theories by its primary proclamation, God is ; He must 
 be a living personal Being : he must be the King of 
 Men. Hindooism is continually attempting to philoso- 
 phise, but every new turn of its history proclaims. We 
 want a Living Intelligence, which shall hold converse 
 with men, and with which men may converse. Budd- 
 hism has been a continual effoi-t at philosophy ; but 
 every passage of its history proclaims. Philosophy will
 
 126 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [part i. 
 
 not do for us ; we want a Living Intelligence to dwell 
 ill man. And now we have to add some new evidence 
 to this. First^ we lieai' from the Persian a cry for 
 some infinite^ absolute Being, the ground of Light and 
 Darkness, which he can only call Illimitable Time. 
 Then from the Egyptian the witness of an Ammon, or 
 hidden God. Then from the Greek the cry for some- 
 thing which he cannot express — which must be veiled 
 in mysteries, which the poet speaks of as irresistible 
 Fate, which the philosopher says must be the Being, 
 which cannot be material, and yet is no abstraction. 
 The Roman must have an invisible God of the city, a 
 righteous lawgiver, preserving the authority of his 
 state, or it perishes. Unless in the heaven or the 
 the abyss there be one greater than Mannus, the dark 
 thoughts of the Goth signify nothing. But none of 
 them can be satisfied with the recognition of this 
 hidden Being-. There must be a manifestation of Him. 
 From the immeasurable Time a Light must come 
 forth, and that Light must be a Person. An Ormuzd 
 must speak living words, nay must be a living Word. 
 Ammon must assume forms ; the visible must, in some 
 way, set forth the Invisible. One all clear and bright 
 must be himself Wisdom to the Greeks — must utter 
 the thoughts of Wisdom, which keep them a people, 
 and then must scatter himself through a thousand 
 visible images. The Jove of the capitol cannot be 
 only there. His presence must come forth in the host 
 and in the family. Odin must travel from land to 
 land, teach, give laws, open Walhalla to men.
 
 LECT. IV.] A EEAI.ITY IN TUE MYTHOLOGIES. 127 
 
 Look at these religious, and you see in them all a 
 witness of unity. Look at them again, and you see 
 there is something which divides them from each 
 other. They confess that if men are to unite, it must 
 be in something above themselves ; they cannot unite ; 
 for things beneath themselves, the accidents of life, 
 the climate, the soil of the lands in which they dwell, 
 seem to determine what it is that is above them. 
 They confess that if men are to unite, it must be in 
 something above themselves ; but the habits, tempers, 
 tastes of the worshippers determine what it is which is 
 above them. 
 
 This is the report which history gives of these 
 religious — the stamp which they have left of them- 
 selves upon the actual universe. Dare you talk of all 
 this as merely an illustration of the working of the 
 religious principle in men ? Dare you use such a dry, 
 withered, heartless abstraction, to get rid of the recol- 
 lection that you have been hearing how beings of your 
 own flesh felt and acted and suffered ? Or can you 
 comfort yourselves with saying, " These have all 
 passed away ; the Persian Ormuzd and Ahriman — the 
 Egyptian dream of types in the world which must 
 have some antitype — the Greek question, how is it I 
 can create such marvels ? what is it I cannot ci'eate ? — 
 the Roman sense of a divine order in the nation and 
 family — the Odin warfare of good and evil spirits ; 
 they have passed away as visions of the night." 
 Visions they were, but visions which came to men 
 concerning the dreadful realities of their own exist-
 
 128 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part i. 
 
 ence. They were visions of tlie niglitj but by them 
 men had to steer their vessels and shape their course ; 
 without them all would have been dark. And we 
 belong to the same race with the men who had these 
 visions ; some nearer to us, some more distant, some 
 brought up in regions utterly unlike our own, some 
 almost our kinsmen after the flesh; all our kinsmen in 
 reality. It has not been a mistake, I believe, in our 
 education that we have busied ourselves so much with 
 the legends of Greece and Rome. If we used them 
 aright, they would not serve for the food of an idle 
 dilettantism — they would teach us reverence and fear. 
 We should tremble as we remembered, '' These dreams 
 of a beauty which eye hath not seen, or ear heard, 
 have visited the hearts of human beings generations 
 ago ; the dark and filthy imaginations which mingled 
 with these dreams were engendered in the same 
 hearts : by one as much as the other and by the fear- 
 ful combination we know that those hearts were like 
 our own. They will dwell together in us, and in time 
 the vile will seem real, the beautiful only a shadow, 
 unless we can find that the beauty has been somewhere 
 substantiated; unless we can see the beauty apart 
 from the corruption : unless there is some power 
 which can establish the one and destroy the other in 
 ourselves." 
 
 Such reflections often come, I trust, to the young 
 men of our land, as they read the classical fables. Yet 
 these belong rather to a refined cultivation, and they
 
 LECT. IV.] A REALITY IN THE MYTHOLOGIES. 129 
 
 may so possess the mind with the love of finite forms 
 as to make it forget that those who conceived them 
 could not be satisfied with them ; but cried for the In- 
 finite beyond. It is otherwise with the tales of our 
 own proper ancestors. These are bound up with the 
 thoughts of our peasantry ; the most ignorant man feels 
 that they represent some of the unspeakable fears and 
 hopes of his spirit. And they clothe themselves in no 
 graceful forms. The storms and earthquakes of nature 
 are the only adequate types of the conflict which they 
 speak of, a conflict in which human beings of that day 
 were actually engaged. Are we not engaged in it too ? 
 Have we asked ourselves whether we can bear up in it 
 alone ? if not, whether we know where help in it is to 
 be found ? 
 
 M. B. L.
 
 PART II. 
 
 RELATIONS OF THE RELIGIONS OF THE 
 WORLD WITH CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 LECTURE 1. 
 
 Will/ Judaism has not occupied a sejmrate place in these Lectures. 
 Mahometanism related to Christianity on its Judaical side. 
 Nature of the relation indicated. Wherein Mahometanism 
 differs from Judaism. Dangei's to Christianity from the 
 forgetfulness or inedominance of its Mahovietan side. Hoio 
 the Christian Faith and Church satisfy the cravings of Ma- 
 hometans. 
 
 T SPOKE in my last Lecture of Mahometanism^ Hin- 
 -^ dooism^ and Buddhism, as the three great existing 
 religions of the world ; of the Persian, the Egyptian, 
 the Greek, the Roman, and the Gothic, as the most 
 conspicuous of those which belong to the past. It may 
 strike some of you, that in one of these lists, though 
 you may scarcely be able to say in which, there was a 
 capital omission. Might not even the letter of Boyle's 
 Will have reminded me, that the Christian missionary 
 is likely to be encountered by Jews in all parts of the 
 world ? Is there any faith which has had a more 
 memorable past than theirs ? 
 
 It is indeed true, that a person must take a most 
 imperfect view of society during the last eighteen
 
 LECT. I.] THE JEWS. 131 
 
 hundred years, wlio forgets that the Jew has had a 
 place in it. Upon whatever age, upon whatever por- 
 tion of the world he fixes his eye, this strange figure 
 encounters him. He sees men without a place which 
 they can call their own upon the earth, still feeling 
 themselves to be the nation which has been chosen out 
 of all others to be the head of the earth ; men willingly 
 submitting to the most grovelling occupations, and 
 with a character seemingly conformed to these occupa- 
 tions, yet never deserted by a vision of past and future 
 glory ; men trampled upon by all people, and yet exer- 
 cising a mighty influence, one which has increased 
 with the increase of riches and civilisation, over the 
 counsels of statesmen and princes ; men, who if the 
 time should come when no God but Mammon is wor- 
 shipped in the world, will carry a fearful recollection 
 into the temples of Mammon of one who may be his 
 destroyer. It is true also that the Jew has never been 
 without powerful arguments for that which he holds, 
 and against that which he denies. He can always ap- 
 peal to his own consistency in support of the first — to 
 the persecutions and crimes of Pagans, Mahometans, 
 and Christians, as evidence in opposition to them. 
 Though he cannot make converts, though he does not 
 wish it — for his business is to keep the family of Abra- 
 ham distinct from all others — he can do much to shake 
 the faith of those among whom he dwells. In all 
 times, of late years more especially, he has been able 
 to adapt himself to prevailing habits of thought and
 
 132 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet n. 
 
 feeling, to become conspicuous in art and science, to 
 enter into philosophical speculations', and strangely to 
 mingle the lessons which he has received in the schools 
 of the Prophets with the wisdom of those who most 
 despise them. 
 
 The Jew then may on these grounds be well said to 
 belong to the present^ his religion to be one of the ex- 
 istinof relio-ions of the earth. He is a witness for some- 
 thing which survives. But he is also, by his own sad 
 confession, a witness for something which is departed. 
 Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, exhibit the signs of a 
 bygone world to travellers who go in search of them. 
 The Israelite carries the signs of the change which has 
 befallen Palestine with him into the meanest street of 
 every city of Europe, Asia, America. The rich mer- 
 chant, the beggarly hawker testify to the glory of 
 David and Solomon. 
 
 But there is this reason for not placing the Jew in 
 either of those divisions to which I referred the other 
 beliefs of mankind. We cannot go back in his case, 
 as we did in the Mahometan, to the first promulgation 
 of the faith, or, in the case of the Hindoo, to the 
 earliest Vedas, without finding ourselves engaged in 
 the assertion or defence of that which is as dear to us 
 as it is to him ; we cannot interpret his present position 
 except by comparing it with our own. In following 
 the course which I marked out for myself originally, 
 we shall, I believe, be enabled to consider this subject 
 from its right point of view. I proposed to inquire
 
 LECT. I.] TJIE DIVINE VOICE SPEAKING TO MEN. 133 
 
 how the religions which, have passed under our review 
 stand severally related to Chi'istianity. The first of 
 these was the Mahometan. Now it is in the Jewish 
 side of Christianity that we must seek for this relation. 
 From the Old Testament we shall learn what are the 
 great points of agreement between us and the Maho- 
 metan. In studying those points of agreement, we shall, 
 perhaps, see more clearly the grounds of our difference 
 both with the Mahometan and the modern Jew. 
 
 I. I endeavoured to show you in my first Lecture 
 that the mere dry, formal assertion of the unity of God, 
 as an article of doctrine, was not that which had given 
 Islamism its power. The proclamation, " There is one 
 God,^' was no school formula ; it was the announcement 
 of a Living Being, acting, speaking, ruling. Now this 
 is the leading characteristic of the Old Testament. 
 Schoolmen giving you an account of it will say, that it 
 is distinguished from all Pagan books by its assertion 
 of the unity of the object of worship. But we have 
 seen reason to think that this quality, taken alone, 
 might not separate it from the early sacred writings of 
 the Hindoos. Turn to the Book of Genesis or Exodus, 
 and you at once feel the essential difference. There 
 are no speculations about God, no questionings how 
 man is to contemplate Him, or to be absorbed into 
 His essence. He is creating the world according to a 
 certain order ; He is making man in His own image ; 
 He is placing man in a garden, fixing a certain prohibi- 
 tion for him, giving him a helpmeet, discovering his sin
 
 134 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOKLD. [paet ii. 
 
 when lie has broken the command, pronouncing a 
 sentence upon him, promising him a blessing. He is 
 punishing the murderer, visiting the earth with a flood, 
 calling out a man to be a preserver of the race, send- 
 ing forth his sons to people the earth, with the rainbow 
 as a pledge of His mercy ; scattering them abroad when 
 they wish to build a tower, and to make themselves a 
 name ; calling a man out of his father's house, and bid- 
 ding him to go into aland which should be shown him ; 
 promising him that in him and in his seed all the fami- 
 lies of the earth should be blest ; giving him a covenant, 
 giving him a son ; trying the faith of the father ; reveal- 
 ing himself to Isaac and Jacob ; guiding the Hebrew 
 youth into Egypt; causing him to bring his whole 
 family thither ; hearing their cry when a king arose 
 who knew not Joseph, and made them slaves ; reveal- 
 ing Himself to Moses as the I Am ; sending signs and 
 judgments upon Pharaoh, bringing the people out of 
 Egypt, appointing them a feast in memorial of their 
 deliverance from generation to generation; feeding 
 them with manna, and causing the rock to be struck 
 when they were thirsty ; proclaiming the Law to them 
 amidst thunders and lightnings ; prescribing the form of 
 the tabernacle, and the order of the priesthood; laying 
 down the ordinary rules which were suitable to them 
 as an eastern people ; going before them in the ark of 
 the covenant. 
 
 Nothing, you see, is set forth in the Hindoo manner 
 as a dream, or thought, or reflection ahout God ; all is
 
 LECT. I.] THE GEEAT FIEST PRINCIPLE. 13.) 
 
 set forth as coming from Him ; He is, and He is doing. 
 This is the Old Testament language ; this is the lan- 
 s-uaofe which the Mahometan asserts must be true still- 
 It is a record, he said, but not merely a record — it tells 
 us of Him who was, and is, and is to come ; of One by 
 whose command the world was made, and by whose 
 command it subsists ; who rules and directs in the 
 affairs of men, not less now than of old. I conceive 
 that there is nothing in Christianity so primary and 
 fundamental as this belief; nothing which it is so neces- 
 sary for us to assert, in the simple practical language 
 of the Old. Testament, and not to dilute by any modern 
 phrases or unreal substitutes. It Avas on this account 
 especially that I violated chronology, by considering 
 Mahometanism before either of the other religions with 
 which it divides Asia ; for I believe that it had taken 
 hold of the great first principle — that it had begun at 
 the beginning; not working its way up to the divine 
 ground from the earthly, but assuming that ground as 
 its starting-point. And, at the same time, I wished 
 you to feel how idle the assertion is, that this doctrine 
 merely belongs to the world in its infancy ; how when 
 it seemed to have become obsolete, amidst the argu- 
 ments and discussions of the schools, it stood forth 
 again as a living, terrific reality : as a truth which men 
 must be taught by the sword, if they would be taught it 
 in no other way. 
 
 II. Next, the Mahometan believed that the Lord of 
 All does actually make His will known to men ; that He
 
 136 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [paet ii. 
 
 speaks, and tliat tliey can hear and obey His voice. 
 This is the second most obvious characteristic of the Old 
 Testament. Abram is called out of his land by the un- 
 seen Lord. He knows that he is, and he does what he is 
 commanded. Moses is bidden to go in before Pharaoh ; 
 he shrinks from the work, but he is certain that the 
 Lord God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob has sent 
 him. Thus Revelation, or the declaration of God's 
 mind and will — of God himself — to man, is assumed as 
 the ground of action, and history, and knowledg*e. It 
 is not put as a vague, distant possibility that such 
 communications may be made to man, that they may 
 reach him ; it is declared that they must reach him, 
 or that he is helpless and ignorant. He must act under 
 a divine call of some kind, or he cannot act rightly. 
 The Mahometan affirms that this truth of the old 
 time is a truth of the later time. In the seventh 
 century after Christ, Mahomet claims to be called of 
 God to a work. We may believe that in many points 
 he greatly mistook the nature of this call, of this 
 work. But the principle that any man who rouses 
 the heart of a nation, who proclaims any deep truth 
 in the midst of it, has a calling — a calling from God 
 — that he has no right to deny it or to explain it 
 away j that he cannot do what he is meant to do except 
 on the faith of it ; this is a conviction which we Chris- 
 tians, like the Mahometan, have inherited, or ought to 
 have inherited, from the Jew. Our own language is 
 framed upon the supposition : we speak of callings and
 
 LECT. I.] THE DIVINE BOOK. " 137 
 
 vocations. If the words mean nothing, it is a great 
 pity that we should use them. It is lending ourselves 
 to a falsehood — it is contracting a false habit of mind. 
 But I am sure they have meant something to men in 
 past times — to all good and great men, who have really 
 served their generation in any kind of work. And I 
 do trust and believe that they mean something to some 
 of us still ; that we feel we should be parting with what 
 is most precious, if they ceased to mean that something 
 — that we desire they should mean much more. 
 
 III. But, thirdly, the Mahometan, while he acknow- 
 ledges that the voice of God thus speaks to men, believes 
 as strongly that there is meant to be some record of His 
 utterances — some book of which it may be said. This is 
 the book. He cannot part with this conviction ; it is 
 necessary to him. Whether or not he can explain how 
 and why the Koran should cease at a certain point, he 
 is sure that it was to cease at a certain point — that 
 there must be a Book which is complete, and to which 
 men may refer as an authority. The Israelites, of 
 whom we read in the Old Testament, could not of course 
 contemplate that Book as a complete Book ; it was 
 growing. Their own lives and histories were contribut- 
 ing to it. Their Patriarchs had no Book. Still, from 
 he time that the Law was delivered, they were con- 
 vinced that they had that written in enduring letters 
 which proceeded from God. They believed that His 
 communications were meant to be preserved in letters. 
 They laboured to preserve them, and to keep them
 
 138 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 apart from all whicli they believed was not His. They 
 had confidence that God Himself would watch over 
 His own Revelation. Upon us this conviction also has 
 descended ; we agree with the Mahometan that the belief 
 in a Book of Revelation, a completed Book, is not incom- 
 patible with the idea of God ruling in the world now — • 
 of His calling men to do a work for Him now : nay, 
 that the one truth is necessary to the other. Why 
 Mahomet required a new Bible in the seventh century, 
 why we do not require it, is a point to be considered 
 hereafter ; that which I am pressing here is, that both 
 alike do feel the need of a Bible — of a Divine Book. 
 
 IV. But the Mahometan does not only look upon 
 the peculiar Prophet as called of God. He believes 
 that the whole body of Islamites is a body called by 
 God to the work of proclaiming Him, and putting down 
 whatever sets itself in opposition to Him. I need not 
 remind you that the children of Israel had this belief 
 before them. In the strength of it they went — a little 
 handful of men, who were lately Egyptian slaves — and 
 drove out the Canaanitish people ; beating down their 
 walls, and slaying them with the edge of the sword. 
 They were not a wild, undisciplined host — a terrific 
 horde, like the Huns or the Avars of later times ; they 
 were most orderly ; divided according to tribes, each 
 man encamping beside the standard of the house of his 
 fathers, marshalled under regular leaders, practising 
 the ordinary methods and stratagems of war. Still, 
 that which gave them all their energy, that which made
 
 LECT. I.] THE DIVINELY-APPOINTED WAEEIOES. 139 
 
 them one people^ that which caused their discipline to 
 be an instrument of their valour, not a substitute for 
 it, was a belief that the Lord of Hosts was among them, 
 that they were His soldiers, and moving under His 
 command. They were sure that they had a commission 
 from Him to punish a people the cup of whose iniquities 
 was full. They were sure they were not doing a work 
 for themselves, but were executing the purposes of His 
 Will. And this the Mahometan says is the true law 
 of armies, the right spirit for men of later as well as 
 earlier days to light in and to act in. They must feel 
 that an Unseen Power is in the midst of their host ; 
 that they are His soldiers. We are often told that the 
 opinion is a mistaken and a dangerous one; one Avliich 
 belonged to Judaism, and which Christianity discounte- 
 nances. I cannot think so. That there is a sense in 
 which the disciples of the Koran have perverted Jewish 
 example, I shall endeavour to show presently. Per- 
 haps we shall find that the perversion has been in not 
 adhering to it closely enough. But I do not think that 
 any Christian nation has ever been the worse for be- 
 lieving that it was acting as the minister of God. Our 
 forms and proclamations always express thi^. Have 
 we been better when these forms and proclamations 
 were real and significant, or when they were false ? 
 It seems to me, that the more we come to think these 
 phrases not merely phrases, but the expressions of what 
 is true, the more simple and honest our lives will be, 
 and that when to any nation they become mere phrases.
 
 140 THE EELiaiONS OF THE WOELD. [part ir. 
 
 its life^ I need not say its Christianity, is gone. I feel 
 very sure that the sense of a Divine Presence has never 
 utterly forsaken, and does not forsake any host of 
 Christian men fighting by land or sea : or that, if it do, 
 their arms become palsied, and they become the shame 
 of their enemies. They may act very inconsistently 
 with this profession; the inconsistency no doubt 
 weakens the reality of it ; but it is not a mere profes- 
 sion. Asking the help of God may be a poor formality 
 to easy, luxurious men ; those who are on the eve of 
 battle, who are standing between life and death, have 
 no time for words unless they mean something. And 
 they have a signification as of old, otherwise a feeble 
 force would not be able to put a greater one to flight, 
 supported by all the advantages of position, and the 
 resources of art. "When our soldiers shall quite dis- 
 believe that the same Lord who went forth with Joshua 
 and Gideon is with them, see whether we shall have 
 tidings of courage and triumph, and not rather of 
 cowardice and ignominy. 
 
 V. We saw how much the ofiico of the caliph or 
 sovereign blended itself with Mahometan life and his- 
 tory, how the visible centre of the host recalled to each 
 soldier the sense of his allegiance to Allah the Unseen 
 King. Here, again, we are reminded of the Old Testa- 
 ment. David, and every true king, felt that he reign- 
 ed by covenant with God, that he was the witness of 
 Him to the people. And his people returned the feel- 
 ing. Looking up to him, they felt that they were a
 
 LECT. I.] THE DIYINELY-APPOINTED WAREIOES. 141 
 
 people indeed — it was not a dream ; they were so 
 actually ; tliey had one heart, one with each other, one 
 with those who had gone before them, one with those 
 who should come after them. Of course such language 
 is liable to misinterpretation. There were crimes and 
 divisions in the times of David and Hezekiah, as at all 
 times. Scripture does not conceal them, but declares 
 them, and shows the punishment of them. When any 
 evil deed was perpetrated by the king it destroyed the 
 reverence of the people for him, and so their own unity. 
 On the other hand, their evil condition re-acted upon 
 him, and led him to depend more on the number of his 
 armed men than upon the strength of Israel. These 
 facts, far from weakening the assertion I made, illus- 
 trate it. Do not they seem also to prove that these 
 records are not merely records of the past, or of a par- 
 ticular nation, but that they explain the bonds by 
 which sovereign and subjects are connected according 
 to a divine and immutable law, in all times and in all 
 nations ? So the Mahometan thought in his own case. 
 Had the people whom he attacked felt the same ; had 
 there been that real vital relation between the monarch 
 and those who paid him homage, which there was be- 
 tween the caliph and the soldiers of the Crescent, those 
 soldiers would not have triumphed as they did. I am 
 making no rash assertion ; but one borne out by history. 
 Asia was not able to resist the armies of the prophet, 
 because there was in it no such national feeling as that 
 which I have described. Constantinople could not
 
 142 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [p.vet ii. 
 
 ultimately resist tliem, for this feeling was perisliing 
 in the Greek empire. They were resisted in Western 
 Europe, for there a set of Christian nations had gradu- 
 ally grown upj believing, amidst many confusions and 
 inconsistencies no doubt, but still practically believing, 
 that their kings were covenant kings, reigning in the 
 name of the Lord, as much as the kings of Judah had 
 ever done. 
 
