, -n 'n'-'iy, REESE LIBRARY \ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Received J^N 19 1893 „,, . zAccessions No.S Z ^ 4^ <^ C/r755 A/'\ TU^u; -U. ^u,--jij-,u, .,11',' ,u, '^ifT" Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/contemporaryevolOOgoblrich THE CONTEMPORARY EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. G. Gibbons & Co., Printers, Leicester. The Contemporary Evolution OF Religious Thought IN ENGLAND, AMERICA and INDIA, BY COUNT GOBLET cTALVIELLA, PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BRUSSELS AND FORMERLY MEMBER OF THE BELGIAN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. " Notre siecle a vu des mouvements religieux aussi extraordinaires que ceux d'autrefois, mouvements qui ont provoqu 180 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT respect, indeed, for the claims of the right, revealed by intuition, Parker goes so far as to maintain that no one owes obedience to a law which clashes with the requirements of absolute morality and right. " By birth," says he, " man is a citizen of the universe, subject to God. No oath of allegiance, no king, no parliament, no congress, no people can absolve him from his natural fealty thereto and alienate a man born to the rights, born to the duties of a citizen of God's universe. Over all human law, God alone has eminent domain." Parker does not fail to show the Transcendental character of the Declaration of Independence, which founded a Republican Govern- ment in the United States, or, to employ his happy definition, " the government of all, for all, and by all." In the same way he does not hesitate to recognize the idealistic character of the French Revolution : " In France men have an idea yet more Transcendental : to the intellectual idea of liberty and the moral idea of equality, they add the religious idea of fraternity, and so put politics and all legislation on a basis, divine and incontestable as the truths of mathematics. They say that rights and duties are before all human laws. America says : ' The Constitution of the United States is above the President, the Supreme Court above Congress.' France says : ' The Constitu- tion of the Universe is above the Constitution of France.' Forty million people say that. It transcends experience ; it is the grandest thing a nation ever said in history." It is not customary to regard the French Revolution as the realiza- tion of a religious idea ; but there is nothing surprising in Parker's views, for those who know what he understood by religion. His preaching, which extends from 1841 to 1859, corresponds to the principal development of Transcendentalism. It was equally the golden age of Boston, and it may be added of American literature. The middle of this century has seen, indeed, within the narrow terri- * tory of Massachusetts, one of those marvellous out-blossomings which are rarely reproduced in the moral culture of a people. Channing died in 1842 ; but it may be said that Parker worthily replaced him in the vanguard of religious Rationalism. By the side of Emerson, who was equally pre-eminent as philosopher and poet, Bancroft carried the principles of Transcendentalism into history ; Sumner, into inter- national law ; Alcott, into pedagogy ; Whittier, into poetry ; Margaret Fuller, into criticism ; Oliver Wendall Holmes revealed himself as a EMERSON AND PARKER. 181 humourist ; Prescott published his History of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico ; Hawthorne put into romance his power of psychological an- alysis; H. W. Longfellow attained the meridian of his glory; and finally, Massachusetts furnished for the National Senate, Daniel Webster, the ablest orator the United States has produced. I merely cite those names whose echo has reached Europe. But by the side of these illustrious leaders, a whole army of writers, lecturers and orators did their part either in the literary and philosophical publications which multiplied in Boston, or in the different associations which were organized for the promotion of temperance, for the emancipation of woman, for the instruction of the people, for the suppression of war, for prison reform, and, above all, for the abolition of slavery. It is not difficult to discover the influence of Transcendentalism in these numerous "agitations;" not only because the exponents of this philosophy were found in the first rank, but also because these* move- ments were the direct and logical consequence of a doctrine attribut- ing to every human being the same faculties and the same rights. To this influence, moreover, belong other more or less successful experi- ments, which aimed at radically reforming the principles of social organization. At one time it was George Ripley, who spent his for- tune in organizing a free community upon the principle of co- operation ; at another, it was A. B. Alcott, who, claiming the right to renounce the burdens as well as the advantages of actual society, allowed himself to be imprisoned for refusing to pay his taxes. This fever of reform was not confined to Rationalism. Revivals, exciting even to delirium the fervour of the various sects, passed like a billow over the whole of Protestant America, and New England furnished its quota to the eccentricities of Spiritualism and "free love." Yet what gives to this period a character very rare in times of religious and social fermentation, is that laxness of morals did not coincide with excessive mental excitement. Calvinism, in losing its dogmatic authority, had left with the people its strong moral discipline. Unitarianism had introduced free inquiry into matters of belief, and Transcendentalism had limited itself to adding thereto an enthusiasm for noble ideas. CHAPTER IX FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. Death of Parker ; his last significant words — Decline of Transcendentalism in its struggle with the New Scientific Philosophy — The two schools of Unitarianism in I 86a — Establishment of the National Unitarian Conference — Mr, Francis E. Adams and " the battle of Syracuse" — Formation of the Free Religious Associ- ation in 1867 — Principles and objects of the Free Religious Movement — Congre- gations which have adopted its programme at Dorchester, Providence, Florence, &c. — The first congregation of New Bedford — The Religion of Ethics — Mr. Felix Adler— The Philosophy of the categorical imperative — Distinction between Theism and its doctrinal basis — The Religion of Duty — The Society for Ethical Culture at New York and at Chicago — Its philanthropical works — Recent mutual approach of Unitarianism and Free Religion — Rejection of every obligatory Credo by the National Unitarian Conference — Emancipation of the Unitarian Churches in the West — Free Religion among the Progressive Quakers and Spiritualists — The Freie-Religidse-Gemeinde — Reformed Judaism in America — Increasing Practical Character of religion in the United States — Progressive tendencies among the Episcopalians, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyter- ians, the Congregationalists, &c. — The Rev. H. Ward Beecher and the Brooklyn Association of Congregational Ministers — The Catholics of the United States. Parker died in Italy, May 10, i860, on the eve of that War of Secession which he had perhaps hastened by the energy of his denun- ciations against slavery. It is related that, at the moment of dying, he murmured : " There are two Theodore Parkers now. One is dying here in Italy : the other I have planted in America. He will live there, and finish my work." The prediction of the dying man is realized, but perhaps not in the sense he attached to it. Parker lives more than ever in the United States, through the power exercised over imagination and character by the example of his inflexible fidelity to conviction, of his passionate love for truth and justice, and of his unshaken faith in the reconciliation of religion and progress. But, as to his favourite doctrine, — not admitting, with certain of his most recent biographers, that he would to-day with the same ardour extol the exclusive use of the experimental method, — it must be recognized that the philosophy of intuition has not answered the highest expec- tations of its prophet. The emancipation of the slaves was the great triumph of Tran- scendentalism, but it was also the beginning of its decline. The movement owed a great part of its popularity to the indifference 184 FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. which almost all the established churches had shown in opposing the scourge of slavery. When this odious institution was consumed in the flames of civil war, Transcendentalism lost its principal motive power over one portion of its adherents. On the other hand, indi- vidualism, which was at the bottom of its aspirations, was always a serious obstacle to its efforts at propagandism and to the grouping of its forces. Its essential aim, according to an expression of Samuel Johnson, was to lead each individual to become a church bji himself, — which was to condemn the very principle of all permanent organi- zation upon religious grounds. The majority of its interpreters did not break away completely from Unitarianism, which had served as a cradle to the Transcendental doctrine; and, of the independent congregations which some of them endeavoured to establish in imitation of Parker, few had a long duration. Indeed, Transcendentalism represented a reaction against the exaggerations of the Sensational method of philosophy; and, like all reactions, it went beyond its mark. Not content with affirming the importance of psychology, the necessity of recurring to internal observation to explain the origin of our knowledge, the apti- tude of the mind to conceive certain notions which cannot be the exclusive product of sensible experience, the existence of moral liberty, and the imperative character of duty, it professed to find in the human soul a complete and infallible perception of religious and moral truth. This was to prepare the way for an aggressive return of Sensa- tionalism, at the time when this philosophy, strengthened by the prodigious discoveries made by the natural sciences, claimed to furnish the synthesis of the universe. The weapon which had assured the victory to the school of Kant over the partisans of Locke was the verification in the human mind of ideas which are not introduced there by experience. The neo-Sensationalism of our epoch has dis- placed the ground of controversy, by explaining the presence of notions a priori in the individual by hereditary transmission of accumulated experiences in the past of the race, and under this rejuvenated form it spread so much the more rapidly in the United States, because it was directly introduced there in the works of the scientific school at present predominant in England. It will be clear, however, that this return blow of contemporary Sensationalism, though calculated to weaken the authority of the FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. 185 Transcendentalists in the bosom of the Unitarian Church, could hardly profit the partizans of the Sensational theology of Locke and Priestley. The Transcendentalists were still attached in a certain de- gree to the Christian tradition. Emerson, whose Christianity was contested by the conservatives, made of Jesus the principal educator of humanity; and Parker, who was treated as an atheist, identified the moral teaching of Christ with absolute religion. The new school, on the contrary, pursuing to the end its work of critical destruction, has stripped of his aureole the founder of Christianity, whom it places on a footing of equality with Buddha, Zoroaster, Moses, and Moham- med. At the end of the civil war, therefore, Unitarianism found itself more than ever divided into two factions : on the left, the Liberals who began to accept the name of Radicals ; on the right, the Conservatives of the old school (old-fashioned Unitarians). These, perhaps, did not insist with so much energy as formerly upon the Socinian theories of the pre-existence of Christ ; but they continued to make belief in the authenticity of Revelation the corner-stone of Christianity. The former, on the contrary, maintained that difference of opinion upon the infallibility and even upon the moral value of the Bible was not an obstacle to religious fraternity, and that the essence of Christianity was the practice of Christian virtues. On this last ground, indeed, agreement was easy, and there was an equal amount of enthusiasm in the two parties, when, after the Civil War, in 1864, Dr. Bellows proposed to unite the delegates from all the LTnitarian Churches in a permanent confederation, in order to give more unity to their works of charity, of instruction, and of prop- agandism. The provisional assembly, composed of three delegates from each church and each local association, met at New York the first day of April, 1865. But differences appeared as soon as they came to settle the principles and even the title of the new association. Finally, after rejecting a long profession of faith drawn up in the name of the extreme right wing by Mr. A. Low, and adopting a declaration stating that the decisions of the majority should not be binding upon the minority, the delegates voted, perhaps in the spirit of compromise, a preamble expressing the "obligation of all the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ to prove their faith by self-denial, and by the devotion of their lives and possessions to the service of God and the building up of the kingdom of his Son." This phraseology gave umbrage to the 186 FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. Radicals, who saw in it a declaration of allegiance to Christ ; and, in the following meeting, which opened at Syracuse, Oct. lo, 1866, one of their most distinguished representatives, Mr. Francis EUingwood Abbot, proposed to substitute for this preamble a declaration that " the object of Christianity is the universal diffusion of love, righteous- ness, and truth ; that perfect freedom of thought is the right and the duty of every human being ;" and that the basis of religious organ- ization should be " unity of spirit rather than uniformity of belief." At the same time, Mr. Abbot proposed to substitute the words " In- dependent Churches" for "Christian Churches," which figured in the title of the Conference.^ Perhaps, in the preceding year, the propositions of Mr. Abbot would have had some chance of being adopted ; for they served, chiefly, only to maintain in Unitarianism a statu quo consecrated by the experi- ence of half a century. But, after the Conference had officially hoisted its colours, this change of name and programme would not have failed to be represented as a repudiation of Christ and of all Christian traditions. The only concession which it showed itself ready to grant was to add to its title, " The National Conference of Unitarian Churches," the words, "and other Christian Churches." This was a tender to Universalists and to all liberal congregations whose internal development had, by degrees, brought them near to Unitarian doctrines. But Mr. Abbot, seeing his propositions rejected, withdrew from Unitarianism ; and the following year he, with many of his liberal colleagues, — who, however, did not think it necessary to follow him in his withdrawal, — formed at Boston the Free Religious Association, which had for its object to realize, outside of every Christian communion, the programme rejected by the Conference of Syracuse. It is certain that the Unitarians were wanting in logic, when, on one side, they proclaimed the absolute sovereignty of reason, and, on the other, sought to identify themselves with the belief in the religious and moral superiority of Christianity. There was, therefore, a place for a broader organization, which should accept, in its most remote conse- quences, the principle of free inquiry, and which should remain open not only to " all the disciples of Christ," but also to " all the disciples I. James Freeman Clarke and Francis EUingwood Abbot, The Battle of Syra- cuse, Two Essays : Boston, 1875. FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. 187 of truth,"— Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Mohammedans, Positivists, and even Atheists, — provided they should have in common the love of truth and the desire for goodness. The organizers of "Free Religion" did not impose upon them the sacrifice of their particular beliefs, nor even of their connections with other religious associations i all that they asked of them was to unite upon the ground of spiritual unity detached from all dogmatic intolerance. The first article of their constitution states it to be the object of the Association " to promote the practical interests of pure religion, to increase fellowship in the spirit, and to encourage the scientific study of man's religious nature and history." The second article adds i " Membership in this Association shall leave each individual respon- sible for his own opinions alone, and ajfifect in no degree his relations to other Associations; and nothing in the name or constitution of the Association shall ever be construed as limiting membership by any test of speculative opinion or belief, or as defining the position of the Association, collectively considered, with reference to any such opinion or belief, or as interfering in any other way with that absolute freedom of thought and expression which is the natural right of every rational being." The first public meeting, which was held in Boston, May 30, 1867, was a great success for the promoters of this movement. Not only a large number of the ministers and laity belonging to Unitarian con- gregations responded to their appeal, but also a considerable number of well-known persons from the liberal elements of the most diverse sects — Universalists, Progressive Quakers, Jews, and even Spiritualists. The Association chose for its president a Unitarian minister — who, later, transformed his society at New York into an independent organization — Mr. O. B. Frothingham, and for secretary, one of his colleagues at New Bedford, Mr. William J. Potter, whose name was soon erased from the official list of Unitarian ministers for his refusal to retain the name of Christian. Besides its annual meetings, devoted to discussions and papers, the Free Religious Association instituted a series of lectures in different cities of the country, and published a large number of pam- phlets to disseminate its views. It has for its organ T/ie Index of Boston, a weekly paper — edited first by Mr. Abbot, and now by Messrs. Potter and Underwood — which deserves to be presented as 188 FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. a model for all free-thought publications in both hemispheres, as well for the attractiveness of its articles as for the breadth of its ideas, and more especially for the elevation of its moral tone. During the fifteen years since " Free Religion " thus took form, it has accomplished a work at once positive and negative — negative, by its Rationalistic utterances, which undermine more and more the bases of dogmatic sects, as well as the privileges still accorded to the Churches,! and positive, by its efforts to assign a common purpose to the religious activity of its members. At its annual meeting in 1882, the Free Religious Association re- solved to undertake a more active propagandism, with a view to bring about the establishment of local associations to put in practice the principles of Free Religion. Up to the present, however, the con- gregations based upon the programme of the Association remain but few in number. I have seen no reference to any but those at Boston, Florence, Dorchester, East Dennis in Massachusetts, and Providence in Rhode-Island. A somewhat curious characteristic of the Free Re- ligious Congregation, established at Dorchester by some fifty families, is the fact of its being under the supervision of a lady, Mrs. Clara Bisbee. Some idea will be gained of the activity of the " ministress " when it is borne in mind that Mrs. Bisbee conducts the service, pre- sides at the organ, preaches the sermon, superintends a Sunday school, and gives lessons on the historic growth of religion to a class of adults.2 1. The separation of the Church from the State is not so complete among the Americans, as we are often led to suppose. It is true, the religious communities manage their own affairs as they please, and that on the other hand they receive no kind of subsidy from the Civil Authority. But the public institutions are still strongly impregnated with Christianity. Congress and the State Legislatures have their chaplains as well as the fleet, army and prisons. The Bible continues to be read in a great number of schools. The invocation to the Deity is, speaking generally, obligatory in the judicial and even in administrative oaths. In Penn- sylvania the Constitution demands that he who occupies a public office, must believe in God and the sanctions of a future life. The Constitution of Maryland does not accord liberty of conscience to any but Theists. Elsewhere the laws relating to blasphemy have never been formally abrogated. In certain States the tribunals lend their influence more or less indirectly to enforce the observation of the Sunday. In 1880, a court of law declined to recognise, even as a natural obligation, a debt contracted on the Sunday ; and a traveller injured in a railway accident has seen himself deprived of compensation, on the ground that he had no right to take the train on the Lord's Day. And lastly, the landed property devoted to the mainten- ance of worship is, to a large extent, freed from all kinds of taxation. 2. Index of the 29th of June, 1882. FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. 18^ Another Free Religious congregation at Providence, R.I., in 1881, obtained for its minister the right of performing legal marriages, — a privilege till then reserved to ministers regularly ordained by a religious denomination and to justices of the peace. In connection with this there occurred, between the minister of the Free Religious congrega- tion, Mr. F. A. Hinckley, and the committee appointed by the local legislature to decide whether *' Free Religion " was really a religion, a dialogue which throws a very curious light upon the attitude adopted by the adherents of the new worship, in regard to theological ques- tions, 'properly so called. As the constitution of the society assigned to it " the practice of virtue, the study of truth, and the brotherhood of man," the chairman of the committee remarked that he could not discover to whom the petitioners addressed themselves in worship. Rev. F. A. Hinckley — "As individuals, we represent all shades of liberal opinion ; but, as a society, we have a distinct element of wor- ship. All sane minds recognize a Power over and above us. We claim that the one great essential principle is recognized when we re- cognize this Power, though we do not recognize it in the same manner as do other denominations." A Mefjiber — "What do you worship?", jRev. Mr. Hinckley — " I am perfectly wiUing to tell you ; but I do not think it is within the province of the State to define what men shall or may worship." Meinher — " I understood that you said the other day that you did not recognize God, Christ, or the Bible." Rev. Mr. Hinckley — " What I said was that we could not recognize them as the creeds do. We do recognize a Power over and above the human." Meffiber — " What you call a Power is what other people call God?" Rev. Mr. Hinckley — "Now, you begin to define. The moment you do that, you find irreconcilable differences in the Churches as well as out of them." It should be said that the petitioners obtained the support of several ministers belonging to the Episcopal, Congregational, and Unitarian Churches of the city. We see thus that the spirit of religious tolera- tion has not degenerated in the old colony of Roger Williams. 190 FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. To the congregations directly founded upon the principles of ''Free Religion" may be added certain independent societies of every re- ligious denomination, as the First Congregation of New Bedford, which continued to sustain its minister, Mr. William J. Potter, when his name was erased from the Unitarian Year-Book. This Church, having its origin among the Puritans in the beginning of the eighteenth century, is reckoned as one of the first societies of Calvinistic descent which openly raised the Unitarian standard ; for this rupture with Orthodoxy dates from 1810, — that is, nine years before the dis- course of Channing, which was the distinctive signal of the schism. It would be very interesting to follow the movements of ideas which thus led from the strictest Calvinism to the most absolute Liberalism, a congregation standing in the ordinary conditions of American Churches. The different stages of this evolution would appear only in successive modifications of the ritual ; the widening of the pro- fession of faith imposed upon communicants ; the disappearance of all distinction between communicants and non-communicants, between the members of the church and the members of the society; the transformation of the sacrament of the communion into a ceremony commemorative of the foundation of Christianity; the displacement of Christian symbolism by a service in honour of all the great re- ligious and social reformers. It is this which Mr. Potter set forth as follows in a sermon preached before his congregation in 1874 : — " The Society has been in your day, as in the days of our ecclesi- astical ancestors, under the law of evolution. It has progressed by natural growth. . . . There has been no break, no violence, no revolution, no coup d'etat. Your present has grown out of your past, and whatever it be, is the logical consequence of your past. You have come in your historical career, — and that not so much by the special design of the Society, at any particular moment, as by the force of the natural logic of your course, — to the point where the use of creeds and covenants and even of names as representing theological distinc- tions, having naturally dropped away, you have opened the door to anyone of whatever faith, who may be drawn to seek fellowship among you. . . . No one stands there to question any comer's present belief, or religious antecedents. Should any of those who have been called infidels' for any reason, secret or open, be attracted to these services, and desire regularly to associate with you, there is nothing FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. 191 in your rules of membership, and I know of nothing in your spirit, that would shut the door against them. Or should any of the Pro- gressive Jews, who are becoming prominent in the Judaism of this country, or any of the liberal adherents of the Asiatic faiths, Hindu, Buddhist, Mohammedan, chance to come to our city, as temporary or permanent residents, as is possible in this era of migration and travel, and should they find anything helpful in these Sunday services, and be drawn to seek religious fellowship among you, again I know of nothing in your spirit, and there is certainly nothing in your rules of membership, that would exclude them. Though organized and pro- gressing historically as a Christian Society, yet by the logical force of the Protestant principle of the right of private judgment, and of free inquiry, you have gradually widened your conditions of fellowship, until you recognize no conditions less broad than the human aspira- tion after truth and virtue and spiritual peace. Consistently with this record, the only opinion you could call heresy would be the opinion that should put creed before character, and subordinate the reality of a religious life to the wearing of a religious name."^ Though independent of the Free Religious Association, the Society for Ethical Culture in New York equally deserves a place in the first rank among the associations which have set up the standard of "Free Religion." Its minister, or rather its director, Mr. Felix Adler, from 1878 to 1882 was president of the Free Religious Association, whose ethical and humanitarian tendencies he especially represents — that is, the part of the constitution above cited which relates to " the prac- tical interests of pure religion." It cannot be disguised that one of the most threatening issues for the future of modern society is that the weakening of positive religion weakens the power of morality, which has been so long linked to religious dogmas. Rationalists have seen this peril in the United States as in Europe ; but, while here they have endeavoured to establish morality upon principles indepen- dent of religion, there they seek to subordinate religion to it. Such is at least the tendency of which Professor Felix Adler is to-day the most brilliant interpreter. Mr. Adler is a young man whose mystic physiognomy recalls certain heads of the apostles. His father filled I. W. J. Potter. Two Discourses delivered before the First Congregational Society. New Bedford, 1874. 192 FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. the office of rabbi in the principal Jewish synagogue in New York. He himself was destined for the priesthood ; but, having been sent to Germany to complete his education, he there acquired Rationalistic convictions, which barred him from following his father's career. On his return to the United States, in 1873, he accepted a professor- ship in Cornell University, which he quitted three years afterwards to establish at New York a new religious association, under the title of " The Society for Ethical Culture." In philosophy, Mr. Adler belongs to the intuitive school, since he believes in the existence, in the human mind, of certain elements anterior and superior to all individual or even hereditary experience. But, in metaphysics, he holds strictly to the postulates of Kant, with- out attributing objective reality to the notions of God and immortality. " I do not accept Theism," he says, in one of his lectures, " but the foundation can exist very well without a particular structure, and others may be raised upon it when the ancient one has crumbled into ruins. I cling with all my soul to the foundation on which Theism has been built : first, the denial of chance, the conviction that there is order in the world ; secondly, the conviction that this order is a good order, that there is progress in the world." According to this, it is not God, but moral law, which should be the object of religion. This religion, moreover, would be eminently practical. "Since diver- gency of beliefs will continue to be emphasized, it is necessary to place the moral law where it cannot be discussed — in practice. Men have so long disputed about the author of the law that the law itself has remained in shadow. Our movement is an appeal to conscience, a cry for more justice, an exhortation to more duty."^ The first condition of success in such an undertaking, is to preach by example, and in this respect Ethical Culture is not less rigid than the old religious morality ; only its field of action is much more ex- tended. The associations for moral culture, says Mr. Adler, exercise an influence which is the more efficacious because they are founded on the personal regeneration of their members, and he mentions the I. Index of the 15th of September, 1881. This Agnosticism does not prevent Mr. Adler from recognizing the existence of an *' Ultimate Reality which lies behind all phenomena and from which the harmony of the world arises. " {Index of the 22nd of September, 1881). FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. 193 Temperance societies as an instance of this. But these pursue only one special aim, whilst Ethical Culture, being a religious reform, must be extended to every sphere of human activity. Thus, to borrow an illustration from the domain of Political Economy, he con- tinues, suppose you believed in the justice of a tax to be fixed pro- gressively according to a person's income : then you would not rest content with waiting for such an arrangement to become law ; but, if you wished to fulfil your religious duty, you would hasten to cast into the Public Treasury the sum which the general and obligatory appli- cation of your system would demand from you. It is upon these principles that Mr. Adler has organized his society in New York, with the concurrence of the most advanced minds of American Judaism. By degrees, some "Gentiles" have joined it, attracted as much by the growing reputation of the young reformer as by the largeness of his ideas; and, since 1880, the society has been obliged to occupy a more spacious hall. It has, indeed, one of the largest congregations in New York. Its " services,'' which take place on Sunday mornings, consist only of a lecture, between two pieces of music. But, after the public have left, the members come together in a private meeting for considering the different social works which they have established. These institutions are: (i) a Sunday School for the teaching of morals, as well as for instruction in the history of the principal faiths and even in the philosophy of religion; (2) a public kinder-garten organized after the method of Froebel ; (3) an industrial school, which was opened in 1878, with but one teacher and eight pupils, and possesses to-day a principal, eight assistant masters, and 250 scholars between the ages of three and nine: its instruction is free and in certain necessitous cases food and clothing are given to the children gratuitously; (4) a technical museum at- tached to the school ; and (5) a service of visitors or rather district nurses, who daily carry on their labour of love among the sick poor in the most wretched district of New York. The success of these undertakings has been a new means of pro- pagandism for the Society for Ethical Culture, which has thus won the esteem of even those who are hostile to its principles. It leaves, moreover, complete freedom to its members in the choice of their in- dividual religious beliefs. All that it asks from them is, that they o 194 FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. shall place the duties of religion exclusively in the individual and social regeneration of humanity. A branch of the Society for Ethical Culture has been recently organized at Chicago, under the direction of Mr. W. Salter, and it has already begun to surround itself with philanthropical institutions based upon the model of the parent association.^ The Religion of Ethics is sometimes called by its adepts the Re- ligion of Humanity. And assuredly it possesses as strong a claim to this appellation as Comtism, and a still stronger one than Secularism. It might be defined, indeed, as Comtism without dogmatism, and as Secularism with the addition of the religious spirit. The influence of " Free Religion" is not limited to those societies which have accepted its name or its patronage. The Free Religious Association has become for Unitarianism what Unitarianism itself has been for other communions — a leaven of intellectual liberty. The Unitarians reckon, in the United States, according to their Annual Report of 1880, three hundred and forty-four congregations, three hundred and ninety-nine ministers (of whom three are women),^ two colleges, one at Harvard and the other at Meadville, one monthly review and several weekly journals, together with numerous charitable and philanthropical institutions. It might have been feared that after the secession of Messrs. Abbot, Potter, &c., their National Conference would incline more to the right wing. As a matter of fact, it did not hesitate to introduce into its rules, on the motion of the Rev. George Hepworth, a new paragraph in which, while re-affirming "allegiance to the Gospel," it solicited the co-operation of all "who wish to be followers of Christ." But shortly afterwards the author of this proposition went over to ortho- doxy, and with this disappearance of extreme elements, disappeared also the principal vitality of the controversy which had been carried on from the foundation of the Conference; and Unitarianism was thus able to concentrate its activity upon practical measures calculated 1 . Another branch from the parent society was established in Boston last year ( 1 884). — Translator. 2. It was one of these ministresses, Mary A. Safford, who preached the anniver- sary sermon of the "Western Unitarian Conference, on the occasion of its meeting at Chicago, in 1883. The subject was : "Religion, its nature and development." — See Unity, of the i6th of May, 1883. FREE RELIGION AND* THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. 195 to bring it nearer to the position chosen by the Free Religious Associa- tion. Hence to figure in future on the roll of Unitarianism it will suffice to style oneself a Christian after the manner of the Rev. — Chadwick, of Brooklyn, who extends this term to all who have formed their religious beliefs within the line of development of Christian civil- ization. The National Conference has even resolved to inscribe on its official list of ministers the names of all who might desire this, and who, in consequence, would consider themselves in their place there. At the session of 1882, indeed, it introduced into its constitution a new article, drawn up as follows, by the Rev. Minot J. Savage : — " While we believe that the preamble of the articles of our Consti- tution fairly represent the opinions of the majority of our Churches, yet we wish distinctly to put on record our declaration that they are no authoritative test of Unitarianism, and are not intended to exclude from our fellowship any who, while differing from us in belief, are in general sympathy with our purposes and practical aims." On several occasions within recent years Unitarian ministers have been seen to place their pulpits at the disposal of Agnostics such as Messrs. Adler and Underwood, while Mr. Holyoake, as a Secularist, and even Mr. Gottheil, of New York, a liberal Rabbi, have not been excluded. The United States have remained the head quarters of Unitarian- ism. A proof of the influence it still possesses there is to be seen in the fact that. in the autumn of 1882, it collected by private subscrip- tion, in a few days, the sum of a hundred thousand pounds, to found a new theological institution. Still it cannot be said to have extended in proportion to the growth of population. Even in Boston, where it possesses about thirty congregations, it has scarcely penetrated to the lower classes, in which the predominance of Irish emigrants has developed to a considerable extent the power of Catholicism ; and among the superior classes it is opposed by the Episcopal Church, which is becoming more and more the fashionable Church of the United States. Besides, Boston itself has ceased to be the exclusive centre of intellectual culture, "the hub of the universe," as the neighbouring towns less favoured in the^domain of intelligence, have ironically called it. On the one hand, the invasion of luxury and of social frivolity, has somewhat broke in upon the simplicity of manners and the thirst for moral enjoyment which had surviv^d-tl^=^;\;eritv of KBNIVBB811Y 196 FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. Calvinistic theology; on the other, St. Louis, Chicago and other towns of recent growth, are disputing with it the monopoly of letters- and the direction of American thought. Happily for its numerical development, Unitarianism has found a fertile field for exploration in the states of the interior, where it re- sponds at once to the double need of intellectual liberty and of religious culture. It is not surprising, that it has taken a more inde- pendent position there than in the Eastern States. The Western Unitarian Conference has omitted in its constitution the preamble which provoked such regrettable dissensions in the National Confer- ence of 1865.1 Its principal organ, Unity ^ edited with great breadth I. The following particulars respecting the constitution and principles of the various Unitarian Churches and organization of the West will be of interest to the reader : — I. — Bases of the General Unitarian Associations of the West. (i) The Western Unitarian Conferejice. *^ Resolved, that the Western Unitarian Conference conditions its fellowship on no dogmatic tests, but welcomes all thereto who desire to work with it in advancing the Kingdom of God." — Resolution adopted unanimously at Chicago, May 7, 187^. Its object : " The transaction of business pertaining to the general interests of the Societies connected with the Conference. — Articles of Incorporation, May 20, 1882. Motto on its Seal: " Freedom, Fellowship and Character in Religion." {2) The Women's Western Unitarian Conference. Its object: "The advancement of freedom, fellowship and character in religion. "^ — Articles of Incorporation, May 3, 1S82. (3) The Western Unitarian Sunday School Society. Its object : '* To improve the quality of Sunday School publications, and to aid in making Sunday Schools effective nurseries of progressive, reverent and helpful Churches." — Articles of Incorporation, May 22, 1882. II. — Bases of the Unitarian State Conferences of the West. (1) Wisconsin Conference of Unitarian and Independent Societies. ^^ Resolved, that charity being the central truth of all, and Unitarianism's grandest mission being to unite men in "the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," we will welcome and fraternize with all men of whatever denomination, who are trying to advance in religious life. " — Adopted, 1872. " Resolved, that the Conference re-affirms its broad platform of faith in God and man ; that we will work for the advance of truth rather than the defence of dogma ; for humanity rather than for any sect ; for charity against churchism; and that we hold the name Unitarian in no narrower sense than that of effort to unite the best methods and spirit in all denominations under a peace that may become universal." — Adopted, 1873. (2) Michigan Conference of Unitarian and other Christian Churches. ''Whereas, we are persuaded that the truth on all subjects, as fast as it becomes known to us, is the sole and sufficient authority for all human belief; that justice is FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. 197 of view by the Rev. Jenkins L. Jones, has taken for its watchword the motto of Free Religion : freedom, character and fellowship in religion. Numerous churches and even entire groups of congrega- tions, such as the Conferences of Michigan and of Kansas, the Fra- ternity of the Liberal Religious Societies of Illinois, are declared open to all who can work with them, or derive any good from them. Thus the committee of the Free Religious Association said in their report for 1 88 1, that *'in the broadening and liberalizing of Unitarianism in the West, perhaps, can be found the most tangible evidence that one of the missions of the Association, in its fourteen years of existence, has not been in vain ; and evidence too that its work is not yet com- pleted." the certain and practicable law of all human conduct : that love is the highest and most effective temper of the human spirit : and Whereas, we desire to rally the liberal minds of Michigan around this common centre, therefore, resolved, that the Michigan Unitarian Conference conditions its fellowship on no dogmatic tests, but welcomes all thereto who desire to work with it in advancing the kingdom of truth, righteousness and love." — Adopted, October, 1878. (3) Illinois Fraternity of Liberal Religious Societies. " We associate together as a religious fraternity in the interest of liberal and advanced thought. . . . We cordially invite to our fraternity all who would assist us in the advancement of truth and righteousness." — Constittition. Purpose: "We associate together as a religious fraternity in the interest of liberal and advanced thought ; our meetings to be so conducted as shall most directly conduce to our fraternal fellowship, our spiritual welfare and usefulness. We cordially invite to our fraternity all who would assist us in the advancement of truth and righteousness." — Adopted, 1873. (4) Iowa Association of Unitarian and other Independent Churches. "The object of this Incorporation shall be the promotion of the interests of religion, of righteousness, freedom, and fellowship." — Articles of Incorporation, 187^. (5) Kansas Unitarian Conferetice. Its object: **To advance the cause of freedom, fellowship, and character in religion throughout the State of Kansas. ' ' This Conference conditions its membership on no dogmatic tests, but invites the co-operation of all those willing to work with it for the advancement of truth and righteousness." — Constitution, adopted, 1880, (6) Nebraska Unitarian Association, Object: "To be the advancement of freedom, fellowship and character in religion in the State of Nebraska." — Articles of Incorporation, 1882. III. — Recent Unitarian Church Covenants in the West. (i) The Church at Ann Arbour, Michigan. "Believing in that Religion of Nature and the Human Soul, which existed before all Bibles, which has uttered itself with greater or less clearness through the religious teachers of all lands and ages, but which was taught and impressed 198 FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. The course of ideas which has thus emancipated Unitarianism has been equally felt by many other sects. The Universalists, for instance, who claim to have a thousand congregations, possesses an advanced section who fraternize with the Free Religious movement. In the same way, the Progressive Friends of Longwood, in Pennsylvania, have absolutely adopted the programme of " Free Religion," if we are to judge from this manifesto put forward by their General Assembly in 1 88 1 : — "The object of this meeting is to promote religion con- strued broadly as embracing all good, physical, moral and spiritual. Untrammelled by dogma, we paternally invite to meet with us all those who desire to make the world purer and better, and who hold the truth in higher honour than any creed or sect. We would meet upon the world with unequalled power by Jesus of Nazareth, the great prophet of God, from whose words and life came Christianity, we (the undersigned), do hereby associate ourselves together as a Christian Church, for the purpose of pro- moting that religion in ourselves and in society around us, by cultivating among ourselves a spirit of sincere and loving brotherhood, and by endeavouring in every way in our power to do good in the world. Imposing no creed upon the consciences of any, we cordially welcome all to a place among us who sympathize with us in these our general ^Sm^."" —Adopted, i8So. (2) The Church at Des Moines, Iowa. Bond of Union: "Recognizing the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Mankind, receiving Jesus as Teacher, seeking the ' Spirit of Truth ' as the guide of our lives, and in the hope of immortal life, we associate ourselves together to maintain the public worship of God and to promote the welfare of humanity." — Adopted, 1877. . (3) The Church at Cincinnati, Ohio. Bond of Union : "We, whose names are here recorded, join ourselves together, heart and hand, as members of the First Congregational Church of Cincinnati, for the maintenance of a free, rational and liberal worship, the study and practice of the religious life, and to promote truth, righteousness, reverence and charity among men ; and we cordially invite to our fellowship all who sympathize in these pur- poses and will co-operate with us in working for the Kingdom of God." — Adopted, iSjg. (4) The Church at St. Paul, Minn. The Bond of Fellowship : ** As those who believe in Religion ; "As those who believe in Freedom, Fellowship and Character in Religion ; "As those who believe that the Religious Life means the thankful, trustful, loyal and helpful life ; " And as those who believe that a Church is a brotherhood of helpers, wherein it is made easier to lead such a life, — "We join ourselves together, name, hand and heart, as members of Unity Church. "To sign this Bond of Fellowship is a solemn act of faith, of brotherhood, and of consecration. Oi faith in certain high ideals of life, which we revere as more important than any intellectual beliefs whatever ; of brotherhood to the men FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. 199 on common ground as brethren to consider by what means we may labour most effectually to lift humanity to higher levels. In a reverent spirit, we would examine the religious institutions which have grown out of the wants and convictions of the past, accepting them so far as they commend themselves to our conscientious judgment, and rejecting them freely when we must. Our supreme allegiance is due, not to the decrees of men, but to truth itself" With regard to Reformed Judaism, there is an important section who, — while entirely refusing to renounce their historic position, in order to avoid all suspicion of giving up their ancestral faith, in con- sequence of the social prejudices which persist even in the New World — have nevertheless seized the occasion for allying themselves, and women who here join themselves together, name, hand and heart ; of conse' cration, because one cannot take a pledge like this, of religious faith and fellowship, save in a reverent, earnest and unselfish spirit. To join our Church, then, is to enter into a covenant of love and service and right endeavour with each other, and to do this thoughtfully and reverently, as before One whom most of us rejoice to think of as ' our Father.' "All who in this reverent and earnest spirit believe that our Church-home is truly their Church-home, and who feel that that which our Church stands for in religion is what they mean their life to stand for — all such, provided none show good reason for objection, are welcomed heartily within our Fellowship." — Adopted, iSig. (5) The Church at Quincy, Illinois. . The Covenant: " We believe — *' That Religion is natural and needful to the human soul ; * ' That the many things of the universe have their being in One Life, Power, Mystery, Righteousness, Mercy and Love ; ' ' That the universe is beautiful and beneficent Order, in which * is no vari- ableness, neither shadow of turning ; ' "That * all things work together for good ; ' that the Infinite Life in which we have our being is Power in the world to destroy the wrong, to establish the right ; that no good thing is failure and no evil thing is success ; "That we ought to reverence all holy saints, seers oxiA prophets who 'have wrought righteousness,' and bless them for the light of their wisdom and goodness; " That we ought to work to make the world better; "That character is the supreme matter — not the beliefs we hold, but what we are in the heart ; ' ' That in the search for truth, we ought to hold fast to freedom for ourselves and for all men ; " That we ought to welcome to our Fellowship all who are of earnest and sin- cere spirit and humble lovers of the truth ; that we should set the bond of human brotherhood high above that of creed or church ; and that we ought not to hold theological beliefs as conditions of our membership. " In these principles, and that we may help, comfort and cheer each other, we join our hearts and hands in this Church, and hereto set our names." — Adopted, 1883. 200 FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. on the practical ground of religious fraternity, with the intellectual and moral forces of a civilization to which they will be for the future completely assimilated. The Reform of Judaism has perhaps been carried further in the United States than anywhere else. Not only have the party of Reform freed themselves from all the ritualistic, h)'gienic and social prescriptions which constitute the old law; but there are also Rabbis who, not content with rejecting the infallibility of the Bible, go so far as to question the Divine Personality, that corner-stone of Semitic beliefs. Thus Rabbi S. W. Sonnesheim did not hesitate to declare at the seventh meeting of the Free Religious Association, that Reformed Judaism corresponded with the "Free Religious movement of the day." As much might doubtless be said of the numerous Freie-Religiose- Gemeinde which the Germans have imported into the United States. By being brought over the Atlantic the greater part of these institu- tions have certainly assumed a more Radical character, as may be seen by the programme which was adopted by their delegates at the Con- vention of Milwaukee, in 1870. They there virtually declared in Article 2, their exclusion of all idea of a God, personal or impersonal," without seeing that they re-introduced the conception of the Deity in the following Article : " In Nature we recognise Justice, the continual development towards perfection and towards that fulness of the Beau- tiful which suffuses our existence with joy." And lastly we must not forget in this enumeration, the Spiritualists, who claim to possess three million adherents in the United States and who, according to Mr. O. B. Frothingham, certainly amount to at least one million. In the United States even more than in England Spiritualism tends to become an actual religion. Here is what Mr. W. Hepworth Dixon stated, fifteen years ago, in his curious work. New America: — "These millions, more or less, of Spiritualists announce their personal conviction that the old religious gospels are exhausted, that the churches founded on them are dead ; that new revelations are required by men. They proclaim that the phenomena, now being produced in a hundred American cities — signs of mysterious origin, rappings by unknown agents, drawings by unseen hands — offer an acceptable ground-plan for a new, a true and a final faith in things unseen. They have already their progressive lyceums, their catechisms, their news- FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. 201 papers, their male and female prophets, mediums and clairvoyants ; their Sunday services, their festivals, their pic-nic parties, their .camp- meetings, their local societies, their State organizations, their general conventions ; in short, all the machinery of our most active, most aggressive societies.^ . . . When we essay to judge a system so repugnant to our feelings, so hostile to our institutions, as this school of Spiritualism, it is needful, if we would be fair in censure, to remember that, strange as it may seem to onlookers, it has been em- braced by hundreds of learned men and pious women." The Legislature of Illinois recently imposed on every medium a license costing three hundred dollars; immediately the Spiritualists cried out against it as an act of religious oppression, on the ground that the mediums fulfil with their co-religionists the functions of the priest in the Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish religions. On the other hand. Spiritualism seems to fraternize everywhere, not only with the adherents of Free Religion, but also with Agnostics, Atheists, and even Materialists, lending them its buildings, the aid of its journals, and even its lecturers.^ " Every Spiritualist is of necessity a Free Religionist, — said one of its partisans, Mr. Giles B. Stebbins, at the fourteenth meeting of the Free Religious Association — because the Spiritual philosophy, broad, eclectic and inclusive, knows no preju- dices, no limitations, no barriers, recognises no authority for truth, but only the truth of the soul for authority, and accepts the instructions of the human spirit, the testimony of human reason, the truth of human experience, and the results of scientific experiment as its basis of edu- cation."3 1. The Index of October 23rd, 1884, announces the completion of the First Spiritual Temple in Boston. The building, whose cost is about 250,cxx) dollars, or ;^52,(X)0, includes a main hall for 500 people, besides small halls for lectures, schools and other purposes. 2. See the Proceedings of the Congress of Free-Thinkers, held at Brussels in 1880 : Mr. L. Rawson's Report. 3. Here is the first article of the constitution of the A77ierican Spiritualist Association : "The objects and aims of this association are to study Spiritualism in its scientific, philosophical and religious aspects, and to teach its truths as we learn them ; to maintain high and pure principles on all vital questions of practical life and duty ; to seek for the best spiritual culture and the most harmonious character. " The same document proclaims the indestructibility of the soul, the possibility of entering into communication with Spirits, by the intervention of privileged but not infallible individuals, the universality and immutability of the laws of Nature, the necessity of placing morality before faith and conduct before belief, and finally, the continuity of progress in the Universe. 202 FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. All these advanced-guards of American religious life have been represented, simultaneously or in turn, on the Committee of the Free Religious Association : the Unitarians by the Rev. M. J. Savage, W. C. Gannett, John Weiss, John J. Sargent, &c. ; the Transcend- entalists by Emerson and Colonel Higginson; the Quakers by Lucretia Mott, who died in 1882, at the age of eighty; the Spiritualists by Robert Dale Owen; the German Materialists by Mr. Schunemann- Pott ; and the Reformed Jews by the Rabbi Isaac Wise, &c. It will be seen, by this genuine mosaic of religious opinions, how widely the action of that Society extends. We may add that on several occasions it has received messages of sympathy and encouragement from the Brahmoists of India by the intervention of Keshub Chunder Sen and Protab Chunder Mozoumdar. Doubtless, practical minds that have neither the leisure nor the taste to investigate religious questions ; Conservatives who, through distrust of the unknown, remain faithful to the beliefs of their fathers ; sceptics who see in worship only an element of social life necessary for the education of the young and for the celebration of domestic solem- nities — in a word, the great majority of the nation, remain, and will for a long time remain, attached to the different forms of positive Christianity. Without being held in such high esteem as in former ages, ecclesiastical functions still figure in the first rank of the liberal professions. According to the Census of 1870, there existed in the United States 72,000 congregations, or one for every 529 inhabitants. The value of the property belonging to them was estimated at upwards of forty millions sterling, irrespective of annual contributions. In the rich congregations of large towns, it is not rare to find ministers in receipt of a salary ranging from two to three thousand pounds a year.i The proportion of persons attending public worship has continued to increase, if we may rely upon the statistics furnished by the Rev. R. Spears, according to which the aggregate of American Churches con- stituted in 1775 but one member in sixteen of the inhabitants; in 1792, one in eighteen; in 1825, one in fourteen; in 1853, one in seven ; in i860, one in five; and, finally, in 1875, nearly one to every I. At New York the Revs. Dix and Potter (Episcopalians) each receive 12,000 dollars per annum ; the Rev. John Hall (Presbyterian) 15,000 {Index, 2ist April, 1881). The Rev. Ward Beecher (Congregationalist), of Brooklyn, receives 20,000 or upwards of four thousand pounds {Inquirer of Feb. 3rd, 1883). FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. 203 two.i I must add, however, that an article, published by The Nation^ of the 29th of November, 1883, makes certain reserves with respect to these figures. Since, 1850, according to this article, the increase of population has been 116 per cent., whilst the number of persons belonging to the Churches has increased at the rate of 185 per cent. It is true that many congregations, as The Nation observes, reckon to-day the children in the statistics of their members. However this may be, even among the most orthodox sects, the Utilitarian tendency, which has created Free Religion, is becoming more and more observable. Tocqueville remarked some time since, that instead of insisting upon the other life, American preachers turned constantly to the earth, and had so to speak great difficulty in detach- ing their gaze therefrom. If one reads to-day the American journals of Monday the report of the principal sermons preached the preceding day by the ministers of the different sects, he will be surprised to see the small place which theology occupies compared with morals. The old Calvinistic theology is nowhere taught in its integrity. Even the flames of hell have become an argument in bad taste, which is willingly left to Revival preachers and missionaries of the Far West. "A heathen, desirous to learn the doctrines of Christianity," recently wrote a contributor to the North American Review^ in an article on The Religion of the day^ " might attend the best of our churches for a whole year and not hear one word of the torments of Hell or the anger of an offended Deity ; and not enough of the Fall of man or the sacrificial sufferings of Christ to offend the most bigotted disciple of Evolution. Listening and observing for himself, he would infer that the way of salvation consisted in declaring his faith in a few abstract doctrines, which both preacher and hearer seem quite ready to explain away as far as possible ; become a regular attendant at church and church sociables ; put something into the contribution-box every Sun- day, and in every way behave as much as possible like his neighbours." I. It would be interesting to ascertain in what proportion these gains are shared by the different sects. According to an article "Religion in America," published in the North American Review of January, 1876, the Churches stood as follows in the order of importance about the year 1780 : ist, Congregationalists ; 2nd, Baptists ; 3rd, Episcopalians ; 4th, Presbyterians ; 5th, Reformed Germans ; 6th, Reformed Church of Holland ; 7th, Catholics. According to the Census of 1870, however, they stand thus: 1st, Methodists; 2nd, Baptists; 3rd, Presbyterians; 4th, Catholics; 5th, Christians; 6th, Lutherans; 7th, Congregationalists; 8th, Episcopalians. 204 FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. Some three or four years ago, Colonel IngersoU having uttered a violent philippic against the American Churches, one of the most respected chiefs of the Republican party, Thurlow Tweed, replied to the attacks by saying, " Our clergymen no longer emphasize the gloomy sides of theology as formerly. At the present day their ministry is a ministry of peace, charity, and benevolence. This generation is learn- ing to love and serve rather than to dread our Creator and Lord." There is at present a party in all the Protestant denominations whose object is to enlarge, interpret and extend the field of their I. Colonel Ingersoll speaks or writes in a "smart," flippant and sometimes coarse style ; and unfortunately he does not possess the dimmest conception of the origin and true significance of the legendary and other Biblical stories which he ridicules. This is strikingly shown in his lecture entitled '■'■ Mistakes of Moses,'''* What, as landmarks of the long ago, is full of interest to the scholar and thinker, by the mere negation of orthodox literalism, he treats with contempt. His method is that of Voltaire, and though he puts certain inconsistencies of the orthodox world in a striking and forcible manner, it may be doubted whether he really advances serious religious thought. In the lecture in question, for instance, he introduces the following imaginary dialogue in illustration of the importance religious people attach to mere belief. The scene is the Day of Judgment, and the recording angel or " secretary " says to the soul of a man: — ''Where are you from?" *' I am from the world." "Yes, sir. What kind of a man were you?" "Well, I don't like to talk about myself," " But you have to. What kind of a man were you ?" " Well, I was a good fellow ; I loved my wife, I loved my children. My home was my heaven ; my fireside was my paradise, and to sit there and see the lights and shadows falling on the faces of those I love, that to me was a perpetual joy. I never gave one of them a solitary moment of pain. I don't owe a dollar in the world, and I left enough to pay my funeral expenses and keep the wolf of want from the door of the house I loved. That is the kind of a man I am." " Did you belong to any church ?" "I did not. They were too narrow for me. They were always expecting to be happy simply because somebody else was to be damned." " Well, did you believe that rib story?" "What rib story? Do you mean that Adam and Eve business ? No, I did not. To tell you the God's truth, that was a little more than I could swallow." "To hell with him! Next. Where are you from?" "I'm from the world too." "Do you belong to any church?" "Yes, sir, and to the Young Men's Christian Association." "What is your business?" *' Cashier in a bank." " Did you ever run off with any of the money?" "I don't like to tell, sir." "Well, but you have to?" "Yes, sir; I did." " What kind of a bank did you have?" " A savings bank." " How much did you run off with?" "One hundred thousand dollars." " Did you take any- thing else along with you?" "Yes, sir." "What?" "I took my neighbour's wife." " Did you have a wife and children of your own ? " "Yes, sir." "And you deserted them?" "Oh, yes; but such was my confidence in God that I believed he would take care of them." " Have you heard of them since?" " No, sir." " Did you believe that rib story?" "Ah, bless your soul, yes ! I believed all of it, sir ; I often used to be sorry that there were not harder stories yet in the Bible, so that I could show what my faith could do." " You believed it, did you?" ** Yes, with all my heart." " Give him a harp." — Translator, FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. 205 operations. With the Episcopalians who long since rendered the use of the Athanasian Creed optional in their liturgy, this tendency has brought on the schism of the Episcopal Reformed Church, which is directed as much against the Broad Church party as against the ritual- istic practices of the High Church section. Among the Methodists and Presbyterians the tendency is shown, as indeed among their co- religionists of the British Isles, by the numerous trials for heresy brought before their Conferences and Synods, in relation to both ministers and congregations. Even the popular Baptist body is not escaping the influence of this liberalizing movement, at least in its most advanced section : the Christians of the New Connection and the Campbellites, or Disciples, who have always been Liberals, or at least Arminians in theology. " We are glad to learn by a recent letter from America — wrote Mr. Spears in 1876 — that the Disciples are becoming more and more liberal among themselves and towards others. It is not unlikely that the * Christian ' Connection and the Disciples may soon form one grand Christian organization of about 5,000 churches, called by the Christian name and based on nothing but the Christian scriptures." 1 But the progress of ideas is most perceptible among the Congre- gationalists, who have no central authority to maintain doctrine and discipline in their Churches. The most celebrated and popular of their preachers, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, said in a sermon on Religious Doubt, preached in 1881 : 'Met no man count himself an infidel who believes that righteousness is the great end of human life, and who longs for a more perfect reduction of his will to the moral sense." Might we not suppose these to be the words of Mr. Potter or Mr. Adler or even of the convention of Milwaukee ? So great is the present popularity of Mr. Beecher that several policemen are required to keep order in the crowd which collects round the doors of his vast " Tabernacle" twice every Sunday. With a view to hear one of his sermons I have myself been obliged to wait half-an-hour in the open air during a pelting rain, and even then only succeeded in getting a seat at the extreme end of the building. The interior of his Church, which will contain several thousand persons, I. Rise and Progress of Unitarian Doctrines in Modern Times ^ p. 33. Among the American sects which have renounced the Trinity, Mr. Spears mentions also the Christadelphians, the Adventists, and the Followers of John Winnebrenner, who, some thirty years ago, gathered together fifty thousand adherents into a com. munion called the Church of God, &c 206 FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. is extremely simple in common with all Congregational Churches. There is no religious symbolism, not even a cross ; the only ornamen- tation being the flowers round the pulpit. The back of the building is occupied by an immense organ whose roll and swell accompany the voices of an admirably composed choir. The congregation join in the singing of the hymns with a fervour which no one would ex- pect in such a vast gathering. The mere .letting of the front seats brings in, I was told, from seven to eight thousand pounds a year. Mr. Beecher is an old man with long white hair, of middle height and a tendency to corpulence ; but in spite of his seventy years, he displays activity and vigour, whilst he is possessed of a powerful and singularly pathetic voice.^ He long since freed himself from dog- matic Calvinism; recently, however, he seems to have assumed a more aggressive attitude towards the theology still literally accepted by a certain number of congregations. Thus, in a recent article in The North American Review^ on the "Progress of Ideas in the Church," he develops this threefold thesis : that religious activity, so far from diminishing, is increasing every day in America, as may be seen by the multiplication of new Churches; that this activity em- braces a world of influences unknown to the Puritans ; and, finally, that the lines of demarcation between the various Christian sects are everywhere disappearing. He then makes a direct attack upon the theology of the Middle Ages, more particularly with regard to the doc- trines of the Fall and Predestination, which he treats thus : " The present generation can remember the time when these hideous doctrines were widely and vigorously preached. The explosions of indignation which they called forth were looked upon as a proof that the heart of man was -in a state of revolt against God. They may be preached still, but it is in apologetic terms, and no longer with that tone of authority which carries conviction : they rather defend I. The second time I saw him was in the autumn of 1880, at a political meeting, where he spoke on behalf of the candidature of Mr. Garfield, who was seeking the Presidential chair. Being on a balcony of the Fifth Avenue, a few days after this meeting, in order to witness a grand review of the Volunteers of New York, I suddenly saw the eager masses on the pavement below salute with their applause one of the principal regiments of Brooklyn. On horseback, by the side of the colonel, there was a gentleman dressed in black, with his sword at his side, who was saluting right and left in response to the hurrahs of the crowd. It was Mr. Beecher, who was fulfilling the duties, or rather was present officially, as the chaplain of the regiment of his district. FREE RELIGION AND THE RELIGION OF ETHICS. 