 These are some of the points of real affinity between 
 Christianity and Mahometanism. I say Christianity ; 
 meaning thereby that though these principles belong 
 to the Old Testament, and not to the New, as such, yet 
 that Christians can adopt them and realise them, and 
 that Jews, who seem to stand upon the ground of the 
 Old Testament, cannot. I do not say this in reproach 
 to them, I merely state a fact. All the most living 
 principles of the Old Testament, those which were em- 
 bodied in the history of the Jewish people, have become 
 dead letters to their descendants. They retain the ac- 
 knowledgment of the Divine unity as against anything 
 which contradicts it, or seems to them to contradict 
 it. But the sense of a Living Being, of One speaking, 
 acting, ruling, this may dwell deep down in the heart 
 of Jews ; it may have been drawn out by persecution 
 in many; but, so far as we can judge, it is always 
 threatening to become dried in a formula among the 
 orthodox Israelites, to lose itself in pantheistical phrases 
 among the liberal and intellectual. The former class 
 will readily acknowledge a Divine Book, but for the
 
 LECT. I.] THE OLD AND MODEEN JEW. 143 
 
 very purpose of keeping out tlie notion of any real in- 
 tercourse between heaven and earth since it was closed. 
 And yet this Book will not satisfy them ; it must be 
 stifled under Rabbinical interpretations; all its prac- 
 tical, homely, awful realities, must be reduced into 
 notions, and speculations, and frivolities. The liberal 
 class will gladly avail themselves of phrases about a 
 living voice, that they may throw off the burden of 
 these interpretations, and in flict of the Book which 
 they oppress. But the living voice does not proceed 
 from a personal being who has a right to command his 
 creatures ; there is no bowing to it as to that which 
 must not, cannot be resisted; no acknowledgment of 
 a high calling, no feeling of a relation to the past ; only 
 a claim to be independent, to think and feel difi'erently 
 from those who went before — a very natural tendency, 
 surely, in men who have been under a grievous yoke, 
 but offering little hope that they will be emancipated 
 from it, or will not fall under a more grievous one still. 
 No wonder then that the reality of the unseen should 
 be lost in that very worship which was established as 
 the witness of it, that the Jewish ceremonial should 
 bind the spirit to earth instead of raising it. No won- 
 der that the most vulgar of all outward things, the 
 mere coin by help of which one is exchanged for 
 another, should have become the great object of heart 
 devotion. To speak of this people as not having now 
 any sense of the relation of a people to its Sovereign, 
 would be a mockery : that heavy loss is of course in-
 
 144 TUB EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [pakt ii. 
 
 evitable. It is far pleasanter to remember that tlie 
 sense of a national existence^ of a national calling, 
 liaSj through all these centuries of degradation, 
 not forsaken them. It has been upheld by that 
 glorious hope of a Deliverer to come hereafter, which 
 neither the Kabbinism of one of their schools, nor the 
 Pantheism of another, has been able to extinguish. 
 They had been almost six hundred years without a 
 temple or a capital, scorned and hated by all people, 
 when Mahomet arose ; yet when he bade them join his 
 standard as the reviver of the true faith of their fathers, 
 as the asserter of the Lord Jehovah against his enemies, 
 they utterly refused the invitation. He thought, and 
 perhaps rightly, that they were too degraded to under- 
 stand the words which he spoke to them, too little 
 worshippers of Him whom their Scinptures proclaimed, 
 to believe that He could really interfere in the affairs 
 of the world. The prophet's first great war, therefore, 
 was directed against them. If they yielded they were 
 not crushed, still less converted. The belief that they 
 belonged to the true stock of Abraham, and he at best 
 only to an illegitimate offshoot from it, that they were 
 children of the promises, and he was not, sustained 
 them. Here was the one sure thing which they could 
 hold fast, a token that the lock of hair on the head of 
 Samson, shorn, blinded, and captive, might still grow 
 again. There was a reality and continuity in the na- 
 tional feeling of the Jew which the Islamite felt he 
 could not encounter. He acknowledged a sovereign,
 
 LECT. I.] THE JEW AND TUE ISLAMITE. 145 
 
 his empire was to spread far aud wide; but^ except so 
 far as the caliph or representative of Mahomet was 
 concerned, this empire had no connection with any 
 feeling of family, or even country. Mecca became in- 
 deed the shrine of religious worship for all Mahomet- 
 ans ; but the practical centre of Mahometan society 
 was at one time in Persia, at another in Spain, at last 
 in Turkey. So that a system, in many respects like 
 the Jewish, was in this one directly opposed to it. 
 The Jews had grown from a family into a nation, and, 
 so long as they continued a nation, were the great 
 witnesses against all attempts at universal sovereignty. 
 The Mahometans, setting at nought family distinctions 
 and national distinctions, attempted to bind all races 
 and languages together, under the authority of one 
 man, the successor of the Prophet. 
 
 This is a remark of great importance with a view to 
 the subject on which we are now engaged. I have 
 shown you that there are many points in which Chris- 
 tianity and Mahometanism both claim affinity with 
 Judaism, as it was set forth in the Old Testament. 
 Now we are come to a point in which they both separ- 
 ate from it. The Mahometan claims to be a universal 
 religion; to set up a universal society. The Gospel 
 does so too. The questions we have now to consider 
 are, on what basis these universal societies respectively 
 rest, and what is the relation between them. 
 
 I. We have seen that it is common to Judaism, to 
 Mahometanism, to Christianity, that they assert the 
 
 M. B. L. L
 
 146 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [taut it 
 
 will of a living Being as tlie gi'ound of all things, tbat 
 they speak of Him as declaring Himself, as exercising 
 a continual, not an occasional, government over 
 men. This i-ecognition of a Divine, personal, unseen 
 Sovereignty; of One who is not sought out by men, 
 but who seeks men ; who calls them, and chooses them 
 to do His work, is the strength of all three. Each one 
 of them becomes helpless when this faith is lost, or is 
 exchanged for any other. But if you look at the 
 records of the Old Testament, you will be struck by 
 nothing so much as this — that the Divine Being is 
 continually said to be declaring His Name to men. In 
 other words, it is not the fact of His existence chiefly 
 which He is teaching them to acknowledge ; but His 
 character — v\^hat manner of Being He is. He calls 
 upon them to obey a Will; each act of obedience 
 brings them into closer acquaintance with Him who 
 gives the command. 
 
 II. Hence we are able to understand the calling of 
 the Jewish Prophet. We are expressly told that he 
 is called to know this Name. The character of God 
 reveals itself to him in the different circumstances of 
 his own history, or his nation^s history. He is taught 
 that the evil which he is conscious of in himself, and 
 which he sees in others, comes from unlikeness to the 
 perfect Being in whose image he is created. He has 
 but a glimpse of the Divine purposes and character, 
 but it is such a glimpse as is suitable to his necessities 
 and the necessities of his time. It enables him to un-
 
 LECT. I.] THE DIVINE NAME. • m7 
 
 derstand what he is, aud what his nature is, without 
 God — what the blessing is of being called by Him — 
 what the end of his calling is ; namely, to make this 
 Name known to his countrymen ; to bring it out in 
 opposition to the evil which is most prevailing among 
 them. 
 
 III. And so too he understands, and is able to set 
 forth, the purpose of his nation's calling. It, too, was 
 to proclaim this righteous Name — to exhibit the con- 
 flict between God and all forms of evil — to show that 
 righteousness is a reality, and not a dream — that the 
 government of the world is based upon it — that wrong 
 and oppression are not meant to triumph — that the 
 earth is not meant to be a den of robbers. 
 
 lY. But such a Revelation as this, though it may 
 be handed down in enduring letters — though it may 
 become a possession for all generations, could never 
 merely be delivei-ed to men as a book of sentences or 
 maxims ; it must come forth in a gradual history — a 
 history of Divine acts and human acts. 
 
 The Hevelation assumes that God is altogether 
 distinct from His ci'eatures ; it must enable us to feel 
 that He is distinct fi'om them. It declares that He 
 has made man in His own image ; it must enable us to 
 feel practically that this assertion also is true. It 
 treats man as wo find him, full of wrong and evil j it 
 treats man as capable of the highest good — as unsatis- 
 fied till he attains that good. We must learn how 
 these two things are compatible. It must be a book
 
 148 ' THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [pakt ir, 
 
 of life^ then^ not merely of letters — a record of real 
 men and real events. It must show liow the Divine 
 Will directed events, and disciplined men for that per- 
 fect good, that knowledge of Himself which He had 
 designed for them. It must show how He cultivates 
 those faculties in His creatures which He has given ; 
 how He enables them to overcome the darkness and 
 evil in the midst of which they are struggling. 
 
 V. These are very obvious characteristics of the 
 Jewish Revelation : its origin in a personal Being ; its 
 recognition of a righteous Name ; its speaking of each 
 class in the nation, and of the whole nation, as called 
 to declare that Name ; its hviman, practical, and 
 historical form. But there is another characteristic as 
 obvious. The history is always pointing to a comple- 
 tion, and that completion in a Person. The Prophets 
 have a vision of a King, who shall be the manifest- 
 ation of God — the perfect image of Him — the Man 
 — the Deliverer of the called nation, the ruler of all the 
 nations : who should establish righteousness, should 
 open the unseen world, should unite earth and heaven. 
 For such an one, these Prophets say, David and his 
 line were the preparation — He would really establish a 
 universal kingdom. Now Christians affii-m that the 
 ground of universal society is the Revelation of this 
 King. This Son of God, they say, has been mani- 
 fested ; He in whom this perfect Image dwelt ; He has 
 exhibited that Image in the life and acts of a man, 
 in the poverty and death of a man; He, as a 
 man, has exercised dominion over the powers of
 
 LECT. I.] THE CHRISTIAN UNITY, 149 
 
 nature ; as a man, wrestled witli spiritual evil ; as a 
 man, triumphed over death ; as a man, ascended to the 
 right hand of God ; He having so united man to God, 
 has sent down His Spirit to dwell among men, that 
 they might be one family, and glorify the Father of all 
 in Him. The universal kingdom, say they, must be a 
 fatherly kingdom. The Loi*d of it must be a suffering 
 man, who is yet the Son of God. That which makes 
 it one, and enables men to acknowledge God as one, 
 must be a uniting, reconciling Spirit, who raises them 
 above the broken forms and shadows of earth — above 
 those material things, in which there is nothing but 
 division, into the true unity, the perfect, absolute Love. 
 This, according to the Christian's faith, being the 
 kingdom which is meant for all men, he must believe 
 that God Himself designs that it should be made 
 known to men ; that all people should be brought into 
 it. Men now, as much as formerly, must be com- 
 missioned servants of God for this end : there must be 
 distinct callings tending to the accomplishment of it. 
 All who have been brought to acknowledge the true 
 King must have a share in the calling. But that par- 
 ticular work which was assigned to the Jewish nation, 
 of putting down wrong and violence, of asserting 
 justice and judgment, though it can never be obsolete, 
 though each nation must be called upon in its own 
 place and circumstances to fulfil it, cannot be the high- 
 est work of all. For He who did the highest work of 
 all, did it by suffering, submission, sacrifice; the 
 greatest triumph over the greatest evils was won in
 
 loO THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [part it. 
 
 tliis way. PoTver manifested itself in weakness ; He 
 who was most meek, proved Himself to be most a 
 King. He wlio most proved Himself to be Divine, 
 did so by becoming one witk the poorest and vilest. 
 This was not a novelty in the history of the world ; in 
 a measure it had been shown before, that what is 
 greatest is best able to stoop ; that what can most 
 bear to be crushed, has most capacity of life ; that each 
 thing must die before it can attain its perfection. The 
 whole history of the world, rightly read, would illus- 
 trate this lesson : above all, it had been illustrated by 
 the prophets and holy men of the Old Testament ; nay, 
 those very exertions of national strength and energy, 
 which seem to set this principle at nought, were them- 
 selves exhibitions of it. The glory of the Israelitish 
 conquest of Canaan was this, that it was the triumph 
 of weakness over strength, of infused spiritual might 
 over the height of walls and the bulk of giants. 
 
 But though men had been learning this lesson 
 gradually, the time which fully brought it out, which 
 set at nought all pretensions of outward strength to 
 dominion, which showed that the power of God Him- 
 self must be exhibited through weakness and death, in 
 order that it may be felt to be the power of Love ; this 
 was of necessity the beginning of a new era. Hence- 
 forth surely every new event of history would demon- 
 strate this truth afresh. Whatever power was working 
 in the world must submit to this, or be broken by it. 
 The evidence might be various, complicated, often con-
 
 LECT. I.] THE WOELD BEGINNING AFEESH. lot 
 
 tradictory; but it would all tend to this point — it 
 would assert a Loving Will as the ground of all things ; 
 that that Will had been fully manifested to men in the 
 person of a man, who delighted to do it ; that it can 
 only accomplish its ends by bringing the wills of men 
 into subjection to itself. 
 
 Now Mahometanism formally sets at nought tJiis 
 idea of a Divine and universal kingdom ; treats it as a 
 mere imagination which outrages all simplicity. It 
 goes back to the one principle of God^s sovei'eignty ; 
 cares nothing for the gradual unfolding of a Name 
 through a history of living acts ; assumes that the 
 Book is given to the prophet as a complete scheme of 
 life; affirms that it is the commission of the faithful to 
 diffuse faith in this Book, and in the fact of the Divine 
 sovereignty through the world; for this purpose in- 
 vests its caliph or sovereign with absolute dominion. 
 In the seventh centurv after Christ, Mahomet taug-ht 
 that the world was to begin its history again ; but to 
 begin it with no hope of a progress. That principle, 
 which had been the mere starting-point of Jewish faith, 
 the ground of what it was learning for nineteen hun- 
 di^ed years, was to be the one, all-sufficing maxim of 
 Mahometan life. The Koi'an was to make it the cne 
 all-sufficing maxim for generations. 
 
 Grand then as was the truth which Mahomet pro- 
 claimed, needful as the proclamation of it was for the 
 overthrow of Jewish and Christian unbelievers, he did 
 but re-affirm the primary confession of both ; he denied
 
 I' 
 
 152 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part ir. 
 
 that whicli made this primary confession consistent in 
 itself and effectual for man. By this denial he sanc- 
 tioned and adopted some of the worst, most character- 
 istic superstitions and evils of the Jews and Christians 
 against whom he protested. They had substituted 
 words for realities ; faith in notions for faith in God ; he, 
 in seeming to add a new revelation, destroyed the vital, 
 historical, progressive character of the old ; in publish- 
 ing newer andlater notions, set mankind at a more hope- 
 less distance from Him to whom these notions related. 
 By this denial he made the acts and struggles of 
 Islamism unintelligible. For beginning in weakness, 
 triumphing through faith, this doctrine was a witness 
 for the Christian principle which it set at nought. 
 The grandeur of the Crescent can be understood only 
 by the light which falls upon it from the Cross. Be- 
 cause the Mahometan recognises a mere Will governing 
 all things, and that Will not a loving Will, he is con- 
 verted, as we saw that he had been in the course of 
 his history, from a noble witness of a Personal Being 
 nto the worshipper of a dead necessity. Because he 
 will not admit that there has been a Man in the world 
 who was one with God — a Man who exercised power 
 over nature, and yet whose main glory consisted in 
 giving up Himself, therefore he cannot really assert 
 the victory of man over visible things when he tries 
 most to do so. He glorifies the might of arms when 
 he most talks of the might of submission. Because he 
 does not acknowledge a loving will acting upon men's
 
 LECT. I.] GOD'S MESSAGE ONLY EFFECTUAL. 153 
 
 willsj to humble them in themselves^ and to raise them 
 to God, therefore he becomes the enslaver of his fellows, 
 therefore cheerful obedience to a master, which for a 
 while distinguished him, becomes servitude to a tyrant. 
 Because he will not acknowledge that the highest and 
 divinest unity is that of love, but rests all upon the 
 mere unity of sovereignty, he has never been able to 
 establish one complete government upon the earth. 
 It has been found that such a universality or unity is 
 merely material ; that it has no root in the nature of 
 thino's — in the Divine order : that each new ag-e must 
 do something to weaken its integrity and hasten its 
 dissolution. 
 
 Two questions, I hope, may have been partly 
 answered by these observations. The first is, whether 
 Christianity must abandon its claims to be a Revelation, 
 in order that it may deal fairly with the Mahometan ? 
 The second, whether it can strengthen and quicken 
 that faith of his which we found was ready to perish ? 
 Whatever pretends only to be a better system of no- 
 tions, a better scheme of conduct than his own, he will 
 reject while he has the courage and constancy of his 
 fathers : will only receive because he has sunk into a 
 state in which it is indifferent what he holds, or rather, 
 in which it is impossible for him with a real vital grasp 
 to hold anything. Mahomet was believed by those, 
 and those only, who felt that he brought a message 
 from God ; nothing which does not come as a message 
 from God can reach the hearts of those who still ac-
 
 151 THE EELIGIOXS OF THE "WOELD [paet u. 
 
 knowledo-e liim. And of what form must the message 
 be ? If it sets at nought the first conditions of his 
 original faith, nay, of his very existence, this he is cer- 
 tain cannot be from God : yea, he knows it must be 
 from the devih Only that which assumes this as its 
 eternal foundation, and which deepens and expands it 
 so that the facts of human life which seem least in ac- 
 cordance with it shall be shown to rest upon it, will 
 carry that Divine stamp which the reason and con- 
 science it awakens will recognise. Therefore we agree 
 with the arguments of our opponents to this extent. 
 Supposing they had proved the Gospel not to be a 
 revelation, but only a product of the human intellect, 
 their conclusion is incontestable. It ought not to be 
 presented to the Mahometan ; it is utter folly, or else 
 cruelty, to inflict the proclamation upon him. But if 
 it does not follow, from the likeness which has been 
 detected between Mahometanism, Judaism, and Christi- 
 anity, that they are all equally deceived in their great 
 postulate; if it appears that Christianity interprets 
 that postulate, and prevents it from sinking into a dead 
 notion; then we have found the power which can 
 avenge the outrages and injuries of Islamism, preserv- 
 ing the precious fragments of truth which are lodged 
 within it, forming them into a whole, making them 
 effectual for the blessing of all the lands over which it 
 reigns. 
 
 And surely, if this be the way in which we can and 
 should speak to the Mahometan, no other can befit
 
 LECT. I.] ALIKE TO JEW AND MAHOMETAN, 155 
 
 us iu our intercourse with the Jew. Whatever there 
 is in him of strength or earnestness cHngs to the be- 
 lief that God spake to his fathers. Systems, rabbinical 
 and philosophical_, may choke that belief; money-get- 
 ting habits may almost extinguish it. But it haunts 
 him ; it is an oppression to him, from which in these 
 ways he seeks to be delivered when he is in an evil 
 state of mind ; it is his only consolation and hope when 
 he rises into a higher one. With it is connected that 
 sense of nationality which is even yet his noblest 
 characteristic, however mixed it may be with sin and 
 weakness. To it is linked that hope of a coming De- 
 liverer which sometimes cheers him amidst all the 
 misery and anguish of his actual condition. A religion 
 which is not a message from God, not an unveiling of 
 Him, is at once felt by him to be a phantasy. He may 
 adopt the modern talk about the religious instinct or 
 principle creating its own object ; but it is in his mouth, 
 if in no other person's, absolutely insincere. Again 
 then we say, if Christianity be not a Revelation, or we 
 do not think it is, we are right to keep it from the Jew, 
 as being something with which his mind can have no 
 possible affinity. But if it is this ; if it is such a reve- 
 lation as rests upon his data, as justifies his nationality, 
 as establishes his hope of a Deliverer, while it takes 
 from these convictions that narrowness which he is 
 beginning to find incompatible with his apprehensions 
 respecting the condition and greatness of man ; shows 
 how the nationality, without being lost, may be ex-
 
 loG THE RELIGIONS OP THE WORLD, [part ii. 
 
 pandedinto a universal fellowsliip; hinders the vision of 
 a future revelation fi-om degenerating into the expect- 
 ation of a sensual and mundane felicity, by declaring 
 that the Redeemer has come already to claim Man for 
 His possession, and to rescue him from his earthly bond- 
 age : then we may feel in this case that there is one 
 power, and but one in the world, which can raise the 
 fallen Israelite to a new and spiritual life. 
 