207 than affirm themselves. Speaking generally, they lie at the bottom of the pulpit like a corpse in the sepulchre." The criticism which this rejection of the old theology called forth from certain of his colleagues, led Mr. Beecher to tender his resigna- tion as a member of the Congregational body in the autumn of 1882. But the Brooklyn Association of Congregational Ministers unani- mously refused to accept it by passing a resolution stating that " the full and proffered exposition of doctrinal views which he has made at this meeting, indicates the propriety of his continued membership in this or any other Congregational Association." This incident, which made a great noise, is not only a striking sign of the progress realized in the ideas of American Protestantism, but it is also calculated to promote the spirit of freedom among preachers and congregations in the sects which remain nominally faithful to orthodoxy. Even Catholicism, which, though unable to change its dogmas, seeks to enlarge its influence, above all by its good works, by the extent of its charities, by the excellence of its day and boarding schools, and by co-operating, as occasion requires, with the clergy of the Protestant Churches in the common work of some moral or philanthropic undertaking.! I. The Roman Church, which is placed in the United States on a footing of absolute equality with the other sects, has not been able to wholly disregard the bonds of spiritual confraternity, which are superior to all dogmatic divergences. For instance, we see from the biography of Ezra Stiles Gannett, that at the time of his ordination in 1830, in the Federal Street Unitarian Church at Boston, the ceremony, presided over by Channing, was honoured by the presence of ministers belonging to the Congregational, Evangelical, Baptist, Universalist, Presbyterian and Catholic communions. CHAPTER X. COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. Persistence of Metaphysical Speculations in the United States — Importance given to religious questions in the press and in literature — Clubs and Philosophical Associations — The Hegelian Academy at Concord — Religious Fermentation in the West— Symptoms Characteristic of Changing Beliefs — Aspirations for a New Religious Synthesis extending even to the ranks of the.Free Religionists — Eclipse of the Transcendental school — Progress of Evolution in the United States ; the religious character it has assumed there — Professor J. Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy — Cosmism according to Mr. W. Potter : "Faith and Confidence in the Universe" — The Rev. Minot J. Savage and the Religion of Evolution — Cosmism regarded as the crowning result of Christianity — Tendency of the American mind to trans- form Philosophy into Religion — Quotations from the writings of O. B. Frothing- ham, F. A. Abbot, and W. Gannett — The Theology of Evolution in the orthodox congregations — Tocqueville's Prediction that American Democracy would end in Pantheism, Are we to conclude from what has been just stated that America is on the eve of sacrificing theology and even metaphysics on the altar of Positivism, and instituting a religion like that dreamed of by Comte, having for its objects humanity and earthly life instead of God and a future life ? This conclusion would be rash. There are, undoubtedly, in the United States a certain number of persons systematically hostile to every ontological conception, as well as to every religious idea, who proscribe even all mention of the Absolute and the Unknowable, because they see in such phrases an approach to theology. Some confine themselves to referring to the primordial properties of matter for the explanation of all phenomena. Others hold still to the criticisims of Voltaire and Hobbes, without suspecting that the progress of science has pro- foundly modified the conditions of the problem. It is this class which is represented by the Truth Seeker of New York and the Investigator of Boston. In the latter city, they have for their head- quarters an edifice erected to the memory of an American member of the French Convention — Thomas Paine — whose philosophical writ- ings, though completely forgotten in France, still play in the religious controversies of the United States a part equally exaggerated by reason 210 COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. of the indignation of their adversaries and the enthusiasm of their ad- mirers. But Positivism, properly so called, whether in the sober and severe acceptation which Littrd has given to the doctrine of Augusta Comte, or under the more embellished form of Comiism, which has obtained considerable success in England, has but few followers in the United States, notwithstanding the favour which the positive methods enjoy there. If, as a matter of fact, the " Religion of Hu- manity " predominates among the followers of Mr. Potter and Pro- fessor Adler, as well as among the Free Religionists, it is not associated with Comtist dogmatism, but is in the form which Mr. W. Frey has given to it — that is, without the exclusion of a belief in the mysterious Power of which the universe is a manifestation. The American shows no predilection for fasting, even in metaphysics. Never has specu- lation taken higher flights than in these later times in the United States. There are, outside of the religious press, — even in localities of secondary culture, — journals whose title alone is sufficiently signifi- cant, such as The Platonist^ of Osceola, Mo. ; The Journal of Speculative Philosophy^ of St. Louis, devoted to the advocacy of the doctrines of Hegel ; The Religio- Philosophical Journal^ of Chicago, which printed lately, it is said, nine thousand copies. After having shown in The Index of February 23rd, 1882, that the severest phase of the struggle is over for the advocates of Liberal ideas, Mrs. Sarah A. Underwood points out for instance that religious speculation has never been more free and active. " The newspaper most prompt to report any new departure in the religious world," she wtote, " is apt to be the newspaper with the largest daily circulation. Our magazines discuss more leisurely and with greater dignity the grave religious questions of the hour. Our reviews are mainly devoted to discussing religious issues. Our new evangelists are making religion, more than ever before in the history of the world, the leading topic in literature. Even the romance writers weave religious discussions into both warp and woof of their stories." From New York to San Francisco, from Chicago to Cincinnati, every city of consequence has its metaphysical club or institute. The most celebrated is, unquestionably, the School of Philosophy, opened at Concord, Mass., in 1879, by Mr. Bronson Alcott, with a vigour that does honour to the eighty years of this venerable neo-Pythagorean, as well as to the vegetable diet of which he has, from principle, been a COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 211 faithful adherent for more than forty years. The School at Concord seems an attempt to reproduce, in the midst of American society of the nineteenth century, the garden of the Academy where Plato and his disciples discoursed under the shade of the olive-trees. Every summer in the month of July, an intelligent company, drawn from all points of the Union to the little town of Concord, meet at Mr. Alcott's place, — the Orchard House, — where are given courses, or rather free lectures, upon philosophy. The principal difference from the Greek Academy — wholly to the advantage of Concord — is that the door is not closed against the fair sex, who largely profit by it, if the reports may be believed, which attribute to them two-thirds of the attendance, estimated in 1882 at nearly a hundred and fifty persons. There are two lectures a day, one at nine o'clock in the morning, the other at half-past seven in the evening. In the interval, the students, male and female, arrange their notes, take their meals at home, or walk in the pine woods, exchanging their ideas upon the grave problems of our destiny. Among the principal lecturers, besides Mr. Alcott, are Dr. Jones, the founder of the Platonic Clubs in Illinois ; Professor Harris, editor of The Journal of Speculative Philosophy ; Mrs. Howe; William Henry Channing ; Professor Emory, etc. Emerson himself was heard there in 1880. These names sufficiently show that the philosophy of Hegel prevails almost exclusively at Concord, although the founders of the school proclaimed the most absolute liberty of opinion. It is a strange phenomenon of the religious movement of the United States, this revival of the Hegelian doctrine, at the time when, in Germany, the death of Professor Rosenkranz has vacated the last chair devoted to pure Hegelianism. Such has been the increasing success of the insti- tution founded by Mr. Alcott that the orthodox have felt obliged to establish a competitor by founding, two years ago, on the same basis, at Greenwood, near New York, an " Encampment of Christian Phi- losophy." Among the less cultivated population of the West, the instability of belief has naturally taken a more violent and aggressive form. A member of the Free Religious Association reported, at the general meeting in i88t, that there were in Kansas, even in the smallest towns, groups of Liberals not only unchurched, but openly hostile to all existing forms of religious organization. At the same session 212 COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. another speaker (a Spiritualist) told of the existence of a hundred meetings in the open air in the Western States, independent of all sects, of people who came together '' to say before God what they believed in their souls to be the truth," — labourers from their farms, men of business forsaking their offices, women leaving their house- hold cares, all "drawn by an inward hunger for spiritual nourish- ment." These two statements have nothing contradictory about them ; they rather complement each other. They equally prove the thirst for a new faith among those who are no longer satisfied with the old religious forms. It is, in some sort, the last term of the disin- tegration, or of the breaking up, which, as its goal, the spirit of Protestantism has never ceased to pursue into the very heart of dogmatic Churches and confessions of faith. But it might also be the inevitable transition between two currents of belief. Coming side by side with this intellectual fermentation, the tendency to relegate theology to the second place in religious activity, even in certain orthodox Churches, which has found its most complete expression in the platform of the Free Religious Association, may well be considered a symptom of the religious interregnum, long ago predicted by Emerson. It is probable, and we may rejoice at it, that religion will preserve in future the eminently practical and humani- tarian character which has come to distinguish it, more and more, in the United States. But men will always have a tendency to group themselves according to their beliefs ; and we already hear, even in the ranks of the Free Religious Association, the day predicted when a new religious synthesis shall present itself for acceptance, by the force of evidence alone, to all the adherents of "Free Religion." " We do not contend," said the Executive Committee of the Free Religious Association, in its fourth annual report, " that the religious sentiment is historically exhausted, and that it has uttered the last word of absolute religion. On the contrary, we are of opinion that the organ of the religious consciousness is as full of life to-day as it has ever been, and we think that the approaching transformations in the religious condition of the world, whatever their nature, will be produced, not by mechanical combinations of the best elements of the religions of the past, but by a regular, organic and progressive development." Mr. F. E. Abbot, again, wrote, in 1872, in a small pamphlet, entitled The God of Science : "The world for half a century COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 213 has been groping blindly to find this greatly-needed philosophy of science. . . . That philosophy has not yet come. But when it comes, as come it must and will, it will create, sooner or later, throughout the civilized world, a unity of intellectual convictions which has never yet been paralleled, even in the boasted " ages of faith," — not, of course, a unity of all opinions, but a unity of funda- mental principles and methods of thinking. And when it comes, — a philosophy of science whose basis shall be solid truth, and whose philosophy shall be unfettered reason, — then, I most profoundly believe, will the enlightened idea of God be so firmly fixed in the human mind that Christianity and Atheism shall become alike mere traditions of the past." Is it possible now to foresee whence will be drawn the elements of this new theology? According to Mr. Potter, the existing rival schools of intuition and observation will both have a part to play in the formation of the philosophy destined to perfect the work of " Free Religion." We share with Mr. Potter the profound conviction that intuition will have its word to utter in the future development of psychology, and we are far from contesting the happy and durable influence which Transcendentalism has exercised upon the public mind of the American people. We cannot, however, repress the question whether, as a system of metaphysics and religion, the school of German Idealism may not have run its course in the United States as it has in Europe ? Almost all its old champions have remained loyal to the faith of their youth. Emerson, Johnson, Margaret Fuller, Ripley, Lydia Child, died, as they had lived, in the Transcendental faith. Those who survive, Higginson, Wasson, Samuel Longfellow, and Henry Channing, use to-day the same language they did forty years ago, with a conviction and enthusiasm which neither age, nor the friction of life, nor even the progress of positive science has cooled. But their ranks are thinning more and more ; and, notwithstanding the momentary fashion of Hegelianism at Concord, new recruits do not come to take the place of those who have gone to seek in another world the confirmation of their hopes. Of a considerable number of congregations founded by the Tran- scendental movement, there remained, lately, only the Church of Samuel Johnson, at Lynn, Mass. Even this probably owed its longevity only to the personal influence of its minister, and it is to be feared 214 COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. that it may have disappeared with him. In Boston, the survivors of the Twenty-eighth Congregation meet every Sunday in the spacious edifice gratefully erected to the memory of Theodore Parker. But, in this pulpit, — from which their founder formerly denounced the method and doctrines of Sensationalism, — the fathers of the church whom they quote and comment upon to-day are Spencer and Huxley, Dal- ton and Tyndall, George Lewes and Claude Bernard. This is a sign of the times. It is, indeed, the doctrine of evolution, in the form it has assumed from the recent generalizations of Herbert Spencer, which has rapidly become the dominant philosophy of Americans. Recently, one of the present editors of The Index, Mr. B. F. Underwood, stated that this doctrine was received by the majority of the Free Religious Association. In the United States, however, even more than in England, it has assumed the metaphysical form of Monism, which, while foreign to the old quarrel between the Materialists and the advocates of a spiritual philosophy, is as profoundly religious in its conclusions as it is faithful to the positive method in its premises. Its introduction into America is attributed to Professor John Fiske, a personal friend of Herbert Spencer, who, under the name of "Cos- mic Philosophy," set about developing the synthesis of evolution, by insisting upon the possibility of combinations of matter and force as much superior to humanity as humanity is to the crystal or the alga, and by emphasizing the existence of an indefinable Power " eternally and universally manifested in Nature." This doctrine rapidly formed a school as Cosmism, an appellation due to the happy blending of the positive method of Spencer with the naturalistic idealism of Dr. Strauss in its second phase, and one which is perhaps destined to become the name of a new faith. Already officially adopted by the free congregation at Florence, in Massachusetts, it is accepted by Mr. Potter, the minister of the New Bedford congregation, and the president of the Free Religious Association, as well as by the Rev. Minot J. Savage, the most advanced Unitarian minister of Boston. Mr. Potter is never weary of asserting that religion is essentially the expression of our relation to the universe: "Of religion, as thought, the central idea is that of man's relation to the universe and to its vital forces ; of religion, as feeling, the central sentiment is that of obliga- tion, imposed on man by this tie of vital relation ; of religion, as COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 215 practice, the centre of action is man's effort to meet this obligation, and thus to put and keep himself in right relations with the universe and its vital powers. At the same time, the formula is only a state- ment of facts pertaining to man, which the strictest scientific thought must recognize. In whatever way the universe came into being and is sustained, man is in actual relation to it and its vital forces. Of all finite beings within the range of our knowledge, he is the culmination of its vital processes. It is also a fact that he feels himself under obligation to give service for what he has thus received, and that only that kind of conduct which shall put him in right and normal rela- tions with the universe of persons and things, of which he is a part, can satisfy this inward sense of obligation, "i This is nearly identical with the definition of Fichte, who saw in religion " the synthesis of the Ego and the non-Ego." Mr. Potter, however, desires to remain faithful to the exclusive use of Positive methods, and though he admits there is in nature, as it reveals itself to us, the manifestation of an unknown and unknowable Power, he refuses to place this Power outside the universe, with all its possibilities and all its resources. On the other hand, he does not hesitate to invest the Power in question with a moral significance, or rather he identifies it with the moral law itself. Modern science, he says, has shown in vain that moral ideas are due to the reaction of the environ- ment in which the human organism is placed ', for since man, as the product of the universe, possesses the conception of morality and duty, these latter must certainly exist in the universe. It is clear that the Cosmos thus understood may become an object of real worship, and it would ill become us to cavil with Mr. Potter, who, when questioned on the nature of his beliefs, summed them up in these words : *' Belief and trust in the universe. This is the corner- stone of our faith. If a new name were wanted for those who hold a faith thus grounded, why not call them Cosmians."^ The Rev. Minot J. Savage, again, the minister of an important Unitarian congregation in Boston, has made himself an eloquent and 1. The Index of the 5th of January, 1882. 2. See The Index of the 30th of June, i88i. In the opinion of Mr. Hinckley, the minister of the Free Religious Congregation at Florence and the present secre- tary of the Free Religious Association, the new God is the unknown and universal Power, acting by and in all things with superhuman intelligence and love. — The General Meeting of the Free Religious Association, May the 27th, 188 1. 216 COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. indefatigable apostle of evolution in his works, The Religion of Evolu- tion (1876), The Morality of Evolution (1880), and Belief in God (1881). And the members of the Free Religious Association who heard him, at their meeting in 1881, discourse upon the state of con- temporary morals, witnessed the curious spectacle of this Christian minister maintaining against a so-called Atheist, Mr. Felix Adler, that morals have for their foundation social utility, and for their origin the experience acquired by the race. Still, if Mr. Savage rejects the idea of an absolute and transcendent morality, he none the less admits that, in the midst of human variations as to the rules of conduct, the principle of a distinction between good and evil as well as the signifi- cance of the idea of duty represent among men " something constant and immutable as a rock in the midst of the waves." In his work on The Religion of Evolution^ Mr. Savage begins by showing that the progress of science has given the death-blow to almost all the conceptions of traditional theology. ^ It is, as he thinks, the theory of evolution which will henceforth bear sovereign rule in philosophy as well as in science. He does not hesitate to affirm that the marvellous hypothesis of Herbert Spencer serves to explain almost all known facts, without being in antagonism with any, and he goes so far as to characterize it as the greatest work the mind of man has ever performed. But if this philosophy be the last word of science, what does it leave us in the shape of religion ? Mr. Savage examines successively the modifications of thought which the acceptance of evolution would produce in the current conceptions of Christian theology and in metaphysics in general. Now, though this method tends to destroy the Biblical traditions respecting the origin of the universe and the appearance of man, the anthropomorphic idea of the Deity, the belief in the Devil, the possibility of miracles, the acceptance of a special revelation, and the popular conception of heaven and hell, it leaves us, on the other hand, and even places on the most solid of founda- tions, our feelings of confidence and reverence in the presence of that mysterious Power which transcends all definition, but which reveals itself in all phenomena, — the consciousness of a close relationship I. The Religion of Evolution (Boston : Lockwood, 1876). See also his other works, The Morals of Evolution (Boston: Ellis, 1880); Belief in 6^^^ (Boston: Ellis, 1881) ; Beliefs about Man (Boston : EUis, 1882). COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 217 with all the members of the human family and even with all the forms of life in nature, — the hope of a future life and the necessity of com- plete submission to the moral law. From the fact that it excludes caprice and arbitrary intervention, the philosophy of evolution admits of the reconciliation of the prin- ciple of love with the reign of universal law in the manifestations of the universe. It is also the only doctrine which offers a satisfactory solution to the problem presented by the existence of evil. Evil, indeed, is shown to be merely a maladjustment in relation to the conditions of physical, moral and intellectual environment— that is, to the laws of the cosmic order. It may therefore be claimed that evil is an essential condition of progress, either as, when in nature it acts through the disappearance of the feeblest to the advantage of those best fitted to survive, or when, as with man, it presents itself as the corrective of ignorance and misconduct. " Even pain is only a signal marked danger, that is set up along the railways, at the switches and crossings of human life. . . . Pain is simply God saying : *Get out of danger' or * Get up higher.'" But what becomes of Christianity in this scientific conception of religion ? Mr. Savage points out that religion itself is subject to the law of evolution like all the other manifestations of our moral and intellectual activity. It matters not therefore that Christianity is the last and most perfect system of religion; since it is a product of evolution it will be set aside by evolution. But it is only the super- annuated forms and the excrescences which will be thus cast off by evolution ; this law or process does not effect what is in its nature permanent and universal. If the cosmogony, the dogmas, the cere- monies and the ecclesiastical organizations of Christianity are doomed to disappear, it is otherwise with the precepts in and through which Jesus identified religion with morality and the Supreme Being with universal life. Now, if these truths embody the essence of Christian- ity, whoever accepts them has a right to retain the name of Christian, and on this point the philosophy of evolution merely continues the work of Christ, which was misunderstood even by his first disciples. In a sermon preached before his congregation in 1 880,1 Mr. Savage speaks still more explicitly : — *'A11 these religions may be grouped under three main classes. I. See his work, The Morals of Evolution^ p. 187. 218 COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. Whatever their manifestation, however perfect or imperfect, they fall naturally into one of these three. In the first place there is Paganism, that is the worship of isolated, detached manifestations of the universe, whether of power, or beauty or what not. Then there is the Worship of Humanity. The highest specimen of this is Christianity; for Christianity, if you will think of it, is simply the highest type of the Worship of Humanity, beca,use God himself in Christianity is con- ceived of in the image of the ideal and perfect man. Then there is another form of religion that may be called Scientific, or Cosmic. The object of its wonder, its awe, its admiration, is the universe considered as a universe ; the unity, the mystery, the wonder, the power of this great Being of whom I have spoken, out of whom we have come, and on whom we depend. I believe that the religion of the future, the ideal religion will combine in itself all these. It will take up into itself, the admiration, the beauty, the might that manifested itself in Paganism. It will feel kindly towards art and towards all the mani- festations of this mysterious life of nature, whether under our feet or over our heads. It will take up into itself all that is good and beautiful and perfect in Christianity, the worship of the ideal, loving, tender man. It will take up into itself that larger unity, of which both Christianity and Paganism are only parts, — this Cosmic worship of the universe." It is but right to add, that the Theory of Evolution is not accepted merely by Cosmians and Unitarians, who are beginning to make of it an essential feature of religion, but that it has conquered with a high hand pulpits more or less orthodox, in which case an attempt is some- times made to accommodate it to the demands of Revelation, while in • other instances there is a loyal recognition of its incompatibility with the belief in an infallible Biblical record. Of the ministers who have not hesitated to accept it with this last coroUory, may be mentioned, as the chief among the Episcopalians, the Rev. Heber Newton, of New York, and among the Congregationalists the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. The latter does not hesitate to affirm that to admit the truth of Evolution is to renounce the reigning theology. * I. See Mr. Beecher's article in The North American Review of August, 1882. Being present with several other Protestant ministers at the banquet given to Mr. Herbert Spencer, at New York, on the 9th of November, 1882, Mr. Beecher made use of the occasion to propose a toast to the illustrious philosopher, and, in doing so, he once more affirmed the impossibility of reconciling Spencer with Calvin, without concealing his preference for the former. COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 219 Here, however, appears a phenomenon characteristic of the American mind, which, when it adopts the philosophy of the old world, imme- diately transforms it into religion, as already seen in regard to German Idealism. Religious genius, indeed, consists precisely in the power to perceive, under a special angle, those philosophical and scientific theories which are in appearance the most refractory to all meta- physical manipulation. It is this process of spiritualization which Mr. O. B. Frothingham in some measure described, when he said, on opening the third session of the Free Religious Association : " Vogt and Biichner profess Materialism, and demonstrate intelligence; Hux- ley talks of protoplasm, and sets us wondering at thought ; Moleschott tells us that light is the author of life, and bends our head before the uncreated Light." " And what wonder," wrote Mr. W. C. Gannett, in 1875, "that religious awe is deepening as science looks and speaks? Science to-day is making everything reverent to us by in- creasing its mystery. ... If science claims to be religion, tell her No \ but from wise lips she makes no such claims. If she only claims to be the giver of the known, tell her that you value her for that, but as much for the Unknown, that vision of the more-to-know which she everywhere suggests. To hint this latter is as distinctly her function as is discovery of fact. And the best of all— I love to repeat it — is that this vision of the Unknown is not in the heights, not in the depths, but in the common and the near, and in each and all things. That brings God's life so close ! The Power so absolute is here ! I do nothing without it. I am speaking, you are listening, by it ; we shall fall asleep and rise, or not rise, by it. The atoms and the in- stants are packed with heights and depths, bringing to everywhere the Presence which is Law and Right and Love."^ It may be objected that this is all pure mysticism. But the thoughts which such language reveals are none the less important factors in the existing life and activities of what may be spoken of as American Rationalism. If the reader were to peruse the lectures and essays, summarized or reproduced every week in The Index^ he would be surprised, not only at the number and zeal of those who have adopted the synthetic side of evolution, but also at the resources they find in I. Proceedings at the Eighth Meeting of the Free Religious Association. Boston : 1875. 220 COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. it for opening up new horizons to the religious sentiment, and for the satisfaction of it, even in its most exalted aspirations. It is true many of these works possess little, if, indeed, any value except as landmarks of the tendency of thought. But here a page by Abbot, Wasson, Gannett, or Savage, and there a lecture or sermon by Potter, Frothingham, or Chadwick might be pointed out which are as much marked by rigour of demonstration as by elevation of thought and poetical language. These latter, indeed, deserve the attention of all who are afraid that the progress of modern thought will lead to the destruction or even the weakening of those sentiments which give power and greatness to the human mind. It is worthy of remark that this movement corresponds with the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer himself, if we are to judge by the fol- lowing letter, which he wrote on the 9th of January, 1883, to the first and most enthusiastic of his religious interpreters in America, Mr. Savage : — " I have read with much interest your clearly reasoned and eloquent exposition of the religious and ethical bearings of the evolution doctrines. I rejoice very much to see that those doctrines are coming to the front. It is high time that something should be done towards making the people see that there remains for them, not a mere nega- tion of their previous ethical and religious beliefs, which, as you say, have a definite scientific and unshakeable foundation. I hope that your teachings will initiate something like a body of definite adherents who will become the germ of an organization. I have been long looking forward to the time when something of this kind might be done, and it seems to me you are the man to do it."i This letter, whose publication was authorized by Mr. Spencer, is all the more significant from the fact that Mr. Savage, in common with Mr. Graham and Matthew Arnold, sees in the Unknowable an ordain- I. See The Christian Register of the 29th of March, 1883. By a singular co-incidence, it was only a few weeks later that Dr. Putnam, one of the most authoritative representatives of the Conservative school of Unitarians in America, spoke of Mr. Savage as the ablest and most influential of their Radical preachers, adding that, however hostile his sermons and writings might be to much that many Unitarians regarded as essential, they seemed to him to reveal a more affirmative tone of thought and a more believing Christian temperament than those of Parker and the greater part of the Radical school. — (Dr. Putnam's address on American UnitarianisiHy at the meeting of ministers in connection with the annual meeting of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. The Inquirer of June 9th, 1883.) COSMISM AND THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 221 ing Power who follows, if not a definite and foreseen purpose, at least a progressive aim, and that, though he refuses to see in the soul a distinct entity, he pronounces in favour of personal immortality. It only remains to add that, though it would be rash to predict that America will have the honour of giving the world a new faith, as some of its writers affirm, still, whether we take note of the Cosmians, the Transcendentalists, or those who occupy a position intermediate be- tween these two schools, or stop at the last phases of the Rationalistic movement, which began, as we have seen, in the revolt of Unitarianism against the dogmas of Predestination and the Trinity, we find every- where, as an affirmative element, side by side with free thought carried to its utmost limits, the perception of an absolute and unconditioned Being, who reveals Himself in nature under the infinite diversity of phenomena. Whether the object of this common faith be named the " Eternal One" with Emerson, or the "Cosmos" with Professor Fiske; the "God of Science" with Mr. Abbot, or the "God of Evolution" with Mr. Savage ; the " Universe in all its possibilities " according to the defi- nition of Mr. Potter, or the " Power which slowly raises us towards perfection" with Mr. Gannett; or, indeed, "the Being behind all appearances," to use the definition of Mr. Adler, — it is, in a word. Pantheism which is flowing with full force through the advanced regions of religious thought in the United States. And thus the pre- diction made by Tocqueville, at a time when the Unitarian reform, then in full vigour, seemed rather to indicate a recrudescence of Monotheism, is being realized : " In democratic times the idea of unity besets the human mind ; it seeks its realization on all sides, and when it believes this has been found, gladly lies down in its arms and rests there. Not only does it come to see in the world a single creation with one Creator, but even this dual conception becomes too burdensome, so that it sets about enlarging and simplifying its thought by regarding God and the universe as parts of a single whole. "^ I. De la Democratie en Amerique. Paris: Levy, 1864. Vol. III., p. 50. PART III CHAPTER XL THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. A recollection of Calcutta — Brahmoism — The Hindu religion and free inquiry — Philosophy among the ancient Brahmans — The idealistic Pantheism of the Vedanta — Intermediate Divinities — Syncretism and confusion of the Hindu faith — The Vishnuite Reformers and the doctrine of Bhakti — Attempts at reconcilia- tion, on the ground of the Divine unity, betvv^een the Hindu and Mohammedan creeds — Kabir, Nanak, Akbar — Influence of European ideas upon the religious mind of India — Ram Mohun Roy : his eclectic doctrines and his preaching against idolatry — Organization of the Brahmo Somaj of Calcutta — Debendra Nath Tagore, the successor of Ram Mohun Roy — The controversy respecting the Monotheistic character of the Vedas — Mission of the four Pandits to Benares — Rejection of Vedic infallibility by the Brahmo Somaj— The drawing up of a Rationalistic con- fession of faith, the Brahma Dharnia — Accession of Keshub Chunder Sen. It has been contended that pure Theism might suit exceptional temperaments, cold enough to rest satisfied with a vague religiosity, and too idealistic to do without it, but that it could never satisfy the aspirations of the masses, nor furnish means for the organization of a durable system of faith and worship. Still, the world has witnessed, for more than half-a-century, the constant progress of a religious movement which, though based exclusively on the principles of natural religion, presents all the characteristics of a positive faith : churches, priests, and worshippers. But it is in India where we must look for this. Having, on the last Sunday in August, 1876, walked along the Machoua-Bazar Street, in the native part of Calcutta, I entered a sort of neo-gothic chapel, which was already occupied by some three or four hundred natives, draped in those white and flowing shawls which form so striking a contrast with the bronzed complexion of the Ben- galese and suggest the fine effect of the ancient toga. There were scarcely more than a dozen women to be seen, who were seated in one of the aisles, but certain rustlings behind the gauze veil which concealed the gallery rightly led me to suspect that the general audience was not so exclusively comprised of the stronger sex. Immediately in front of the entrance stood a vMi^—2, small marble Q 226 THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. platform, raised to a height of several steps and surrounded by a balustrade, — where the officiating minister, in a simple muslin sur- plice and squatting in Oriental fashion, was waiting for the hour to commence the service. I could have believed myself in some native Protestant congregation had it not been for the entire absence of all Christian symbolism. On the other hand, there was neither the perpetual fire of the Guebres nor the grinning idols of the Hindu Pagodas ; and, though the building, as a whole, possessed the austere simplicityof a Mosque, its architecture presented none of the details which characterize the edifices devoted to the worship of Allah. In fact, the God worshipped here was neither the Divinity of the Chris- tians nor the Guebres, neither the Deity of the Hindus nor the Mussulmans : it was the God of a new religion, which claims to be a fusion of all the faiths of India, and even of the entire world, in a religious synthesis based upon the universal revelation of reason and conscience — the God of Brahmoism. The sect, or rather the religious school, of Brahmoism is of rela- tively recent origin, since it was only in 1880 that it celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation by the Rajah Ram Mohun Roy. Still, it already possesses more than 170 congregations, some thirty organs of the native press, many thousands of adherents, — among whom figure some of the most eminent men of the native society, — and, finally, a whole religious and philosophical literature, both in English and in the various local dialects. In spite of its opposition to the tendencies of orthodox Christianity, it has succeeded in secur- ing the attention and sympathy of all religious parties, even among the English. These are no longer the days in which Victor Jacque- mont thus described, in a letter from Calcutta, the sentiments of the Anglo-Indians towards the noble and worthy Ram Mohun Roy : — " The honest English execrate him because he is, they say, a fright- ful Deist."! I. The principal historian and most ardent champion of Brahmoism in Europe to-day is Miss Sophia Dobson Collet, who according to her own avowal, accepts Trinitarian Christianity, a circumstance which speaks as well for the breadth of her ideas as it does for the value of her testimony, in favour of a form of worship " com- bining Evangelical piety with Unitarian theology," In addition to several small treatises on the history of Brahmoism, Indian Theisin (1870), Brahmo Marriages (1871), Miss S. D. Collet has published every year since 1876 an Annual, called Thi Brahmo Year-Book, which embodies the most complete and circumstantial details of the Theistic movement in India. THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. 227 There is no need for astonishment that such a movement should have sprung out of Hinduism. The religion of the Brahmans has always been on good terms with free inquiry and intellectual progress. Even before the rise of Buddhism, philosophical speculation had attained to considerable eminence among the Aryans of the Punjaub and the Ganges. So far from opposing this tendency, the sacerdotal class gave it the right of citizenship in the Vedaic teaching, on condi- tion that criticism, though perfectly free in the matter of dogma, should respect the nominal infallibility of the Vedas, the separation of caste, and the privileges of the Brahmans ; and though, at a later time, they struggled against the doctrine of Buddha, it was not because this doctrine tended to Atheism, but because it proclaimed the equality of mankind, and denied the necessity of a priesthood. Then were seen to develope, in the Brahmanic schools, the most diverse and even the most contradictory systems of thought. Some sought an explanation of the universe in an atomic theory which suggests the doctrines of Epicurus and Haeckel. Others taught a more or less disguised Evolutionary Atheism. The philosophy how- ever, which at length gained the predominance was the system of the Vedanta, an idealistic Pantheism which had previously existed in outline in certain hymns of the Veda.^ According to this doctrine, which is summed up in the word advaiia (non-dualism), God is the sole real existence and the world exists only in him ; all the pheno- mena which appear to us as real are only an illusion of our senses. It will be seen, therefore, that if the idea of the divine personality seems new in India, it is not the same with what concerns the belief in the unity of God. This abstract conception of the divinity was but ill adapted to the worship of the masses who remained faithful to the most striking and living figures of the ancient gods. But the Pantheistic philosophy of the Vedanta lent itself completely, like its Western equivalent, neo- Platonism, to the maintenance of subordinate gods, regarded as inter- mediate between man and the Absolute. The Brahmans, therefore, succeeded easily enough in accommodating the objects of the popular faith within the frame-work of their theology ; and this is true of those most removed from the Vedaic tradition, since they were regarded as the forms or personified energies, or indeed as the incarnations or I. Rig Vdea X. 90. See Monier Williams's Indian Wisdom, 3rd edit,, p. 24. 228 THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. Avataras of the supreme Divinity. It was on this principle that the Brahmans made of Buddha an incarnation of Vishnu, in order to facilitate the absorption of Buddhism, and that even to-day certain Vishnuites accept Christ as the last incarnation of their god.^ This elasticity and eclecticism may be said to form the essential features of the Hindu religion. There has never, indeed, been a god really accepted by the people to which India has closed the doors of its pantheon ; there is not a religious idea, coarse or sublime, which it has not accepted with equal readiness at some moment or other of history. And since, moreover, it has never been able to resolve upon the rejection of an acquired belief, but has confined itself to the superposition of its new conceptions,^ there has resulted from this a confused and odd jumble, which shocks in the highest degree our European conceptions, but which none the less serves to explain the prodigious vitality of Hinduism. *' Starting from the Vedas," says Prof. Monier Williams, in the introduction to his Indian Wisdom^ " it ends by appearing to embrace something from all religions and to pre- sent phases suited to all minds. It has its spiritual and its material aspect, its esoteric and its exoteric, its subjective and objective, its pure and its impure. It is at once vaguely Pantheistic, severely Monotheistic, grossly Polytheistic and coldly Atheistic. It has a side for the practical, another for the devotional and another for the speculative." At the close of' the Vedaic period, the only way of salvation lay in the observance of minute rules and in the fulfilment of the more and more complicated rites which the Brahmans had established. The re-action against excesses of the sacredotal spirit produced Buddhism on the one hand ; while on the other, it led the very defenders of the old religion to admit the value of renunciation, contemplation and ecstacy as the supreme means of attaining to union with the Divinity, the absorption of the individual soul in the Divine Essence. But this concession did not prevent the momentary triumph of the Budd- 1. This fact is mentioned by Professor Monier Williams in his little treatise : Hinduism. London, 1880, p. 108. 2. Prof. Max Miiller, who finds it difficult to speak with severity of the Hindus, has pleaded extenuating circumstances in relation to this process in his Origin and Development of Religion studied in the light of the Religions of India. The eminent Indianist specially insists on the lesson of practical toleration which Europe might learn from it. THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. 229 hists who were, in this particular, more logical than their rivals. It was at this time that there arose a third school, better adapted to respond to the aspirations of the masses. Their doctrine was that of JBhakti, already present in outline in the poem of the Bhagavad-Gita, and which has chiefly prevailed among the worshippers of Vishnu. From the twelfth to the fifteenth century a series of reformers, such as Ramanuja, Madhava, Vallabhacarya and Chaitanya, without con- testing the value of sacrifices or of asceticism, placed, by the side of and above these two religious practices, faith and love (bhakti) towards the Divinity, considered in some one or other of his principal incar- nations. According to this doctrine, the worshipper, in order to reach beatitude, must gradually realize the following states : — ist, the con- templation of God ; 2nd, voluntary subjection ; 3rd, sympathy ; 4th, filial affection; and, 5th, passionate love. To facilitate this increasing exaltation, the reading of the old Vedaic Mantras was replaced by songs and dances and by the waving of lights and the sound of in- struments before the images of the god ; the prayers were henceforth to be in the language of the people, and the distinctions of caste were proscribed from the interior of the sanctuaries or even during the entire period of religious festivities. Chaitanya, above all, insisted upon the importance of these practices, in order to attain to com- munion with Krishna. Tradition relates, indeed, that he drowned himself when in one of his ecstacies and whilst he was bathing near Puri. The greater part of these reformers admitted the personality of God, and attributed to him an existence distinct from physical nature, as well as from the individual or finite soul.^ But the theory of incar- nation, which they allowed to keep its place in their respective systems, was destined to re-open the door to all the abuses of idolatry which have continued to characterize the Vishnu sects down to the present day. It was not, therefore, from that direction that a purification of religion could arise. ^ In the meantime, Brahmanism, while scarcely freed from the diffi- culties it had to encounter in Buddhism, found itself in antagonism with a new adversary, whose zeal for proselytizing could be abated neither by fire nor sword. Still it was in vain that the zealots of I. Monier Williams, Indian Theistic Reformers^ in the Xlllth Volume (2nd Series) of the Royal Asiatic Society. 230 THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. Islamism massacred the priests, enslaved the worshippers, and de- spoiled and sacked the temples of Hinduism ; they could not over- throw the religious and social edifice of native civilization, — it may even be asserted that they borrowed more from it than they gave to it.i The chief result of this contact of the rigid Monotheism of the conquerors with the elastic Pantheism of the conquered, was that there sprang up, in the minds of certain adherents of each of the two faiths, an idea of mutual approach towards reconciliation, if not of an actual fusion, on the ground of their common principle — the belief in one God. Among those who sought to give practical effect to this idea, with a view to diminish idolatry, we find in the 15th century, a disciple of the philosopher Ramananda, the weaver Kabir, who attacked at one and the same time the authority both of the Koran and the Vedas, in order to substitute for it a purely spiritual worship. He disavowed, moreover, all distinction of caste and said that all who loved God and did good were brethren, whether they were Hindus or Mussulmans. His preaching drew around him numerous followers attracted indifferently from the two faiths whose vital principles he claimed to teach, and the legend by which is memory is enshrined in the popular song of Bhakta-mal, relates this characteristic detail, that at his death Mussulmans and Hindus disputed the possession of his body, the latter desiring to burn and the former to bury it, according to their respective rites ; but that when the coffin was opened there was found nothing whatever in it but flowers. It appears, however, that a part of these was burnt at Benares and the ashes deposited in the Chapel of Kabir-Chaura, which still attracts the devotees of Hin- dustan; while the remainder was buried at Mogar, where the reformer died, and the monument raised above the spot is visited yearly by numerous pilgrims at the time of the annual fair. More than once in history contemporary religious systems have been seen to damn the same heretic ; this is perhaps the only instance in which two hostile faiths have been seen to canonize the same apostle. A disciple of Kabir, Nanak Shah, likewise sought to fuse the two great religions of his country into a single faith, with no other dogma 1. Monier Williams, Modern India; 2nd Edition (London: Triibner,. 1878). Garcin de Tassy, Memoire sur les Particulariies de la Religion Mussulniane dans tinde (Paris, 2nd Edition, 1869). THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. 231 than belief in the unity of God, in the necessity of moral purity and in toleration towards other forms of faith, together with an absence of all ceremonial rites except ablutions and prayers. Such was the origin of the Sikhs, who formed, at first, a purely religious association. Finally, the celebrated Akbar, Grand-Mogul as he was, conceived of the organization of a new faith, under the striking name of " Divine Monotheism," in which, while preserving certain forms of Islamism, he introduced practices borrowed from the Hindus, the Gu^bres, the Christians and even from the Jews. Unfortunately the time was not ripe for such a magnificent syn- thesis. The sect of the Kabir-panthis which, moreover, never secured a wide extension, became identified with the worship of Rama, an in- carnation of Vishnu, and to-day it has even added the worship of its gourous or spiritual chiefs. The Sikhs, after being transformed into a military confederation by the Mussulman persecutions, gradually re- opened their temples to the idols and superstitions of Hinduism. Finally, the syncretism of Akbar was destined to scarcely extend beyond the walls of his palace, and the only vestige of it which has remained, is, perhaps, to be found in the eclectic architecture of the cruciform temple in the town of Brindaban, which was dedicated to Krishna by the rajah Man-Singh, the friend of Akbar. This edifice possesses a gothic nave lined with Hindu pillars, which are sur- mounted by Moorish arches. The introduction of European civilization gave a new impulse to the speculative mind of the Hindus. It must not be forgotten that, side by side with Christianity, the English have carried into India the arts, sciences and methods, in short the whole literary and philo- sophical heritage of Europe. Hence, although Brahmoism seems to . have sprung from Hindu traditions by a gradual and original evolu- tion, it is easy to discover the traces of European influence in the three men who have, in a sense, personified the successive phases of the movement; Ram Mohun Roy, Debendra Nath Tagore and Keshub Chunder Sen. Ram Mohun Roy was born in 1774,^ at Radhnagar, and belonged to a Brahmanic family specially devoted to the worship of Vishnu. I. In 1780 according to Garcin de Tassy (Histoire de la Litterature Hindouie et Hindoustanie. Paris, 2nd Ed., Vol. II., p. 348). 232 THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. From his infancy he was remarkable for his devotion to the idol of the paternal house. But being sent early to the Mussulman school at Patna to learn Arabic and Persian, it was not without effect that he found himself in contact with Semitic Monotheism, and he had scarcely returned to his family, when, at the age of sixteen, he drew up a protest against the practices of Hindu idolatry. His father, who occupied a distinguished position in the district of Burdwan, judged it prudent to send him from home again, in the hope, perhaps, that contact with the world would cool the glowing zeal of the young re- former. But the latter simply took advantage of his travels to devote himself exclusively to the study of comparative theology, at first in the principal temples of India and afterwards in those of Tibet, where the independence of his criticism brought him into collision with the adherents of Buddhism. When, after an absence of four years, he re-appeared in his native town, not only had he fully adopted the principle of the divine unity, but what is more, he had resolved that no obstacle should deter him from combatting the superstitions of his fellow-countrymen. "After my father's death in 1803," he himself wrote in a letter sub- sequently published in the Athenceum^ " I opposed the advocates of idolatry with still greater boldness. Availing myself of the art of printing, now established in India, I published various works and pamphlets against their errors, in the native and foreign languages. The ground which I took in all my controversies was not that of op- position to Brahminism, but to a perversion of it, and I endeavoured to show that the idolatry of the Brahmins was contrary to the practice of their ancestors, and the principles of ancient books and authorities which they profess to revere and obey."i He had courageously set himself to learn — in addition to Persian, Arabic, Sanscrit and English — Hebrew and Greek, in order that he might be able to obtain from . original sources a knowledge of the principal religions which have played a part in history. Prof Monier Williams speaks of him as the first really earnest investigator in the science of comparative theology, which the world has produced. ^ These researches, by adding still greater amplitude to his religious 1. See The Athenaum of London, for October 5, 1833. 2. Indian Theistic Reformers^ in the Xlllth Vol. (2nd Series) of the Royal Asiatic Society. THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. 233 horizon, had inspired him with the project of founding a faith on the simple belief in the unity of God and of a future life. But, being disinherited by his father, he found himself reduced to an acceptance of the humble position of diwan with the English collector of taxes at Rangpoor, and it was not till 1814 that he was able to settle at Calcutta in order to devote himself there to the spread of his doctrine. This doctrine was drawn directly from the Vedanta. Still, of the two propositions which constitute the basis of the Vedantine philosophy, — the unity of God and the illusion of individual existence, — he attached himself almost exclusively to the first, compiling the Vedas in order to furnish himself with arms against the Polytheism of his contem- poraries. He cannot, therefore, be called a Monotheist to the extent that this term is applied to the believers in a distinct and personal God, such as the Jehovah of Moses or the Allah of Mohammed. But, while remaining wholly faithful in this respect to the Vedaic tradition, he seems to have made the essence of religion consist exclusively in the recognition of the Divine, as this principle is formulated either by the Pantheism of the Brahmanas or by the Monotheism of the Bible or the Koran. Hence he felt an equal veneration for all who had taught him — Moses and Jesus, Mya^a and Mohammed. This eclectic tendency is specially noticeable in his work on The Precepts of Jesus ^ the Guide to Peace and Happiness (1823), in which he renders homage to the moral value of Chris- tianity, while he at the same time rejects the divinity of its Founder. It has been said that Ram Mohun Roy dehghted to pass for a believer in the Vedanta with the Hindus, for a Christian among the adherents of that creed, and for a disciple of the Koran with the champions of Islamism. The truth is that his eclecticism equalled his sincerity. As a curious illustration of his influence, it is said of him that he converted to Unitarianism a Baptist missionary who rendered great service to the cause of education in India, the Rev. W. Adams. In his turn, however, it was from the religious meetings held by Mr. Adams in Calcutta that he conceived the idea of organiz- ing a Theistic formx of worship for the use of the Hindus. He had already grouped his adherents into an association entitled Atmtya Sabha (Spiritual Society). In 1829, he introduced into it the celebration of a divine service divided in four parts : the recital of Vedic texts, the reading of an extract from the Upanishads, together 234 THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. with a sermon and hymns. The new sect was not slow to become known by the name of Brahma Sabha or Brahmo Soma] (the Society of God). As the reader is aware, according to the Hindu theology, Brahma is not only the first person of the Trinity but he is also, as the neuter of his name, Brahman, serves to indicate, the absolute and eternal Being whose creative, preserving and destructive agencies are respectively personified by Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. In 1830, the Brahmo Somaj installed itself in a house which its founder had purchased for that purpose at Calcutta. The deed of gift says that " No sermon, preaching, discourse, prayer or hymn is to be delivered, made or used in such worship, but such as have a tendency to the promotion of the contemplation of the Author and Preserver of the universe, to the promotion of charity, morality, piety, benevolence, virtue and the strengthening of the bonds of union between men of all religious persuasions and creeds." One portion of this building was reserved for the use of the Brahmans in their reading of the esoteric texts, which in the Vedas cannot be communi- cated to the other castes. Unhappily, Ram Mohun Roy embarked shortly afterwards for England, where he was sent with the title of rajah in order to make certain demands on behalf of the Grand-Mogul at the Court of St. James. He had long cherished the idea of visiting Europe, where he was already known by reputation. The upper classes in England gave him the kind of reception which they know so well how to offer, altogether apart- from political considerations, to eminent men* of every country and race. He had no sooner disembarked than he became the lion of the season in London, and yet this flattering at- tention did not diminish in the slightest degree the ease and the natural modesty of his character. Miss S. D. Collet, who remembers having caught a glimpse of him at this time, states that he won the sympathy of every one by the affability of his manners, no less than by the cultivation of his mind ; and Garcin de Tassy, who met him the following year at Paris, describes his personal appearance in these terms : " His physique answered to his fine moral qualities ; he possessed a noble and expressive physiognomy ; his complexion was extremely bronzed, almost black ; but his regular nose, his brilliant and animated eyes, his broad forehead and the beauty of his features rendered his countenance remarkable. He was six feet in height and THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. 235 well proportioned. His dress was habitually blue ; but he wore over it a white shawl, which was rolled upon his shoulders and reached down to his waist in front. He enclosed his hair with a turban after the manner of the Mussulmans of India."! His mission being accomplished, he was preparing to return to India, in order to make use of the experience he had acquired in England for the advancement of the reform he was carrying out, when, exhausted by his exertions and perhaps a victim to the climate, he fell ill and died at Bristol on the 27th September, 1833. His remains rest in the cemetery of that town, beneath a monument built in the Oriental style by his disciple and friend, Dwarka Nath Tagore, who came himself to die in England some years later. Deprived of its leader, the little Church of the Brahmo Somaj languished for about a dozen years, and seemed at last on the point of dying out, when it placed the young Debendra Nath Tagore at its head. This latter, who was born in 18 18, was the son of Dwarka Nath Tagore, just mentioned as the friend of Ram Mohun Roy, and he belonged to the Brahmanic clan of Piralis. When scarcely twenty years of age, he had already founded an " Association for the Search of Truth " (Tativa Bodhini Sabhd), which proposed to itself " to sus- tain the labours of Rajah Ram Mohun Roy, by introducing gradually among the natives of this country the Monotheistic system of Divine worship inculcated in the original Hindu Scriptures." The Associa- tion met weekly in the house of the elder Nath Tagore, to discuss religious questions ; once a month it celebrated a Divine service, in which hymns were sung and passages read from the Uphanishads. It had even begun to train missionaries to preach, throughout India, the need of reform in the national worship, when, in 1843, it incor- porated itself into the Brahmo Somaj, in imitation of Debendra. Together with its pecuniary resources, it brought also to this institution its habits of intellectual activity ; so that — thanks to the new element — the work of Mohun Roy soon resumed a progressive course. Still, even in 1847, ^^ avowed Brahmoists did not number a thousand. At that date, however, a crisis occurred which seemed to presage their dispersion, but 'which became, on the contrary, the chief cause of I. Garcin de Tassy, Histoire de la Littcrature Hindouie et Hindousianie. Paris, 1870. 2nd Ed., Vol. II., p. 151. 236 THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. their subsequent rapid success among the enlightened classes of the country. Ram Mohun Roy had included in his organization all who admitted the unity of God, on the sole condition that they should keep up no connection whatever with Polytheistic doctrines and practices. Still, in point of fact, the Brahmo Somaj was a simple Hindu sect, since its members admitted the infallibility of the Vedas. The prayers and hymns composing its entire liturgy were profoundly impressed with the Vedantic spirit, which manifested itself in the guise of continual allusions to the dogmas of metempsychosis and those of identity with the divine essence. Now nothing was more opposed than this to the tendencies of Debendra Nath Tagore and his friends, who — possibly owing to the influence of a more complete European education — had reached the conception of a personal God distinct from nature. The new comers who had rapidly attained to a position of pre- eminence in the Brahmo Somaj, sought at first the confirmation of their views in the Vedas themselves. It has been said that anything and everything may be proved from the Bible, an assertion which would apply with still greater force to the Vedas. The Vedas — or more correctly the Veda, that is science— are, in the theology of the Brahmans, regarded as the direct breath of God, which was com- municated to the Richis, the bards of the Aryan migration, and trans- mitted by them from mouth to mouth, down to the time when the Brahmans, their legitimate successors, judged it desirable to fix the truths of this divine revelation in writing. In reality, the Vedas form a collection of innumerable liturgies and theological treatises com- posed, as a rule, by unknown authors, the most recent of whom lived at the dawn of our era, and the most ancient at the time of the first Aryan invasions of India. It will be easily understood that among literary fragments so varied in origin and date, traces are to be found of all the currents of thought which have successively or simul- taneously contributed to the formation of Hindu beliefs. These range from the worship of the deified elements of nature by the naive genius of the Aryans, up to the most abstract connections of Panthe- ism or even of pessimistic Atheism, developed within the shadow of the temples by several ages of philosophical elaboration — from the gross superstitions with which the invaders were innoculated in their contact with Fetishism and foreign idolatries, up to the minute cere- THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. 237 monies introduced by the ritualism of the Brahmans, in order to give a sacred sanction to the religious and social subjection of the enslaved castes — the whole being intensified in its effect by the presence of a profound and sincere piety, revealing itself in mystic aspirations towards an ideal Being and suggesting at times, as Edgar Quinet re- marks, the personal and living God of the Monotheistic religions.^ This tendency is so marked in certain hymns of the Rig- Veda that the majority of Sanscrit scholars thought at first they had discovered in them, not the natural evolution of the Hindu mind towards the unity and simplicity of the First Cause, but the last trace, as a sort of feeble echo, of some primeval Monotheistic religion, which had existed anterior to the ancient Naturalism. In the most recent portions of the Vedaic literature, moreover, passages, possessed of. a moral and philosophical elevation, that the loftiest metaphysical system of our epoch would not repudiate, are to be found side by side with the most absurd and degrading theories. Even when we include the Puranas — that supplementary Veda styled the popular Bible of the Hindus — there is no part of this vast sacred literature which does not constantly recognize, behind the changing and transparent physiognomy of its gods, that Being whom one pas- sage names " the powerful Lord, immutable, holy, eternal, and of a nature always true to itself, who reveals himself as Brahma, Vishnu or Siva, the creator, preserver or destroyer of the world." At the time when Debendra Nath Tagore and his friends resolved to controvert even passages from the Vedas themselves, they began by calling in question, not the infallibility of the sacred texts, but the fidelity of the partial versions in their own and their opponents' possession. And here it will be well to bear in mind that the Vedas comprise thousands of isolated passages ; that the knowledge of their most important parts had been the exclusive monopoly of the Brah- manic caste ; that European science had not as yet made the true sense of the Hindu Scriptures common property, even in India itself; and that, finally, they were written in a dead language, Sanskrit, but I. We may cite, as examples, the well-known hymn to Varuna {Rig-VMa, II., 28), which bears the impress of so intense an aspiration after moral purity and so profound a sense of sin that M. Pillon has called it a Vedic Kyrie eleison ; or, further, the hymn, "To what God shall we sacrifice?" {Rig-Vida^ X., I2i); and the hymn on the origin of the universe {Rig- Veda, X., 129). 