 There is, however, another view of the relations of 
 Christianity with Judaism and Mahometanism — another, 
 and a most important one. If Christianity deserve 
 that character in which I have endeavoured to present 
 it, it has, and it ought to have, its Judaical and Ma- 
 hometan side. It may, as I have said, alienate this 
 part of its own possession; it may forget the great 
 truth which it has inherited from Judaism, the truth 
 of a living King and Lord of the World; it may try 
 to sever the doctrine of Christ from this absolute and 
 eternal ground ; then that doctrine loses all its mean- 
 ing, becomes a shadow, and not a substance — a dogma, 
 not a living word. Then God does assuredly raise up 
 some witness for this truth, lest men should be robbed 
 of it. But it is also possible for Christians to exalt the 
 Judaical or Mahometan side of Christianity exclusively, 
 to become, in fact, practically Jews or Mahometans, 
 though they do not belong to the family of Abraham, 
 and may care nothing about the Arabian Prophet. In 
 practice Christians have done this when they have 
 attempted to copy Jewish example in the manner of
 
 LECT. I.] WE COPY JEW AND MAHOMETAN. 157 
 
 propagating their faith : really copying not that, but 
 Mahometan example : for we truly copy Jewish ex- 
 ample, as I have shown you, when we go forth as 
 national bodies, under our national sovereign, to resist 
 wrong and robbery, and to maintain the position which 
 God has given us ; we copy Mahometan example when 
 we. attempt to spread the principles of the Universal 
 Family, which is based upon the Love of God, and the 
 Sacrifice of Christ, and the gift of the Spirit of meek- 
 ness and of charity, by any other methods than those 
 of love, and sacrifice, and meekness. We seem to copy 
 Jewish example — we really copy Mahometan example, 
 when we seek for any visible, mortal man to reign over 
 the Universal Family ; for the Jewish king reigned 
 not over the universe, but over a particular nation ; 
 and so^ soon as a universal society grew out of the 
 national one, it was the glorious proclamation that an 
 Unseen King, who had ascended to the right hand of 
 God, was its only Sovereign. We seem to copy Jewish 
 example — we really copy Mahometan example, when 
 we set visible and outward rewards before us as the 
 prizes of our high calling ; for though the Jew lived 
 especially to assert God's dominion over the earth, and 
 to rule it, and subdue it for Him, yet the reward he 
 always kept in sight was, that he might know Him who 
 exercised righteousness and judgment in the earth, 
 that he might awake up after His likeness, and be 
 satisfied with it. In like manner we copy the example 
 of the modern Jew and of the Mahometan, not of the
 
 158 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet il. 
 
 ancient Jew, or if of tlie ancient Jew, only of the 
 formal, heartless Pharisee, when we receive the Bible 
 not as a record of actual doings, of actual intercourse 
 between a living Being and His creatures upon earth, 
 but only as a collection of notions and opinions, about 
 which we are to dispute and tear each other in pieces. 
 Still more effectually do we assume the character of 
 the servant of the Prophet, of the degenerate Israelite, 
 when we setup the dry confession of God^s sovereignty 
 ao-ainst His righteousness, supposing that His acts are 
 ever acts of self-will ; that His glory is ever anything 
 but the glory of pm-ity, and goodness, and truth. In 
 all these ways we may prove that there is indeed a 
 very near relation between our belief and theirs, inas- 
 much as we can hold the one under the name of the 
 other. 
 
 Ao-ain, we may adopt what some would call, I 
 think wrongly, a merely theoretical Judaism, or 
 Mahometanism ; we may seem to copy Jewish example 
 by asserting the simplicity of God's nature ; by deny- 
 in o- the possibility of a man manifesting forth the 
 Unseen God, by rejecting the belief of a Father and of 
 a Son, and of a Spirit who binds them together in an 
 ever-blessed Unity. Why this is not the adoption of 
 the true Judaical Faith, but the rejection of it, I have 
 explained already; it has been ever ready to issue in 
 the dryness of modern Judaism, wherein all which we 
 see alive in the Old Testament is petrified. Now 
 especially that result is inevitable ; for now, less than
 
 LECT. I.] NO EXEMPTION FEOM TEMPT ATION. lo9 
 
 in any former day, is it possible to speak of God as if 
 He stood in no relation to man. The tendency of our 
 time is to confound Him with His Creatures, with the 
 works of His hands : to lose all thought of His dis- 
 tinctness; to regard Him as only the conception of 
 man^s mind, a sort of synonyme for man's thinking 
 faculty, or for the life which dwells in things. Against 
 such notions the records of Judaism and Mahometan- 
 ism are mighty and standing protests; but they are 
 more and more ineffectual protests. They show why 
 such notions of God can never satisfy human beings 
 who know their own necessities ; not what these 
 notions signify, and how they are to be satisfied. 
 
 It is true, then, that the temptations of Jews and 
 Mahometans are our temptations; that we carry their 
 practical confusions and divisions within our own 
 bosoms. At every moment we are liable to fall into 
 them. Each careless step we take, each unholy temper 
 we indulge, the neglect of our duties, the tolei*ance of 
 our evil, is always increasing the danger. It is true 
 also that the Christian has no right to undervalue any 
 good thing which he finds in any Jew or Mahometan ; 
 it flows from a principle which he ought to hold fast, 
 and which ought to produce the same or better fruits 
 in him. While we acknowledge that every right act 
 in them deserves tenfold more admiration than it could 
 deserve in us, and that all our evil acts must be done 
 with ten-thousandfold greater sense of wrong and less 
 of excuse, this confession does not in the least affect
 
 1(50 THE RELIGIONS OP THE AYORLD. [part il. 
 
 wliat we believe ; for Christianity is not concerned in 
 justifying our sins, but in condemning them : it does 
 not say that any particular set of men, calling them- 
 selves by the Christian name, are better than others ; 
 but it says that God will be true, thougli every man 
 be a liar : that His kingdom will be established whether 
 we who belong to it care that it should be established, 
 or cut ourselves off" from it. And the same conscience 
 which tells us of our evil, forces each of us to say : 
 '^ This evil comes not from my faith, but from indiffer- 
 ence to it. It comes not from my holding too fast by 
 that which is simple and old when I might be seeking 
 for a new and finer Christianity. It comes simply 
 from my forgetting the Creed of my childhood. For 
 if I did believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of 
 Heaven and Earth, I should be acknowledging that 
 Will which Jews and Mahometans acknowledge as the 
 ground of all things : only I should be confessing it as 
 a loving and fatherly Will. If I did believe in Jesus 
 Christ His only Son our Lord, who was conceived by 
 the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered 
 under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, 
 who descended into hell, and rose again the third day 
 from the dead, who ascended into heaven, and sitteth. 
 on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, who 
 from thence shall come to judge the quick and dead, I 
 should feel and understand that there is indeed a Man 
 who will reign over the world, and judge it as Jews 
 and Mahometans teach ; but that this Man is the Son
 
 LECT. I.] THE CHEISTIAN CEEED. 161 
 
 of God and tlie Son of Man ; one who before He 
 claimed our homage, submitted to our curse, wrestled 
 with death and overcame ; who has already set up His 
 throne in the highest region of all, and calls upon 
 every voluntary creature in his heart and spirit to do 
 him homage. If I did believe in the Holy Ghost, the 
 Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the 
 Forgiveness of Sins, the Resurrection of the Body, 
 and the Life Everlasting, I should feel there was a 
 mighty. Divine Power working in us, to make us more 
 completely servants of a human king and of the Divine 
 Will, than Jews and Mahometans have ever dreamed 
 they could be : to make us members of a universal 
 society, as Islamites wish to be; to make our bodies 
 more triumphant over death, more glorious than they 
 have thought possible ; but, besides this, to make us 
 sons of God — brethren with Him who is the Son of 
 God — brethren with those who have passed into 
 another world, who are perfectly freed from temptation 
 and sin, who have inherited not a sensual Paradise, 
 but a kingdom of righteousness, and peace, and love." 
 
 M. B. L. 
 
 M
 
 PART II.— LECTURE II. 
 
 The relation between Christianity/ and Hindooism generally 
 compared. Mistakes concerning it. Investigation of its 
 nature. The ttvice-born man. The Image of Brahm. In- 
 carnations. Sacrifice. Dangers to Christianity from its 
 Hindoo side. Hoiv Christianity can and cannot satisfy 
 Hindoos. 
 
 THE subject wliich I propose to consider in my 
 present Lecture, is tlie relation between Christian- 
 ity and Hindooism. That sucb a relation exists has 
 been felt by most persons, different as tbeir theories 
 have been respecting the nature or the cause of it. 
 Christian writers on Hindoo antiquities have spoken of 
 various traditions, which they suppose must have been 
 derived, originally, from Scripture narratives — of 
 various Hindoo doctrines which have an obvious re- 
 semblance to some that form part of the orthodox faith 
 of Christendom. Infidel writers have been equally 
 willino- to notice these correspondences, and have 
 turned them to their own account. If any part of the 
 Hindoo theories about the origin of the world recalls 
 the Mosaic narrative, this is evidence to them that 
 each was equally the work of some early, imperfect 
 theorist, that neither has any claim to Divine authority. 
 If the similarity is of an historical kind, the notorious 
 confusion of the Hindoo records throws new doubt 
 upon the Jewish. If, again, the likeness be between 
 the great mysteries of the Christian faith, and the
 
 LECT. II.] ANALOGIES MAY MISLEAD US. 163 
 
 more recondite Hindoo speculations_, what^ they ask, 
 does this show but that these mysteries are the results 
 of certain trains of human thought, and have only 
 been attributed to a higher origin, because our fore- 
 fathers had not the same means as we have of tracinsr 
 them out in the minds of those whom they considered 
 ignorant and idolatrous as we do ? 
 
 I do not wish to conceal any of these objections ; I 
 am rather anxious to put them forward at the outset of 
 my inquiry, because they concern not so much the 
 conclusions to which it may lead, as the method in 
 which it shall be pursued. It is no doubt true that 
 Christian writers have often caught at external, super- 
 ficial indications of a resemblance between their own 
 faith and that of other men, and have strained evidence 
 to show how it must have been produced. And I am 
 satisfied that every such attempt to make out a case by 
 ingenious twisting of words or perversion of facts, is 
 sorely punished. For the impression left upon our 
 minds, supposing the likeness completely established, 
 would be no more than this ; that certain opinions of 
 certain people upon matters of history, or upon ques- 
 tions of a very subtle and refined nature, had something 
 to do with opinions existing among ourselves, and 
 might, perhaps, have proceeded from the same source. 
 But the mere theories which we find in the sacred books 
 of different nations, either about the past state of the 
 world, or the system of it now, though they are worthy 
 of our study and reflection, as hints (not always the
 
 164 * TnE EELIGIONS OP THE WOELD. [part n. 
 
 most important liints) towards understanding what is 
 tlie radical principle and belief of the race which adopts 
 them, are not themselves identical with that principle 
 and that belief. Now when this is the case with that 
 to which we compare the Christian doctrines, it is far 
 too likely that we shall begin to think of them in the 
 same way. They will appear to ns also notions and 
 opinions about certain great subjects ; clivine notions 
 and opinions we may call them ; but a mere name will 
 not change their character : we shall not feel that they 
 have to do with our own life and being ; we shall 
 regard them as truths which we are to hold, not as 
 truths which are to hold us^ which are to give us a 
 standing ground for time and for eternity. I do 
 not wonder, then, nor am I altogether sorry, that 
 those who have put forward this view of the relations 
 between Hindooism and Christianity should have been 
 taught that their own weapons may be used against 
 them. Such discoveries, instead of shaking our faith, 
 may lead us to feel more diligently for the foundation 
 of it ; to ask whether other nations have not given 
 evidence that they too need such a foundation ; whether 
 they are not craving to be told what it is. 
 
 In considering the relations between Mahometanism 
 and Christianity, we did not satisfy ourselves with 
 showing that certain precepts of the Koran corre- 
 sponded to certain precepts of the Bible, and that the 
 one was wrong when it had departed from the other. 
 It seemed necessary to examine whether the main
 
 LECT. 11.] VITAL PEINCIPLE OF MAnOMETANISM. IGj 
 
 principle of Maliometan life^ that wliicli liad given 
 streugtli to its hosts when they were most strong, be 
 or be not embodied in Christianity, and whether there 
 or here it has most vitality, and is most in harmony 
 with other principles equally important. If we could 
 not find that the great Mahometan truth was asserted 
 more distinctly, mightily, liviugly in Christianity than 
 in Mahometanism, we did not feel that Christianity 
 could ever be a substitute for Mahometanism. If that 
 for which the Mahometans were content to give up 
 their lives, were merely a formal proposition in our 
 faith, we were sure we could not sustain ourselves 
 against them. If anything wherein we differed from 
 them weakened this principle, that was so much of 
 evidence against us. Nothing seemed sufficient to us 
 but the discovery that the belief in an Absolute Living 
 God actually ruling in the world seeking men not first 
 sought by them, which is the root of all their convic- 
 tions, is the root of ours ; that Christianity perishes 
 even more completely than Mahometanism when this 
 truth is forgotten; that this principle has lost its power 
 over the Mahometan mind, or been changed into one 
 of the most opposite character, just because it wants 
 the support of other kindred truths, which belong to 
 the essence of Christianity. 
 
 Precisely in the same manner I would deal with the 
 present subject. In my second Lecture I considered 
 what were the permanent characteristics of Hindooism, 
 those which had survived in all its changes, and made its
 
 166 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet ii. 
 
 different changes intelligible, tliose which had resisted 
 all opposition, even from truths which seemed mightier 
 than they, and from men who were braver and stronger 
 than those who upheld them. I would now inquire 
 whether these characteristics have their counterparts in 
 Christianity; whether they enter into the substance of it, 
 as they do into the substance of Hindooism; whether the 
 difficulties and contradictions which we found had grown 
 naturally out of these convictions, and yet had weakened 
 and impaired them, belong also to our belief; whether 
 in that belief these Hindoo truths are or are not I'econ- 
 ciled with those to which they seemed utterly hostile. 
 I have said again and again, that I do not think we 
 prove our confidence in the divinity of that which we 
 confess by subjecting it to light tests, by arguing that 
 this or that is not justly required of it. Whatever has 
 been found necessary in the course of six thousand 
 years' experience, we have a right to ask of that which 
 offers itself as the faith for mankind. And I do not 
 believe that it ever has shrunk, or ever will shrink, 
 from any demands of this kind that we make upon it. 
 
 The position of the Brahmin in reference to the rest 
 of Hindoo society was that which seemed to us at once 
 the most obvious outward mark of the system, and its 
 essential characteristic. Here was the radical distinc- 
 tion between Hindooism and Mahometanism ; here was 
 the key to its connection with Buddhism, and to the 
 divergence of the latter from it. The Greeks under 
 Alexander had seen that the Hindoo people were cast
 
 XECT. II.] THE TWICE-BOEN MAN. 1G7 
 
 in the Brahminical mould — they retain this mould 
 iinder the English government in the nineteenth 
 century after Christ. Whatever principle then be the 
 ground of the belief in the superiority of the Brahmin 
 to other men, can be no mere accident of Hindoo 
 opinion, no mere notion in the sacred books ; it must 
 belong to the innermost heart of the race. This 
 principle we found expressed in that distinction between 
 the twice-born man and other men, which is the 
 characteristical one of the Menu code. All mere dis- 
 tinctions of occupation, even the distinctions of the 
 four original classes, seem to resolve themselves into 
 this. This, therefore, had endured, though two of 
 those classes had disappeared, and though the whole 
 caste system had undergone great outward modifica- 
 tions. This had continued universal amidst all its 
 local varieties. Nor was there much difficulty in ascer- 
 taining the ground on which the distinction rested. 
 First of all, it stood on the conviction that there is in 
 man that which is meant to converse with an Unseen 
 Spiritual Being, that this is the vocation of the highest' 
 wisest man, of him who is properly tltc man, who is 
 alone able to guide and rule his fellows. Next, upon 
 the consideration that this is not the natural, ordinary 
 state of men, that this is an ignominious, degraded, 
 animal state, out of which whoever is raised, must be 
 raised by different acts of purification, acts which are 
 to bring him into a relation more or less intimate with 
 Brahra. Thirdly, we saw that the idea of hereditary
 
 168 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [part ir. 
 
 succession became involved witli this, tliat tlie twice- 
 born men became a distinct family^ to be preserved 
 pure from generation to generation. 
 
 I repeat these observations in this place the more 
 carefully, because I am anxious that you should not 
 suppose I am attaching any force to a mere phrase like 
 that of the twice-born man. This phrase instantly 
 suggests to every Chinstian an idea with which all his 
 life he has been familiar. Hence, it might lead us to 
 one of those hasty analogies against which I have 
 already warned you. A person thoughtfully and 
 earnestly considering such a subject as this for a great 
 practical purpose, will be suspicious of himself when he 
 finds that he is noticing a verbal correspondence ; he 
 will be aware of the temptation to build an argument 
 upon it, and will understand how very easily he may be 
 deceived by a translation from another language, made 
 by men who were formed in an English school of 
 thought, and were, perhaps, glad to catch at a render- 
 ing which would bring a lively and well-known image 
 before the minds of their readers. I am quite willing, 
 therefore, to forget this expression altogether, or to 
 adopt any other that an Oriental scholar shall give me 
 as a substitute for it, which has no resemblance to our 
 own sacred dialect. It is the thing, and not the word, 
 I wish you to notice j the deep conviction which has 
 wrought itself into the mind of the Hindoo, and which 
 has gone along with him through every stage of ^ his 
 history. Still more earnestly would I remind you that 
 it is not the words New Birth, or Second Birth, which
 
 LECT. II.] THE JEWISH SEPAEATION. 1G9 
 
 characterise Christianity, but the meaning indicated by 
 them. To reahse that conviction, let us, as on the last 
 occasion, look at the context of the Scriptures, not 
 confining ourselves to the New Testament, but begin- 
 ning with the opening of Jewish history. 
 
 I. You will remember how we traced the idea of a 
 Divine call through the whole of that history. I re- 
 ferred to it then for the purpose of showing how every- 
 thingjn^ur faith, as in the Mahometan, rests upon the 
 recognition of an act done on the part of God. But in 
 that call was involved the idea of distinction, of separa- 
 tion. Abraham is called out of his father's house, he 
 is set apart to be the head of a peculiar family, and the 
 whole of that family have a sign of the separation 
 appointed for them. When the nation is called out of 
 its Egyptian bondage, not only is this sign carefully 
 preserved ; not only is every institution expressly con- 
 trived to keep this people distinct from other people ; 
 but within the nation itself distinctions begin to be 
 established. The priest is called out to the special 
 work of presenting sacrifices, a whole tribe is set apart 
 to the sei"vice of the tabernacle. They are carefully 
 designated; the anointing oil is poured upon their 
 heads ; garments of honour and beauty are given them ; 
 Holiness to the Lord is inscribed on the forehead of the 
 high priest. The last fact shows you how completely 
 the idea not only of a separation is involved in these 
 appointments, but of a separation for the very purpose 
 to which the Brahmin is devoted. The priest is dedi- 
 cated to the service of the Unseen Jehovah. He is to
 
 170 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 enter into Ilis presence^ to hold awful converse with 
 Him. His sepai-ation is never for an instant spoken of 
 as having another object than this. A gross animal 
 taste, a disposition to honour visible things and bow 
 before them, is characteristic of men generally ; the 
 elect people are taken from the surrounding nations, 
 that thej may be emancipated from this slavish tend- 
 ency. Yet the Jew is reminded that he is liable to it 
 like other men; that he must be cut off from it ; that 
 he must look upon himself as intended for intercourse 
 with that which the eye cannot tell him of. Tlie_;^riest^ 
 
 _e.xplains the end of the nation's existence, It is ex- 
 pressly declared that the tribe of Levi is taken instead 
 of the firstboim of all the families of Israel. 
 
 Here you see one very clear indication of the pnn- 
 ciple which Hindoo society embodies. And this principle 
 is not less characteristic of the later history than of the 
 earlier. True, the people began in process of time to 
 mix with the nations round about them, and to adopt 
 their habits. But the wise man always warned them, 
 and the fact proved, that hereby they were destroying 
 themselves. When they forgot their covenant, when 
 they no longer looked upon themselves as a chosen, 
 separated people, above all when their priests lost sight 
 of their own vocation, and the purpose of it, feebleness, 
 division, subjection to their neighbours, followed of 
 course. The fact does not change in the least degree 
 from one generation to another. The only change is in 
 the increased knowledge which the Jews obtain of the
 
 LECT. II.] IT IS MAINLY SPIEITUiUj. 171 
 
 reason and ground of tlie fact. This progress is very 
 remarkable. The prophets told them more and more 
 distinctly, that they required to be circumcised in 
 heart; that the separation must not be merely from 
 surrounding people, but from an evil and corruption in 
 themselves ; that if they remembered the covenant of 
 their God, and clave to Him, they would overcome not 
 merely the Moabites and Edomites, but a perverse, 
 grovelling habit of soul, which was the cause of their 
 idolatry ; that if they forgot this covenant, they would 
 sink first under the yoke of their own inclinations, then 
 under that of Nineveh or Babylon. The more you read 
 the Old Testament prophets the more you will see that 
 amidst all the various circumstances which surround 
 them, amidst all the different methods of instruction 
 which they are taught to adopt, this is their great 
 burthen. But is there not a change in the New Testa- 
 ment ? Did not our Lord destroy that separation 
 which the teachers of the old time had been so careful 
 to establish ? Did not His coming put Jews and 
 Gentiles on a level ? We must not permit vague 
 phrases of this kind to hide from us the fact that our 
 Lord, so far from obliterating the principle for which 
 the Jewish nation had testified, asserted it, established 
 it, expressed it for the. first time in all its clearness and 
 fulness. That, He said, which is born of the flesh is 
 flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 
 Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom 
 of heaven. In this language He gathers up the very
 
 172 THE EELIGIOXS OF THE WORLD, [part ii. 
 
 meaning of the old dispensation ; sliows us what a truth 
 was involved in every part of it ; how every part had 
 been a preparation for the full revelation of this truth. 
 His coming was, no doubt, to destroy the barrier be- 
 tween Jew and Gentile ; but not till that barrier had 
 been proved to have its justification in the very con- 
 dition and being of man, in his relation to God and to 
 the world. If there is a flesh in man, by obedience to 
 which he becomes degraded, sensual, idolatrous, if he 
 naturally is obedient to this flesh, and can only attain 
 the rights of a spiritual creature, when the Lord of all 
 I'aises him above his nature, above himself, then we can 
 understand why a whole nation should have been called 
 by its position in reference to other nations, by its 
 strength and weakness, righteousness and sins, by the 
 experience of all its individual members, to set forth 
 this mighty fact in which the eternal destinies of man- 
 kind must be involved. And this testimony we hold 
 -is not, and cannot be, obsolete. The Christian Church 
 claims to be a body of twice-born men ; claims to be a 
 witness of that mighty privilege which men have of 
 conversing with the Unseen and Infinite, as well as a 
 witness of the tendency which there is in man to be 
 merely animal and sensual. The Christian Church 
 claims a set of ministers who shall represent the spirit- 
 ual glory and privileges of the whole body, shall be 
 instruments in overcoming the low and grovelling pro- 
 pensities of its members. Here, then, is a principle 
 which is as characteristic of our faith as it is of the
 
 LECT. II.] MAN'S EELATION TO DIVINE NATURE. 173 
 
 Hindoo, which lias scarcely moulded Oriental society 
 more than it has moulded the society of modern Europe. 
 IT. It is impossible to separate the belief in the 
 superiority of the Brahmin to other men, from the be- 
 lief in his relation to Brahm, Technically we may call 
 one a political, the other a tlicological idea ; practically, 
 the former may, for a while, survive the latter. But 
 in any serious investigation of the grounds of the 
 religious system they must be contemplated as identical. 
 Brahm is Wisdom or Light : the Brahmin is the re- 
 flection of this Wisdom or Light. Such a view of the 
 Divinity, and of the way in which man is related to 
 Him, is found in different modifications among all those 
 people who are members of what is called the Indo- 
 Germanic stock, and, perhaps, in some who do not be- 
 long to it. While creative Will, Command, Sovei'eignty, 
 Separation from man, are the attributes of Him whom 
 the Arabian proclaimed to be the one God, Persians, 
 Greeks, Goths, each recognised Intelligence, an Intelli- 
 gence communicable to man, and quickly involving 
 human worship, as the object of their reverence. But 
 long before this reverence had taken any definite form 
 among these people, hear how strongly it was expressed 
 by those Hebrew sages who seemed to live for the 
 assertion of the Mahometan truth : " I Wisdom dwell 
 with Prudence, and find out knowledge of witty in- 
 ventions. I am Understanding ; I have strength. By 
 me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me 
 pi'inces rule, and nobles, and all the judges of the
 
 174 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [part ii. 
 
 earth. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of 
 His way, before His works of old. When there were 
 no depths, I was brought forth ; when there were no 
 fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains 
 were settled, before the hills was I brought forth : while 
 as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor 
 the highest part of the dust of the world. When He 
 prepared the heavens, I was there : when He set 
 a compass upon the face of the deep : when He 
 established the clouds above : when He strengthened 
 the fountains of the deep : when He gave to the sea 
 His decree, that the waters should not pass His com- 
 mandment : when He appointed the fountains of the 
 earth : then I was by Him as one brought up with 
 Him ; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always 
 before Him ; rejoicing in the habitable part of His 
 earth ; and my delights were with the sons of men.-" 
 
 Here we have the origin of the universe ascribed 
 to Wisdom ; kings and judges are said to rule by 
 Wisdom ; Wisdom is said from the first to have had 
 her delight in the soiis of men. Is this an isolated 
 passage ; the dream of some particular writer, who had 
 perhaps been instructed by Chaldeans ? On the con- 
 trary, it expresses the very spirit of the Jewish 
 economy, as it is presented to us in the writings of all 
 its historians and prophets. The wise king or the 
 wise prophet is ever spoken of in Scripture as having 
 the divine Wisdom, the divine Word with him, nay, in 
 him. He does not shi'ink from the pretension. In 
 his truest; humblest state of mind, he feels and confesses
 
 LECT. II.] THE DIVINE WOED OR WISDOM. 175 
 
 himself to be only a reflection of the divine Lights an 
 
 utterer of the divine Voice. He charges it as a sin 
 
 upon the false teachers, that they speak words out of 
 
 their own heai'ts. Here, again, the New Testament 
 
 takes up, expands, and interprets the language of the 
 
 Old. " In the beginning/^ says St. John, " was the 
 
 Word. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light 
 
 of men. And the Light shineth in darkness, and the 
 
 darkness comprehended it not.'^ Of these words, and 
 
 of some which I have for the present omitted, St. 
 
 John's Gospel and his First Epistle are the exposition. 
 
 They declare what this life was which had been the 
 
 light of men, how it was manifested, who it was that 
 
 could say, '^ I am the Light of the World ; he that 
 
 foUoweth me shall not walk in darkness." 
 
 HL But we detected a yet deeper conception be- 
 neath that one of the relation of the Brahmin to 
 Brahma ; we found that Pirahma himself was supposed 
 to be the expression or manifestation of Brahm, who 
 must be thought of only as Absolute, Self-existent. 
 These two ideas are inseparable. The God is said to 
 have sought for a companion of his throne, and having 
 considered and rejected all animal natures, at last to 
 have found his one adequate image in Juan. This 
 thought, we saw was a pregnant one ; a dualism, not 
 of opposition but of consort, might be traced through 
 the whole mythology. 
 
 Now, in the passcige which I quoted from the Book 
 
 of the Proverbs, you cannot fail to have noted the 
 
 . words, '' The Lord possessed me in the beginning of
 
 1T6 THE EELIGIOXS OF THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 His ways. I was with Him as one brouglit up with 
 Him." Beneath this Wisdom, this teacher of the 
 Sons of Men, this Ruler of Princes, by whom the sea 
 and earth have been formed, there is still a deeper and 
 more unfathomable essence. Is this a dream, mixing 
 inconsistently with the rest of the discourse ? You 
 cannot banish it without destroying- the sense of the 
 context. Does it stand apart from the general course 
 and tenor of Jewish Revelation ? You cannot under- 
 stand the most striking, turning points of that Reve- 
 lation, if you determine to pass by these words as 
 incomprehensible or insignificant. Habitually the Jew 
 believed that He whom he worshipped dwelt in the 
 thick darkness ; no eye had seen Him ; it was unlaw- 
 ful to conceive any likeness of Him. But he also 
 believed that this Lord had revealed Himself to Abra- 
 ham, as he sat by the tent-door in the heat of the day 
 on the plain of Mamre ; that He had been the Captain 
 of the Hosts of Isi-ael ; that He had spoken to and by 
 every holy seer. Do you say, " These were difficulties ; 
 they look like contradictions in the faith of this people ; 
 they seem fragments from different religions — witnesses 
 that they were not, as divines pretend, the subjects of 
 a continuous, harmonious revelation V I admit the 
 difficulty ; I see why those who have never discovered 
 it in themselves, should suppose it must have arisen 
 from the blending of two incompatible traditions. I 
 admit, further, that the apparent contradiction could 
 not be removed from the mind of the Jew; that it must 
 have haunted him — sometimes have tormented him ;
 
 LECT. II.] AN APPAEENT DISCEEPANCY. 177 
 
 that the vision of a reconciliation will only from time 
 to time have cheered him, in the fulfilment of lowly- 
 duties, after hours of deep son-ow, in the temple- 
 worship ; that a verbal reconciliation could not satisfy 
 him, or any man. But a reconciliation he and the 
 Hindoo both demand ; the penalty of not finding it is 
 — Modern Judaism, or Modern Hindooism. In that 
 passage, which I purposely mutilated when I quoted 
 it before, St. John says, " In the beginning was the 
 Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
 God. The same was in the beginning with God.'^ He 
 states broadly, and in union, the two truths which the 
 former dispensation had beheld separately, each of 
 which had seemed at times to stifle the other, each of 
 w^hich had again seemed necessary to the other. But 
 he does not attempt to bx'ing them together in words, 
 until, as he believes, they had first been brought 
 together in fact. The Word, he says, was made flesh, 
 and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory 
 as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and 
 truth. 
 
 IV. I would beg you to remark how the Evangelist 
 speaks of Him here, first as a Word, then as a Son. 
 The Hindoo dreamed of Light proceeding from a 
 fountain of Light; the Greek of a Child springing 
 from a Father. Naturally, and without eSbrt, St. John 
 recognises both conceptions ; for the divine Wisdom 
 is with him no abstraction; the divine Son is with him 
 no material image. Hence there is no sudden transition 
 from the divinest part of the Christian lore to that 
 
 31. B. L. X
 
 178 THE EELIGIONS OP THE WORLD, [part ir. 
 
 ■vvliich connects it with the popular faith of Hindooism, 
 The Word was m.ade Flesh. A divine Incarnation is 
 affirmed to be the great instrument for redressing the 
 evils of the world. It is declared that He who had held 
 converse with holy men in their hearts, He whose life 
 was the light of men_, had brought Himself nigh to all^ 
 so that He could be seen with human eyes — handled 
 with human hands. 
 
 I have said that the Scripture speaks of this Incar- 
 nation as the means for the redress of mortal evils. 
 But if we will use its language strictly, we shall make 
 a closer approximation to the Hindoo apprehension : we 
 shall say that it was expressly to deliver men out of the 
 power of the Destroyer, to break in pieces his kingdom, 
 that the Eternal Word became one with His creatures. 
 Nowhere more distinctly than in Christian Theology is 
 there the recognition of the fact which the Siva worship- 
 per perceives ; nowhere less effort to make men com- 
 fortable by dissembling the fact, that misery and death 
 have gotten hold of the earth; nowhere a more 
 emphatic affirmation of the witness which the heart and 
 consciences of men have borne everywhere, but with 
 special earnestness in Hindostan, that in them, in the 
 region of man's inner being, is the fiercest debate with 
 the evil which he sees without; that there, in that 
 region, he has to encounter it in its highest form, in its 
 most radical principle. The Gospel does not start 
 with a philosophical lie ; what man by bitter experience 
 has discovered to be his condition, it assumes to be his 
 condition.
 
 LECT. II.] THE DESTROYER CONFOUNDED. 179 
 
 V. But dare we admit tlie genuineness of that other 
 page in the book of human experient^e which the Siva 
 worshippers would blot out ? The Incarnation answers 
 this question ; aflBrms the Preserver to be the Lord of 
 all; affirms Him through the whole course of His 
 government to have been upholding this earth and 
 those who dwell upon it ; to have been interfering for 
 their rescue. Here^ in this very Incarnation, and that 
 which follows from it, is the assertion of His complete 
 dominion; the answer to the Destroyer's claim to be 
 in any sense the Creator, to have any dominion what- 
 soever over that race which has paid him such fearful 
 homage. 
 
 That which meets us first in the records of the life 
 of the Son of Man upon earth, after He had been 
 declared to be the Son of God, is a conflict, which no 
 human eye could behold, with the Destroyer ; next, the 
 testimony which He gave outwardly of the truth He 
 had in that secret battle made good, by delivering the 
 bodies and spirits of men out of their bondage to 
 inward miseries and inward tyrants. Yet never for 
 an instant did He speak of the claim which He 
 put forth for the dominion of the Gracious Pre- 
 server and Father, as a new claim, ISTever when He 
 spoke of setting up His Kingdom did He admit 
 that He was not King of kings and Lord of lords 
 before. The Jewish calling and economy had been 
 asserting for generations the fact that the Lord, the 
 Lord God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and of 
 great mercy, forgiving iniquity, transgressions and sin,
 
 180 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part it. 
 
 was the one Lord ; that He had taken this nation to be 
 His, to make them witnesses of His righteousness and 
 government ; that every one who received His Reve- 
 lation of Himself, who submitted to Him, and trusted 
 in Him, was thereby brought into a righteous state, 
 was thereby enabled to understand the pui-pose of His 
 government, and to receive the blessings of it. 
 
 VI. Trust in this Being lay at the foundation of the 
 life of the Jewish people. That trust involved Sacri- 
 fice. They gave up themselves ; so they rose out of 
 the dominion of that Spirit of self-will to which others 
 were paying homage ; so they were able in their daily 
 acts to resist him, and defy him, and to declare that 
 neither in himself, nor in any of his innumerable forms, 
 images, apparitions, had he any title to the obedience 
 of God^s servants. The Jew was taught that he was 
 devoted, sacrificed to this Lord, who had chosen his 
 nation, who preserved it from generation to generation, 
 who exercised righteousness and judgment in all the 
 earth. It was He who called the priest, appointed his 
 vocation ; to Him he was to bring the sacrifices for 
 himself and his nation ; to Him, and to no visible 
 things ; to Him, and to no unrighteous, hateful power. 
 Sacrifice was the bond of the nation^s existence ; sacri- 
 fice the act by which man realized his place in it, and 
 came to understand its privileges. The meaning, the 
 law, the ground of sacrifice was interpreting itself to 
 the conscience and reason of the true Israelite by every 
 step of his discipline, by every act of obedience, by his 
 siuj by his repentance. More and more he felt it to be
 
 LECT. II.] SACEIFICES— TO NO VISIBLE POWER 181 
 
 the law of tlie universe ; apart from which its very ex- 
 istence is a contradiction ; since only in perfect sub- 
 mission to the perfect Will can any creature attain its 
 life and freedom. He was prepai'ed therefore for that 
 announcement which the Apostles of our Lord made so 
 boldly, that the Son of the Father, the Deliverer of 
 Man, had offered Himself a perfect Sacrifice to God ; 
 that He had accomplished this act by entering into all 
 the miseries of man ; that with this loving, filial sacri- 
 fice, He who was perfect Love was well pleased ; that 
 in it was the Atonement and Reconciliation of all Crea- 
 tion to Him, through its original Head ; that in the 
 strength of it each man might offer himself to God as 
 a reasonable, holy, acceptable Sacrifice. 
 
 I hope I have shown in these last hints that if the 
 other portions of the faith of the Hindoos have that 
 which answers to them in ours, their faith in the might 
 and blessing of Sacrifice is one in which we are bound 
 with all our hearts to participate. If there be any acts 
 in past or present ages on which we can think with 
 delight, which we can be sure had Christ's mark upon 
 them, which have wrought mightily, though in general 
 secretly^ for the deliverance of men from idols, from 
 intellectual or spiritual plagues, here has been the root 
 and spring of them. But it is just in the point of 
 deepest sympathy with this [ancient people that we 
 arrive at the secret of our opposition. Upon the ques- 
 tion |o lulwm the Sacrifice should be offered, whether 
 by it we propitiate a Siva, or surrender ourselves in 
 faith and trust to Him who cares for us and loves us ;
 
 182 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part n. 
 
 whether it is to overcome the reluctance of an enemy, 
 or is the offering of our own reluctant wills to a Father 
 in the name of one who has presented and is ever pre- 
 senting His own filial and complete Sacrifice — -upon 
 this issue, let us understand it well, our controversy 
 with Hindooism turns. 
 
 The idea of a Kehama obtaining a power from his 
 gods which they cannot afterwards resist to curse and 
 plague his fellow-men, is involved in the one doctrine, 
 and is ready at any moment to come forth in a form 
 of terrific wickedness, in the likeness of some Man-God. 
 The Agony of the Garden, the spirit of the 22nd 
 Psalm, the Cross of Him who became nothing that the 
 Power, and Grace, and Wisdom of God might through 
 Him shine forth upon all creatures ; here we see the 
 Christian Sacrifice, the sacrifice of the God-Man. This 
 Spirit of Sacrifice He promises to all who are made the 
 Sons of God in Him. Everything then depends in our 
 dealings with the Hindoos — let me add, everything in 
 our dealings with ourselves — upon the degree in which 
 we grasp this distinction, or lose sight of it. I showed 
 you that we are open to all Mahometan temptations. 
 So are we to all Hindoo temptations. We may exalt 
 a priestly caste, as if it were set up to make the rest of 
 men Sudras ; we may dwell upon the privilege of hold- 
 ing intercourse with the Divine Being, till we sink into 
 self- worshippers ; we may revenge ourselves for this 
 abstract idolatry, by plunging into outward idolatry ; 
 we may at last bow down before Siva, who we should 
 have known was in all these ways drawing us into his
 
 i,ECT. n.] CHEISTIAN HINDOOISM. 183 
 
 worsliip, since every act of pride, spiritual, intellectual, 
 sensual, is a mystery of liis worsliip. 
 
 These dangers have discovered themselves in former 
 periods of the world ; seeing that they appertain to 
 human nature, we may be as liable to them as those 
 who lived in any country or age. Is it an escape from 
 them to deny the existence of a priesthood, to say that 
 intercourse with heaven is a dream, to scoff at all 
 popular feelings, to maintain that the conscience of evil 
 is nothing, that sacrifices are a mockery ? Or, rather, 
 is the escape from them to maintain that a priesthood 
 exists for the purpose of raising men above animal de- 
 gradation, as a witness of the great rights of humanity; 
 that, because intercourse with heaven was intended for 
 the spirit of man, and has been made possible for men, 
 therefore lowliness and self-abasement are our most 
 proper and reasonable conditions ; that poor and rich, 
 priests and Sudras, have been alike looked upon, sym- 
 pathised with, redeemed, raised to human privileges 
 by Him who took the nature of all ; that every man 
 may be delivered from an evil conscience, that he may 
 renounce and scorn the authority of the evil spirit, that 
 he may offer himself in Christ's name to God ? This 
 is the alternative for India and for England. In other 
 words, the question is, whether we hold a system of 
 opinions or a revelation from God. All Brahmiuical 
 acts, services, sacraments, imply an effort or scheme 
 on the part of the creature to raise himself to God. 
 All Christian acts, services, sacraments, imply that 
 God has sought for the creature that He might raise
 
 184 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet u. 
 
 liim to Himself. The dififerences in our thoughts of 
 God, of the priest, of the sacrifice, all go back to this 
 primary difference. When we get into the region of 
 conceptions and speculations, all our views of that 
 which is divine will be fragmentary ; some of them will 
 be very dark, because they are derived from our own 
 experience; either these become predominant, or in 
 seeking to rid ourselves of them we deny facts and ex- 
 tinguish great portions of our own being. To believe 
 really, practically, that God is light and in Him is no 
 darkness at all, we must believe that He has caused 
 this light to arise and shine ; we must seek to walk in 
 it, and to see all things by it. 
 
 In my second Lecture, I referred to the condition 
 of the Britons, who had parted with their original faith 
 and had received Roman civilisation, when they were 
 no longer protected by Roman arms. I said the ex- 
 ample was one which the statesmen of British India 
 would do well to ponder. To abolish human sacrifices 
 is good ; but a blank will be left in the nation^s heart 
 even by the loss of such practices as these which must 
 be filled up, or we shall impoverish those whom we 
 seek to reform. But there is another, sadder side of 
 this history, one which refers not to the conquered, but 
 to the conquerors. Britain uttered her groan because 
 Rome could no longer send forth her legions. The 
 hundred hands which had been stretched from east to 
 west, from north to south, were palsied ; for the giant 
 who moved them had become a child. And whence 
 came this decay of strength ? All the signs of it still
 
 LECT. II.] LESSONS FEOM EOJ^IAN HISTOEY. 185 
 
 belonged to Eome. From the city of Jerusalem to the 
 city of York she had traversed the earth with her 
 roads; within her own walls were the mightiest trophies 
 of art over nature. Her history told by what wonder- 
 ful agencies human and natural, by how evidently 
 divine an ordinance, her glory had been achieved. And 
 to the gloss of civilisation had been added the gloss of 
 Christianity. The Emperor had believed, when other 
 help was failing, that in the might of the Cross he 
 might still conquer. The sign was indeed there, but 
 it was marked upon the standard, not written upon the 
 hearts, of those rulers of the world. They saw not 
 what it meant ; how it interpreted and crowned all 
 that had been great in their history hitherto ; how it 
 separated the real great from the real little ; how it 
 sanctified all those feelings of obedience, duty, rever- 
 ence for unseen law, self-devotion, by which the city 
 had risen from nothing ; how it poured contempt upon 
 dominion, except as an instrument by which the high- 
 est might serve the lowest ; upon glory, except as it 
 grew out of humiliation, and was the exaltation of man 
 above himself. The civilised Christian Homan had lost 
 the heart, the reverence, the faith, which belonged to 
 his rude Pagan ancestors ; that Christianity and civil- 
 isation might be victorious, the miserable patrons of 
 both were swept away. 
 
 If it is so with us ; if our civilisation merely consists 
 in those outward conveniences and mechanical inven- 
 tions which are the fruits of it, assuredly we shall 
 impart but that which we have ; we shall communicate
 
 186 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 only our external polish to the nations which we rule ; 
 their inward condition under our hands will become less 
 strong, less sound, than it was before. If our behef 
 in Christianity floats upon the surface of our minds, 
 just keeps itself alive by a few phrases and conventions 
 in the multitude of our pursuits, if it offers no greater 
 evidence of its vitality than the debates and controver- 
 sies which it engenders, assuredly we cannot present 
 it to the Hindoo with the slightest hope that he will 
 receive it in exchange for a faith which, be it good or 
 evil, has governed his life. Only if our cultivation be 
 of that kind which is truly human, which delights to 
 discern the essential humanity of each nation, to honour 
 it, to sympathise with it, shall we understand that 
 which is peculiar in our subjects, or i-eform that which 
 is corrupt in them. Only if we have received the Gos- 
 pel as the answer from heaven to inward perplexities 
 which we have a thousand times tried to stifle, but 
 could not ; only if we have learnt that these perplexi- 
 ties are the groans of the human spirit within us cry- 
 ing for deliverance ; can we with honest confidence 
 speak to that spirit in whatever region it dwells, in 
 whatever language, clear or inarticulate, it utters its 
 voice, as one spake to it of old, " Say not. Who shall 
 ascend up into heaven ? that is, to bring Christ down ; 
 or, Who shall descend into the deep ? that is, to bring 
 Christ again from the dead : for lo ! the word is nigh 
 thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, even the word of 
 faith which we preach."
 
 IS" 
 
 PART II.— LECTURE III. 
 
 How this relation should he detected. The descent of the Sx>irit. 
 Relation of the Christian Church to the Jewish. Supposed 
 analog)/ to the relations of Buddhism icith Brahminism. The 
 resembkmces and difference between Christianity and Budd- 
 hism. ThC: Buddhist side of Ch'istianiti/ threatening its 
 existence. Hoiv Christians may speak to Buddhists elsewhere, 
 especially in China. 
 
 rpHAT Buddlia and Brahm are words of cognate if 
 not of the same signification ; that Buddhism is 
 nevertheless essentially opposed to Brahminism^ seeing 
 that it denies the existence of a priestly caste ; that the 
 Buddhists are scattered over many lands, and have 
 adopted various forms of belief and opinion ; that their 
 universal characteristic is reverence for the human in- 
 tellect, which they think of as one, though diffused 
 through many persons, and as having its central mani- 
 festation in the Lama ; that Buddhism exists in China 
 beside two other forms of opinion with which it does 
 not combine — I have explained in my third Lecture of 
 the Fii'st Part. It is now our business to inquire 
 whether this system has any or what affinities with 
 Christianity. If the inquiry is conducted fairly, it 
 must satisfy certain conditions. The resemblance 
 which we detect must be not in the superficial acci- 
 dental parts of either faith, but in their radical and es- 
 sential characteristics; these must not be assumed by 
 the inquirer on his own authority^ but must have some
 
 188 THE EELIGIONS OP THE WORLD, [part ii. 
 
 clear voucher that they are recognised as radical and 
 essential characteristics by Buddhists and Christians 
 respectively ; the likeness must not be to that side of 
 Buddhism which coincides with Hindooism — otherwise 
 we shall only be repeating the last Lecture — but to the 
 opposite side. 
 