238 THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. little known even to native theologians, beyond the limits of a few- centres specially devoted to the study of sacerdotal matters. Hence the Brahmo Somaj decided, at the suggestion of Akhai Kumar Datta, the editor of the Tattvabodhini Patrika^ to commission four young pandits to copy, at Benares itself, the four Vedas, of which the sacred town of Brahmanism alone possessed a copy claiming to be complete and authentic. This undertaking lasted two years, and when its result was com- municated to the Brahmo Somaj, no one could avoid the saddening conviction that, side by side with sublime precepts, the Vedas em- bodied passages forming a justification for the grossest superstition, — in short, a collection of dogmas utterly irreconcileable with the prin- ciples of Monotheism. The infallibility of the Scriptures was now courageously thrown overboard, and the Brahmo Somaj breaking with the tradition of Hinduism, as well as with the entire notion of any specially revealed religion, became a purely Theistic Church — the first, perhaps, except the Unitarian, which has ever acquired a serious importance in the world. Debendra Nath Tagore caused it to adopt under the name of Brahma Dharma " the rule of Theism," a confession of faith, which without falling into an exaggerated dogmatism, summed up the elementary principles of all worship within the bounds of natural religion : the unity and personality of God ; the immortality of the soul ; the moral efiicacy of prayer ; and the necessity of repentance to ensure restoration from the effects of evil-doing. ^ Up to this time, the most important part of their worship, that is to say, the recital of the sacred texts, had taken place among the Brahmans with closed doors, and the adherents of any other caste were only admitted to hear the sermon and join in the hymns. Henceforth, however, the Brahmo Somaj made no distinction between its members, and it was I. See The New Dispensation and the Sddh&ran Brahjuo SomdJ, by the pandit Sivanath Sastri. Madras, i88i, p. lo. — The covenant, or constitution of Brahmoism, which the members were to sign, embodied the four following propositions : — (l) In the beginning, God was alone, and he has created the universe. {2) God is intelligent, infinite, benevolent, and eternal ; he governs the universe, he is omni- scient, omnipresent, the refuge of all, without body, immutable, unique, without an equal, all-powerful, self-existent, and above all comparison. (3) It is by venerating him, and by this alone, that we can attain to supreme beatitude in this world and in the next. (4) To love him and do the things that please him constitute the worship we owe to him. THEISM IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA. 239 recompensed for this by the numerous accessions which it received, not merely in Calcutta but also in the provinces. Still such is the persistence of social prejudices that the greater part of the Brahmoists remained faithful to the prescriptions of caste sanctioned by the ancient faith, and notably in relation to the im- portant question of marriage. Even more, men of excellent parts — a state of things not peculiar to India and the Brahmo Somaj^ — continued to practice in their families, for the sake of appearance, ceremonies which they denounced as contrary to reason and the dignity of man, in the meetings of the Brahmo Somaj. All this happened because the convictions of the Brahmoists, as yet, lacked that fervour which is ready for every sacrifice and if badly directed too often ends in intolerance, but which is none the less indispensable to the success of every great religion or social reform. The Brahma Dharma was above all the formula of a philosophy ; it was reserved for Keshub Chunder Sen to make of it the gospel of a religion. CHAPTER XII THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. Keshub Chunder Sen — His influence on the religious activity of the Somaj of Calcutta — Gradual abandonment of the distinctions of caste — Conservative and Liberal Brahmoists — Keshub's controversy with Debendra Nath Tagore on the social bearing of Brahmoist reform — Schism of the Brahmo Somaj into the Adi Somaj and the Somaj of India — Exuberance of religious life among the neo- Brahmoists — The Brahmostabs — Inauguration of the new Mandir, or Temple — Keshub's efforts to secure a recognition of the validity of Brahmoist marriages, the suppression of premature unions, the legal consent of the bride, &c. — Institution of civil marriage as optional by the Native Marriage Act of 1872 — The foundation by Keshub of the Indian Reform Association — Participation of this Society in all the movements for the regeneration of India — Establishment of schools, emancipation of women, repression of drunkenness — Means of propa- gandism and rapid spread of Brahmoism in the provinces — Institutions charac- teristic of the different Somajes. Keshub Chunder Sen was born in 1838, and his family belonged to the Vaidya caste. His father who had filled important posts in the government of Bengal, was a votary of Vishnu, and was celebrated for the brilliancy of the festivals held in his house in honour of the god. It is from these surroundings, which were anything but favour- able to Monotheistic tendencies, that the young Keshub sprang as Ram Mohun Roy had previously done ; but attendance at the Anglo- Indian College of Calcutta had the same influence upon his convic- tions as the teaching of the Mohammedan College at Patna had pro- duced upon the religious ideas of his predecessor. When hardly twenty years old, Keshub had grouped around him a certain number of young men who were eager, like himself, for instruction in Western literature and philosophy. It was then that one of the Brahmo Somaj pamphlets, falling by chance into his hands, revealed to him the existence, in his own country, of the ideal Church of his imagina- tion. His adhesion to it was not delayed, and, like Debendra Nath Tagore, he was able to secure the allegiance of the small group who were already accustomed to look up to him as their spiritual guide. " There are two sorts of Theism," says one of the most faithful disciples of Keshub, the Baboo Protab Chunder Mozoumdar. " One 242 THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. of these is what is ordinarily termed Natural Religion — the faith that is formed in man's mind by the action of natural phenomena and laws upon its faculties and instincts. This may be termed Philo- sophical Theism and it is therefore assailable by Philosophy. The conception and principles of this kind of Theism are, to a certain ex- tent, changeable, inasmuch as man's ideas on natural facts and laws are subject to change. The second division is Revealed Theism — the deep spiritual religion produced by the action of God's spirit within man's soul. This religion is unchangeable and unassailable ; it is beyond the reach of science and ordinary philosophy. The first Theism is man seeking God, the second Theism is God seeking man."^ Now it is this second form which Keshub insisted upon in the Bramho Somaj, attaching himself to what Miss S. D. Collet names the Augustinian side of religion, that is to say "the passionate thirst for God, the strong sense of sin, the low estimate of the merit of actions and of mere morality, the yearning to sink self in the fathomless ocean of divine love." Keshub possessed, moreover, the true temperament of a reformer. Energetic and swayed by conviction, endowed, too, with eloquence which, while clear and persuasive, was at the same time coloured and captivating, he joined to the prestige of talent and knowledge that innate ascendency which furnishes the key to all hearts and con- sciences. Equally versed in the native dialects and in the English language, he combined the gravity and sweetness of Oriental manners with a conventional simplicity and an activity of mind altogether European. If I may refer to the impression which he made upon me a few years later, he was assuredly, of all the personages whom I had an opportunity of getting a glimpse of in India, the one who seemed to me to best personify his generation and the change wrought by the •action of European ideas upon the tendencies of Hindu society. Even his adversaries never denied his being an exceptionally en- dowed man. His great defect, as will be seen further on, was perhaps that of believing and saying this himself. As the result of his influence, there soon appeared, in this Ration^ alistic Church, an intensity of religious life which seems everywhere I. Indian Mirror of the 25th of April, 1875. THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SO-MAJ. 243 else to have remained a monopoly of the sects and to be the outcome of their miraculous theology. The meetings of the Brahmo Somaj became more frequent and were better attended ; a number of new- comers were attracted by the reputation of the young preacher and retained by the seductive charm of his words. A true revival took place, and, as a first consequence, it gave to the members of the Brahmoist Church the energy needed for a definitive break with the practices of Hinduism. Debendra Nath Tagore preached by example in the month of July, 1 86 1, when he allowed the marriage of his own daughter to be celebrated without any of the idolatrous rites required by the tradition of the Brahmans. In the following year he renounced the domestic idol which he had up to that time tolerated, under his roof, and, on the initiative of Keshub, he discontinued the use of the sacred cord symbolic of caste, during divine service. But Keshub wished to go still further in this direction, and the very day on which he was chosen an assistant minister of the Somaj of Calcutta, he ignored the fact that he was a Vaidya by birth and went with his wife to dine at the table of Debendra Nath Tagore, who, in the Brahmanic hierarchy, was only a Pirali. Now, a Brahman may associate with persons of a lower clan, or pven of an inferior caste, for the widest variety of objects, but he cannot share in their meals with- out incurring an excommunication, which makes an alien of him in his family, deprives him of his goods, and drives him from his home. In vain, too, would he seek to attach himself to the group from asso- ciation with which his loss of rank had been occasioned : — birth alone can give caste. He would fall, therefore, beneath even the soudras into that degraded herd of outcasts who no longer figure in the minutely adjusted hierarchy of Hindu society. Formerly, it was with difficulty that the least infraction of the etiquette of caste, even if involuntary, could be atoned for at the price of long penitence and enormous fines paid to the priests. But English rule has not existed in vain in India. The sympathy shown to the assistant minister of the Brahmo Somaj in his disgrace by the most enlightened of his fellow-citizens, soon made it evident that for the first time perhaps since the social insurrection of Buddha, revolt against the prescriptions of caste had become possible in Hindu society. Some time afterwards, when Keshub had fallen dangerously /#^^ \\ tINIVRRRTTV 244 THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. ill, his family repented of the course they had taken, and agreed to reinstate him in his patrimonial rights. Scarcely restored to health, Keshub proposed to make the abandon- ment of the Brahmanic cord obligatory upon the ministers of the Brahmo Somaj. Debendra Nath Tagore, although he had personally set an example of this kind, refused to make it an indispensable con- dition for the exercise of the sacred office. Hence there resulted a lively controversy, in which the Brahmoists were to be seen divided into two camps under the respective generalship of the two ministers. Both parties seemed more or less agreed on questions of principle. But the Conservatives led by Debendra Nath Tagore, whom so many innovations were beginning to alarm, maintained that the Brahmo Somaj should confine itself, as far as possible, to reforms of a purely religious character, that it was necessary to take into account the existing customs and that the complete repudiation of social distinc- tions was contrary to the traditions as well as to the national spirit of the Hindus. To this agreement the progressive party replied with Keshub, that it was impossible to separate religious from social re- forms, that before God all class distinctions should be put aside, and that a Church, feeling itself in possession of truth, should proclaim it in its entirety with neither scruple nor hesitation. This controversy reached a climax, when Keshub undertook to officiate at the marriage of a Vaidya with a young widow of a different caste, after which the whole wedding party, including the minister, partook of the same repast. The scandal this caused as- sumed such proportions, even in the Brahmo Somaj, that Keshub, in despair of gaining a majority in favour of his ideas, voluntarily quitted the association with some hundreds of adherents, and in the following year completed the schism by founding a new Church under the title of Bharatbharsia Somaj or Brahmo Somaj of India, in contradistinc- tion to the Brahmo Somaj of Calcutta, which subsequently became known by the name of Adi (the old) Somaj. This new society was not intended to be merely the rival of the Church of Debendra Nath Tagore in Calcutta itself; it aimed, more- over at the organization of all the Brahmo Somajes of the country into a confederation, of which it was to be the centre. " We see around us," said Keshub in his inaugural address delivered on the nth of November, 1866, "a large number of Brahmo Somajes in THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. 245 different parts of the country for the congregational worship of the one true God, and hundreds upon hundreds of men professing the Brahmo Faith; we have besides, missionaries going about in all directions to preach the saving truths of Brahma Dharma; books and tracts inculcating these truths are also being published from time to time. To unite all such Brahmos and form them into a body, to reduce their individual and collective labours into a vast but well organized system of unity and co-operation — this is all that is thought to be accomplished. . . . We must endeavour to realize, so far as it is in our power, the true idea of the Church of God." In common with Presbyterian Christians, the neo-Brahmos would accept no head but God himself; still Keshub was none the less their real chief, under the title of secretary of the Bharatbharsia Somaj and minister of the Calcutta Congregation. Masters of their own actions the neo-Brahmos, as was to be ex- pected from the leadership of Keshub, gave themselves up to an exuberance of religious life which their minister did not seek to moderate, but merely to regulate by the institution of a ritual in con- formity with the spirit of the new organization. The weekly service, which was fixed for the Sunday to correspond with the regular stoppage of business introduced by the English into the habits of India, was henceforth to consist of prayers, hymns, a sermon and readings, the latter being borrowed indifferently from the Vedas, the Old and New Testament Scriptures, the Koran and the Zend A vesta, according to the pleasure of the minister. * This was supplemented by a " family service," which each Brahmo could use daily in his own house. As to the ritual previously in use for the ceremonies of initiation, marriage, cremation, yi/^^r;//« (thanksgiving after the birth of a child) and ndmkaram (the choice of a name), they were simply modified by the elimination of formulas not in harmony with the programme of the reforming party. The ceremony of shrddha, a funeral service closely allied to the theory of metem- psychosis, was completely remodelled in keeping with the doctrines professed by the Brahmos on the future destiny of the soul. Finally I. Here is the Bharatbharsia Somaj Order of Service:,— i, Hymn; 2, Invoca- tion; 3, Hymn; 4, Adoration; 5, Silent communion; 6, Prayer in common or with responses ; 7, Prayer for universal good ; 8, Hymn ; 9, Reading from sacred books ; 10, Sermon; 11, Prayer; 12, Benediction; 13, Hymn. 246 THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. Keshub instituted a series of brah7tiostabs (festivals of the Lord) which recur at stated periods and last an entire day.^ These festivals appear to have exercised an influence which is only to be explained by the contagious nature of even the most rationalistic form of mysticism. ** The change produced in certain persons who were present on the occasion of these Brahmostabs is truly astonishing," wrote Protab Chunder Mozoumdar in 1868. "The humility, the hope, the prayerfulness, reverence, love, faith, and joy, that flow in celestial currents at such times, catch men's souls by a sort of holy contagion. . . . . Men and women are similarly affected ; new converts are every time brought in, old converts are regenerated and refreshened. Those Brahmos who desire to know what it is to see and feel God (we speak with the humble reverence of sinners) should come and attend one of the Brahmostabs. "^ Sometimes, at the close of the ceremony, the worshippers formed into a procession, and, with the minister at their head, paraded the streets of the native quarter, singing hymns to the glory of the one and only God. A part of these innovations, if we are to believe the pandit Sivanath Sastri, were due to the better understanding which was reached at the I. The following is a description of one of these festivals, the Bhadrostab of 1 87 1, taken from the Indian Mirror of the 22nd of August, 1871, and it at least proves the fervour of those who took part in it : — Precisely at six o'clock a hymn was sung in the upper gallery of the Mandir to announce the solemnities of the day. Others followed with the harmonium ac- companiment, and thus the singing continued from hymn to hymn till the com- mencement of the service which, including the sermon, lasted from 7 to 10 o'clock. A part of the congregation then withdrew for refreshment, but the remainder sur- rounded the Vedi to ask the minister for an explanation of various points of his sermon. At noon, when the meeting was again full, four pandits came forward and recited Sanscrit texts in succession. At one o'clock, the minister gave an address on the following four points : — (i) The Veda is inferior to the true Scrip- ture, in which the eternal God reveals himself; (2) The sage must everywhere reject error and retain truth ; (3) It is the spirit or essence of all Scriptures, great and small, which should be sought, for this is truth ; (4) To find God, we must turn to the Scriptures, to the sages and to conscience. Then came several philo- sophical theses and religious expositions by their authors. Hymns, meditations and prayers in common brought the congregation to close upon 7 o'clock, when seven new Brahmos were to be initiated by a special ceremony. This, with a con- nected sermon, did not last less than two hours and the meeting, if we are to believe the chronicler, showed no signs of weariness after these fifteen hours of continuous devotion, but separated singing that it had not even then had enough : "The heart wishes not to return home." 2. Indian Mirror of the 1st of July, 1868. THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. 247 commencement of the Bharatbharsia Somaj between the party led by Keshub and the school of Bhakti^ principally represented in Bengal by the followers of Chaitanya. The neo-Brahmos borrowed from the latter, for instance, the hymns which they sang in their Sankirians, and though these lyrical compositions were doubtless freed from all Polytheistic allusion, they bore the impress of that sweet mysticism which is at once the charm and the peril of the Hindu genius. "The metres are peculiar and usually vary in the same hymn," says Miss S. D. Collet, " and the wild recitative-like tunes are such as sorely task a European ear to apprehend and retam ; but however ineffective they may sound to us, a very great effect is produced by them in India, especially when sung in unison by hundreds of believers, all warmly moved by the sentiments expressed."^ The Mandir, or Church, which the Bharatbharsia Somaj built for itself was not finished until 1869. The opening service took place on the 29th of August, in the presence of a very large and enthusiastic audience. Keshub read on that occasion the following declaration, which I reproduce in full, because it contains a clear exposition of his views at the time : — " To-day, by Divine grace, the public worship of God is instituted in these premises, for the use of the Brahmo community. Every day, or at least every week, the one only God, without a second, the Perfect and the Infinite, the Creator of all, omnipresent, almighty, all-knowing, all-merciful, and all-holy, will be worshipped here. " No man or inferior being or material object shall be worshipped here as identical with God or like unto God or as an incarnation of God, and no prayer or hymn shall be chanted unto or in the name of any except God. No carved or painted image, no external symbol which has been or may hereafter be used by any sect for the purpose of worship or the remembrance of a particular event, shall be pre- served here. No creature shall be sacrificed here. Neither eating nor drinking nor any manner of mirth or amusement shall be allowed here. No created being or object that has been or may hereafter be worshipped by any sect shall be ridiculed or contemned in the course of the Divine service to be conducted here. No book shall be acknow- ledged or revered as the infallible word of God ; yet no book that has I. See some translations of these hymns in The Brahmo Year Book for 1877, page 50. 248 THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. or may hereafter be acknowledged by any sect to be infallible shall be ridiculed or contemned. No sect shall be vilified, ridiculed or hated. No prayer, hymn, sermon or discourse, to be delivered or used here, shall countenance or encourage any manner of idolatry, sectarianism or sin. Divine service shall be conducted here in such spirit and manner as may enable all men and women, irrespective of distinctions of caste, colour and condition, to unite in one family, eschew all man- ner of error and sin, and advance in wisdom, faith and righteousness. The congregation of the Brahma Mandir of India shall worship God in these premises according to the rules and principles hereinbefore set forth. Peace ! Peace ! Peace ! " The Bharatbharsia Somaj had soon made their organization the rallying-point of the great majority of the Somaj es which already ex- isted in the provinces, and the number of their adherents became in a short time greater than that of the original Association. There was, however, a legal obstacle which deterred many from the public adop- tion of Brahmoism, even after they had accepted its doctrines. The Indian law, for instance, sanctioned only religious marriages — that is, marriages regularly celebrated according to the rites of some recog- nized religious body. What was there binding, therefore, in unions cele- brated without the formalities required by the traditional religion? The importance of this question was soon seen from a decision given by Mr. T. H. Cowie, the Attorney-General of India, to the effect that Brahmoist marriages were not valid and that the children born of such unions were illegitimate. The Brahmos immediately drew up a petition, praying the Government to place their new ritual on a com- mon footing with the Hindu rites. Nothing was more just than this, nothing simpler in appearance. Hence, in 1868, notwithstanding the reserve and the slowness with which the English Government ventures to interfere with the develop- ment of national traditions and customs, above all among its Asiatic subjects. Sir H. Sumner Maine, who presided over the department of justice in the Vice-regal Cabinet, introduced a Bill which exceeded even the request of the petitioners by making civil marriages optional among the natives of India — that is to say, the recognized religious bodies retained the right to celebrate legal marriages, but it was lawful for every one. Christians excepted, to marry, without any religious THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. 249 ceremony, before a civil functionary or registrar appointed by the Government. The project naturally called forth from the orthodox of every creed protestations similar to those with which we have long been familiar in Europe. Parsees and Brahmans forgot their differences to de- nounce in common the danger to which religion, the family and society were about to be exposed if their co-religionists were authorized to do without priestly intervention in the most solemn act of life. In the presence of this agitation, the Government withdrew the Bill, and it was not till the commencement of 187 1, after an interval of two years, that the successor of Sir H. Sumner Maine, Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, proposed a new measure, "The Brahmo Marriage Act," which was drawn up with the conditions demanded by the Brahmos. By thus seeking to give validity to the ritual of Keshub Chunder Sen, the Government was thereby sanctioning certain reforms of the greatest importance for India. In spite, for instance, of the formal text of the Vedas, which re- cognize a certain independence in women, these have fallen, in con- sequence of the Mussulman invasions, into a condition of subjection which leaves them no preference in the choice of a lord and master. Brahmoism, which has done so much for the emancipation of the Hindu woman, could not pass over such a disregard of the equality of the sexes, and, in the reform of its ritual, it at once introduced into the marriage service the condition, hitherto unheard of, that the consent of the woman had been " freely given before God, the All- powerful." Another innovation, contained in the proposed measure and made equally at the suggestion of Keshub Chunder Sen, who had long been preaching against the scourge of premature marriages, fixed a minimum of 18 years for young men and 14 for girls. Finally, the Bill introduced monogamy into the Hindu code, by making it obligatory upon all those who might avail themselves of the provisions of the new Act. Although restricted to a special sect, the new Bill met with the same opposition as the preceding one, and it may be mentioned as a characteristic detail, that the members of the Adi Somaj were among its bitterest opponents. Two thousand persons professing to be Brahmos went so far as to petition the Legislative Council of India, praying that the measure might be rejected as useless, excessive, and 250 THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. dangerous. A middle course between the proposal of Mr. Stephen and that of Sir H. S. Maine was therefore adopted. The Legislative Council struck the name of the Brahmos from the Bill and made it applicable, under the title of " The Native Marriage Act," to " persons who do not profess the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Mohammedan, Parsi, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion,"^ — a negative enumeration calculated to re-assure the adherents of the different religious bodies against the abandonment of their altars by sceptical or impatient bridegrooms. 2 The very vehemence of the opposition which the neo-Brahmos had been compelled to overcome in obtaining legal sanction for their marriages, could not fail to advance their cause, since it brought them under the notice of all who were seeking an agency for social and religious regeneration, as Keshub himself had formerly done. Imme- diately after his return from the journey he made to England, with four disciples at the end of 1870, the minister of the Bharatbharsia Somaj founded at Calcutta the Indian Reform Association, "with a view to promote the moral and social reform of the natives of India." Open to all the natives without distinction of race or creed, but com- posed chiefly of Brahmos, it was divided into five sections under the following heads : (i) The amelioration of the lot of women ; (2) edu- cation ; (3) cheap literature; (4) temperance; (5) philanthropical activities. From its commencement, this society was to be found at the head of all the movements set on foot to secure the moral and material re- 1. A somewhat numerous sect in the East of India who profess doctrines bordering on those of Buddhism. 2. Here is the text of the declaration which the new law, promulgated on the 22nd of March, 1872, and requires to be signed by the contracting parties in the presence of the registrar and three witnesses : — "I, A. B., hereby declare as follows : (i) I am at the present time unmarried ; (2) I do not profess the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Mohammedan, Parsi, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion ; (3) I have com- pleted my age of eighteen (or fourteen) years; (4) I am not related to C. D. (the other contracting party) in any degree of consanguinity or affinity which would, according to the law to which I am subject or to which the said C. D. is subject, render a marriage between us illegal; (5) and (for cases where the legal age or majority is not attained) the consent of N. M., my father (or guardian as the case may be) has been given to the marriage between myself and C. D. and has not been revoked ; (6) I am aware that if any statement in this declaration is false, and, if in making such statement, I either know or believe it to be false, or do not believe it to be true, I am liable to imprisonment and also to fine." (See The Brahmo Year Book for 1879). THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. 251 generation of India. The education of women and the suppression of intemperance seem to have specially engaged its attention. In 187 1, it founded on behalf of the native women, an adult school and also a training college, to which was attached a girls' elementary school, to serve as a means for the acquisition of experience. By 1875, t^^ students of the normal college had formed among them- selves a mutual instruction society, which arranged for periodical lectures under the direction of Keshub, and published its transactions in the organ of the Association, the Bamabodhini Patrikd, which was widely circulated among the families of Bengal. Another educational institution, the Bengal Ladies' School, was opened at Calcutta in 1876, to prepare governesses for the examination, which had been organized by the Government ; and among the students who at once gave in their names, were four widows. Together with these schools Keshub founded in 1882, the Bharat Assam, a sort of boarding house to serve as a home for native women desirous of living in common under the protection of the Brahmo Somaj. These institutions, which were imitated in many particulars by the local congregations, have had as their immediate result, not only the improved condition of women among the disciples of Brahmoism, but their existence has, moreover, inditectly provided the sex with a solid vantage ground in the struggles they have to carry on against the dominant religions of India. Miss Collet states in her Year Book for 1876, that the Brahmoist women rival the originators of the move- ment, in their activity and enthusiasm. Now, the more a reforming movement comes into collision with national customs and traditions, the more necessary is the co-operation of the feminine element, to enable it to overcome the resistance of the social environment. It is by woman's agency that new ideas take possession of the family, and it is through the family that the regeneration of society com- mences. The Brahmos have seized upon a truth here, which is too often overlooked in European countries. * Meanwhile the Indian Reform Association was also applying itself, with no less success, to a search for a remedy against the habit of in- temperance, which is a recent vice in India. Before the arrival of the English, it is an undoubted fact that the Hindus and the Moham- medans vied with each other in sobriety, which is, moreover, enjoined by the nature of the climate. With European civilization the taste 252 THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. for fermented liquors unhappily introduced itself, and for the last third of a century drunkenness has been extending through India like a deadly leprosy. The Association began its work by establishing a journal, Mad na Gar all (Wine or Poison?) and by organizing lectures for inculcating abstention from strong drinks. But these efforts not having produced sufficient results, Keshub, after making an inquiry himself in all parts of Bengal, presented a petition to the Governor-General, signed by 16,200 Bengalese, in which he requested the Government to place re- strictions on the sale of fermented beverages. The prayer of the petitioners was granted, on the revision of the general tariff in 1876, when the duty on the importation of wines and spirits was consider- ably raised ; besides this, in the following year, a special measure was passed by the Legislature, which restricted the number of wine shops, prohibited the clandestine sale of alcoholic drinks, declared public- house debts unrecoverable by legal means and forbade dealers in such beverages to accept goods as a pledge of payment. And finally the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal was intrusted with the power to transfer to the justices of the peace, in any locality he might think fit, the right to withdraw the license from public-houses. ^ These examples show how largely the Brahmos had become an embodiment of the reforming spirit of native society, in the eyes of the Anglo-Indian Government. The late Viceroy, Lord Northbrook, did them ample justice in this respect when on his departure from Calcutta in 1876,2 he publicly expressed, to their secretary, the lively sympathy with which he regarded their moral and social labours, *' though, of course, theologically he differed from them in opinion." Meanwhile the religious proselytism of Brahmoism went on hand- in-hand with its social activities. People came from all parts to hear the fervent and inspired utterances of Keshub, who, on certain occa- sions, drew together audiences numbering from two to three thousand persons. At the same time, innumerable tracts, containing prayers, sermons, lectures, and moral or religious dissertations, were distributed all over the country with that indefatigable prodigality, the secret of which our reformers had borrowed from the Bible So cieties of England. 1. The Brahmo Year Book {ox iS"] 6. 2. The vice-regal sceptre of India changes hands every few years, and two •viceroys — Lord Lytton and Lord Ripon — have completed their term of office since Lord Northbrook's rule came to an end. — Translator. THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. 253 But it was above all by means of missionaries that Brahmoism extended its conquests in the interior of the peninsula. These missionaries, who are trained in a theological institute established for that purpose, aim at maintaining the faith of their own people and at extending their doctrines among others. Every year, towards the time of the principal Brahmostab, they meet in conference at Calcutta, and set out thence to the very extremities of India, following a route traced out beforehand. Visiting the congregations already in existence, they also seek everywhere to found new ones. Their families they leave behind, at the expense of the community, so that they may be free to devote themselves exclusively to the interests of the Church. Stopping wherever there is any hope of a sympathetic or even of an attentive hearing, they preach the good word in the public squares, beneath a tree, on the edge of a pond, in the midst of a fair or even on the roof of a house. In some instances, they request one of their co-religionists to assemble a few friends in his own house, where they worship with closed doors. As soon as they have in anyway brought together a nucleus of followers, they organize them into a regular congregation, which begins at once to collect funds for building a mandir. It must not be supposed that the Brahmans, or, speaking generally, the orthodox Hindus, are slow to creatfe every kind of embarrassment for them. More than once, especially in Bengal, the populace have been seen to interrupt and break up their meetings ; they have even taken possession of and burnt the building after maltreating the con- gregation, as was the case at Cagmari in 187 1. But these acts of violence, which are repugnant to Hindu manners, seldom occur and never happen a second time in the same place. The opposition shows itself more frequently in the shape of those social excommunications which the law is powerless to foresee and to repress. Some years ago, for instance, an Association was formed in Bengal, the members of which pledged themselves to maintain no social relations whatever with the adherents of Brahmoism, even though such persons should be their own nearest relatives. In some localities the shop-keepers, bar- bers and others refused to accept the Brahmos as customers. These facts, however, are not specially applicable to India alone, for they are to be seen manifesting themselves every day in the Catholic vil- lages of Belgium, at the expense of the Free-thinkers domiciled there. Still, persecutions of this kind, whether direct or indirect, were power- 254 THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. less to arrest the progress of Brahmoism, and during the year 1876 alone the number of Somajes increased from 108 to T28.1 All these congregations, scattered as they are throughout India, seek more or less to imitate the parent congregation. Speaking generally, the influence exercised by each Somaj depends less upon the number of its members than upon their zeal and activity. Small congregations, especially in remote districts, often become ardent centres of proselytism, sending missionaries in all directions and creating libraries and even schools for the use of the neighbouring populations. Here is Miss Collet's description of the principal institutions which characterize a Somaj in its full development : — A. — Religion, (i) Common worship at least once a week, but generally at shorter intervals; (2) Religious festivals on special occasions ; (3) The use of an order of service in celebration of births, marriages and funerals; (4) A series of religious dis- cussions; (5) A Theistic library; (6) An organization for spread- ing the principles of Brahmoism, carried on by means of missionaries, pamphlets and a journal. B. — Philanthropy, (i) Distribution of alms ; (2) Dispensaries for the sick; (3) Associations for checking intemperance, early marriages, &c. C. — Education, (i) Various agencies for the instruction of women, such as lectures, special publications, ladies' associations, &c. ; (2) Schools for both sexes; (3) Night schools for the working classes.2 When I visited Calcutta at the end of 1876, the question of holding a general assembly was under consideration. It was proposed that the conference should consist of delegates from all the congregations affiliated to the Bharatbharsia Somaj, and the proposition was carried into effect on the 23rd of the following September, under the presi- dency of Keshub. The basis of a representative organization for the 1. Of this number 61 were in Bengal, where some towns possessed two. At Bengalore, a few officers of the native camp had established a military Somaj with a school for the daughters of the soldiers. At Lahore, the wife of the minister had commenced a congregation consisting exclusively of women, in which she herself officiated. 2. Preface to The Brahmo Year Book for 1880. THE SOCIAL REFORMS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. 255 regulation of the general interests of the neo-Brahmo Church was agreed upon by this assembly, and it was arranged to hold another meeting the following year to complete the work thus commenced. But this arrangement was made without any knowledge of the cir- cumstances which were about to endanger, if not the cause of Brahmoism, at least the unity of the Bharatbharsia Somaj and the prestige of its founder. It is often in the hour of greatest prosperity that Churches, like States, find themselves shaken to their founda- tions, by an excessive application of the principles which have formed their strength and greatness. CHAPTER XIII THE ECLECTICISM OF THE BRAHMA DHARMA IN ITS STRUGGLE WITH HINDU MYSTICISM. Theodicy and Morals of Brahmoism — Its relation to the schools of Ved^ntine Philosophy and German Idealism — Rationalistic Eclecticism of the Brahma Dharma — Mystical theories of Keshub Chunder Sen on the mission of great men and the nature of inspiration and prayer — Asceticism in the Bharatbharsia Somaj — Keshub's letter to Miss Collet — The Bairagya movement — Keshub's sacerdotal tendencies — The opposition they called forth — Proposed marriage of Keshub's daughter to the young Maharajah of Couch-Behar — Dissatisfaction caused among the Brahmos by the immature age of the young couple — Inci- dents of the wedding at the Court of Couch-Behar — Keshub's concessions to the nuptial practices of Hinduism — Attempt of his Brahmo opponents to bring about his deposition at Calcutta — Founding of the Sadharan SomSj — Programme of the new Brahmoist Church — Its rapid development. Both as theodicy and morals Brahmoism springs, at once, from the Vedantine Idealism, which is still the dominant philosophy of the enlightened Hindus ; from German Idealism, which the writings of Carlyle and Coleridge have popularized even in India ; and, at a later date, from English Theism and American Transcendentalism. In imitation of this latter the Brahma Dharma declares that " intuition is the root of Brahmoism." It consequently admits of two methods for the attainment of truth. It asserts that the genuine scriptures given by God are two in number : the book of Nature and the ideas implanted in the mind of man. *' The wisdom, the power, the good- ness of God are written, it declares, in letters of gold upon the face of the universe : we know God by the study of his works. In the second place all fundamental truths are met with in the spiritual con- stitution of man, as primordial, self-evident convictions." The God of Brahmoism is the Ultimate Being, infinite in Time and Space, the Creator and Preserver of all things, who is both just and merciful. Brahmoism formally rejects the doctrine of Incarnation. We read in the Brahma Dharma for instance : That God never makes himself man by assuming the human form. His divinity dwells in all men though it specially manifests itself in some. Thus Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Nanak, Chaitanya and all the great religious reformers 258 THE ECLECTICISM OF THE BRAHMA DHARMA of different epochs, have rendered eminent services to their fellows in the name of religion, and possess a claim upon the gratitude and love of all. They were neither absolutely holy nor infallible, they were only gifted men. Brahmoism distinguishes between four kinds of duty: (i) Duly towards God : faith, love, worship, the practice of virtue, &c. ; (2) duties to ourselves : the preservation of health, the pursuit of know- ledge, holiness, &c. ; (3) duties in relation to our fellows : truth, gratitude, the love of our neighbour, justice, the fulfilment of our engagements, benevolence in the most extended sense, &c. ; (4) duties towards the inferior animals, such as kind and humane treatment. Brahmoism is naturally an eclectic and universal religion. The Brahma Dharma proscribes the distinctions of caste and declares that all men are brethren. The Brahmos consider it distinct from all other religions and yet the essence of all. It is not hostile to other creeds ; it accepts whatever truth they contain, and rejects only their errors. Being based upon the nature of man it is therefore permanent and universal. It is confined to no special epoch or race ; so that men of every age and land who profess this natural form of religion are Brahmos. As to the soul — and it is here above all that Brahmoism becomes radically separated from Pantheistic doctrines — God created it, as all other material or immaterial things, but though it has thus had a beginning it will have no end. God alone is eternal ; the soul is only immortal. On the dissolution of the organism which it animates, it will quit the terrestrial regions, with its virtues and its vices, in order to indefinitely carry forward in other spheres the struggle for truth and perfection. It is in this sense we are to understand the teaching of the Brahma Dharma, that " the Paradise of the Brahmo consists in the society of God." With a conception thus elevated of our relation to God, the " pro- cess of salvation," is necessarily the pursuit of the ideal by the search for the true and the practice of the good. Still Brahmoism would not be a religion, if it did not inculcate the necessity of some form of worship, with a view to bringing its adherents into communion with the Absolute — a form of worship which it makes to consist entirely of love, adoration and prayer, and not of ceremonial ob- servances. It is above all to individual and spontaneous prayer that IN ITS STRUGGLE WITH HINDU MYSTICISM. 259 it assigns an important place in its liturgy, not with a view to obtain a miraculous modification of the laws of nature or even to render unnecessary the expiation of sins actually committed, but in order to procure for the sinner, thus purified by repentance, the moral strength needed to avoid falling back into his former evil ways. To this scheme of theology, which is as simple as it is natural, Keshub attached theories that appear to be an unconscious re-action of Hindu mysticism against the rigidity of the Rationalistic tendencies developed in Brahmoism by its contact with European philosophy. As early as 1866, in a sermon on "Great Men," which excited no little attention in Calcutta, he sought to prove that, over and above conscience and external nature, there is a third channel through which God reveals Himself to the human mind : it is the influence of men providentially raised up, who thus specially represent "God in History." The benefactors and reformers of the human race may therefore be regarded, he urged, as incarnations of the Divine, not in the common acceptation of the term, which lends a human form to the Infinite Being, but in this sense : that God, who is present in all men, reveals Himself more fully in certain superior natures. Let the East and the West appreciate and honour each other's great teachers, he said, and " thus hostile Churches and the dismembered races of mankind shall be knit together into one family in the bonds of faith in the common Father and universal gratitude and esteem towards their elder brothers, the prophets.'' This was a very elevated conclusion, but from the development which he gave to his definition of providential men, Keshub made of them a special class, intermediate agents between the masses and God, who were supposed to be superior to the apparent laws of the moral universe and infallible in their opinions when under the influence of divine inspiration. But by what signs are the chosen of Providence to be recognized ? Keshub gives us no clue whatever to this ; he merely explains that the prophetic office may become the mission of any one who, through fervency and continuance in prayer, knows how, in a sense, to lay hold of the Divine. In a discourse on " Inspiration," preached in 1873, for instance, on the occasion of the 43rd anniversary of the Brahmo Somaj, he said ; — " Prayer and inspiration are two sides of the same fact of spiritual life. Man asks and God gives. The spirit of man kneels and is 260 THE ECLECTICISM OF THE BRAHMA DHARMA quickened by the spirit of God. The cause and the effect seem hardly distinguishable, and in the reciprocal action of the human and the Divine spirits there is a mysterious unity. Hardly has man opened his heart in prayer when the tide of inspiration sets in. The moment you put your finger in contact with fire, you instantly feel a burning sensation. So with prayer and the consequent inspiration. The effect is immediate, necessary, inevitable. . . . Observe the process : God acts upon the soul and the soul re-acts upon God, and there is re-action again and again. That response stirs the deepest depths of the heart, and we pour forth our feelings and sentiments of love and gratitude, and consecrate our energies unto God. These are again sent down with greater blessings and increased power, so that the heart is more than ever quickened and sanctified. Thus we gradually ascend from the lowest point of communion to its higher stages, till we gradually attain that state of inspiration in which the human will is wholly lost in the divine. Blessed he who has realized this but once in his life-time. . . . Nay, the inspired soul goes further. It does not rest satisfied with having cast off the old and put on the new man ; it aspires to put on divinity. With the profoundest rever- ence, be it said, that it is possible for man, when inspired, to put on God. For then self is completely lost in conscious godliness, and you feel that you can do nothing of yourself, and that all your holy thoughts, words and actions, are only the breathings of the Holy Spirit. So the great prophets of earlier times thought and felt. They felt strong in God's strength and pure in God's purity, and to Him they ascribed all honour and glory, "i It is easy to see in the author of this language, so interspersed with ecstatic pictures and ardent invocations recalling the visions of God among the mystics of the Middle Ages, a descendent of that contemplative and exalted race which deified prayer under the name of Brahma and subjected the will of the gods to the incantations of men. It is doubtless true that Keshub avoids falling into Pantheism, which he condemns for having " dishonoured God and ruined man," by sapping the foundations of morality and true religion in Hindu society : "In Pantheism man with all his impurity fancies he is God. I, Inspiration^ a Lecture delivered on the occasion of the Forty-third Anniver- sary of the Brahjno Somdj, Calcutta, 1873. The principal sermons and discourses of Keshub have been collected into a volume, which was published in English, at Calcutta, in 1882. IN ITS STRUGGLE WITH HINDU MYSTICISM. 261 In Theism man is purified and so attuned to the divine will as to become one with it. The Theist's heaven is not absorption into the divine essence, but the Nirwana of Ahankar or the annihilation of egotism. In the highest state of inspiration, man's only creed is: * Lord thy will be done !'" Still, it is none the less true that by thus making union with God, through renunciation and ecstacy, man's supreme aim, Keshub furnished a dangerous element to the spirit of asceticism and contemplation, which is so powerful among his fellow countrymen, while at the same time, by his theory of Adesh^ that is to say direct and special inspiration, he placed the vargaries of the in- dividual mind above the general laws of reason and morality. The appeal to the sentiments of bhakti had unquestionably con- tributed to the rapid progress of the Bharatbharsia by means of the fervour and persistence with which it fired the adherents of Keshub after their secession from the Adi Somaj. Miss Collet even supposes that it was these sentiments which saved Brahmoism from final dissolu- tion.i But confined, like every movement of the sort, within the domain of sentiment and imagination, it was exposed to the danger of over-shooting the mark and of encroaching upon other spheres of activity. In 1874, Keshub called forth the enthusiasm of his friends to such an extent that they remained si^s: hours " in continual com- munion with God," and were sometimes led to withdraw into solitude, in order to chant the divine name there, with passionate fervour.2 At the same period he organized a pilgrimage into the Himalaya Mountains with a small company of devotees. They all took up their abode at a romantic spot commanding a vast panorama of snowy peaks, and went out every morning, each in a different direction, to give themselves up to prayer and meditation in solitude ; then they met to pray and sing in common, sometimes in a glade or on the slope of a valley, sometimes by the side of a stream or a waterfall.^ 1. Bramho Year Book for 1877. One of the first things Keshub took care to do, when he organized the Bharatbharsia Somaj, was to establish, in addition to a theological school, a Sangat sabha (an association for religious conversation), a Society of Theistic Friends, missionary conferences and other institutions for the cultivation and elevation of the religious sentiment in its various forms. 2. See his essays in the early numbers of the Indian Mirror. A part of these articles were republished in 1874, in a small volume entitled : Essays, Theological and Ethical, from the Indian Mirror, in which are to be found all the tendencies which subsequently developed themselves in the New Dispensation. 3. Essays: Theological and Ethical^ ^. 147. 262 THE ECLECTICISM OF THE BRAHMA DHARMA Charged, and not unjustly, with fostering the development of asceticism, Keshub defended himself as follows, in a letter to Miss Collet, dated the loth of December, 1875 • "The amount of ascetic self-mortification actually existing among us, has been greatly ex- aggerated. If you come and see us as we are, you will be surprised to find how little we possess of that sort of asceticism, which has caused so much anxiety and fear in the hearts of English friends. If we were like the Roman Catholics or Indian Hermits, the sharp criticism called forth would have been deserved. But my asceticism is not what is generally accepted as such. . . . Energy, philan- thropy, meditation, work, self-sacrifice, intellectual culture, domestic and social love, all these are united in my asceticism. Why, then, you may ask, this special outburst of ascetic zeal at this time ? It is needed. That is my explanation. Providence has pointed out this remedy for many of the besetting evils of the Somaj in these days. A like asceticism is needed as an antedote. . . . Do regard it then as a remedy for the time most urgently needed." ^ Meanwhile, at the commencement of 1876, the movement assumed a still more pronounced character, under the form of bairagya (renun- ciation), with a view, as it was said, to facilitate the removal of those obstacles which the carnal passions offer to moral and religious pro- gress. Its members were divided into four sections or orders : yoga (communion with God) ; bhakti (love of God) ; gyan (researches for God) ; shaha (service of humanity).^ Each of these four classes com- 1. Brahmo Year Book for 1877, page 22. 2. Here is a specimen of what was taught in the yoga section ; it will be clear from this that what Keshub understood by asceticism is rather pure mysticism. " O you learner oiyoga^ know that true communion is not possible unless thou dost draw within thyself wholly. All thy senses, nay thy whole being must be absorbed in the profound contemplation of the object of thy yoga. Yet thou shalt not always tarry within thyself. There must be the reverse process of coming from within to the world outside. . . . True yoga is therefore like a circle. It is a wheel continually revolving from the inner to the outer. From the outer it goes to the inner again. As the yoga advances, the gyrations become more rapid and frequent, till the distance and difference between the inner and the outer become continually less. Forms grow formless, and formlessness shapes itself into forms. In matter the spirit is beheld ; in spirit matter is transformed. In the glorious sun, the glory of glories is beheld. In the serene moon, the serenity of all serenities fills the soul. In the loud thunder, the might of the Lord is heard from afar. All things are full of Him. The yoga opens his eye, lo ! He is without. The yoga closes his eye, lo ! He is within. Thy yoga, O disciple, will then become complete. Do thou always strive after that completeness." — Yoga Teachings. {Brahmo Year Book for 1877.) IN ITS STRUGGLE WITH HINDU MYSTICISM. 263 prised two grades of membership : the initiated or novice (sadhac), and the advanced or superior (sibha) ; this last position gave to those possessing it a special authority over their co-religionists : " There will henceforth be a difference between you and those who surround you," said Keshub to the superior order. " The divine light will come by your intervention, and they will have to receive it from you." This is an illustration of how, in forms of faith originally the least dogmatic and ritualistic, there arises that distinction between clergy and laity, which ultimately engenders sacerdotal theocracies, if nothing occurs to arrest its complete development. A proof of the danger which now threatened the Brahmo Somaj of India, is to be found in the fact that the first two orders in which the contemplative prevailed, immediately absorbed all the activity of the congregation, to the detriment of philosophical or literary studies and of the institutions designed to promote social reform. In 1876, for instance, Keshub breaks off his jubilee lectures and passes the greater part of his time in a garden in the environs of Calcutta, giving himself up to contemplation and prayer with his principal disciples, all of them being seated for hours together in the shade of trees on mats or tigers' skins. In a number of the Theistic Quarterly^ in 1877, Protab Chunder Mozoumdar — who shared, it may be remarked, the tendencies of Keshub — complains of the neglect in which his coadjutors were beginning to leave the useful elements of life, thought and sentiment, introduced by Western influence. In his report of the following year, he mentions with regret that the schools of the Bharatbharsia Somaj were in a state of decay. In 1877, the Brahmo Niketan^ had to be closed, and some months later the normal school for girls which Keshub had founded saw itself deprived of the Government grant on the ground of its inefficiency. There were certainly some few sober spirits in the congregation at Calcutta, who raised a protest against this sad tendency ; but all they gained by their opposition was a charge of lukewarmness and jealousy. Several years earlier, indeed, the enemies of Keshub taking note of his doctrine of great men, and also of the display of veneration which in Eastern fashion he received from a part of his followers, had accused him of wishing to resuscitate the theory of Avatars to his own advan- I. A sort of model boarding house, organized by Keshub, in 1873, for the use of Brahmoistic students. 264 THE ECLECTICISM OF THE BRAHMA DHARMA tage. But the very exaggeration of this reproach had contributed to strengthen his influence in Calcutta, as well as in the provinces, and he seemed to personify Brahmoism more than ever, when, at the end of 1877, the news that he was going to marry his daughter to the Maharajah of Couch-Behar fell like a thunder-clap upon the Brahmo Somaj. Couch-Behar is a tributary state of the Anglo-Indian Empire, situated in the north of Bengal, at the foot of the Himalaya, with an area of 1292 square miles, and a population of 532,000 souls. Its ruler, who was still a minor, had received a liberal education, which had more or less freed him from the prejudices of religion and of caste. It was hoped, therefore, that this union, while it increased the moral power of Keshub, would at length gain over the young Prince to the doctrines of Brahmoism, if indeed it did not lead some day to his playing the part of a second Constantine in his dominions. Still the news of this marriage was far from meeting with a favour- able reception from all sections of the Brahmos. The Rajah was but fifteen years old and his bride only thirteen, that is to say neither of them had reached the age required by the "Native Marriage Act," and it was urged that Keshub had been one of the first to de- mand that Act with a view to prevent premature marriages. As a matter of fact, the law was applicable neither to Couch-Behar nor to the person of its sovereign. Still, was this any reason for not respect- ing a legal arrangement, whose introduction into Anglo-Indian rule had been regarded as one of the most important social achievements of Brahmoism ? Then again, if the marriage was not to be celebrated according to the requirements of the " Native Marriage Act," there remained but the use of the Hindu ritual, more or less freed from its Polytheistic formulas, or of that employed in the Adi Somaj, and it must not be forgotten that the latter ritual, besides containing several ceremonies opposed to the spirit of neo-Brahmoism, left the door open to polygamy and other abuses. If the young Rajah was a genuine Brahmo why did he not make the "Native Marriage Act" binding in his dominions, and why did he not wait a year longer in order to marry according to the principles of his co-religionists, after attaining the matrimonial majority prescribed by the new law? Keshub Chunder Sen, who had entered into communication with the Deputy-Commissioner of Couch-Behar, an English functionary, IN ITS STRUGGLE WITH HINDU MYSTICISM. 265 acting as guardian to the young prince, at first made his consent de- pendent upon the following conditions : — (i) That the Maharajah should adhere explicitly to Brahmoism ; (2) That the marriage should be celebrated according to the rites of the Bharatbharsia Somaj, with the simple addition of such local and traditional ceremonies as might be deemed necessary, provided that they did not imply any idolatrous practice; (3) that the solemnization of the marriage should be de- ferred till the bride and bridegroom had attained their matrimonial majority. On the first two points he obtained all the assurances he desired; but with regard to the third, he was told by the Anglo- Indian Government that as the Rajah had formed the project of an approaching journey to England, it was absolutely necessary that he should be married before carrying out this intention. At last, there- fore, he yielded and, on the 9th of February, 1878, the Indian Mirror of Calcutta contained an official announcement that the marriage would be celebrated at Couch-Behar in the early days of March. Protestations immediately began to shower down upon Keshub. In the course of eight days, he received no less than forty-four ; one was signed by twenty-three of his principal followers in the capital, another by the students of Calcutta, and a third by Brahmoist ladies, while at least thirty came from various provincial congregations. Meanwhile a committee was formed in the Calcutta congregation to watch over the interests of the Brahmo Somaj during the crisis. This committee at once called several meetings at the Town Hall, one of which, composed of at least 3000 persons, according to the Indian Daily News^ formally condemned the marriage project, add- ing, by means of a resolution, carried by a large majority : " That the Secretary of the Brahmo Somaj of India by countenancing this marriage, and by the utter disregard he has shown of the strong ex- pression of Brahmo public opinion on the subject, has forfeited his claims to the confidence of the Brahmo community." The day before this meeting, Keshub had set out for Couch-Behar with his daughter and a large party of friends. His position was even more delicate and difficult than it was thought to be at Calcutta. There existed at the Court of Couch-Behar, as indeed in the majority of the native Principalities, two parties : a party of reform, more or less directly encouraged by the English Government which was carrying on the administration during the minority of the 266 THE ECLECTICISM OF THE BRAHMA DHARMA sovereign, and the orthodox party, openly supported by the Princesses of the Royal House, the Ranies. When the preliminary festivities had already lasted five days, the mother and grandmother of the young prince declared, at the instigation of their pandits, that Keshub having lost his caste, could not be present within the sacred enclosure at the nuptual ceremony; that only Brahmans wearing the symbolic cord would be allowed to take part in the service ; that all the expressions introduced into the Marriage Service by the Brahmos, including the passage relative to the consent of the bride, would be cut out ; and finally that the married couple would have to celebrate the Hom or Homa, the sacrifice of fire. These claims were communicated to Keshub during the evening of the 4th of March. All the following day was spent in vainly attempting to bring about a compromise. In order not to interrupt the regular course of the arrangements, Keshub had already given over his daughter to the attendants whose duty it was to convey her to the Ranies; when driven, however, to extremities by the demands of the pandits, he declared he would rather break off the marriage than yield to such conditions, whatever scandal might be the result. But they told him this was too late, and that his daughter would not be given back to him, unless he consented to pay the expenses of all the preliminary festivities — a lac-and-a-half of rupees, or fifteen thousand pounds sterling. For a short time he adhered to his refusal, but his friends calmed him, and, thanks to the intervention of the Deputy- Commissioner, an arrangement was concluded on the following basis : The bride was to be led to the altar by her uncle, Krishna Bihari Sen, a Brahmo who had not lost his caste ; the ceremony originally agreed upon in the stipulations for the marriage was to be followed; the young wife was then to retire, and the Homa to be celebrated in the presence of the young Rajah alone. It was two o'clock in the morning before this compromise was settled and the negotiations had lasted from day-break the previous morning. Both parties betook themselves at once to the court of honour, which had been prepared for the ceremony. The Brahmos, however, who had been solemnly promised that no idolatrous symbol should be introduced, were disagreeably surprised to find there certain objects of an equivocal form, such as jars of water half covered over with banana leaves, and above all, two kinds of pillars about a yard- IN ITS STRUGGLE WITH HINDU MYSTICISM. 267 and-a-half high, enveloped in red cloth covers. These were probably images of Hari and of Gouri, the patron or tutelary divinities of Hindu marriages, whom there had been found means of inviting incognito to the wedding. Meanwhile the Deputy-Commissioner calmed the suspicions of the Brahmos, as well as he could, and the ceremony proceeded without a hitch till the moment when the friends of Keshub began to recite the prayers of their liturgy. Then there arose a clamour which drowned their voices, and it was in the private apart- ments of the Prince that the exchange of vows had to be made, a feature of the ceremony specially disagreeable to the Hindus of the old traditional school. A week later the young Maharajah set out for Calcutta, in order to embark there for Europe. This journey, which was about to com- promise his caste privileges, caused the orthodox of Couch-Behar a feeling of perhaps even greater pain than his marriage with the daughter of a Brahmo. A despatch published by the Indian Mirror of the 13th of March, states that on the announcement of his depar- ture, the Ranies, maddened with grief, struck their heads against the walls till they bled profusely, and that the prince had to take refuge against their lamentations in the residence of the Deputy-Com- missioner, without even venturing to bid them good-bye. Here is a passage from a petition which these princesses addressed at that time to the Commissioner of Couch-Behar : " We are helpless, weak women, you are wise and powerful. The honour and prestige of our family is entrusted to your hands. We, therefore, repeatedly pray that you will not, during the minority of the Maharaja, and " in opposition to the wishes of all, send him to England. The Maharaja's servants have all fled ; his Brahmin (cook) refuses to go and we cannot get another (to serve him). If you are not averse to a matter so destructive to our caste and religion, then we request that you will at once send this petition to His Honour, the Lieutenant- Governor. When our caste and religion are about to go and this life and future life are both in peril, we are prepared to send this petition of powerless and unsupported women to the bright throne of Srimati, the Empress of India." It should be added that the other relatives of the Rajah had even declined to be present at his marriage. ^ I. Brahmo Year Book for 1878, pages 9 — 68. 268 THE ECLECTICISM OF THE BRAHMA DHARMA All these incidents, however trivial and futile they may appear to us at a distance, will not astonish those who reflect upon the pro- foundly conventional nature of ancient Hindu society, and the dissolv- ing influence exerted upon it by its sudden contract with European civilization. When we bear in mind, indeed, the obstacles, if not the ill-feeling, which mixed unions encounter, even in countries where civil marriage is a legal institution, we cannot be surprised at the importance attached to the least formality calculated to determine whether this princely union should be regarded as a Hindu or a Brahmoist marriage. Nor will anyone be astonished to learn that the Orthodox and the Reformers were alike disappointed by the result. The adherents of Hinduism complained that certain essential formulas of their liturgy. had been omitted to satisfy the claims of a heretical creed ; on the other hand the Brahmos were aggrieved that a premature marriage had been sanctioned, a compromise made with the spirit of caste, and idolatrous rites permitted at the ceremony. Now in my opinion the conduct of Keshub should not be judged too severely in this matter ; for he struggled as best he could, though unsuccessfully, to maintain the integrity of his Brahmoist principles. He even succeeded in his desire that the marriage should not be con- summated before the return of the Maharajah from his trip to England, and when this took place the young couple were re-united at\^alcutta according to the ritual of the Brahmos. ^ Still it cannot be denied that Keshub failed in loyalty to his own principles, and in cases where a simple follower inight be excused for yielding to the pressure of circumstances, a leader is expected to adopt a more uncompromising position. He who would exercise a religious or political ascendency over his fellows must make it his first care to shape his private life to his public career, his acts to his teachings. By violating in his own family the rules he had laid down, for the use of others, the reformer who had separated himself from the Adi Somaj with so much eda^, because it was not sufficiently free from Hindu prejudices and traditions, had committed one of those incon- I. Brahno Year Book for i88i, page 76. The London Truth, of Dec. 22nd, 1883, states that "the young Rajah who has just attained his majority, is one of the most popular men in Calcutta, and his bright intelligent face is to be seen at social gatherings of every description. The Maharani is a charming little woman, who knows how to receive her guests with a grace and an ease of manners that might be envied by many an Eastern hostess." IN ITS STRUGGLE WITH HINDU MYSTICISM. 269 sistent acts which even necessity does not suffice to justify; and the matter was made worse when, to defend himself from the attacks with which he was assailed, he entrenched himself behind the famous doc- trine of Adesh, affirming that he had followed the direct inspiration of God. Strange as this defence was, no one, even among his adver- saries, called in question his sincerity, which is certainly one of the highest tributes of respect that could have been paid to his character. But his very sincerity merely served to give prominence to the dangers of such a system and to show the necessity for its open repudiation. Of the fifty-seven Somajes which expressed an opinion on this subject, fifty censured Keshub's conduct and twenty-six of them demanded his immediate deposition from office. Finally, on the 21st of March, 1878, at the close of a meeting which Keshub had himself called, the Brahmos of Calcutta passed a resolution declaring "That in the opinion of this meeting he cannot continue in the office of the minister." But he contested the validity of this decision under the pretext of irregularity in the voting, and when on the following Sunday his opponents sought to take possession of the Mandir or Church, he succeeded in repulsing them by calling in the aid of the police. The dissentients consequently resolved to secede from the Bharat- bharsia Somaj, and to form a new organization, the Sadharan Somaj or Universal Church. On the 15 th of May the basis of the move- ment was agreed upon in the following terms, by a meeting of more than four hundred Brahmos : — " We believe that faith in a Supreme Being, and in existence after death, is natural to man ; we regard the relation between God and man to be direct and immediate ; we do not believe in the infallibility of any man or of any scripture ; what- ever books contain truths calculated to enoble the soul or elevate the character, is a Brahmo scripture ; and whoever teaches such truths is his teacher and his guide. We regard the fourfold culture of man's intellect, conscience, affections and devotion as equally important and equally necessary for his salvation. . . . We look upon the enjoy- ment of uncontrolled authority by a single individual in any religious community as a calamity, and far from looking upon freedom of thought as reprehensible, we consider it as a safeguard against corrup- tion and degeneracy. We regard the belief in an individual being a way to salvation, or a link between God and man, as a belief un- 270 THE ECLECTICISM OF THE BRAHMA DHARMA worthy of a Theist and those who hold such a belief, as unworthy of the Brahmo name. We consider it to be blasphemy and an insult to the Majesty of heaven to claim divine inspiration for any act opposed to the dictates of reason, truth and morality." By the end of September the work of the Provisional Committee was finished, and the Sadharan Somaj assumed a definitive constitu- tion, with the double character of being a Brahmo congregation in Calcutta and of forming a centre for affiliated provincial congrega- tions. Besides, the entire organization was formed on the model of the Bharatbharsia Somaj, except that it entrusted the ultimate direc- tion of its affairs to a committee of forty members, chosen directly by the General Assembly, with an additional delegate from each of the affiliated Somajes. The second article of its constitution defined as follows the principles to which its members were called upon to subscribe : (i) The existence of an infinite Creator; (2) the immortality of the soul; (3) the duty and the necessity of rendering a spiritual worship to God ; (4) the rejection of the belief that salvation is to be obtained by the interven- tion of a book or the aid of infallible men.