 The festival of Whitsuntide is observed in all parts 
 of Christendom ; here in England, among the Protest- 
 ants in the north of Europe, by the Romanists in the 
 south, by Grreeks and Armenians, by the descendants 
 of English, French, and Spanish settlers in North and 
 South America. It is felt by all these to commemorate 
 a great event, the event which marks the establishment 
 of the Christian Church in the world. They derive 
 their notion of this event from the record of it in the 
 second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. There we 
 are told, that on a certain day which had long been 
 kept as a festival day among the Jews, numbers of 
 them were gathei*ed from various countries of Asia, 
 Africa, and Europe, in the city of Jerusalem. In that 
 city dwelt a body of priests divinely called, as its in- 
 habitants believed, to this office, members of a priestly 
 family. There were also authorised doctors and inter- 
 preters of the law, whose words wei'e received by the 
 great mass of the people as oracles. On the day of 
 Pentecost, says the writer of the Acts, a great body of 
 the inhabitants of the city, and of the strangers from 
 other lands, were drawn to a place near the temple, 
 because they were told that a set of men, not priests, 
 not doctors of the law, but inhabitants of the most
 
 LECT. III.] THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 189 
 
 despised part of Palestine, themselves of the lowest 
 caste, Galilean fishermen, were speaking in different 
 tongues the wonderful works of God. This power the 
 Scripture declares was given them from on high. The 
 Spirit of God had descended upon them ; they spake 
 with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. 
 To the body thus endued it is said a multitude joined 
 themselves. They were regarded with more and more 
 jealousy by the priests and doctors of the Jews. But 
 they spread themselves through Palestine ; they went 
 into other lands. Everywhere, they declared that they 
 came in the power of the Spirit, who had thus broken 
 down the barriers of language and race ; everywhere 
 they said that this Spirit would be given to those who 
 believed their message. 
 
 Are we to conclude from this story that the 
 Christian faith broke loose from the Jewish faith, as 
 Buddhism broke loose from Brahminism ; that in each 
 case there was a vehement reaction against caste 
 narrowness and local boundaries ; that in each case 
 this reaction was associated with the recognition of a 
 spirit dwelling in man ? There may be much plausibility 
 in such a notion ; for many reasons it would commend 
 itself to certain modern philosophers. Only they 
 would say, ' In order to make out this resemblance, it 
 is necessary to divest the scriptural story of its halo of 
 mystery and marvel. Take it as it stands, and all you 
 learn from it is, that on a certain occasion a strange 
 phenomenon was seen, unlike any that had previously 
 occurred, or was to occur again ; at variance with the
 
 190 THE EELIGI0X3 OF THE WORLD, [part ii. 
 
 constitution of man and the dealings of his Creator. 
 In that form it offers only a seeming analogy to the 
 Buddhist doctrine ; seeing that the latter assumes the 
 presence of a divine and diffusive spirit to be the proper 
 characteristic of humanity, at least in its nobler state, 
 and that on this ground it oversets the caste principle 
 — not for a particular emergency^ but altogether. Ii', 
 however, you are inclined to admit that this is the con- 
 fused narrative of a remarkable epoch in Jewish history 
 (and, indeed, in the world's history) when there was 
 awakened in the nation, or in a part of it, the con- 
 sciousness, previously slumbering, of a capacity in men 
 generally for that knowledge which had been confined 
 to the priests — a narrative surrounded, as all Hebrew 
 narratives are, with a divine machinery — we will admit 
 that you have established your case.' 
 
 I submit that one part of this statement is quite 
 incorrect. If I read the story as it stands, I shall not 
 merely be told that a certain event happened at a cer- 
 tain time and in a certain place ; I shall be told that 
 this event was the fulfilment of a promise made to the 
 fathers of the Jewish nation ; I shall be told that it 
 was intended for those of that generation, and for their 
 children. These assertions, it will be remembered, are 
 very prominent in the discourse which the writer of the 
 Acts of the Apostles attributes to St, Peter. One 
 therefore who believes his statement cannot look upon 
 this descent of the Spirit, with all that was implied in 
 the circumstances of it, as violating the laws of the 
 human constitution, as an exception in the plan of the
 
 LECT. in.] FULFILMENT OF A PEOI^nSE. 191 
 
 Creator. He must look upon it as expounding that 
 constitution, as carrying out that plan. But on what 
 grounds, it will be asked, can it be alleged that the 
 principles set forth in the Jewish scriptures and the 
 Jewish economy were asserted and realised by a trans- 
 action which seems to destroy the exclusive hierarchy, 
 ultimately the exclusive national limitation, which lie 
 at the root of them ? The answer to this question will, 
 I believe, show that the affinities of Christianity with 
 Buddhism are much closer and more extensive than 
 they would be on the hypothesis of the former being a 
 rebellion against Judaism ; on the other hand, will ex- 
 plain wherein the difference between them consists, and 
 what that ' miraculous halo ' which is imputed to the 
 Scripture narrative has to do with it. 
 
 We turn to the earliest of the Jewish records, and 
 we find it declared that God made man in His own 
 image, and gave him dominion over all the other crea- 
 tures He had formed. Before a word has been said 
 about the difference of one people from another, here 
 is a broad fundamental assertion respecting man as 
 man. Perhaps you will say, ' Yes ; but this is set at 
 nought by one which immediately follows it ; the fall 
 of Adam is the real, though the creation of man may 
 be the nominal, beginning of the history.' As we are 
 examining these records to find what they actually 
 affirm, I consider the simplest, nay, the only honest 
 method is to take them as beginning where they seem 
 to begin, not to assume a starting-point of our own. 
 It will then be seen more clearly whether they have a
 
 192 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paut ii. 
 
 connection with eacli other, or are only a collection of 
 Sibylline leaves ; whereas, if we insist that the Divine 
 drama opens at a certain chapter, and that all which 
 precedes is prologue, we do not find the connection, 
 but make it. The arrangements of divines may de- 
 mand such violence upon the text ; but I do not think 
 it is ever justified by the conscience of simple and de- 
 vout Christians. I believe they would be shocked to 
 the last degree if you insisted in plain language upon 
 their believing that the constitution of Grod was nulli- 
 fied, destroyed, or even at all afiected, by the evil acts 
 of man. Undoubtedly, there is the fullest, most im- 
 mediate recognition of the fact that evil entered into 
 the world. There is no tampering with experience, no 
 attempt to represent the universe as something else 
 than it is, in order to make it accord with the account 
 of its origin. There is no hint of a golden age, during 
 which sin and death were not upon the earth. We are 
 told that the very first man forgot that he was made in 
 the image of God ; yielded to the temptation of an in- 
 ferior creature ; came under death. He denied the law 
 after which he was created. And each of his descend- 
 ants is shown to have the same propensity to obey 
 that which he was meant to rule ; to disbelieve in Him 
 whom he was meant to obey. But neither the first 
 man nor any of his successors could make this degrada- 
 tion and disobedience anything else than an anomaly 
 and a contradiction. The worst man in Scripture is 
 never represented as evil in any other sense than because 
 he fio-hts against the law under which he exists, and of
 
 LECT.iiL] RECOGNITION OF EVIL IN THE BIBLE. 193 
 
 which his very transgression is the continual witness. 
 And therefore in the Bible God is ever represented as 
 addressing Himself to the creature whom He had 
 formed, as awakening in him by His voice a conscious- 
 ness of his rio-ht condition. 
 
 He is represented as speaking thus to Adam when 
 he was hiding himself from His presence; as speakino- 
 thus to Cain when he was meditating his crime, and 
 when he had committed it. In each case it is assumed 
 that the creature addressed stood in a direct relation 
 to the Creator, however he might be denying it, and 
 determining to shut himself out from it. And I need 
 scarcely remind you, that he is treated, after the fall 
 as well as before it, as still intended to have dominion 
 over the earth and the animals upon it. The ground 
 is cursed for his sake : in the sweat of his brow he 
 must till it ; but he' does till it — he does subdue it. 
 He is continually disposed to treat it as his master, 
 but he is compelled to act as if it were his slave — com- 
 pelled at the same time to remember that its power of 
 producing nourishment for him depends not upon him- 
 self, but upon an Unseen Will, which he is ever 
 inclined to lose sight of. The punishment of the 
 race when lust and violence had spread over it, the 
 preservation of it in a family, the blessing under which 
 the sons of Noah go forth to replenish the earth and to 
 subdue it, the confusion of their purpose of dwelling 
 together in one plain when they were meant to people 
 the earth, bear witness to the same principle. Man, 
 
 51. B. L. O
 
 194 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part ir. 
 
 the race of Man, is treated as formed in tlie image of 
 God, as intended for rule over the creatures. 
 
 Now if this be the case with respect to the records 
 of the period preceding the Call of Abraham, those 
 which follow can only be understood on the same prin-. 
 ciple. The history of the chosen people does not re- 
 cord an outrage upon mankind for the sake of one 
 portion of it ; it is the history of men taken out of 
 darkness into the light^ made conscious of their own 
 state, as created in the image of God and meant to 
 have dominion over the earth. A Mesopotamian 
 shepherd is called the friend of God — in him all the 
 families of the earth are to be blessed. Out of his 
 family gi"ows a nation. It is a witness to all nations 
 against the separate idolatrous worship which is divid- 
 ing them. Its members are taught to believe that 
 God Himself is their King — the Unseen God of all the 
 earth. They are not in some unnatural condition be- 
 cause they are taken under His government ; their lives 
 are simple, natural, orderly, in proportion as they re- 
 member it; confused and irregular when they forget 
 it. As the history of the nation goes on, there are 
 continually new discoveries of evil tendencies, of an 
 evil nature, in the members of it. They are not dif- 
 ferent from the rest of the world; they are equally 
 idolatrous, equally selfish, equally corrupt. Where 
 then is their advantage ? The Lord of All has revealed 
 Himself to them; He has taken them into covenant; 
 they may trust Him. In trusting Him they rise above 
 these selfish and idolatrous tendencies — they become
 
 LECT. III.] MAN MADE IN GOD'S IMAGE. 195 
 
 truly men. The Jewisli Prophet, when he is most 
 overwhelmed with his own evil and with the evil of his 
 nation, obtains most apprehension of the truth that 
 God will exhibit His perfect Image to men, in a Man, 
 and will so confound all the images they have made. 
 Except such an image were really presented to them in 
 a Man — except it were really shown to be true that 
 Man was made in the Image of God, and had dominion 
 over the creatures, and that Death and Evil were not 
 his masters, the visions of Jewish seers were delusions. 
 But St. Peter, when he spoke to the Jews on the 
 day of Pentecost, was firmly assured that a Man had 
 appeared in the world who was the perfect Image of 
 the Unseen God. He believed that this Person had 
 been declared in the waters of baptism to be the Son 
 of God ; that the Spirit of God had descended upon 
 Him ; that in the strength of that Spirit he had exer- 
 cised dominion over the powers of nature, over man's 
 spiritual enemies ; had passed through death, had 
 ascended to the right hand of His Father. That He 
 should give His Spirit to men, to make them the sons 
 of God in Him; to restore them to God's Image; to 
 give them power over the earth; to constitute them 
 the masters, and not the subjects, of visible things ; — 
 this seemed to him the right and reasonable fulfilment 
 of express promises which were contained in the Jew- 
 ish Scriptures, and of all their meaning. 
 
 With equal certainty he said, that the promise 
 would be to them and to their children. He was sure 
 that the Spirit of God had taken possession of the
 
 196 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 powers, and energies, and speech of men. He was 
 sure that in yielding to that Spirit he was obeying no 
 strange, unnatural impulse, but was submitting to his 
 proper guide and teacher, to the Author of all order, 
 and peace, and unity. More than this, perhaps, he 
 may not have perceived. To see in this gift the wit- 
 ness for a great human fellowship, to see all that it 
 implied respecting man's creation and his redemption 
 was perhaps reserved, more perfectly, for another 
 Apostle. Through intense personal humiliation and 
 suffering did the Apostle Paul learn that Christ by His 
 death, and resurrection, and ascension, had justified 
 man before God ; that the Spirit of God was given, 
 not only as the fulfilment of all promises which had 
 been made to the fathers of the Jewish nation, but as 
 the fulfilment of the original law of his creation, when 
 He made all things in Christ Jesus, with the intent of 
 finally gathering them all together in Him. In his 
 Epistles we find him brought into contact with men of 
 different habits, philosophies, and educations. The old 
 mythologies had prepared them very readily to recog- 
 nise an inspiration from God. The sages very readily 
 recognised the worth of the individual soul in man ; 
 but the inspiration which the first admitted was sudden 
 and casual, the honour which the other paid to the 
 soul was solitary, exclusive, self-exalting. He spoke of 
 a Spirit of God as given to dwell continually in man ; 
 to be the source in him of all knowledge, faith, love ; 
 the strength for all ordinary toils, the comforter in all 
 sorrows, the power of exploring the unseen and the
 
 1.ECT. iiL] BUDDHISM OF THE GOSPEL. 197 
 
 future. He spoke of this Spirit as calling fortli a spirit 
 in man, in the individual man, which lifts him above 
 himseh*, which he cannot call his own, which belongs 
 to him as the child of G-od, the member of a universal 
 family — " the spirit of MAN which is in him.'^ 
 
 That profound feeling of reverence for the human 
 spirit, then, which we have discovered in the Buddhist, 
 his belief in the mighty capacities of this spirit, his 
 determination to recognise these capacities as belong- 
 ing to the race, not to some one section or class of it, 
 his assurance that the spirit in man cannot be circum- 
 scribed by the limits of time or space, or by the 
 measures and conditions of individual feeling and 
 consciousness, his conviction that this human spirit 
 must, in some mystei'ious manner, be divine, has its 
 full jurisdiction in Christianity. And every subordin- 
 ate idea which has grown out of these in the mind of 
 the Buddhist has that which answers to it in the 
 Gospel. He believes that it is the privilege of the 
 divine man to contemplate the Divinity in His puiity. 
 The highest view which St. Panl takes of the privileges 
 of Christian men, in consequence of the gift which had 
 been bestowed upon them, is that they might know 
 God ; his most earnest prayer, that they might increase 
 in this knowledge. The Buddhist believes that, in 
 order to the attainment of such knowledge, the mind 
 must be separated from outward, sensual things. 
 Sanctification, the deliverance of the heart and mind 
 from earthly temporal influences, that they may enter 
 into the enjoyment of that which is unseen and eternal.
 
 198 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [part ii. 
 
 is the very work wliich the writers of the New Testa- 
 ment, with one accord, attribute to the Holy Spirit 
 who had been given them. The Buddhist however, 
 feeling that he must, in some way, study the universe, 
 and account for the facts which he observes in it, was 
 led to perceive the necessity of a power which origin- 
 ates or begets, a capacity which receives, a bond 
 which unites them. The Scriptures, too, suppose a 
 power which creates, a power in the creature which 
 receives ; the Scriptures contemplate the union and 
 co-working of these powers as the condition of health 
 in all that exists ; they show how all destruction in the 
 human voluntary creature has come from his will not 
 yielding itself to the Divine, creating, inspiring Will ; 
 how all restoration comes from their being again 
 brought into accordance. They speak of the deepest 
 ground of all things being the awful union of the 
 Father with the Son in the Spirit. 
 
 Again, we heard of holy men appearing as bene- 
 factors of different portions of the globe ; their footsteps 
 traced upon earth, yet their home seeming to be some- 
 where else. What they ai'e is known chiefly by what 
 they have done ; their acts are palpable ; a mystery 
 hangs about themselves. They are called Buddhas; 
 though they appear in places and times far apart, the 
 same wisdom, the same power, dwells in them all ; they 
 must bo the wisdom and power of Buddha ; they can 
 belong to no other. Even thus do Christians speak of 
 those who in far-off ages, in various latitudes, have 
 shed light into the hearts of men, have cheered the
 
 LECT. III.] BUDDHISM OP THE GOSPEL, 199 
 
 poor in the midst of their sore trials with help for 
 the present, hope for the future, have restrained tri- 
 umphant evil, and laboured that righteousness and 
 truth might flourish. These we hold to be all par- 
 takers of the self-same Spirit ; in their words and acts 
 thej manifest its presence ; care not to be great in 
 themselves, but do homage to a mysterious greatness^ 
 from which all that seems such in themselves is de- 
 rived ; show that they have their work on earth, their 
 citizenship in the heavens. Once more, the Buddhist 
 affirms that there must be some person, and that a 
 human person, in whom the perfect wisdom resides. 
 He need not in his earthly appearance be glorious ; he 
 may wear the form of a child ; but the Power must be 
 within, and must so reveal itself that men shall see the 
 Divine Priest is there. Even thus it is the clearest, 
 most invariable proclamation in the Gospel, that each 
 man, in his best, purest estate, does but utter some 
 portion of the Divine Mind, does but exhibit some one 
 partial image of the Divine Character; that there is 
 one perfect Utterance of that voice, one perfect image 
 of that substance, one in whom the Fullness pleased 
 to dwell, one who humbled Himself to the cradle of 
 Bethlehem, to the Cross of Calvary ; who in that cradle, 
 and on that Cross, showed forth the Divine glory ; and 
 who, because He humbled Himself, has been exalted 
 to be the High Priest of our race for ever. 
 
 But as we have seen this relation between Budd- 
 hism and Christianity coming out before us with in- 
 creasing brightness, we must, I think, have become
 
 200 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [part ii. 
 
 also more aud more conscious of some difference, 
 whicli, whatever it be, is a deep and radical one. The 
 philosophical objectors told us that if we could separate 
 the story of Pentecost from its ' mythical ' accidents, 
 the sound of the rushing mighty wind, the cloven 
 tongues, the notion of a particular endowment be- 
 stowed by Jesus Christ at that particular moment on 
 His disciples, we should arrive at an intelligible result, 
 which might throw some light upon Buddhist and 
 other history. I complained of this statement so far 
 as it represents the events of that day as isolated, as 
 inconsistent with principles recognised in the Jewish 
 economy, as importing that the indwelling of a Spirit 
 in man is not implied in his original constitution. 
 Subject to these remarks, I now admit that they are 
 right in looking upon these miraculous circumstances 
 as indicative of the difference between the Scriptural 
 and the Buddhist conception of the spiritual endow- 
 ments of human creatures. The Buddhist starts from 
 the human ground; assumes the existence or possi- 
 bility of certain qualities and attributes of a Divine 
 nature in man ; supposes the man, in virtue of these, 
 to hold intercourse with the Divinity. The Scripture 
 starts from the Divine ground; assumes that man 
 according to his constitution is nothing but an image ; 
 denies that he can originate anything; sets forth a 
 revelation of his Creator to him as the foundation of 
 his knowledge — of his life; represents all faculties, 
 powers, energies of the creature as gifts of the Creator. 
 Upon this difference every other depends. If the first
 
 LECT. III.], BUDDHISM AND CHRISTLiNITY. 201 
 
 view be the right one, there can, of course, be no 
 Divine manifestation, for there is nothing to manifest. 
 The Creator does not witness to men by visible signs 
 that He is the Author of these gifts, for He is not the 
 Author of them, or He does not design to make them 
 know that He is. If the other view be true, these 
 (so-called) miracles, these exercises of power, these 
 signs of a Presence, are precisely the methods which 
 commend themselves to the conscience and reason of 
 mankind as the most fitted — I had nearly said as the 
 only possible — witnesses of a truth, which, when it has 
 been once testified of in this way, can hereafter be 
 held as certain and abiding, though there be no start- 
 ling signs of it at all. 
 
 Now, as Buddhism and Christianity are the re- 
 spective exemplifications of these two methods, it may 
 be well to consider the practical results of each. You 
 will see, I trust, my object. I do not desire to make 
 out a charge against Buddhism on the ground of its 
 moral deficiencies; but, I want to ascertain how far 
 these deficiencies are or are not owing to this chai-acter- 
 istical feature of it, that, more than any other system 
 the world has ever seen, it makes the belief of a 
 Divine power working in man its ground, and ascends 
 from that ground to any apprehension it may entertain 
 respecting the Divinity Himself. 
 
 I. One leading contrast ofiers itself instantly to our 
 notice. The Buddhist believes that a Divine wisdom 
 and power dwells, or may dwell, in human beings, and 
 that its dwelling constitutes them heroic spirits—
 
 202 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [paet ii. 
 
 saintly men. The New Testament begins with teach- 
 ing us ivhat kind of Spirit this must be ; what manner 
 of Being He is from whom this Spirit proceeds ; what 
 must be the manner of His working in creatures who 
 submit to His government. It speaks of the Spirit of 
 Him who had declared Himself for ages to the Jews as 
 the God of Truth and E^ighteousness ; it speaks of the 
 Spirit of Him who gave His Son for men. It sets 
 forth the character of this Spirit by His life^ in whom 
 it is said to have dwelt without measure. If holiness 
 was more characteristic of Him than power^ the Spirit 
 of holiness is the name by which we are taught to ex- 
 press it most uniformly and perfectly. If meekness, 
 humility, gentleness, were the essential qualities of 
 His life, the Spii-it is known as the Spirit of meekness, 
 humility, gentleness : these are declared to be the 
 fruits of its operations. If His whole life was an act 
 of self-sacrifice. His Spirit is set forth as the power 
 whereby man is able to offer himself a sacrifice. If 
 Love was the source and end of His sacrifice, it is the 
 Spirit of Love which He promises to those who obey 
 Him. Not that these assertions in the least interfere 
 with the other equally prominent one, that He is the 
 Spirit of Truth and Knowledge ; that all powers and 
 exercises of mind, and their direction, are from Him. 
 No one brings out that assertion more clearly than St. 
 Paul ; but he winds up the enumeration of gifts and 
 powers in these words : " And yet I show you a more 
 excellent way. Though I speak with the tongues of 
 men and of angels, and have not charity, I am be-
 
 LECT. III.] THE BUDDHIST'S DILEMIvL^.. 203 
 
 come as a souuding brass or a tinkling cymbal/^ 
 Love is in his teaching, as in his life, the highest 
 manifestation of the presence of the Spirit, because 
 God, from whom it proceeds, is Love. 
 