^ On the 22nd of January, 188 1, the members of the Sadharan Somaj solemnly inaugurated their worship at the vast mandir they had built for themselves, in Cornwallis-street, Calcutta. The congre- gation met at dawn, in their temporary place of worship, where, after prayers, the pandit Sevanath Sastri reminded them how they must sing the name of God in the streets, without making a parade of it. This introductory service being over, the congregation betook them- selves to the new church, in procession, singing suitable hymns as they went. As they proceeded their numbers increased so much that, to use the language of an eye-witness, the procession formed " a sea of uncovered heads surging slowly onwards." From 1,200 to 1,500 were constantly present at the devotional exercises and the ceremonies of inauguration, which extended over two entire days.^ The reader will be able to judge from all this how far the members of the Sadharan Somaj merit the appellation of Secular Brahmos, which Keshub's friends have contemptuously styled them. On the 1. The New Dispensation and the Sddhdr'an Brahmo Somaj ^ by the pandit Sevanath Sistri. Madras, 1881. P. 90. 2. The Brahmo Year Book for 1881. IN ITS STRUGGLE WITH HINDU MYSTICISM. 271 contrary, indeed, it is they who represent the genuine idea of Brahmoism in all its integrity. It is but just to add, moreover, that they have already reproduced or developed the principal agencies of reform which had grouped themselves around the Bharatbharsia Somaj. These consist of schools and colleges for both sexes, libraries, sanghat sabhdSf missions and lectures, philanthropical societies, journals in several languages, associations of women, &c. In relation to the emancipation of women, they are even in advance of the Bharatbharsia Somaj, which while demanding for young girls the advantages of a complete education, does not, however, go so far as to grant them the freedom of action which characterizes Western civilization. ^ Finally, they completely organized, as we have seen, the principle of self- government in the affiairs of the Church. I. Savanath Sastri. Op. Cit. Page 74. CHAPTER XIV. THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. Increasing influence of Keshub among his followers after the secession of the dissentients — Am I an inspired prophet ? — India asks : Who is Christ ? — The motherhood of God — Proclamation of the New Dispensation — Borrowings from the rites and symbols of Hinduism — Invocation of Ilari — The sacrifice of Homa — Mystic dances — Keshub's judgment of Hinduism — Extension of his syncretism to the doctrines and practices of other religions — The Eucharist and Baptism in the New Dispensation — Ecclesiastical vows — Borrowings from the Religion of Humanity — Communion of saints and subjective pilgrimages — The theatre of the New Dispensation — Keshub as a juggler — Criticisms urged against his mixed system of rites — Max Miiller's Letter to the Times — Keshub's death on the 6th of January, 1884 — Keshub's religious ideal and the doctrine of Adesh — The true scope of his syncretism — Antecedents and future of his attempt. Whilst the Sadharan Somaj was thus taking in hand the cause of true Brahmoism, the mother Church continued to develop itself in the opposite direction. As was to be expected, the secession of those who were hostile to Keshub resulted in an increase of his ascendancy over the minds of the Brahmos who remained faithful to him, while it, at the same time, permitted him to follow out his mystic tendencies without any counteracting influence. During the whole of 1879, he never ceased to urge, both in his sermons and in his principal organ, the Indian Mirror, that he had been favoured with special divine in- spiration. Taking up in a direct way the thorny question : Am I an inspired prophet? — in his anniversary address on the 22 nd of January, he did not hesitate to range himself among the sinners rather than among the saints of the world, and to speak of himself as being un- worthy to touch the shoes of the last of the prophets ; but at the same time he described himself as an " extraordinary " man, invested with a divine mission and favoured by mysterious communications with the ancient prophets, and even with God himself " The Lord said I was to have no doctrine, no creed," he added, "but a perennial and perpetual inspiration from heaven.'' On the 9th of April he gave a lecture in English at the Calcutta Town Hall, under the title— India asks: Who is Christ? This left an impression upon certain of his audience that he was shortly 274 THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. about to become a convert to Christianity, or at least to a sort of Hindu Arianism. In fact, however, if he declared, on that occasion, his acceptance of Christ, it was — as he distinctly added — in the spirit of the Hindu scriptures, that is in harmony with the eclectic principle which makes of Christ a great religious reformer, but refuses to give him the absolute pre-eminence and the unique mission ascribed to him by the Christian sects. "In Christ you see," he continued, "true Pantheism. . . . Behold Christ comes to us as an Asiatic in race, as a Hindu in faith, as a kinsman and a brother, and he de- mands your heart's affection. Will you not give him your affection ? . . . For Christ is a true Yogi, and he will merely help us to realize our national ideal of a Yogi." In the month of September he instituted an order of religious teachers, in which he enrolled him- self with Protab Chunder Mozoumdar and three missionaries. The distinctive badge of the brotherhood was a dress of yellow cloth, known in India by the name of gairic bastra. Some time afterwards, Keshub solemnly proclaimed the " Mother- hood of God," as an idea correlative with that of the divine Father- hood. " Many are ready to worship me as their Father," he makes the Divinity say. " But they know not that I am their Mother, too, tender, indulgent, forbearing and forgiving. Ye shall go forth from village to village, singing my mercies and proclaiming unto all men that I am India's Mother. ''i As a result of this, a band of twenty- five persons, among whom were nine missionaries, quitted Calcutta on the 24th of October, and travelled over about 250 miles in five weeks, preaching everywhere the Motherhood of God.^ Meanwhile, as early as the month of November, the Indian Mirror, the official organ of the Somaj, announced for an early date, one of those special manifestations of the divine will, such as the world re- ceives every time it feels the need of them, and, it was added, that Keshub would be "a part, a large part, the central part" of this manifestation. As a matter of fact, the manifestation, in question, took place on the 22nd of January, 1880, when Keshub announced urbi et orbi the birth of a child destined to receive the heritage of every revelation and every religion. The child was the Nava Bidhan 1. Indian Mirror of the 12th of October, 1879. 2. Brahmo Year Book for 1880. THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. 275 (the New Dispensation), which claims to be a fusion or rather a synthesis of every form of faith. It should be noted that Brahmoism has always aimed at the establishment of a universal worship with principles common to every religion. The Brahma Dharma claims, in a certain sense, to form the residuum which persists, after the gradual elemination of everything contradictory and consequently false, in special systems of religious belief. Wholly different from this eclecticism is the attitude of the New Dispensation : it virtually contends, not that there is truth in all religions but that every religion is true.^ Keshub compares it, in turn, to the thread which holds together the pearls of a necklace, to the ray of light in which the colours of the prism are blended, to the symphony produced by an accord of musical instruments, and to the dissolving chemical which reduces all bodies to a single substance. ^ Protab Chunder Mozoumdar further explains, that it really is a ques- tion of a Dispensation, since in common with all religion it is a gift of God — and of a New Dispensation — not that it had created new truths, but because it presents in a new light the truths partially pro- claimed in other religions.^ All religious practices, rites, ceremonies^, and even all the pretended revelations, possess an analogous value in this conception, so far as they serve for symbols, means, or agencies in the soul's effort to rise towards God : the devotees of Chaitanya, for instance, delight to sing hymns in honour of Hari (he who blots out sin), a personification of Vishnu. Very well, then ! Keshub will go through town and country and sing the praises of Hari, with banners, trumpets, and cymbals, whilst the crowd prostrate themselves on his way, and, with their heads in the dust, cry, " Hari^ Hari^ bol!^^ The old Aryans, again, and the Agnihotri Brahmans of to-day delight in the special sacrifices to Agni, " the resplendent God of Fire ;" hence Keshub will celebrate the Homa by ostentatiously pouring clarified butter on the flame of the 1. Sunday Mirror of October the 3rd, 1881. 2. We Apostles of the New Dispensation. Calcutta, 1881. 3. Theistic Quarterly Reviexv of January, 1881. Here, moreover, is the pro- gramme which Keshub assigns to his new creation, in the first number of his organ, The New Dispensation. " One God, one scripture, one Church. Eternal progress of the soul. Communion of prophets and saints. Fatherhood and Motherhood of God ; brotherhood of man and sisterhood of woman. Harmony of knowledge and holiness, love and work, Yoga and asceticism in their highest development. Loyalty to the Sovereign." — {The New Dispensation of March the 24th, 1881,) ^76 THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. sanctuary.^ And further, in the worship of Vishnu, the Hindus are accustomed to perform mystic dances before their idols : Keshub will therefore organise a ceremony in which young men, dressed in garments of different colours, will dance in concentric circles around the " In- visible Mother," within the mandir, and he himself will set them an example by dancing before his vedi (pulpit), as David did formerly before the Ark.^ Does it follow, as some have maintained, that Keshub thus effected a return to Hinduism ? To assert this is to misunderstand the thought which dictated his bearing toward the faith of his fathers. Here, indeed, is a passage from an article in which he made a special effort to demonstrate that there is something in Hinduism which is neither to be despised nor rejected : — " Hindu idolatry is not to be altogether overlooked or rejected. As we explained some time ago, it represents millions of broken fragments of God. Collect them together and you get the indivisible Divinity. . . . We have found out that every idol worshipped by the Hindus represents an attribute of God, and that each attribute is called by a different name. The believer in the New Dispensation is required to worship God as the possessor of all those attributes, represented by the Hindu as innumerable as three-hundred-and-thirty millions. To believe in an undivided God without reference to those aspects of his nature, is to believe in an abstract God, and it would lead us to practical Rationalism and Infidelity. Nor can we worship the same God with the same attribute investing Him. That would make our worship dull, lifeless, and insipid. If we are to worship Him, we should worship him in all his manifestations. Hence we should con- template Him with these numerous attributes. We shall name one attribute, Sarasvate, another Lakshmi, another Mahadeva, another Yagadhatri, &c., and worship God each day under a new name, that is to say, in a new aspect. We do not worship Him as Yogi' for ever, or as Father or as Mother, or as Lakshmi, or as Sarasvate. But now the one and then the other, and so on, beholding our Hari in a new garb and in new holiness for ever. How bewitching the prospect, how grand the picture !" — (Quoted from an article The Philosophy of Idol Worships in the Sunday Mirivr of the ist of August, 1880.) I. See a curious description of this ceremony in The Brahmo Year Book for 1881. THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. 277 This conception is doubtless perfectly reconcilable with Hinduism, for Vishnu expressed himself long since in these eclectic terms : Those who, full of faith, worship other divinities honour me also, although apart from the ancient ordinance ; for it is I who receive and preside over all sacrifices. Only they do not know me in my true nature. But the originality of the New Dispensation consists in the fact that its syncretism overleaps the limits of Hindu creeds, to place in juxta-position with them the beliefs and ceremonies held and practised by all the other religions, beginning with Christianity. Even at the time of his visit to Birmingham in 1870, Keshub took occasion to state to the representatives of the different sects, who were discount- ing his speedy conversion to Christianity : " I wish to say I have not come to England as one who has yet to find Christ. When the Roman Catholic, the Protestant, the Unitarian, the Trinitarian, the Broad Church, the Low Church and the High Church all come round me and offer me their respective Christs, I desire to say to one and all : Think you that I have no Christ within me ? Though an Indian, I can still humbly say : Thank God that I have my Christ." It is no matter for surprise, therefore, that like Mohammed, he should have accepted Christ as one of the prophets of the New Dispensation, and that he should have paid considerable attention to the principal rites of Christianity in his liturgy, notably to those of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. It should be added, however, that he baptized in the name of the Vedantine Trinity as well as in that of the Christian Trinity, and, as to the Eucharist, he administered it by means of rice and water. The description of these ceremonies shows clearly the amount of freedom with which Keshub treated the rites he drew from other faiths to enrich his liturgy.^ I shall confine myself to the reproduction of the story of his own baptism " in the waters of the Jordan," from The New Dispensation of the i6th of June.* His followers being told that they had to reach the banks of the Jordan, betook themselves in procession to a tank or pond situate on some property which belonged to him. The banks were decorated with foliage and flowers ; the flag of the New Dispensation was floating in I. Sivanath Sastri, The New Dispensation and the Sddhdran Brahmo SoniAj, pages 56 and seq. 278 THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. the wind. When they had all taken a place on the steps of the reservoir, in the broiling sun, the minister, seated on a tiger's skin, addressed the following prayer to the great Varuna, the Source of Life : "O thou great Varuna, Water of Life! Sacred Water, mighty expanse of Seas and Oceans and Rivers we glorify thee. Thou art not God but the Lord is in thee. Thou art full of the beauty and glory of Heaven; each drop revealeth the Divine face. Thou art the Water of Life. A most helpful friend art thou unto us. From the clouds above thou comest in copious showers to quench the thirst of the parched earth, and to fertilize its soil. Thou fillest rivers, seas, and oceans. Thou causest the dry earth to become fruitful and thou producest plentiful harvests, fruits and corn in abundance for our nourishment. O friend of the human race, thou satisfiest our hunger, thou appeasest our thirst. Thou cleansest our body and our home, and washest away filth and impurity. O thou great Purifier, thou healest disease and thou givest health. Cooler and comforter, daily we bathe in thee and feel refreshed and comforted. Ships, freighted with riches, float upon thy bosom and bring us affluence from distant shores. O serene pacifier, thou extinguishest all agony and refreshest the troubled head. O true friend and benefactor, our venerable ancestors loved thee, and honoured thee, and adored thee. And to-day, as in days gone by, the Ganges, the Jamouna, the Narmada, the Godaveri, the Kaveri, the Krishna, and all the sacred streams in the land, are greatly revered by the people. Say, mighty Varuna, didst thou not suggest to Buddha the idea of Nirwana, O thou extinguisher of the fire of all pain and discomfort. And Jesus, too, magnified thee, and he praised thee as none ever did before. For he saw and found in thee new life and salvation. In the holy Jordan was the Son of God baptized. We praise thee, we bless thee. Holy Water ! Rain and river, lakes, seas, and oceans, we bless and magnify thee!" Keshub then read the chapter in which the Evangelist Matthew describes the baptism of Jesus. Having done this he explained that Jesus desired to be baptized " because the water was full of God ; " then anointing himself with a delicate oil, he walked down the steps of the reservoir, praying as he went in a loud voice, and immersed himself three times up to the neck, saying successively : " Glory be to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Ghost." After this, in THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. 279 order to specially honour the Trinity, he plunged a fourth time into the water, uttering the words: "Blessed be Sacchidananda" (the Vedantine Trinity, Truth, Wisdom and Joy). He then left the water, but not till he had filled a vase that was handed to him. This water he used to sprinkle the heads of his followers, crying as he did so : ^^Sdntif" (peace), ^^ Sdnh / Sdniif" While he was changing his clothes, a part also of the audience bathed in the reservoir ; then all withdrew, carrying away the Water of Peace (Santijal), in earthen or metal vessels. In the afternoon the women and children did the same. A few days later Keshub's organ, The New Dispensation^ insisted upon the essentially independent and original character of this ceremony. " There was no mimicry," said the writer, " no vulgar or mechanical imitation of Europeanism or of foreign Christianity. The whole thing was a Hindu festival." It is from the Roman Church that Keshub seems to have borrowed the solemn vows of chastity and poverty, which on several occasions he caused his missionaries to take, appearing however to assign to them only a temporary and partial character. He drew from every source, even going so far, it would appear, as to borrow from Comte, whom he seems to have imitated in making a distinction between an abstract form of worship and one of a concrete kind for every day of the year, the former addressing itself to general truths and social aggregates, the latter to persons considered as types. Thus the Brahino Pocket Almanac for 1883, assigns respectively to each day of the week, a double religious purpose, which is indicated by the follow- ing arrangement : — "I. Harmony of the Prophets. — Monday. is dedicated to the Rishis ; Tuesday to Chaitanya \ Wednesday to Moses ; Thursday to Socrates ; Friday to Buddha \ Saturday to men of learning ; Sunday to Jesus Christ. " II. Order of Duties. — Monday is dedicated to the family and to children \ Tuesday to servants ; Wednesday to benefactors ; Thursday to enemies ; Friday to the inferior creatures ; Saturday to the poor ; Sunday to the holy dead. In the same order of ideas we find what Keshub termed the "com- munion of saints," which is one of his most curious creations, and was conceived of and carried out in the following manner : The 280 THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. pious Brahmos choose some celebrated historical personage — Moses, Mohammed, Socrates, Chaitanya, Theodore Parker, &c., and during a week they occupy themselves exclusively in the study of his works or in meditating upon his career. This done, they meet in a place transformed for the occasion into some noted locality in Palestine, Greece, Arabia, or America. There the prophet or philosopher is invoked in imagination ; an attempt is made to recall the conditions and surroundings of his life ; a conversation is entered upon respecting the true sense of his teaching; and finally opinions are expressed as to what he would say and do if living in our day. These are what Keshub called subjective pilgrimages. " We have been asked," he says, " to explain what we mean by these pilgrimages. They are simply a practical application of this principle of subjectivity which characterizes the New Dispensation. As pilgrims we approach the great saints, killing the distance of time and space. We enter into them and they enter us. In our souls we cherish them and we imbibe their character and principles. We are above the popular error that materializes the spirits of the departed saints and clothes them again with the flesh and the bones which they have for ever cast away. Nor do we hold these spirits to be omnipresent. We beHeve they still exist; but where they are we cannot tell. Wherever they may be, it is possible for us earthly pilgrims, if we are only men of faith and prayer, to realize them in consciousness. If they are not personally present with us, they may be spiritually drawn into our life and character. They may be made to live and grow in us." The founder of the New Dispensation called even the theatre into requisition, by organizing at Calcutta the representation of a drama, entitled '' The Harmony of Religions," which was due to the pen of one of his followers. Keshub himself appeared on the scene as a juggler.i Among other "tricks" which he performed before the public, was that of the instantaneous fusion of a cross, a crescent, the Om (the sacred symbol of the Vedantines), the trident of Siva and the Khunti of the Vishnuites into a single symbol. Another feat con- sisted in showing the body of a bird, taken to represent the sacred dove which " descended from heaven eighteen centuries ago, and has been struck down to-day by the blows of human reason." Suddenly, I. Brahmo Year- Book for 1882, page 56. THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. 281 the dead bird disappeared, and a living bird came down, as from heaven, bearing on its neck a card or ticket, with this inscription : — Narva Bidhctner jai^ Saiya Dharma Samanvaia ("Victory to the New Dispensation ! Let there be a harmony of all religions. ")i All this exuberance of symbolism greatly shocked not only the Brahmoists of the old school, who had passed their life in combatting the rites and ceremonies of idolatry, but also the Hindus and the orthodox Christians, who were scandalized by this eccentric use and, in a sense, parody of their most sacred ceremonies. In England, above all, Keshub brought about the final alienation of those who had formerly felt the warmest sympathy with his movement, among whom Miss Collet may be specially mentioned. Max Miiller and Dean Stanley, perhaps, stood alone in asking the public to be on their guard against any hasty condemnation of a movement which it was very difficult, they urged, to judge of impartially at a distance. "It is the old story over again," wrote the eminent Indianist of Oxford, to The Times of the 24th of March, 1880. " Nothing is so difficult for a reformer, particularly for a religious reformer, as not to allow the incense offered by his followers to darken his mental vision, and not I. The hymns of the New Dispensation reveal the same mystic eclecticism. Here is a specimen of them, "The Mystic Dance," borrowed from The New Dispensatio7i of the 24th of March, 1881 : — "Chanting the name of Hari, the saints in heaven dance. My Gouranga (Chaitanya) dances amid a band of devotees : how beautiful his eyes which shower love ! Jesus dances ; Moses dances with hands upraised ; Devarshi Narad dances, playing on the harp. Old King David dances, and with him Janak and Yudhisthir. The great Yogi Mahadeo dances in joy, and with him dances John, accompanied by his disciples. Nanak and Prahlad dance ; dances Nityananda ; and in their midst dance Paul and Mohammed. Dhruba dances ; Suk dances ; dances Haridas ; and in their company dance all the servants of the Lord. Sankar and Wasudeb dance — Ram and Sakya, Muni, Yogis, devotees, ascetics, workers and wise men. Dadu and Confucius dance — Kabir and Toolsy ; Hindus and Mussulmans dance, on their lips the smile of love. The sinner dances; the saint dances ; the poor and the rich dance together ; the women sing ' Glory, glory,' with sweet voices. Renouncing the pride of caste and rank, the Brahmin and the Chandal dance embracing each other. Surrounded by saints, in the centre is Sri Hari, the Lord of all, and all dance unitedly, with hands round each other's neck. And in this holy company dance the believers in the New Dispensation, killing the distance of space and time. The fishes dance in the sea, and the fowls in the air ; and the trees and plants dance, their branches sporting with the wind. The Bible and the Vedas dance together with the Bhagavat ; the Puran and the Koran dance, joined in love. The scientist and the ascetic and the poet dance, inebriated with the new wine of the New Dispensation. The world below and the world above dance, chanting the name of Hari, as they hear the sweet Gospel of the New Dispensation." 282 THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. to mistake the divine accents of truth for a voice wafted from the clouds. In this respect, Keshub Chunder Sen has shared in the weakness of older prophets ; but let us not forget that he possesses also a large share of their strength and virtue. . . . His utter- ances of late have shown signs, I am sorry to say, of an overwrought brain and of an over-sensitive heart. He sometimes seems on the verge of very madness of faith. But I fear for his health and his head far more than for his heart, and I should deeply regret if any harsh words from those who ought to know best how to make allow- ance for the difficulties and dangers of all religious reformers should embitter a noble life already full of many bitternesses." The eminent Sanscrit scholar divined but too truly what was about to take place. So great was the spiritual exaltation of Keshub's life, that it could not fail to rapidly wear out his exceptionally nervous organization, and as early as 1882 he suffered from the first attacks of the malady which suddenly became more acute in the autumn of 1883, and carried him off on the 6th of the following January, when he had but just entered upon his forty-fifth year. Among the last persons who had an opportunity of conversing with him on his sick bed, were, by a strange and significant coincidence, the venerable Debendra Nath Tagore, the Anglican Bishop of Calcutta, and the Hindu Paramhansa of Dakhinaswar, that is to say the principal repre- sentatives of the three great religions which he had specially attempted to fuse together in the New Dispensation. His death was regarded throughout India as a national misfortune. The entire press of England as well as of India, spoke in sympathetic terms of the high moral character and the eminent services of the deceased. At the same time expressions of condolence were received from all parts of the country and even from Europe. Queen Victoria, for instance, telegraphed to the family an expression of her sympathy and regret. Even the Sadharan Somaj, putting aside its hostile opinions, passed a resolution in acknowledgment of the long and faithful services rendered by the deceased to the cause of the Brahmo Somaj. Finally, the students of Calcutta met and decided to com- mence a subscription in order to raise a monument to his memory. The second day after death, the body, which was literally hidden by flowers, was carried on a bier to the place of cremation on the banks of the Ganges. The banner of the New Dispensation was THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. 283 borne at the head of the procession, and behind the corpse there was a vast crowd who joined in singing the hymn : '•^Jaijai^ Satchita Nan- dun jai" (Glory to him who has a pure heart.) The bier was placed on a pile of sandal-wood, whilst the Upadhyaya chanted the mantras of the Brahmoist ritual. As the orb of day was sinking beneath the horizon, the eldest son of the deceased, Karvuna Chunder Sen, placed the torch to the funeral pile, pronouncing these words : " In the name of God I convey the sacred fire to these last remains. Let the mortal part burn and perish ; the immortal part will survive. O Lord, the liberated soul rejoices in thee, in thy blessed abode." The flame then rose in the quiet evening air, whilst all present repeated the verse : " Glory to the Redeemer who is Truth, Wisdom and Joy. Divine grace alone prevails. Peace ! (sdnti)^ Peace ! Peace ! " By about eleven o'clock, all was over. The ashes of the late minister were placed in an urn and carried provisionally to the Chapel adjoining Lily Cottage. Is the day come for justly estimating Keshub's work? For my own part, I do not hesitate to assert that the path upon which he had entered was full of equivocal positions and dangers. With the tendency of the Hindu sects to deify their gurus, it is quite possible that the founder of the New Dispensation may be raised to the dignity of an Avatar, and his Church become a simple variety of the Vishnu sects. All those who have studied the past of India know, as M. A. Barth has so well said, that the history of religious reforms among the Hindus, is a story of perpetual and painful re-commencement. Vigorous efforts and high purpose mark the early stages, which are soon followed by irremedial decay ; while the final result is another sect and a new superstition.^ Already, indeed, certain of the ceremonies which Keshub introduced into his Church have proved how much his teaching tended to develope the spirit of contemplation and renunciation, which has always been a scourge for India; whilst others were but regrettable landmarks along the road which leads to the creation of theocracies. And further, it is very clear that the excess of his symbolism was calculated to absorb the activity of his disciples in a multitude of odd and hetero- genous .rites, absolutely at variance with the requirements of the modern spirit, if we take up the European stand-point. I. A. Barth, Les Religions de VInde. 284 THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. But regard must be had to the external circumstances under which a religious reform is carried on. It remains to be seen, therefore, whether the New Dispensation, with all its mystic and ritualistic exaggerations, is not better fitted to act upon the popular mind of India, than the sober and more enlightened faith of the Adi or even of the Sadharan Somaj. Keshub, and this point cannot be too strongly emphasized, was, in spite of his errors and eccentricities, a person of superior power, one of those men who may become a Buddha, a Mohammed, or a I^uther, according to the nature of their surroundings. To have seen him or even to have taken note of his work, was sufficient to explain the ascendancy he possessed over his followers, and which he also exercised upon the minds of the masses. On more than one occasion, I have severely condemned his acts, and almost despaired of his future. But whenever I turned to his discourses and writings, I again felt in some measure under the charm which arose from his personalty and genius. The following critique of Keshub's character by one of his principal opponents, Sivanath Sastri, the missionary of the Sadharan Somaj, will probably not be without interest : — " Throughout his career, Mr. Sen has been distinguished for three things : a proud and indomitable spirit, a fine and powerful intellect, and a strong and vigorous will. . . . Added to these, there is an earnest, fervid, and enthusiastic temperament. . . . Like every other proud nature, he is shy to strangers, but full of pleasant humour to friends, mild and affable to inferiors, but haughty and untractable to the least show of superiority in others, and specially under opposition, conceiving his plans in silence and carrying them out with but half-revealed purpose. He does not condescend to take into his confidence even his immediate associates about his plans, and has no friend properly so-called. He is not alto- gether above the art of over-reaching an enemy by clever shifts or of trying to compromise him by unfair and ungenerous means. At times he is carried away by his wounded pride to use harsh and abusive epithets against his opponents. Yet he has been an example to many of us of purity of private conduct, earnestness of purpose and of devo- tedness to noble pursuits. Many of his ways have been certainly those of a man of faith, and many of the principles of action he enunciated for his Church show considerable depth of spiritual insight and keen- THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. 285 ness of moral perception. . . . But Mr. Sen has, in the meantime, allowed himself to be led astray by an unfortunate idea — the idea of being a singularly inspired man." ^ It is incontestable that the religious ideal which Keshub set before his disciples lacks neither in opportuneness nor in elevation. He formulated it himself, in a somewhat eccentric fashion, by making the subjoined parallel between the old and new man, which was published in the second number of his journal. The New Dispensation : — "The Old Man. Asiatic or European. Hindu or Christian. Mystical recluse and sleepy Quietist. Trinitarian, who hates Unitarian. "The New Man. Asiatic and European. Hindu and Christian. Mystical philanthropist and practical Quietist. Unitarian, who believes in the trinity of Unitarian manifes- tations. Eclectic, who includes all sects. Chemical fusion in life. Sectarian, who excludes all other sects. Mechanical combination of truths and characters by the intellect. Exceptional inspiration. Believes in invisible spirit or visible idols. Honours Christ, but reviles Socrates and Chaitanya. Sees multiplicity and confusion. Destructive. Sees only errors in others, and frets. Decrepit and cold." The really questionable feature of the New Dispensation is the doctrine of Adesh. When, in accordance with the doctrine of Kant, we seek the voice of God in the intuitions of conscience, we are simply acting upon an ennobling and fruitful theory, as evidenced by the American Transcendentalists. Still it must be on the condition I. T^e New Dispensation and the Sdddran Brahnio SonidJ, page 58. Universal inspiration. Beholds the Spirit-God. Honours all prophets in Christ* Sees unity and harmony. Constructive. Sees only their virtues, and im- proves. Always fresh and young." 