 II. All this dilierence, }ou see, is grounded upon 
 the difference between the naked idea of a Spirit 
 dwelling in man and identical with himself, and the 
 idea of Him as given to men by the Eternal God 
 through His Son. Look now at the difference as to 
 another point, the estimate of human creatures. To 
 the Buddhist those whom he believes thus endowed 
 necessarily become gods ; they can be nothing else. 
 And thus, he who starts with the rejection of an 
 hereditary priesthood as an intolerable yoke, because 
 men, as men, have the capacity of seeing God and 
 worshipping Him, ends by becoming the poor servant 
 and tool of a priesthood. All who can exhibit the in- 
 tellectual power which he feels is of right his, and yet 
 which he is conscious that he does not actually possess, 
 must be objects of his obedience and his worship. He 
 has no standard with which he can compare what they 
 are and what they do ; he is sure that there must be 
 some who enjoy intercourse with the unseen world; 
 they cannot tell him what the intercourse means, what 
 the result of it is, how he can be the better for it. 
 They seem to say, some of them actually saj, and wish 
 him to understand, that at all events they are marking 
 out a iie plus ultra to his inquiries, " Beyond us lies a 
 void of Nothingness.'^ Into that void the listening 
 disciple has no temptation to enter. What can he do
 
 204 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 but accept tliese finite temporary priests as the best 
 substitutes for the Infinite which he longs for and yet 
 shrinks from ? They at least keep alive the appetite, 
 they save him from utter despair. Such is the condi- 
 tion of those who can only contemplate the Spirit which 
 they feel is meant for man as in man. The Christian 
 is taught to think of this Spirit as in God^ as coming 
 forth from Him. He is taught that he may ask God 
 continually for the quickening and renewing of it in 
 himself, and in all the family to which he belongs. He 
 is told that when the Comforter comes He shall con- 
 vince the world of Sin, of Righteousness, of Judgment : 
 that He shall not become identical with the man him- 
 self; but shall show him his evil; shall raise him out 
 of that evil into a Righteousness which is above him, 
 which is in one who is gone to the Father ; shall give 
 him the continual assurance of a final separation be- 
 tween that which is true and that which is false. 
 
 III. Thus the promise of the Spirit is the promise 
 to a man of a power to overlook his own mind, to judge 
 its acts and movements, to know what in it requires to 
 be cut oif, what is wrought in God. Every human 
 heart is to be the subject of it; no creature belonging 
 to the race for which Christ died, is meant to be de- 
 frauded of this mighty illumination. But no one who 
 receives it can pretend to be thereby exalted above his 
 fellows ; his knowledge is the knowledge of his own 
 individual abasement ; of that glory which he shares 
 with his kind in Christ. And therefore the Scripture, 
 in strict conformity with this idea, represents all intel-
 
 LECT. III.] THE TEUB PEIEST AND PEOPHET. 205 
 
 lectual gifts as bestowed, not to raise one man above 
 another, but simply that men may be enabled to serve 
 each other. The highest of all is the servant of all. 
 He who holds his gifts under this condition, and con- 
 fesses his unfitness for the use of them, is a fellow- 
 worker with the Divine Spirit. He is doing that 
 which he was sent here to do. He who uses them for 
 any other end, who holds them on any other condition, 
 practically disowns the blessing and its Author. The 
 priest and the prophet come under this rule. They 
 especially are to look upon themselves as called by 
 Him who is the deliverer of men out of their confusion 
 and darkness, to an office under Him, as endowed with 
 powers by Him to fulfil this ofiice. So far as the priest 
 or the prophet looks upon all the ability he possesses 
 as a gift, the object of which is determined by the cha- 
 racter of the giver, and the nature of His work, so far 
 he is a true priest and true prophet ; assuming his 
 ability as his property, he becomes a false priest, a 
 false prophet; in the language of Scripture, a wolf 
 and not a shepherd, a destroyer of men, not their de- 
 liverer. 
 
 IV. But the conception of the Lama supplies us 
 with the most perfect illustration of the difference I am 
 endeavouring to point out. In him is gathered up that 
 spirit of humanity which the Buddhist worships, and 
 from which he deduces his divinity. The Christian 
 affirms that He in whom the priesthood of the universe 
 rests is the eternal Son of Grod, that He took human 
 nature, united it to God, endued it with that Spirit which
 
 206 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 dwelt without measure in Himself. He, they declare, 
 is the Head of many members, through each of which, 
 so loner as it abides in Him, the same life-blood is 
 transmitted. The former notion, grounded upon a 
 true and deep feeling that there must be a centre or 
 that there can be no fellowship, assumes the centre 
 anywhere — in a child or old man — and demands implicit 
 faith that there all intelligence rests. The other, 
 starting from the fact that humanity has a centre above 
 itself, declares how He who claimed to be this centre, 
 in poverty, weakness, contempt made good his title, by 
 proving that He could deliver the spirit of man out of 
 its fetters, that in owning Him to be its Lord it attained 
 the freedom it was sighing for. The one notion, glori- 
 fying the intellect and spirit of man, insists upon their 
 doino" homage to the meanest object which they create 
 for themselves to worship; the other, humbling the 
 intellect and spirit of man before one who has estab- 
 lished his right to be their master, offers them an 
 expansion and exaltation of which the knowledge and 
 love of an absolute and perfect Being are the only limits. 
 V. Thus the society of the Buddhist has no bond 
 except the existence of something mysterious in the 
 creatures who belong to it : feeling this to be insufficient, 
 he invents an external supremacy, and endues it with 
 attributes which he knows it does not possess; he 
 makes a lie, and the lie avails him nothing, for the three 
 hundred millions which own it compose only a mass of 
 atoms without any principle of cohesion, though they 
 are ever seeking one. The Christian Ecclesia confesses.
 
 LECT. III.] CONTRADICTIONS— HOW EECONCILED. 207 
 
 by its very name that its existence has its ground in 
 the call of an Almighty Being ; that it stands only by 
 His will ; that it is distinguished from a divided world 
 to be a witness of that true glory which man possesses 
 when he looks upward, not downwards, to a Master, 
 not to himself; that, having such a call and being such 
 a witness, it is baptized with a Spirit of power, and 
 truth, and love, who by it would bring all men into 
 the Divine fellowship which embi-aces all peoples, 
 tongues, kindreds — from which no one can, except by 
 an act of self-will, be excluded. 
 
 VI. I might perhaps leave the comparison here 
 drawn to work its way upon the consciences aiid 
 hearts of all who love truth and freedom and their 
 kind, in deed more than in word. But the subject is 
 so transcendantly important at this time, that I must 
 present it still in one or two other lights. The first 
 is this. Buddhism, you see, necessarily excludes 
 Mahometanism and Hindooism. It is the direct con- 
 tradiction of the former; Mahometanism basing the 
 universe upon the distinctness and absoluteness of God. 
 Its antipathy to the second is the great fact of its 
 history, the explanation of its existence. It denies the 
 reality of that distinction which is involved in the 
 doctrine of the twice-born man, as opposed to the 
 ordinary man. And now we find it cannot sustain 
 those pretensions to spirituality, on account of Avhich 
 it is at war with the unspiritual Mahometan, or that 
 pretension to humanity and freedom from priestcraft, 
 on account of whicli it is at war with the exclusive
 
 208 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet ii. 
 
 Bralimin. It sets their ideas at nouglit; it utterly fails 
 in realising its own. But we have been led to think 
 that ideas which have exercised such a sway over 
 multitudes of human beings, from generation to 
 generation, must be realised in some way. Our 
 philosophers have taught us to pay this homage to the 
 thoughts of our fellow-men; we bless them for the 
 lesson ; we are ashamed of not having learnt it sooner, 
 of not having rather imparted it to them. I beseech 
 you seriously to ponder this question. How ma?/ these 
 ideas be realised ? How may they be reconciled ? 
 And if you should, after much thinking, find that this 
 ancient Revelation which you were going to cast aside 
 as one of the false and worn-out systems of the world, 
 supplies that realisation and reconciliation — supplies 
 them because it is a revelation — on that ground and no 
 other — then be sure that if you do cast it aside, or wish 
 to prove it something else than revelation, the reason 
 is not that you care for what is expansive and compre- 
 hensive, that you hate what is formal and narrow ; this 
 is not any longer the ground of your opposition. 
 Will you then with great earnestness ask yourselves 
 what it is ? 
 
 VII. Perhaps, however, we have been speaking 
 only of a verbal reconciliation : you want one which 
 shall be practical ; one which may bear to be tried on 
 a great scale. Let us see, then, whether the case of 
 China, a country which you will allow to be practical 
 at least in its aim, to offer quite sufficient room for a 
 large experiment, may not supply what you require.
 
 LECT. III.] THE AUTHOEITY OF A FATHER 209 
 
 If you did hear of a people wliicli had had for ages the 
 strongest conviction that the authority of the Father 
 was the one foundation of society, but had never been 
 able to connect this conviction with the acknowledg- 
 ment of anything mysterious and divine ; of a society 
 which for ages had not been able to prevent a certain 
 body of its subjects from dreaming that there is a 
 mysterious and Divine Word or Reason speaking to 
 the wise man, out of which dream, however, no fruits 
 had proceeded but impostures and delusions ; if you 
 were told, that into the heart of this society Buddhism 
 had come, with its strange testimony of a Spirit in the 
 human race, the ordinary manifestations of which are 
 seen in very ignorant priests, its perfect manifestation 
 often in an infant : if you heard that these doctrines 
 had never been able to combine, and yet that no one 
 could succeed in banishing the other from an empire 
 in which order and unity are prized as the highest 
 blessings of all, nay, that experience had proved to 
 reluctant sages, that none of these elements of discord 
 could safely be extinguished, that each was in some 
 strange way needful to the permanence of that which 
 it seemed to undermine : — and if after this you heard 
 of a faith which assumed that the ground of all things 
 and all men is a Father ; that He has spoken and does 
 speak by His Filial "Word to the hearts and spirits of 
 men, so making them wise, and separating them from 
 what is base and vain ; that this Filial Word has been 
 made flesh and dwelt among men, and has given them 
 
 M. B. L. > ■ p
 
 210 THE EELIGIONS OF TUE WOELD. [rAET ir. 
 
 power to become sons of God ; and that through Him 
 a Spirit is given to dwell with men, to raise up a new 
 spirit in them, to unite them to each other, to make 
 them living portions of a living body ; that men are 
 actually admitted by a simple rite into a Name express- 
 ive of their adoption by the Father, their separation 
 by the Word, their inspiration by the Spirit ; that in 
 this Name stood a universal fellowship, which upheld 
 the authority of earthly fathers upon the ground of the 
 Divine relation, which asserted the distinction of wise 
 and foolish, good and evil men, upon the ground of 
 their following or disobeying the monitions of that filial 
 teacher, from whom all right human instructors derived 
 the power whereby they were able to make good and 
 useful scholars, which maintained the intercourse and 
 communion of human beings upon the ground of their 
 obedience to the Spirit of order and harmony ; if, I say, 
 these two sets of facts were presented to you side by 
 side, would not you feel there was some strange adapt- 
 ation in the one to the other ; that there was in the 
 last the secret principle and power for which it was 
 evident from the former that China had through 
 centuries been asking in vain ? 
 
 VIII. But why do I speak thus ? Does it not 
 sound like the idlest of all visions to talk of our con- 
 verting Buddhists, when, judging from various indica- 
 tions, they are far more likely to convert us ? I have 
 not disguised fromyouthe Buddhist side of Christianity ; 
 I have rejoiced to set it forth, as I rejoiced to set forth 
 the Mahometan and Hindoo sides of it. But, as we
 
 LECT. III.] CHRISTIAN BUDDHISM. 211 
 
 saw tliat eitlier of these elements might in any age 
 become the predominant^ almost the exclusive one, it 
 is needful that we should consider well how this third 
 doctrine may in former days have crushed, may crush 
 in our own, every other. Assuredly, there are distinct 
 ■ traces of prevalent triumphant Buddhism in the 
 Christian Church of periods gone by. The history of 
 Orders rising up to reform society, to rebuke organised 
 priesthoods for their self-indulgence, coldness, exclus- 
 iveness, to assert the rights of the poor, to maintain 
 that every member of ChrisVs flock has a calling to 
 benefit the rest ; beginning thus nobly, and then 
 sinking into more intolerable despots than those 
 against whom they protested — self-exalted in their 
 gifts, their knowledge, their ignorance, their poverty ; 
 — deceiving, and being deceived; drawing all reverence 
 to themselves on the score of their humility, holding 
 down the poor in slavery, whom they came to deliver; 
 this history contains one class of such phenomena. In 
 the history of Mysticism and Quietism, telling how 
 men beginning to seek God with earnest hearts, to 
 denounce the idolatrous notions others had formed of 
 Him, to retire into the secret chamber that there might 
 be no hindrance from outward things to the clearness 
 of the vision, to mortify their flesh that it might not 
 stand in their way, went on till their hearts grew pufled 
 up and proud, till they began to boast of wonderful 
 discoveries vouchsafed to them alone, till they became 
 the subjects of all nervous impressions, fantasies, dis- 
 orders, more sensual than those whom they charged
 
 212 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part n. 
 
 ■witli being so ; how at last they gazed on vacancy^ and 
 felt, if they had not honesty to say, ' The vision is gone, 
 we see nothing : ' here we find Christian Buddhism in 
 another manifestation. And the lessons which these 
 two records supply are not obsolete ; either of these 
 temptations may assault any of us again; in some form 
 is perhaps assaulting all of us. 
 
 IX. But chiefly should we be careful to note what 
 common principle it was which in each of these cases 
 turned so much seemin.Q^ truth into a curse ; for it is of 
 that we have need to beware in whatever dress if may 
 come, or if our especial work should be to encounter 
 it in its nakedness. Unquestionably the member of 
 the order and the solitary mystic alike yielded to the 
 feeling, 'It is this power in me, this faculty of govern- 
 ment, this faculty of vision, which is the great thing of 
 all. How glorious to belong to this great society, 
 for which I am ready to live and die ; how glorious to 
 have this capacity of conversing with the Infinite, for 
 the sake of which I have cheerfully resigned all things ! ' 
 Who could think that the deadliest poison was lurking 
 in such words as these; that there could be the essence 
 of all pride in such self-sacrifice ? But what if men 
 should say boldly, ' It is this power in me which is 
 really the great power of all ; it is this eye in me which 
 creates the object it seems to behold. I will acknow- 
 ledge nothing else, worship nothing else ? ' What if this 
 should be the language which men lisped a few years 
 ago, and now begin to speak distinctly ? Then surely 
 there will gradually appear most of the other signs
 
 LECT. III.] ITS LATEST FORM— TREATMENT OE IT. 213 
 
 wliicli we have traced in Buddhism, and many which 
 could not appear in it, or in any heathen system. First, 
 the formation of an intellectual pi'iesthood more utterly 
 without the sense of a vocation, more simply glorying 
 in its powers, therefore more intolerant, exclusive, 
 oppressive, than any other with which this earth has 
 ever been cursed. Next, the consciousness in that 
 exclusive priesthood of a want of sympathy with actual 
 men, notwithstanding their boast of humanity in the 
 abstract ; therefore an attempt to supply this want, as 
 it always has been supplied, by devices to meet the 
 taste of the vulgar, by prodigies, portents, sorceries ; 
 physical mysteries being called in as a compensation 
 for the absence of Divine mysteries ; science being 
 degraded into an instrument of basest imposture. 
 Finally, intellectual worship after giving birth to all 
 forms of empiricism, ending at last in the elevation of 
 some merely brute power to the throne of the universe ; 
 a power which will prove by its triumph, that if in- 
 tellect, freedom, humanity, have no better protectors 
 than themselves, they must be trampled down; will 
 prove, as we are well assured, by its ultimate discom- 
 fiture, that they have another Protector, Him from whom 
 all good and perfect gifts have come. 
 
 X. But it will avail little to call up such visions as 
 these, however certain we may feel from the testimony 
 of history that they will one day show themselves to be 
 realities, if they lead us only to the denunciation of 
 others, to a dread of the words which they speak, or of 
 the acts which they do. Oftentimes I fear such de-
 
 214 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet ii. 
 
 nunciations and such dread conceal a very shallow faith 
 in ourselves ; oftentimes they indicate that we are sadly 
 beset with that pride in our own intellectual powers 
 which we atti'ibute to others. Ourselves we need to 
 suspect ; our own half belief in the truths of which we 
 talk most loudly ; our own readiness to substitute the 
 conclusions of our understandings for the Divine teach- 
 ing. If we heartily confess these sins and repent of them 
 we shall not magnify the operations of the Divine Spirit 
 less because some seem to contemplate them exclus- 
 ively ; we shall not be betrayed into the vulgar and 
 deceitful policy of underrating the reason and faculties 
 of men^ because some seem to overvalue them ; we 
 shall not fancy that we show great dexterity and piety 
 when we force a feeling in one direction, because its 
 natural growth seems to be in another. 
 
 Rather, we shall regard all the tendencies of par- 
 ticular periods with reverence as indications of God's 
 will, however perverted by man's ignorance and selfish- 
 ness. When we meet with a fanatical exaltation of 
 spiritual emotions, excitements, ecstacies, we shall be 
 most anxious to assert the reality and universality of 
 spiritual communications ; to place them on their deep- 
 est ground, to show how utterly dreary man's condition 
 would be without them. Wlien we see a fauatical 
 exaltation of human faculties, then most shall we be 
 eager to assert their worth and sacredness ; to vindi- 
 cate them from all aspersions grounded upon the imper- 
 fections which attach to them in this world; to maintain 
 that he who refuses them the noblest cultivation de-
 
 LECT. III.] CONCLUSION. 215 
 
 spises and blaspliemes the Author of them. And that 
 the truths proclaimed by raving Sects and by Idolaters 
 of the Intellect may both be preserved, we shall bring 
 them into fellowship. The communication of the 
 Divine Spirit we shall believe to be the only means 
 whereby the Reason, the Heart, the Understanding, 
 are enabled to perform their rightful functions, to be 
 vigorous, calm, pure, in harmony with the mind of the 
 Creator, and with all that is truly human. Holding all 
 power as a trust, every office as a stewardship, believ- 
 ing that the Divine Spirit itself who dwells with us is 
 the greatest trust, the most awful stewardship, we shall 
 feel more the glory of our race because we feel more 
 our own insignificance ; shall be more really men, be- 
 cause we walk more humbly with our God.
 
 ■ 216 
 
 PART IL— LECTURE IV. 
 
 The early jyreachinrj of the Gospel—hoio it affected Greeks, Egyp- 
 tians, Romans, Goths. Form of this preacliing . Resistance from 
 the doctrine of an Evil Principle, Mahometan pjrotest against 
 it, and for the sacredness of the outward tvorld. Iliiidoo 2Jro- 
 test on behalf of a Divine Icingdom, Buddhist protest for an 
 actual Indwelling Spirit. Modern infidel 2^rotest for human- 
 ity. Christianity established by all. GoTiclusion, 
 
 TN former Lectures I have considered the relation in 
 -'- wliicli Christianity stands to the existing rehgious 
 systems of the worlds to Mahometanism, Hindooism, 
 Buddhism. In this, the last Lecture of the course, I 
 ought, according to the plan which I laid down for 
 myself, to consider in what relation it stands to those 
 which I called the defunct systems — those of ancient 
 Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Gothic world. 
 But it will strike you at once that this subject has, in 
 a great measure, been anticipated. 
 
 I could not allude to the facts which justified my 
 use of the word defunct, in reference to these reli- 
 gions, without indicating the kind of influence which 
 Christianity had exercised over them. I was obliged 
 to tell you that the worship of the god of Light in 
 Greece, the state religion of Rome, the worship of 
 Odin amongst the Goths, had given way before the 
 preaching of the Crucified Son of God. I could not
 
 LECT. IV.] EAELY CHEISTIANITY. 217 
 
 omit to notice the way in which the Gospel had estab- 
 lished itself in the Greek cities of Egypt, or the influ- 
 ence it had received from the culture previously existing 
 in them, or the resistance it had met with in the country 
 districts where the old Egyptian doctrine had its 
 strongest hold. I could not but speak of that revival 
 of the Persian faith, which took place in the second 
 century of the Christain era, of the obstruction which 
 that faith offered to the Gospel, of its remarkable re- 
 action upon some of the teachers of the Gospel. I should 
 have no excuse for travelling again over this ground, 
 though the observation we took of it was so rapid and 
 superficial, were it not that the facts to which I have 
 just alluded, taken in connection with those which have 
 engaged our attention already, suggest painful doubts 
 to the mind^ doubts closely related to those which it 
 has been the object of the whole course to examine. 
 
 The aspect of Christianity in the first ages, notwith- 
 standing the exceptions which I have noticed, is that 
 of a youthful, growing, victorious doctrine ; its roots 
 laid in the depths ; its branches spreading over the 
 earth, and reaching to heaven. But then came Ma- 
 hometanism, utterly exterminating that Persian doc- 
 trine with which the Christian teachers had so un- 
 successfully fought; bringing Egypt, great part of 
 Asia, and a section of Europe, under its yoke. When 
 we studied the history of this faith, we learnt that 
 it had conquered much from the Gospel, and had 
 scarcely, through twelve centuries, yielded to any
 
 218 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [part n. 
 
 permanent impression from it. The latter assertion is 
 almost as true of Hindooism, in spite of the establish- 
 ment of a Christian Empire in the East. Buddhism 
 still holds a third of the globe in almost undisturbed 
 possession. Now a person comparing these two sets 
 of facts will be very likely to say, ' Supposing your 
 answers to the philosophical objectors, who maintain 
 that Christianity is a decaying, nearly obsolete, creed 
 be ever so relevant and strong, yet what are they 
 when weighed against this startling confirmation of 
 their statements? Must not that faith have had a 
 fitness for other ages, an unfitness for ours, which 
 during six centuries accomplished so much, which now 
 seems to be accomplishing almost nothing ; which could t 
 then encounter the wisdom and power of those nations 
 that we still recognise as having been the wisest and 
 mio-htiest in the world, which now fails in a conflict 
 with the ignorant and incoherent worshippers of 
 Buddha? And if you escape by pleading that the 
 human professors of this doctrine are less sincere and 
 energetic than they were, what is this but saying that 
 it depends on human energy ; that it is, in fact, a human 
 system, strong whilst those who hold it are strong — 
 sure to wither when their zeal withers ? ' Such an 
 objection as this cannot be evaded. In considering it, 
 1 shall be led to examine the difi'erent steps we have 
 taken, beginning with the question. How did Christi- 
 anity address itself to the systems with which, in its 
 infancy, it came into collision ?
 
 LTEC. IV.] WITNESSES OF A LOED AND EING. 219 
 
 I am forced to use the word Christianity ; for many 
 purposes it is a convenient one. But I must remind 
 you, that it was not a word which was familiar to the 
 Apostles, or to those who succeeded them in the first 
 ages. We are not told that they went forth preaching 
 Christianity. The writer of the Acts of the Apostles 
 says that they preached the " Kingdom of God/' or 
 " the Gospel of God/' or " Christ/' or " the Gospel of 
 Christ." To expound these words fully, would be to 
 expound the New Testament. But this meaning lies 
 upon the surface of them : the Apostlescame witnessing 
 of a Lord and King ; the Lord and King of men. The 
 proclamation of the Crucified Man, as the Son of God, 
 was their Gospel, or good tidings. In that character 
 men were invited to receive Him. The Apostles 
 believed their own words ; they could therefore trust 
 God to prove them true. If this man were the King 
 of the world, strange and ridiculous as the proposition 
 might sound in the ears of Jews or Heathens, He 
 would be shown to be such by one means or other. 
 Some of the Apostles knew nothing of the previous 
 feelings and discipline of the nations; some, as the 
 Apostle Paul, might have meditated on that subject, 
 and have conversed much with men of different opin- 
 ions. Bat all alike met the people among whom they 
 came, not with arguments to prove this opinion true, 
 of that false, but with the announcement of a Person 
 who had a right to men's obedience, and whom it was 
 good that they should obey.
 
 220 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 I. St. Paul at Athens encountered Epicureans and 
 Stoics; he disputed with them in the market-place. 
 "When we are made acquainted with his words, we find 
 they were of this kind, " Whom ye ignorantly worship. 
 Him declare I unto you.^^ ' Your poets have said, that 
 we are the offspring of God ; it is true ; therefore do 
 not make Him after the likeness of things you see. 
 He is not far from any of us ; for in Him we live, and 
 move, and have our being. He has appointed a day 
 in the which He will judge the world by that Man 
 whom He hath ordained ; whereof He hath given 
 assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him 
 from the dead.'' This language, you see, assumed 
 that the Athenians were in search of God ; that they 
 were ignorantly worshipping Him ; that they had a 
 sense of His being a father; that they wanted some 
 one living, human image of Him, to supplant those 
 images of Him which they had made for themselves. 
 In Athens itself the words were little heeded ; men 
 thex'e were busy seeking for some new thing to talk of; 
 they were occupied with schemes of the universe ; of 
 realities they had lost the perception. But the teach- 
 ing was adapted to all that was sound and true in the 
 Greek mind ; it met whatever wants that mind was 
 conscious of. The Greek asked for one who should 
 exhibit humanity in its perfection ; he was told of a 
 Son of Man. He felt that whoever did so exhibit 
 Humanity must be Divine. The Son of Man was 
 declared to be the Son of God. He had dreamed of
 
 LECT. IV.] GOSPEL TO THE GEEEKS. 221 
 
 one from whom tlie higliest glorj man could con- 
 ceive must have proceeded. He was told of a Father. 
 He had thought of a Divine Presence in every tree 
 and flower. He heard of a Presence nearer still to 
 himself. He was not told that he must cease to be- 
 lieve in powers ruling in the Sun or Moon, or over any 
 portion of the earth. The Apostles had no commission 
 to declare there might not be such Powers, or whether 
 they had actual personality : they were not to deny the 
 existence of kingly men upon the earth, or of angels 
 or saints in the unseen world ; only they Avere to say. 
 This Man is the King of kings, the Lord of lords. Of 
 His fulness must they all have received who are any- 
 thing, or ever were anything, here or elsewhere ; their 
 graces can only be a reflection from His grace. They 
 were to say. He is nearer to you — more directly related 
 to you than all these can be ; for He has taken the 
 nature of all, and borne the sorrows and sins of all : 
 in Him there is nothing partial, nothing imperfect ; no 
 feebleness of sympathy in any single direction. They 
 were to say further, If in any of the objects of your 
 reverence there is anything earthly, sensual, evil; 
 anything belonging to human nature in its corruption : 
 then that must be contrary to Him ; that must be at 
 war with Him. So far as any creature is endued with 
 such qualities, it is an evil creature ; it has the evil 
 spirit ; it is not to be worshipped as if it were glorious, 
 but renounced as devilish ; as that which would draw 
 you from the true estate into which Christ, by taking
 
 222 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 your nature, has redeemed you. Therefore the Greek 
 mythology was met at all points by this Gospel. What 
 was actually or possibly good in it, the Revelation of 
 Christ comprehended ; what was evil and degraded it 
 wrestled with, by proclaiming the good which it had 
 counterfeited. But this was its charm, The Greek had 
 a world without a centre ; the preachers of the Gospel 
 made the centre known to him. What could revolve 
 about it, fell into its proper orbit ; what determined to 
 move independently of the centre, was seen to be un- 
 natural and distracted. 
 
 II. How the Gospel found its way into the Egyptian 
 heart we are not informed so distinctly. This however 
 we may remember : Our Lord spoke to His disciples 
 in parables ; through them He declared the mysteries 
 of the kingdom. The facts of outward nature, the 
 ordinary transactions of man, he recognised as a sacred 
 writing, in which God had expressed part of His mean- 
 ing, a meaning which He did not will to remain hidden, 
 but which His Son unfolded. That the preachers of 
 the Christian kingdom in Egypt should think much on 
 this method of discovering the Divine treasures was 
 inevitable. But the substance of the communication 
 was still the same. The Egyptian was questioning all 
 nature to tell Him of the Ammon, the hidden God : 
 the Christian answer was still, '^ Him declare we unto 
 
 you.- 
 
 III. So it fared likewise with the Roman, whose 
 worship had really, as we saw, a different direction
 
 LECT. IV.] THE EOMAN.— THE GOTH. 223 
 
 from that of tlie Greekj however at various points they 
 might intersect each other. The clear intellect, the 
 beautiful form, were not in his mind the constituents 
 of Kinghood or Godhead. Order, self-government, 
 the capacity of ruling others, submission of individual 
 will to law, he demanded in the chief man ; and quali- 
 ties corresponding to these alone seemed to him Divine. 
 A faith without an organized harmonious society, was 
 to the Latin a dream. After many struggles his own 
 mighty commonwealth had felt that it could only con- 
 tinue to exist under the guidance of a single head ; 
 and that head one uniting military and religious titles ; 
 a ruler of armies, an object of adoration. A king, in 
 whom was seen the perfect fulfilment of Law — the 
 surrender of the individual Will to the Hiarher Will ; 
 the entire self-sacrifice ; a King who was the centre of 
 a society, the head of many members, was proclaimed 
 by the fishermen of Galilee, by the tent-maker of 
 Tarsus. That announcement met Ptoman life on all its 
 sides and aspects : adopted its highest maxims ; over- 
 reached its noblest idea of fellowship ; showed that the 
 true society had for its chief, one altogether unlike the 
 emperor; one whom he must crush, or to whom he 
 must bow. And so, by slow degrees, the Roman 
 state-idolatry, like the Greek idolatry of individual 
 forms and persons, perished out of the world. 
 
 IV. The Goths, again, heard the same proclamation 
 of a kingdom of God, It did not find them watching 
 the embers of an expiring civilisation, but full of boyish
 
 224 THE EELIGIONS OP THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 vigour and life and rudeness, eager to break and 
 subdue tlie eartb ; possessed by tlie wildest dreams of 
 powers in earth and sea which wrestled for victory ; 
 doing homage to a champion of a strong hand and 
 seeing eye, the leader of their hosts and their prophet. 
 With much joy, though amidst much confusion, these 
 barbarians welcomed the tidings of a Redeemer in 
 whom men could own at once their Lord and their 
 brother. 
 
 A redemption of man, a redemption of all that had 
 been lost or disorderly in creation, was equally assumed 
 in the preaching to Greeks, Romans, and Goths : — It 
 was set forth as an accomplished fact ; as laying the 
 only right and reasonable ground-work for human life; 
 as that of which the Church, by its very existence, bore 
 testimony. And it was signified in the word Redemption, 
 that the partakers of it were not brought into some 
 novel or unnatural state, but into that for which they 
 were created, that which was implied in their human 
 constitution. 
 
 V. If this was the nature of the Christian preaching 
 and its success, we may understand where it was likely 
 to encounter the greatest obstructions. The Persians 
 believed in two rulers of the world, one good, one evil. 
 The great reformer had indeed affirmed that the Lord 
 of Light would prevail at last. He seems to have 
 believed that the Prince of Darkness was a rebel against 
 him ; not originally a divider of his throne. But he 
 never quite realized this conviction ; he could not en-
 
 LECT. IT.] THE PERSIAN. 
 
 90; 
 
 tirely deny the outward universe to Ahriman ; the Per- 
 sians generally deemed him to be the creator of it. 
 The two powers were regarded as having each a right 
 over man, his flesh and his external circumstances being 
 especially the property of the dark Spirit. What 
 mighty evidences there seemed to be in favour of this 
 hypothesis ! How all history, from its beginning on- 
 wards, seemed to vouch for it ! What obstinacy in 
 the old forms of evil ; what new floods of it were con- 
 tinually pouring in as from a perennial source ! In the 
 third or fourth centuries, when the Roman empire was 
 tottering to its fall, under the weight of its own wicked- 
 ness, the proofs of Ahriman's sovereignty were 
 surely not less than they had been before. Had 
 the Gospel of Christ permanently altered this state of - 
 things ? When the Persian conversed with Christians, 
 he found them more ready than others to acknowledge 
 an evil in themselves, more sensitive to its existence in 
 the world. They even seemed to admit its supremacy, 
 and to speak of the higher and purer state which they 
 said Christ had established as a deliverance out of the 
 natural human condition; of His saints as rebelling 
 against the Prince of this World. Such language, often 
 carelessly and ignorantly used, often misunderstood 
 when it was rightly used, may at first have led the 
 Magian to think that the Gospel had not undermined 
 his primitive doctrine — had rather brought new facts in 
 confirmation of it. And yet he will have found 
 Christians ready to live and die for the assertion that 
 
 M. B. L. Q
 
 22G THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paet ii. 
 
 Christ was the one only Lord ; that all things in heaven 
 and eai-th and nnder the earth were subject to Him ; 
 that no power of evil could measure itself against Him ; 
 that He held an undoubted, undivided authority. The 
 Persian will therefore have felt that, in spite of seeming 
 coincidences, this faith was one with which his could 
 not consist ; that he was bound to exterminate the 
 believers in Jesus, if he could not convert them. 
 
 We have good evidence that no question was so 
 profoundly agitating to men's minds in the first ages 
 as this. The Magians, as I said, succeeded in re- 
 establishing their old doctrine, and with it the old 
 Persian empire. But the belief in rival powers of good 
 and evil, to the latter of which the origin of all visible 
 things might be ascribed, spread far beyond its limits. 
 It incorporated itself with all the religious and philoso- 
 phical views of the age ; it penetrated deeply into the 
 Church of Christ, was the great characteristic of its 
 most prevalent heresy, and mingled, in different forms 
 and measures, with every other. Of all tests of the 
 reality of Christian humility and faith, the greatest 
 seems to have been the power of practically meeting 
 this temptation, of resisting the conclusion that a per- 
 fectlv good being could not be the author and ruler of 
 the universe ; that man could not really be a holy and 
 redeemed creature ; that the material world, at all 
 events, must be given up as an evil thing. Only the 
 simple, childlike trust which said, ' There are many 
 things I cannot explain, but this I know, that the Son
 
 LECT. lY.-] ST. AUGUSTINE. 227 
 
 of God has taken my nature, and made it lioly, lias 
 walked this earth and made it holy, that He has adopted 
 us into fellowship with Him, and commands us to look 
 upon ourselves as holy, in spite of all the evil that is in 
 us ; and commands us to treat every creature as holy, 
 though corruption and death may have set their mark 
 upon it '—only a faith of this kind, surmounting present 
 appearances, and laying hold of a higher truth, waiting 
 calmly for them and it to be reconciled in God's good 
 time, and meanwhile bracing the heart to those daily 
 duties, which, on the other hypothesis, must have been 
 thrown aside as useless and hopeless, could have hinder- 
 ed any Christian from becoming inwardly, if not pro- 
 fessedly, a Manichean. St. Augustine has given us, in 
 his own biography, a striking picture of this conflict. 
 With a Christian mother and a heathen father, brought 
 up in the feeble rhetoric of his time, but full of earnest 
 thoughts which made him long to understand the 
 nature of himself and of God; full also of violent 
 passions seeking for gratification ; he eagerly embraced 
 the doctrine of the Manichean teachers, for it seemed 
 at once to explain the problem of the universe, and to 
 justify the indulgences which something within him 
 condemned. He shows us how he was forced from 
 speculations upon things without, to a more awful study 
 of that which was passing in himself; how he learnt to 
 perceive that the evil within him was the resistance of 
 his will to a perfect and holy will ; how this discovery 
 did much more than scatter his old notions ; how it led
 
 228 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [paut il. 
 
 iim to ask what that pure and Holy Being had been 
 doino- on behalf of our race ; whether He had offered 
 men the means of knowing Him and being like Him. 
 Then the meaning of Christ's coming dawned upon him ; 
 he believed that the perfect and holy Being was mani- 
 fested in Him ; that in Him man might behold his own 
 true and proper state, and rise to it; that in His 
 strength we may cast off evil from us, as an enemy 
 which has no proper right or dominion over us, or over 
 any creature ; that man when he becomes the slave of 
 outward things is evil, not because they are evil, but 
 because he is created to be their master. These truths, 
 which slowly worked themselves out in his mind amidst 
 great discouragements and bitter sorrows, he was as- 
 serting under one aspect or another all his life through. 
 Shadows of his old system no doubt often darkened his 
 intellect ; when he was tempted to make Christianity 
 a system, they were sure to re-appear. But there were 
 times in his life when he felt more clearly than almost 
 any man ever did, that evil does not belong to the 
 order of the universe, but is its disorder ; that every 
 creature seeking to dwell in selfish independence, of 
 necessity embraces that disorder and becomes a part of 
 it ; that every creature entering into God's covenant 
 and yielding itself to Him, becomes orderly, reasonable, 
 blessed. 
 
 But it required more than the teaching of any man, 
 however wise, to check a belief which was so plausible 
 as this. Though only open heretics aflBrmed that the
 
 I.ECT. rv.] MAHOMET'S WITNESS FOE THE GOSPEL. 229 
 
 world was essentially an evil tiling, and originated in 
 an evil Being, from whom Christ came to deliver His 
 disciples — though these statements were generally felt 
 to be blasphemous — yet numbers acted as if they were 
 true. Those who decided to live pure and holy lives, 
 left the world that they might do so. The sphere of 
 human action was regarded by saints as an ungodly 
 one, and those who moved in it and ruled it, shoAved 
 by their lives that they adopted the opinion. There 
 was no distinct, audible voice, declaring, "The kingdoms 
 of this world are the kingdoms of our God and of His 
 Christ." The belief silently gained ground, that there 
 was no warrant for such an assertion ; that the re- 
 demption which our Lord had wrought, whatever it 
 might mean, did not mean this. 
 
 VI. But soon a voice was heard, speaking these 
 words in the ears both of Persians and Christians : 
 " This earth is the possession of the One Lord, the 
 God of Abraham; He claimed it as His when He 
 called out Abraham, and promised that he and his 
 seed should possess a portion of it. The earth is still 
 His. Those who say He has an equal or rival are 
 liars." This was Mahomet's language. His sword 
 was ready to make it good. The Magian faith, the 
 Persian empire, fell to pieces before it. Of all the 
 Mahometan enterprises this was the most startling, 
 and that by which its other triumphs may be best 
 understood. We complain of Mahometanism for its 
 hard outward character ; for the materialism of its acts
 
 230 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [part ii. 
 
 and its rewards. But see how well suited it was on 
 this very ground to meet precisely that evil tendency 
 to which men's minds had yielded. The denial of 
 God's dominion over the actual world ; the notion, 
 that though He might have a reign somewhere else, it 
 was not here ; this unbelief was destroying all ordinary 
 morality, all simple trust in a Father, was introducing 
 atheism, or else devil-worship, among those who pre- 
 tended to worship the Holy God, and utterly to re- 
 nounce His enemies. No mere spiritualism, if it had 
 been ever so fine and true, could have broken this 
 spell. Palpable proofs were wanted that the kingdoms 
 of this very earth were subject to an Unseen and 
 Absolute Sovereign. And the Mahometan conquests, 
 though so mighty a testimony against Christians, 
 were not a testimony against the Gospel, but for it ; a 
 testimony to one necessary, forgotten portion of it ; a 
 proof that, if the Church of Christ forgets its own 
 proper position, God can raise up the strangest instru- 
 ments to do His work. 
 
 I say one portion of the Gospel ; for you will re- 
 mind me that if Mahometanism asserted half the 
 doctrine of the text I quoted just now, " The kino-- 
 doms of this earth are God's ; " it denied the latter 
 half of it, "and His Chi^ist's.'' But this remark re- 
 quires to be explained and qualified by two others. 
 Mahometanism does, indeed, deny the fact on which 
 our Gospel rests, that a man is verily and indeed one 
 with the Lord of all ; how that denial has affected the
 
 LECT. IV.] ITS PEACTICAL EFFECT. 231 
 
 whole system, I have considered in a former Lecture. 
 But if we remember what the doctrine was which 
 Mahometanism subverted, we shall see that it involved 
 a much more direct denial of Christ, of His rule over 
 this universe, and of His relation to God. The dis- 
 position to look upon the world as the possession of an 
 evil power, which belonged to the Persian, and to the 
 Christian who had caught his temper, made it im- 
 possible even to think of it as connected with Christ. 
 The idea of Christ as a deliverer of man from the 
 power of his Creator, went far deeper than the denial 
 of His essential oneness with the Creator. So far as 
 Mahometanism helped to clear the air of these pol- 
 lutions, it removed the greatest of all impediments to 
 the recognition of that doctrine which it set at noughi-i 
 Eut secondly, in order to understand the effect of a 
 system, and the place it occupies in the scheme of 
 Providence, we should think not only of itself, but 
 also of that which has been called out in opposition to 
 it. The formation of society in modern Europe stands 
 in close relation to the history of Mahometanism. The 
 Christian nations were brought to feel that they were 
 connected with each other, and what connected them, 
 by seeing such large portions of the world knit to- 
 gether in the acknowledgment of the Arabian prophet. 
 Then was the feeling distinctly realised, that all 
 government has a Divine basis, that kings must be 
 anointed with oil in the name of Christ, that the dif- 
 ferent members of the community hold their pos-
 
 232 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [p.ajit n. 
 
 sessions^ offices, powers, ultimately of Him ; that they 
 depend in different gradations upon each other ; that 
 fealty is due to that which is unseen, reverence to that 
 which is weak. Thus, in short, those institutions, 
 forms, habits of thought established themselves which 
 characterise the middle ages ; which may be mischiev- 
 ous when they exclude other principles, more clearly 
 perceived in later times; which have become mixed 
 with corruptions, counterfeits, tyrannies, and con- 
 founded with them ; but which are essential elements 
 of our social existence at this day, and cannot perish 
 until we perish. Now these embodied the other half 
 of the great truth which St. John's words express : 
 " The kingdoms of this world are the kingdoms of His 
 Christ.^^ Nor should it be forgotten, that while the 
 Mahometan doctrine has been proved by the evidence 
 of history to be maimed and self- destructive, so long 
 as it stands alone, rejecting the principle of European 
 society; that society was continually in danger of 
 losing its own foundation and stability, and of becoming 
 utterly idolatrous and depraved, through forgetfulness 
 of the principle which the Mahometans pat forth. 
 The worship of the men who uttered, of the visible 
 symbols which shadowed forth. Divine truths, might 
 have effaced those truths, but for the testimony which 
 Islamism was permitted to bear on behalf of them. 
 
 YII. But though the Gospel, as it was preached by 
 the Apostles and others who followed them, involved 
 the assertion that the earth was redeemed and claimed
 
 XECT. rv.] THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 233 
 
 as God's possession by Christ, I am far from affirming 
 that tliis was its only or its most characteristic affirma- 
 tion. The Old Testament was especially the witness 
 for God's government of the earth. The New speaks 
 of the Icingdom of heaven. John the Baptist said the 
 kingdom of heaven was at hand. Our Lord illustrated 
 its principles in every discourse and every miracle ; 
 His Apostles invited men to enter into it ; in their 
 Epistles they unfolded its nature to those who had 
 believed the message and sought the privilege. This 
 kingdom they described as one of righteousness, peace, 
 and joy ; the eye could not see it, but it was most real. 
 It was a kingdom for the heart and spirit of man, for 
 that which was most properly himself, for that in which 
 dwell all his capacities of sorrow, of sympathy, of trust, 
 of hope, of love. It was called the kingdom of God 
 because communion with Him is the great blessedness 
 of it. And it is the kingdom of God because men are 
 brought into it that they may see themselves, their 
 fellow- creatures, the whole universe, as He sees them ; 
 not partially, or each in reference to a separate centre, 
 as they naturally do. Into this kingdom, our Lord 
 said, men were pressing. Experience of sorrow, a 
 sense of weariness and dissatisfaction with all that was 
 visible, the feeling of a good almost within reach and 
 yet never quite attained; above all, the bitter con- 
 sciousness of something wrong within, which needed 
 to be purged away, of a hollow which needed to be 
 filled up ; these were intimations to men of an unseen
 
 234 THE RELIGIONS OP THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 treasure wliicli tliey were intended to possess, wliicli 
 only One mightier than they could enable them to pos- 
 sess. Such thoughts and longings would especially 
 haunt the hearts of poor and suffering people ; they 
 would be rarer in men who had outward ease and com- 
 fort. But our Lord spoke of a Divine power which 
 could awaken in all the desire and capacity for this 
 good ; of a birth from above by which their spirits 
 might be made fit for the Kingdom of Heaven ; of an 
 inward eye which might be opened to behold it. The 
 Apostles, when they baptized men into the Name of 
 the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 
 bade them understand that this power was given them, 
 and that though their bodies dwelt in Corinth or Ephe- 
 sus, their real home was with Him whom they could 
 love but not see. These were the words which stirred 
 the hearts of the early Christians and led them to that 
 indifference for outward things, which afterwards blend- 
 ed so easily with the Persian notion that these things 
 were to be despised or regarded as evil in themselves. 
 But the truth was not the less mighty because it was 
 capable of a grievous perversion. The belief in it was 
 the strensfth in which the Christian confessor lived and 
 died. The invisible world was his dwelling : each day 
 he souo-ht to become more familiar with it, to have 
 every thought and feeling brought into harmony with 
 it ; to show forth more of the temper and spirit of it 
 in his converse with his fellow-creatures. While, in- 
 deed, he kept his Lord's words and example in re-
 
 LECT. IV.] IN WHAT SENSE OUES AN EVIL WOELD. 235 
 
 collectiou^ he could not scorn any earthly task_, he 
 must look upon all the creatures of God as good; 
 while he remembered for what end Christ had come 
 upon earth, he must deem fellowship with men more 
 blessed than separation from them. Still it was the 
 first gift of his redemption, that he could rise out of 
 this circle of things. And when he saw to what cold- 
 ness and hardness of heart, to what gross superstitions, 
 those yielded, whose thoughts and aspirations were 
 bounded by what they could see and handle, he could 
 understand in what sense St. Paul blessed God for 
 having delivered the Galatians out of this present evil 
 world. It was an evil world, because men made it so, 
 by renouncing the privilege of men; by living as if 
 they had only senses and were not spiritual beings 
 capable of spiritual enjoyments ; as if each could only 
 realise the little portion of the goods of earth which 
 he calls his property, and might not enter upon that 
 inheritance of true blessedness which all may share 
 together, as all may share the light of the sun to- 
 gether. 
 
 If men could so pervert these truths as to forget 
 that the outward world was redeemed to be a part of 
 God's kingdom, and if their inward life suffered ter- 
 ribly from this forgetfulness, it became manifest in the 
 course of ages that they could quite as easily lose sight 
 of that which was specially and emphatically the 
 Christian doctrine while they seemed to admit and 
 prize its material results. Since the active energies of
 
 23G THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part n. 
 
 men's minds have been awakened, since we have felt 
 that it is our vocation to subdue the earth, to trade, 
 colonise, and conquer, this has become the character- 
 istic temptation of all Christian nations, perhaps I may 
 say, especially the characteristic one of our own ; for it 
 lies close to some of our highest virtues, to our busi- 
 ness-like habits, our love of action, our impatience of 
 what does not look real and practical. 
 
 Englishmen in the last century seem for the most 
 part to have persuaded themselves that man is not a 
 mysterious being; that the Gospel does not address 
 him as such ; that its main use is to check disorders 
 which the law cannot entirely redress, to make servants 
 respectful to their masters, to keep the humble classes 
 from interfering with the privileges of their superiors; 
 that the kingdom of heaven is a place where certain 
 rewards are bestowed hereafter for decency of conduct 
 here. Those who refused to act upon these maxims, 
 and earnestly devoted themselves to a spiritual life, 
 fancied, not unnaturally, that the desires of which they 
 were conscious did not properly belong to human 
 beings ; that all men ought to have them, but that in 
 fact scarcely any had them ; that the unseen world is 
 for the select few, not for mankind. 
 
 But to Englishmen in the eighteenth century, the 
 continent of India revealed itself with its treasures and 
 its wonders. Its material treasures might help to 
 strengthen the worldly appetite which went in search 
 of them; but its wonders, well considered, might
 
 LECT. IV.] HINDOOS PEEACHING TO ENGLISHMEN. 237 
 
 surely have supplied the counteraction, might have 
 proved that men everywhere need a kingdom of 
 heaven as well as a kingdom on earth. The Hindoo 
 lives in a world of thought. He is certain that Divine 
 knowledge, the knowledge of Brahm, is the highest 
 end of life. He cannot be satisfied till he is united 
 with the Divinity. The Divine man, he says, must be 
 a twice-born man, must be raised out of his natural 
 condition, must not lose himself in communion with 
 outward things. Indications of this faith are forced 
 upon the observation of every Englishman in India ; 
 he may explain them as he will, but he cannot deny 
 them. Do they not say to him, just perhaps when the 
 associations of his childhood are about to be cast ofi" 
 altogether — ' What you used to hear from your nurse 
 and your mother may after all mean something. You 
 were told that you were a twice-born man, a member 
 of Christ, a child of God, an inheritor of the kingdom 
 of heaven. May there not be treasures nearer to you 
 than these Indian treasures, treasures which are yours 
 by the clearest title, and yet which you have never re- 
 duced into possession ? If you could impart them to 
 these subjects of ours, might you not do that for them 
 which the best legislation cannot do ? Will you not at 
 least ask whether the Hindoo is wrong in thinking 
 that man is made for something else than to buy and 
 sell, to eat, drink, and die ; and whether, if he is right, 
 there is any escape from his restless self-torture, except 
 in the calm faith that it is our Father's good pleasure
 
 238 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, [part ii. 
 
 to give us that kingdom whicli the idolater would at 
 the price of any anguish wring from the objects of his 
 ■worship ? ' 
 
 Here then is a voice coming from the most opposite 
 quarter to that whence the other was brought to us — 
 a voice of the most different kind. Yet it comes as a 
 witness not against but for that which we have been 
 taught to believe, a witness not for but against our in- 
 difference to it. So that these two voices compared 
 together, may, I think, help to answer the question we 
 have been examining, whether Christianity be not de- 
 pendent for its evidence and its success upon the faith 
 of those who promulgate it. There cannot be a truer 
 assertion than that this is the criterion of a human sys- 
 tem ; there cannot be a more undoubted prophecy than 
 that the Gospel, if it be a human system, must perish, 
 as all systems are perishing. On the other hand, if it 
 were anything more than this, we should expect that 
 the weakness, heartlessness, cowardice, baseness of its 
 advocates would themselves be in some way converted 
 into demonstrations of its truth ; that when men were 
 holding their peace respecting it, the stones would cry 
 out. Have we not found this to be the fact ? You say 
 that Islamism has not fallen before the Cross. No, 
 but Islamism has become one of God's witnesses for the 
 Cross when those who pretended to bear it had really 
 changed it for another standard. You say that Hin- 
 dooism stands undisturbed by the presence of a triumph- 
 ant Christian nation. Yes, for Hindooism has been
 
 LECT. IV.] SECTARIAN MODE OF TEACHING. 239 
 
 wanted to teacli this nation what it is very nearly for- 
 getting itself, very nearly forcing others to forget, that 
 Christianity is not a dream or a lie. 
 
 I believe these conclusions must be brought home, 
 in some way or other, to the hearts as well of those 
 who are earnest about heathen missions as of those , 
 ■who are indifferent to them. For what is it that palsies 
 all efforts of this kind ; what is it that produces the 
 contrast which we have confessed between the teachers 
 of our own and those of earlier days ? Is it not that 
 we have more than half subscribed to the philosophical 
 doctrine ; more than half acted as if we were engaged 
 in propagating a system of our own ? Has not the 
 impression we have conveyed to the minds of Mahomet- 
 ans and pagans been something of this kind : • These 
 Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards, or Englishmen, 
 acknowledge a certain teacher, to whom they attach 
 very high titles. They wish us to acknowledge their 
 teacher instead of those whom we in Arabia, Persia, or 
 Hindoostan, have been accustomed to honour. In 
 other words, they wish to make us Europeans, to bring 
 us over to their modes and habits of thinking;.' I 
 know and thank God that other impressions than this 
 have been made by the Christian missionaries of all 
 ages and nations upon those among whom they have 
 gone. I know that the hearts of many of them have 
 been so possessed with the love of Him who died for 
 them and for all mankind, that they could not speak of 
 Him as if He was their teacher, the Head of their sect.
 
 240 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [pabt ii. 
 
 By tlieir language, by their acts, by that higher, simpler 
 teaching which the Bible supplies, they must have 
 carried home to many a broken-hearted creature, crying 
 for a Comforter, the assurance that there is One who 
 has taken the nature, not of Englishmen, Frenchmen, 
 Spaniards, but of Man ; who has entered into man's 
 misery and death ; has borne the sins of man ; has en- 
 countered all his enemies, and vanquished them. 
 
 The history of Missions would be barren indeed if 
 this were not the case. But the more we admit the 
 worth of such testimonies — (how great it has been we 
 shall not know till the great day of revelation) — the 
 more convinced must we be that the old proclamation 
 of a Divine kingdom, the old Gospel that the Son of 
 God the Deliverer of Man has appeared and will be 
 shown hereafter to be the Lord of the universe, is the 
 only effectual one ; that this is as fresh to-day as it was 
 eighteen hundred years ago, because it is a proclama- 
 tion of that eternal Law of the universe, which wears 
 not out, which grows not old; is not, in any sense 
 whatever, our scheme, or theory of the universe, but 
 is sent to confound, to break in pieces, our schemes 
 and theories of the universe ; to show how feeble and 
 contemptible we and they are ; how little we or any 
 human creatures want a theory ; what absolute need 
 all creatures have of a Living God who will reveal to 
 us Himself: what relation there is between us and 
 Him ; how He works in us to bring us to know His 
 purposes, and to move in accordance with them.
 
 LECT. IV.] THE BUDDHIST GOSPEL. 241 
 
 VIII. That last discovery is indeed one without 
 which the words I have just been speaking- would seem 
 only words of discouragement. To look out upon the 
 world, and see a valley covered with the dry bones of 
 different systems, to hear them clashing- together as if 
 they might be joined to each other, and then to be 
 told, 'It is all in vain; there is no voice which can 
 bid the breath enter into these bones; perhaps it 
 might have come from Christians, but it does not ; 
 they too occupy part of this valley ; they have become 
 dry bones, very dry indeed ; clashing always, never 
 unitino- ' — such an announcement as this, however 
 softened by thoughts of the past or the future, must be 
 a very mournful one. But that third great religion of 
 the world comes to turn the current of these thoughts, to 
 check this despondency. We are but ill provided 
 with a theory, say the Buddhists ; we have tried many, 
 and little fruit has come of them. But this we are 
 assured of : you Christians may not have heard it, but 
 there is a quickening, life-giving Spirit, which is meant 
 for humanity ; which all may possess together ; which 
 alone can bring a universe out of chaos, unity out of 
 division. Wonderful testimony to be borne from the 
 ends of the earth, from such a medley of strange 
 people, so different in their thoughts, so incoherent in 
 their utterances ! Is not the report of it like the 
 sound of that rushing mighty wind, which was heard 
 on the day of Pentecost, not indeed itself the promised 
 Power, but the type and herald of it ? Does it not 
 
 M. B. L. ^
 
 242 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 say tliat we too might have cloven tongues to declare^ 
 in different tones and measures, according to the 
 different thoughts, habits, and apprehensions of men, 
 the same wonderful works of God, and that these 
 tongues might be of fire if only the living inspiration 
 were confessed and obeyed by us ? Does it not bid us 
 remember that with this Spirit of peace and love and 
 a sound mind we have been sealed ; that the Name of 
 the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, which 
 was to be the blessing, the permanent blessing, of 
 Pentecost, has been bestowed upon us ; that we hold 
 this Spirit, not as the Buddhists dream, by our own 
 right, — to be therefore the witness of our independence, 
 flowing from no source whence it may be replenished, 
 — but as the very bond of our dependence and child- 
 hood, as the Spirit of adoption, whereby we are to cry, 
 Abba, Father ; as the power whereby we can ask and 
 receive a new life day by day. If so, there is cause 
 enough for humiliation in all of us, for despair in none. 
 The broken limbs of the world may yet be united, if 
 the broken limbs of the Church be united first. But 
 are these the limbs of a great system, or of a living 
 body ? Holding the first opinion of herself, the Church 
 has been either held artificially together, the children 
 within her groaning under the bondage to which she 
 has subjected them, those without hearing in her 
 invitation a message not of deliverance but of heavier 
 slavery ; or else, these artificial joints and fastenings 
 being removed, she has split into fragments, upon
 
 LECT. IV.] TIIE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 243 
 
 which, those who are dingiug to them feel they can less 
 and less depend, which offer to heathens an excuse for 
 adhering to the tradition of their fathers, be it ever so 
 dreary, till we who bid them leave it are agreed what 
 they should adopt in its place. But if the Scripture 
 language is true, if the Church is a body constituted 
 in a Head, the Buddhist proclamation carries with it 
 the reproof and consolation which we require. There is 
 a Power which can bring us not into some imaginary 
 condition of excellence, but precisely into our true 
 condition : which can remove the individual interests, 
 selfish feelings, national antipathies, narrow apprehen- 
 sions, that all our efforts to produce unity have only 
 evoked and strengthened ; which can bring down our 
 high notions and conceits of what we are and what we 
 do ; which can enable us to be God's servants and to 
 do His work in the world He has redeemed. Having 
 confessed our rebellion against this Spirit, and sought 
 the renewal of it in us and in the whole Church, we 
 shall no longer say, as we have been tempted to say, 
 ' The power of evil is supreme over the universe ; 
 only there has been a special deliverance vouchsafed to 
 us ; ' we shall, from our hearts, abjure such blasphem- 
 ous Manicheism; we shall say boldly to all people 
 among whom we go, ' The devil is not your master, 
 he has no right to your worship : the God, in whom is 
 light and no darkness at all, has claimed you and the 
 whole creation for His own. His marvellous light is as 
 
 much for you as for us. We only enjoy it upon the 
 
 R 2
 
 244 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WORLD [paet it. 
 
 condition of renouncing all exclusive claim to it, upon 
 tlie condition of bidding you enter into it/ 
 
 IX. Buddhism, then, like Hindooism and Maho- 
 metanism, has its lesson for us. We are debtors to all 
 these in a double sense. Nor, I think, is it otherwise 
 with those modem infidels whose objections I have 
 been considering throughout this course. Our obliga- 
 tions to them are not slight if they have been sent to 
 break down a low grovelling notion we had formed of 
 our own position and work ; if they have been employed 
 to convince us that human systems must indeed perish, 
 one and all, that what survives must be something of 
 a much higher derivation, of a more permanent 
 character. We owe them the deepest gratitude if they 
 have led us to ask ourselves whether there is any faith, 
 and what kind of faith it is, which must belong, not to 
 races or nations, but to mankind ; still more, if they 
 have forced us to the conclusion, that the real test, 
 whether there be such a faith, and whether it has been 
 made known to us, must be action, not argument ; that 
 if it exist, it must show that it exigts ; that if it have 
 power, it must put forth its power. So, in this nine- 
 teenth century, the opponents of Christianity will re- 
 turn to the maxim which the wisest of them announced 
 in the first : " If this be of men, it will come to nought ; 
 if it be of God, we cannot overthrow it.'" 
 
 I have been anxious in these Lectures to show that 
 I did regard this practical experiment of our faith as 
 the really decisive one. In compliance with the direc-
 
 LECT. IV.] THE TEUE TEST OF CHEISTLINITY. 24o 
 
 tions of Boyle, I sought for that which seemed to be 
 the most prevaihng form of unbelief in our day ; and I 
 found it in the tendency to look upon all theology as 
 having its origin in the spiritual nature and faculties of 
 man. This was assumed to be the explanation of other 
 systems, why not apply it to Christianity ? The 
 questions we have asked ai-e, * Is it the adequate ex- 
 planation o^ any system? Do not all demand another 
 ground than the human one ? Is not Christianity the 
 consistent assertor of that higher ground ? Does it not 
 distinctly and consistently refer every human feeling 
 and consciousness to that ground ? Is it not for this 
 reason able to interpret and reconcile the other religions 
 of the earth ? Does it not in this way prove itself to 
 be not a human system, but the Hevelation, which 
 human beings require ? ' 
 
 ' Prove ! ' you cry : ' Yes, on paper ! It is easy to 
 prove many things about human creatures when you 
 are not actually dealing with them.-" Assuredly, most 
 easy. It was of this that the other clauses of Boyle's 
 Will warned me. They said very significantly, ' Your 
 business is to urge upon your countrymen the duty of 
 not proving Christianity upon paper ; but of entering 
 into actual intercourse with Jews, Mussulmans, Hindoos, 
 Buddhists, for the purpose of showing that it is a 
 reality.-' Accordingly, I have never lost sight of this 
 object. My questions have been, ' How may we bring 
 Christianity into contact with the actual convictions of 
 these different people ? How may we put it upon the
 
 246 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [fxrt ii. 
 
 broadest trial ? Where have other instruments and 
 appliances failed ? for that is the point on which we 
 would make this bear. Where may it most clearly 
 prove its inefficiency, if it be inefficient ? ' In no case 
 have I wished to disguise any apparent symptoms of 
 its failure. I have entreated Christians and infidels to 
 investigate these symptoms, that they may ascertain 
 the causes of them. And lest you should fancy, from 
 the view I took of these systems, that I was recom- 
 mending some new method of dealing with them, which 
 could only be learnt and applied after a long discipline, 
 and at last could scarcely be followed by simple 
 ministers of the Gospel, I have endeavoured to show 
 you in this Lecture, that precisely the course I have 
 suggested is that which the preachers of the Gospel in 
 the first ages actually adopted, that our departures from 
 it have ai-isen from want of simple faith; that the dis- 
 cipline we require is especially one to restore this faith. 
 And lest, from what has been just said about the unity 
 of Christians, you should conclude that I suppose 
 missions to the heathen should be deferred till some 
 indefinite time when the nations of Christendom can 
 make a simultaneous assault upon the outlying world, 
 I would remind you that my reference to the first ages, 
 and to the successful missionary efforts of every subse- 
 quent age, precludes such a notion. What nation of 
 the earth owes its Church to a simultaneous effort 
 among nations or among men ? If any one nation 
 takes its stand upon its true ground as a member of
 
 LECT. IV.] MISSIONS TO THE KEATUEN. 247 
 
 tliat Loclv whereof Christ is the Head, that nation be- 
 comes a witness to all Christian nations of their true 
 Unity, if they care ever so little for it ; that nation can 
 fulfil its own task of vindicating the truths which its 
 heathen subjects confess, by imparting to them the 
 truths which they want, though all the other Christian 
 nations should smile or frown upon its endeavours. 
 Any Christian man who takes his stand upon the same 
 ground of unity in the Church whereof Christ is the 
 Head, who acts consistently with that position, fulfilling 
 the office to which he is called, and not seeking some 
 other to please himself, may become a witness in every 
 land to which he goes of the fellowship into which his 
 baptism has brought him ; may in his words or life 
 expound the principle of this fellowship ; may show 
 how universal its privileges are, and how each may for 
 himself partake of them. 
 
 But I know that there must be many on whom the 
 often-repeated words, ' There are heathens at our doors, 
 we ourselves are half heathens ; leave Buddhists and 
 Mahometans till you have provided for these,' will have 
 an effect sufficient to destroy their interest in all such 
 exhortations. One answer to these objections is well 
 known, and has been sufficiently used. If Englishmen 
 did abstain rigidly from all intercourse with Maho- 
 metans, Hindoos, Buddhists, if no body of our country- 
 men were engaged in trading with other countries, or 
 in conquering them, or in keeping possession of them, 
 the interdiction of all spiritual communication might be
 
 2J8 THE EELIGIONS OP THE WORLD, [part ii. 
 
 judicious — at all events possible. But as the points at 
 issue are, wliat kind of communication shall we hold 
 with these people, what Jcind of help or protection shall 
 we extend to them ? if they are spiritual creatures, and 
 as such must in some way be dealt with, then how ? 
 — since this, I say, is the fair statement of the case, 
 such appeals to our home sympathies seem rather 
 capricious and rhetorical than benevolent or sensible. 
 But this is not the only reply which is suggested by 
 our particular circumstances ; or which lies in the 
 nature of the subject itself. A faith which boasts to 
 be for humanity cannot test its strength unless it is 
 content to deal with men in all possible conditions. If 
 it limits itself to England, it will adapt itself to the 
 habits and fashions and prejudices of England, of 
 England too in a particular age. But doing this, it 
 will never reach the hearts of Englishmen. You say, 
 ' Try your Christianity upon the cotton- spinners of 
 Manchester, upon the hardware men of Birmingham ; 
 if it fail with them, do you expect it will succeed in 
 Persia and Thibet ? ' We know it will fail, it must fail, 
 in Birmingham and Manchester, if it addresses the 
 people in those places mainly as spinners and workers 
 in hardware. This has been the mistake we have con- 
 tinually made. We have looked upon these ' hands ' 
 as created to work for us ; we have asked for a religion 
 which should keep the ' hands ' in the state in which 
 they will do most work and give the least trouble. But 
 it is found that they are men who use these hands ;
 
 LECT. IV.] A RELIGION FOE MEN. 219 
 
 and that which is a religion for hands, is not one for 
 men. Therefore it becomes more evident every day 
 that there is a demand in Manchester and Birmingham 
 for that which, till we understand human beings better, 
 we cannot supply. To acquire that understanding we 
 need not grudge a journey to Persia or Thibet ; we 
 need not think it an idle task to inquire what people 
 want, who are not called to spin cotton or work in 
 hardware, but who are creatures of the same kind with 
 those who do. When thoughtful men say that a work- 
 ing age of the world is about to begin, they mean, I 
 suppose, an age in which those essential qualities of 
 humanity which belong to working men as much as to 
 all others shall be more prized than the accidents by 
 which one class is separated from another. Most im- 
 portant is it then to ascertain whether we are holding 
 a faith which addresses us as members of a class, a 
 class of fine gentlemen, philosophers, divines, or one 
 which addresses us as men, which explains the problems 
 of our human life. Two centuries ago Boyle was led 
 in deep anguish of spirit to consider that question for 
 himself ; for himself, and not I think without something 
 of the like anguish, must each one of us consider it in 
 this day. We are told that circumstances have changed, 
 that our condition is a different one from his. Doubt- 
 less, the saying is true ; circumstances are always 
 changing ; but the necessities of man^s being do not 
 change. What was true of man generations ago, is 
 true now. If our condition is different from that of
 
 250 THE EELIGIONS OF THE WOELD. [part ii. 
 
 our forefathers, the difference is this : we are come 
 nearer to the great crisis of all controversies, there is 
 less power of hiding ourselves from realities amidst 
 shadows and appearances. Thanks be to God that such 
 a time has come, terrible as it may be to many, nay to 
 all of us ! For this is the time which will show that 
 His truth is not of man, neither by man : but that it is 
 for men, here and everywhere. Only then when the 
 grass withereth, and the flower fadeth, — so speaks in- 
 dividual experience, so speaks the voice of history, — is 
 it known assuredly that the Word of our God shall 
 stand for ever. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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