286 THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. that we subject our impulses to the control of observation and reason. Keshub, in truth, seemed to admit that in order to constitute Adesh, inspiration must be based upon certain "objective considerations," resulting from some particular set of circumstances and leading to the same conclusion. As regards the marriage of his daughter, for in- stance, these were : the political necessities of Couch-Behar ; the personal merits of the young Maharajah ; the advantages to Brahmo- ism which were likely to result from this union, &c. But if objective indications are to concur with inspiration, to determine any given line of conduct, what purpose is served by the Adesh ? And if they do not thus concur, what is to decide between them ? To see the dangers of this system, it suffices to listen to the extreme champions of the New Dispensation, such as the Pandit Dourga Das Ray, who, in urging the uncertain and relative character of the moral laws, denies to conscience the right to decide in matters of inspiration, and declares that the commands of God are independent of the " so-called common morality,"! or further, like the writers of the Theistic Record of Dacca, who expressed themselves thus in t88i : "Nothing with a Brahmo is * good ' which is not a command of God, and nothing is His command unless every man receives it directly from Him. We have no scrip- ture, no revelation, no Shastra, no Veda, save His words : every little thing of our life — whether we should eat pumpkins on the first day of the month or go towards the north on a Tuesday — should be regulated by His living command. Here then is something peculiar, something new. We Brahmos have to go to God for every trifle that we do, while people of other religions have books, men and their own con- science for their guides."^ This is the stumbling-block at which the New Dispensation will fall and be dashed to pieces, if the most enlightened of Keshub's followers do not, now their leader is gone, hasten to correct his theory of Adesh, by restricting it on the one hand to super-sensible things which transcend experience, while extending it on the other, in a certain measure, to the whole human race, and subordinating it to the authority of reason, which is also of divine origin. With the exception of this unfortunate theory which is not, indeed, an essential element of the New Dispensation, Keshub does not 1. Brahmo Year -Book for 1880, page 100. 2. Brahmo Year -Book for 1881, page 95. THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. 287 appear to have abandoned the Rationalistic method in spite of his exaggerated mysticism. Among the ceremonies and discourses Ip which I have alluded, there are certain details which may provoke a smile, as does the language of all religious and social symbolism of an unfamiliar character. Then again, it seems to me that the excess of ritualism has proved obnoxious, above all in England, to persons who from education and surroundings feel a profound repugnance for everything that savours of a sacerdotal or even of a sacramental order. It is but just to remark, however, that such is by no means the characteristic of the rites originated or reproduced by Keshub. He has told us so himself in formal terms : — " Do we mean to establish the Rice Ceremony (the Sacrament of Communion) and the Flag Ceremony as permanent institutions in our Church ? No. They are meant to explain and spiritualize and fulfil corresponding ordinances in the older Churches. As the pulpit of the New Dispensation ex- pounds texts in the ancient Scriptures, so are these novel ceremonies offered as practical sermons on the deep philosophy of the rites observed in previous dispensations. "^ Nor can Keshub be charged even with having aimed at the estab- lishment of an esoteric form of faith, to be allegorically interpreted by its adepts and accepted literally by the crowd- He let no opportunity pass, indeed, of explaining the real significance of his symbolism. " We do not believe," he added, in the article from which I have just quoted, *'in lifeless ceremonies. ^^2A absorption in place of * rice,* and the kingdo7n of God in lieu of ' banner,' and our metaphors will become clear." We have already seen the meaning he attached to his celebration of baptism and to his communion of saints. When celebrating the Arati according to the rites of the Vishnuites and the Sikhs, he was accustomed to place on the altar the traditional panchadripa (a lamp with five branches which the devotees are in the habit of swinging before their idol), and he would explain it, at once, as the symbol of the five inner lights which permit the worshipper to rise to the con- templation of the divine countenance : purity, love, faith, hhakti^ and knowledge. As to the sacrifice of the Homa^ Protab Chunder Mozoumdar thus reveals to us its significance: "The recent Horn ceremony performed by the minister and missionaries of the Brahmo I. The second number of The New Dispensation, 31st of March, 1881. 288 THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. Somaj of India, represents only the idea of burning the passions in effigy. The bundle of dry hard sticks represented the lusts of the flesh tied to the heart by a knot which cannot be 16osened, each passion strengthening the neighbouring ones, and all of them together forming a mass of impenetrable obstruction to piety and holiness, able to resist strong and repeated attempts to break through. Nothing but fire can destroy such a heap of tough unbreakable wood. That fire is the fire of holy will, kindled and breathed upon by the Spirit of the eternal fire of holiness. The wind and clarified butter that aid the flame are our prayers and aspirations, the great aid of a pure human will."^ We may not care for allegories, nor, speaking generally, for symbolism at all ; but in this respect the New Dispensation does not difler from an institution which is most extended and most popular in all Anglo- Saxon countries : Freemasonry, which also symbolizes by external rites the traditions of its history and the principles of its humanitarian philosophy. And if the ceremonies instituted by Keshub, instead of being drawn from a single system of religion, are borrowed indifferently from all, is there any ground for blaming him in this which is, in reality, a pledge and a proof of toleration ? The fusion of all the forms of faith into a single religious synthesis, has been, in every age, the dream of many a large and enlightened mind in advance of its time. Aristotle, Cleanthes, Seneca, Maximus of Tyre, Confucius, Kabir, the neo-Platonists, the Authors of the Upanishads, the Sofis of Persia, as well as German Idealists and the contemporary students of comparative theology, have all shown the identity of the religious sentiment under the multiplicity of its manifestations. A few thinkers such as Proclus, Jambilicus and Alexander Severus in antiquity, Akbar in India during the Middle Ages, and, to a certain extent, Auguste Comte in our own day, have even attempted to found a universal religion — not, indeed, by eliminating the differential elements of the principal forms of faith, after the manner of English Theism and American Transcendentalism — but by commingling either the rites and symbols or the names and forms under which their adherents conceived the Supreme object of worship. Such, too, was the work commenced by Keshub, and if there is I. The Theistic Review and Interpreter oi i88i, page 15. THE SYNCRETISM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION. 289 any difference, it is that the author of the New Dispensation suc- ceeded in founding a religion, while his predecessors scarcely did more than carry their syncretism beyond the sphere of individual conception. Roman Polytheism stands alone, perhaps, as the only instance of an ultimate amalgamation of this kind ; but even in that case, it was a juxta-position, rather than a synthesis of the various forms of religion practised in the Empire. It was reserved for the New Dispensation to offer us a living Church formed, as a single con- ception, with materials drawn from the most diverse faiths, and this is not one of the characteristics which contribute least to render its development so interesting to all who are engaged in the study of religious history. CHAPTER XV BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. Present strength and ramifications of Brahmoism — Dayananda Sarasvati Sivami and the Vedantine movement of the Arya Somajes — The Theosophic Society of India — Orthodox Associations of the Dharma Sabhas — Religious movements beyond the pale of Hinduism — The Anjumans — The Guru Jurgi among the Bhils — Disintegration of Hinduism: What will take its place? — Condition and prospects of Islamism in India — Negative result of Christian missions — Parallel of religious progress between the Aryans of the East and of the West — Satisfaction offered by Brahmoism to the aspirations of the Hindu mind and the requirements of modern civilization — Affinity of Hindu speculation to our most recent scientific theories — The idea of the Unknowable in Brahmoism — Re-action of Oriental genius upon the religious culture of Western society — Professor Tyndall's pre- diction to Protab Chunder Mozoumdar — Max Mliller and Von Hartmann's opinions as to the influence which the beliefs of India are destined to exercise on the religious future of the West. It was to be feared that the divisions of Brahmoism would prove fatal to the cause of religious Rationalism jn India. From the inevit- able confusion of such schisms, more than one superficial observer has come to the conclusion that the work of Ram Mohun Roy is about to disappear by the return of some to the bosom of Hinduism, and the conversion of others to European scepticism. Isolated cases may have justified this double prediction ; but the signs of disorganization have been of short duration, and to-day, Brahmoism has resumed its former progressive course. In 1877, on the eve of the secession of the Sadharan Somaj, its Churches were 107 in number. To-day they exceed 173;^ and its journals or periodical publications have in- creased by ten within the same period. 2 1. Brahmo Year Book for 1872. It must be borne in mind, however, that some of these new Somajes are due to schisms in the old congregations, as a result of the events of 1878. 2. Taking into account the entire number, there are seventeen printed in Bengali ; four in English ; one in both these languages ; one in Urdu ; one in Canara ; two in both Tamoul and English ; two in Telugu and English ; and one in English and Marathi. A single one of these organs appears daily : the National Paper of Calcutta ; and eight are weekly. Among the monthly publications in Bengali, there is one for women, another for workmen, and a third, which is illus- trated, for the use of children. (See the Brahmo Year Book for 1882.) 292 BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. The Brahmos may be divided at present into four groups : I. The Somajes which have accepted the New Dispensation. 'J'hey consist of about twenty of the old congregations which remained faithful to Keshub, together with a certain number of recent formation. Some of these Somajes vie with the Calcutta congregation in their life and fervour. This is specially true of that at Dacca, which is dis- tinguished by the number and originality of its publications ; that of Chittagong, which has become a centre of active proselytism among the masses of the people; and that of Bhagalpour, where the new mandir bears on its facade both a cross and a crescent, interwoven with symbolic representations belonging to Buddhism and to the various Hindu faiths. At Calcutta, too, Keshub attracted larger and larger numbers down to the close of his work.i Meanwhile, and it is a happy augury, there is a new growth of the institutions designed to promote educational and social reform, which were more or less neg- lected for several years. The principal educational establishment, the Albert School, which was affiliated to the University of Calcutta in 1881, contained at that date 667 pupils. The Indian Reform Asso- ciation has laid the foundations of an Institution for the superior education of women, which was opened in 1883. The Indian Mirror has been replaced by a journal that is better edited, The Liberal^ with a supplement devoted exclusively to religious questions. II. The congregations which constitute the Sadharan Somaj. This association represents, as we have seen, the true tradition of Brahmoism, and it has taken up, as a part of its work, all the institutions intended to promote religious and social reform, which had long been the monopoly of the Bharatbharsia Somaj. The Somajes v/hich it com- prises within its pale are twenty-nine in number. Its principal organ in the English language is The Brah?no Public Opinion^ which discusses, from an elevated stand-point, religious and political questions relating to India. The President of the Association is a contemporary and friend of Ram Mohun Roy, the Babu Chib Chunder Seb. HI. The Adi Somaj. One result of the crisis described in the pre- vious chapter, has been to recall public attention to the Adi Somaj of Debendra Nath Tagore. This latter, who could hardly have imagined a more striking form of revenge in relation to Keshub Chunder Sen, I. Brahmo Year Book iox \%%\,^'\gQ \i. BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. 293 spontaneously approached the Sadharan Somaj, and in 1880, the oldest Church of Brahmoism was seen joining with the youngest to celebrate in a fitting manner the fiftieth anniversary of the Rajah Ram Mohun Roy. It is now several years since the venerable Debendra Nath Tagore withdrew to the Himalaya Mountains, where he enjoys well-earned repose. From time to time he quits his retreat in order to preside over certain religious ceremonies in neighbouring Somaj es, and he is always welcomed with sympathy and respect by both the old and new Brahmos. His successor in the presidency of the Association is the Babu Raj Narain Bose, a speaker and writer of great merit, who has been engaged since 1880 in the publication of the complete works of Ram Mohun Roy in the English Language.^ The Adi Somaj professes the same religious principles as the Sadharan Somaj ; but it maintains a certain reserve as to the abandonment of ancient social usages.* IV. A certain number of congregations which share the religious opinions of the Sadharan Somaj, but have remained on good terms with the New Dispensation, since they have refused to take sides with either of the two groups and have welcomed with the same heartiness missionaries from both.^ V. The Prarthanas Somaj es (Associations for Prayer) of Eastern India. These are, generally speaking, congregations which, while they wholly reject the authority of the Vedas, display a conservative tendency both as to doctrines and ceremonies. The chief of them, the Prarthana Somaj of Bombay, has even inscribed over the door of its place of worship, the celebrated motto of the Vedantine Pan- theism : Ekain eva advittjaiii (a single Being without a second.) ^ The same state of things is to be met with in some of the Somajes of the South, as for example at Madras, where the Brahmo Somaj of Southern India, while treating Brahmoism as a simple form of universal religion, yet considers it to be the logical development of Hinduism, and chooses its devotional readings exclusively from the Hindu Scriptures.* Finally, these 173 associations form so many centres for the spiritual 1. The first volume, which is the only one that has yet appeared, is in 8vo., and consists of 816 pages. 2. Brahmo Year Book for 1880, page 120. 3. Monier Williams, Hinduism^ page 150. 4. Brahmo Year Book for 1882, page 56. 294 BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. regeneration of India, and though they may differ as to questions of form and method, and even of principle, they none the less represent, as a whole, the power of religious Rationalism among the Hindus.^ Still, Brahmoism does not figure as the only agency of reform which is exciting the attention of the popiulations of Hindustan. " Ramifica- tions of this sect and kindred sects moving in a parallel direction," recently wrote Sir Richard Temple, " have spread through the three Presidencies of Bengal, Madras and Bombay. "^ In addition to the groups which have taken up a Rationalistic stand-point, there have been formed in several localities, and particu- larly in the Punjaub, what are called Arya Somajes, whose members have adhered to that phase of Vedaic infallibility, which was given up I. It may be well to note here one or two points, which will bring the history of the Brahmo movement down to a later date than that referred to in the text. To begin with the New Dispensation Church at Calcutta : After the death of Chunder Sen, a schism took place among his immediate followers, owing to the determined opposition of the majority of his missionaries to Protab Chunder Mozoumdar's de- sire to occupy the deceased minister's pulpit. Three of these missionaries and the majority of the congregation sided wjth him, but the opposition party prevailed and, after more than a year's interval, a compromise was arrived at which was, in reality, destructive of Mozoumdar's claim, the pulpit being left vacant in memory of Keshub. Happily a feeling of reconciliation between the different sections of the Brahmo Church is manifesting itself. It may be mentioned in illustration of this, that Mozoumdar has advanced nearer to the Sadharan Somaj, and even took part in their anniversary services last January (1885) for the first time. There has been, indeed, as I learn from Miss Collet, a gradual tendency during the last two or three years towards the healing of the divisions caused by the Couch- Behar and New Dispensation schism. At Lahore and Madras, for instance, the two severed Somajes have been re-united, while in several other towns where the rival Somajes have not officially coalesced, the feeling between them has become far more friendly. This desirable change would seem to be in some measure the result of Chunder Sen's death, for he forbade his missionaries to preach at Somajes which had pro- tested against his New Dispensation — a prohibition which has since been relaxed. At present the state of the Brahmo Somaj generally is fairly prosperous, and the Sadharan Somaj is doing extremely well. The number of registered members belonging to the latter in January, 1885, was 829, while the aggregate number of Brahmos belonging to the different sections of the Church is estimated at about 4,000. These belong to or form over 190 different Somajes in various parts of India. Over forty journals are now edited by Brahmos, and are, more or less, devoted to the advocacy of their principles. Hence, though the number of avowed adherents of the Brahmo Church may seem small in comparison with the vast popu- lation of India, it must not be forgotten that many a Somaj is a centre of life and light in its own locality, so that the magnitude of the movement is not to be estimated by mere statistics. Besides, there is evidently a strong under-current of interest flowing on in the minds of many unavowed adherents. Signs of this have been frequent in the history of the movement, and they were not lacking at the BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. 295 more than thirty-five years ago by Debendr^ Nath Tagore and the Adi Somaj. These associations, which claim to occupy the platform of Revelation while they reject Polytheism, are due to the initiative of a Brahman of the Guzerat, Dayananda Sarasvati Sivami, who for several years travelled through India from North to South and preached a purely spiritual worship, founded on the existence of one God, the maintenance of the doctrine of metempsychosis and the infallibility of the four Vedas.^ Mr. H. G. Keene stated, in an article in The Calcutta Review of April, 1879, that the Arya Somaj was gradually extending in India and had connected itself with a Theosophic Society imported from the United States. There exists at New York, an association which, under the title of The Theosophical Society, claims to be in possession of profound meetings held at the beginning of the present year (1885) to celebrate the fifty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Somaj. Speaking of the meetings in question, the Indian Messenger of February ist says :— " By the grace of God, the fifty-fifth annual festival of the Brahmo Somaj has passed off very successfully. These are occasions when we feel ourselves specially drawn towards God. Every soul turns to Him with great expectancy. Friends meet from all parts of the country, and forgetting all the littlenesses of life, join soul to soul in prayer and thanksgiving to their common Father. What a beautiful si'ght is this, of hundreds of men and women gathering at a common spiritual feast! Yes, it has been a veritable spiritual feast to us, and the Bread and Water of Life have been freely served by the All-holy Spirit. A blessed spirit of unity and brotherly sympathy pervaded the whole proceedings, and made them really sweet to the soul. We felt our hard hearts melting under the inspiration of the living God ; and young and old, men and women, all felt themselves embraced within the loving arms of God." At one of the meetings on this occasion a lecture was delivered by the pandit Sivanath Sastri, on *'The New Life and its New Responsibilities," of which the journal just mentioned contains the following very interesting summary: — "The lecturer tried to show that the contact of the East and the West had given birth to a new life, and had called into existence new forces, many of which had been dormant in the race, and some of which had been altogether absent from the con- stitution of the national mind. Under the operation of the new spirit, time- honoured customs and institutions were fast dissolving, and a rapid process of disintegration was visible on all sides. The new spirit had brought on many changes. Not the least — perhaps the most serious — of them was the decay of the natural spirituality of the race. Our educated young men were becoming secularized in their sympathies and tendencies. They were fast losing the old religious in- stincts and traditions of their forefathers. This secularization of thought, the lecturer said, was something appalling in its consequences. No one knew whither the rising generation of the educated Indians was drifting. The Brahmo SomSj was doing its best to foster the new spirit, to help in the development of the spirit of liberty which, like a solvent, was slowly doing the work of destruction in the mass of old customs and usages. Consequently it was the duty of the Somaj to infuse spirituality into the minds of the people, which alone could safely conduct liberty to a happy and successful issue. Liberty without moral self- 296 BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. knowledge preserved from ancient times in certain colleges of Tibet. The " brothers," as the initiated are called, state their object to be as follows : (i) The establishment of a universal fraternity ; (2) the study of ancient language, science, and religion ; (3) the investigation of the hidden mysteries of nature, as well as the psychic forces latent in man. The first and second of these objects form esoteric theosophy, the third constitutes its exoteric form. As regards religion, they reject the doctrine of a Personal God, declare that men ought to consider themselves but a transient effect of a self-existent, universal, and infinite Cause, abandon the supernatural, and take their stand on the ground of pure science. But, at the same time, they admit that together with the facts established by the ordinary processes of obser- vation and induction, there exist phenomena and occult laws, the knowledge of which is only to be obtained by a certain exercise of the will, with contemplation, abstraction, fasting and eastacy.* This doctrine seems to be rather Hindu than American. Hence there is no room for surprise that it should have met with marks of favour among the adherents ofVedantism, when in 1879 the Theo- sophic Society of the United States sent four of its members to India, among whom were Colonel H. Olcott and the Countess Blavatsky.^ control and without the operation of the nobler moral and spiritual impulses of the soul, runs to license. But real moral self-control springs from deep spiritual convictions. Hence spirituality is the real legitimate guide of liberty. It was the duty of the Brahmo Somaj to develop this guiding principle." It will be seen from the foregoing statements and extracts that the great work of the Brahmo Somaj is still silently but surely progressing as a harmonizing and regenerative influeiice in the midst of the complex forms of Hindu civilization, and that it is at least preparing the way for that new form of faith which will ultimately take the place of the ancient beliefs and superstitions of the country. — Translator. 2. ** Political Effect of Religious Thought in India," in The Fortnightly Review of January, 1883. 3. Monier Williams, Hinduism^ P^ge 150; Garcin de Tassy, Revue de la Litterature Hindotistanie, 1876, page 92, and 1877, page 91. — The Arya Somaj of Lahore, 710 members in 1878 (Theistic Annual iox 187SJ. 4. Hints on Exoteric Theosophy. Calcutta, 1882. The Theosophical Society and its Founders. Bombay, 1882. See also W. C. Fink, Theosophy^ Exoteric and Esoteric^ in The Calcutta Review of April, 1883. 5. A notice of a work by this lady, Isis Devoilee, which must have been published at New York, informs us that the authoress, who was born in Asia, passed her childhood among the Kalmucks, Tartars, Persians, and other Oriental peoples, and her ripe age with the Hindus, the Tibetans, the Cingalese, and the Egyptians, and that she had thus an opportunity of studying the languages, literatures, traditions and mythologies of Oriental peoples. — Vide La Revue Politique et Litteraire of the 24th of November, 1877. BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. 297 These " missionaries" had assigned to themselves the task of preaching " the majesty and glory of all the ancient religions," as well as that of warning the Hindu, the Cingalese, and the Parsi against the substitu- tion of a new faith for the teachings of the Vedas, the Tri-Pitaka and the Zend Avesta. Their activity was not restricted to India proper, and impartial observers state that in the island of Ceylon they brought back to Buddhism thousands of natives who had been converted to Christianity.! The Theosophical Society of India takes the lead in this propagandism to-day, and its organ is The Theosophist, which is published in Madras. It is quite possible there are further movements which might be described, not only in Hinduism but also in the other faiths of Indi^ There have been formed, for instance, at several places and above all among the Brahmans, societies called Dharma Sadhas (Associations of the Law), whose object is a return to the ritual and traditions of the Vedas. This has the appearance of an orthodox revival ; but in point of fact these organizations, as Mr. Barth shows, are the result of the critical spirit,' and their aim is to develop sciences which tend to destroy superstition.^ As much may be said of the Anjumans, semi-literary and semi-religious societies, which have been established among the Mussulman population of India, for the spread of literary and artistic tastes, the cultivation of poetry and the study of the sciences which relate to religion. Together with every other section of the community, even the non- Aryan and as yet but half civilized populations, are being roused by the need for rehgious reform. Thus, while one portion of them are gradually abandoning their Fetishistic beliefs to accept Islamism, Catholicism or Hinduism, there has been recently seen to spring up 1. Fifty-eighth Annual Report of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, London, 1883 ; page 48.— The Buddhist section of the Theosophist Society has recently published a Buddhist Catechism for the use of the Cingalese, with a preface by Colonel Olcott, who says : "There are abundant reasons to believe that of all the great religions of the world Buddhism is destined to be the religion which will be spoken of most in the future, and which will be found to present the least antagonism to nature and law. Who would venture to affirm that Buddhism will not be the religion of the world's ultimate choice ?" This Catechism, which is written in Cingalese and English, is invested with the approbation of the High Priest of Sripada. (Revue de PHistoire des Religions. Tome VIII. No. /. 1S83.) 2. A. Barth, Op. Cit., page 62. fi^UNIVEBBITl 298 BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. among the Bhils, a tribe of the Vindhyas mountains, a guru named Jurgi, who is preaching the existence of but one God, forbidding the use of strong drinks and condemning the destruction of any living creature.^ What will be the result of this fermentation of ideas? Hindu Polytheism, though still numbering two hundred millions of adherents, presents unquestionable signs of decay. It is possible, and even probable, that its death agony will be of long duration ; but its days are none the less numbered by the progress of civilization. The moment will come therefore when we shall have to face this question, which M. Barth asked without attempting to answer it : *' What will tbe the faith of India when its old religions, which are already con- demned to perish but tenaciously cling to life, have been finally swept away?"2 Here we must avoid a tendency which is nowhere more calculated to vitiate any estimate we may form of the future. I refer to the unfortunate habit which so often leads us to reason from the particular to the general. Thus, because a native of ability — Dwarka Nath Mitter — had devoted speech and pen to the service of Comtism, it was hastily predicted that India was about to pass at a bound from idolatry to the religion of Comte.^ In the same way, English Secularists are apt to imagine that India will be an early conquest to their opin- ions, simply because there exists at Madras a small group of native Free-thinkers, which is affiliated to the National Secular Society. And finally, every time any Christian Church succeeds in making a few converts of higher social standing than usual, it is contended that India is on the eve of embracing that form of Christianity, be it Catholic or Protestant, which the converts have adopted. It is clear that the various forms of Christianity — and even Comtism and Secularism — are influencing, and will continue to influence, the 1. Garcin de Tassy, Revtie de la Litteratttre Hindotistanie, 1876, page 92. 2. A. Barth, Op. CiL, page 175. 3. Dwarka Nath Mitter died near Calcutta in 1874. The Positivist Church of London erected a tablet to his memory, with the following inscription : — " Dwarka Nath Mitter, 1832-1874, Principilo della Santa Milizia Nell Oriente." BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. 299 religious evolution of the Hindu mind ; but it is hardly likely that this evolution will borrow from any one of these factors its general and ultimate form. The introduction of European ideas, by overthrowing the ancient beliefs of India, has produced, in more than one instance, compara- tive religious indifference, and specially among the literary classes. In some cases, the result is a disdain of the ideal and an exclusive search for material enjoyment, which finds its earlier expression in the materialistic philosophy of the Carvakas.^ On the other hand, India has always had a weakness for theories of universal illusion — the Maya — which are to be met with at the heart of Atheistic as well as Pantheistic conceptions of the world. Hume himself and his exist- ing disciples do not go so far in their philosophic nihilism as the author of the Byom Sar and of the Souni Sar^ the contemporary poet Bhaktawar. We read in the first of these compositions : " From nothing all things are born -, in nothing all things perish. Even the illimitable expanse of sky is all hollowness. What alone has no beginning, nor will ever have an end, and is still of one character, that is vacuum." The Sourni Sdr is still more explicit : "All that is seen is nothing, and is not really seen. Lord or no Lord, it is all one. Maya is nothing ; Brahm is nothing. All is false and delusive. . . . The teacher is nothing; the disciple nothing; the ego and the non-ego are alike nothing. The Temple and the God are nought ; nought is the worship of nought, and nought the prayer addressed to nought."^ The majority, however, of the educated classes have remained pro- foundly religious at heart and in the tone of their thought. What has been said of the Germans may be said of the Hindus : that even when they profess to be Materialists or Atheists, they still remain Meta- physicians, Idealists, or, in some measure. Mystics. Those who, fascinated by European science, profess to accept one of the systems of thought at present in vogue among us, seem to be specially influ- enced by the synthetic aspect of its doctrines. Even the Vedantine school appears to have been endowed with new life from its contact with European culture,^ and there is no reason why it should not 1. Monier Williams, Hinduism, page 225. 2. F. S. Growse, Mathura, a District Memoir. Agra, 1874, part i., page 19. 3. See an interesting defence of the Vedantine philosophy, published by Prof. Pramada Dasa Mittra, in the loth volume of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1878. 500 BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA, completely emancipate itself from popular superstitions without losing any of its religious aspirations or even of its mystic tendencies. It may be asked, therefore, whether the Hindus will not confine themselves to replacing their ancient faith by one or other of the religions which at present exist in India. Let us consider, then, the relative importance of these creeds and their chances of predominance in the future. ^ The Parsees constitute too small a group for comparison in a con- sideration of this kind. Besides, the religion of Zoroaster, which is perhaps the oldest in the world, shows no signs of proselytism. The Sikhs, again, are little more than a sect of Hinduism. As to the Buddhists, who also form to-day but a very small minority of the Hindu population, they could only regain an ascendancy by comply- ing with a two-fold condition : on the one hand, a radical reform of the Buddhist Church; on the other, a general development of Pessimist tendencies, of which there are no signs at present. — There remain the religions of the Koran and the Bible. Islamism numbers fifty millions of adherents in British India, which has led to the statement that England is the first Mussulman power in the world. As the reader may be aware, the followers of Mohammed are divisible to-day into three great sects : the Sunnites, by far the most numerous who render allegiance to the spiritual authority of the Sultan of Constantinople; the Shiites or partisans of Ali, who specially predominate in Persia ; and the Wahabis of recent origin, whose principal centre is in Arabia. These sects hold in com- mon : (i) The belief in One God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe; (2) the belief in a future life in which the good will be rewarded and the wicked punished; (3) the doctrine of a Divine I. Here are, as regards religion, the results of the Decennial Census taken in British India on the 17th of February, 1881, the Independent States being excluded from the computation : — Hindus (believers in Hinduism) 187,937,450 Mohammedans 50,121,585 Buddhists 3,418,884 Christians (including foreigners) ... 1,862,634 Sikhs 853,426 Fetishists 6,426,511 Other faiths, or those without any specified religion... 4,279,026 Total ... 254,899,516 BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. 301 Revelation by the intervention of the Prophets, and in the last place of Mohammed — a Revelation, indeed, which relates not only to spiritual matters but to all the forms of human activity ; (4) the con- viction that the Koran is the literal Word of God. The Sunnites go so far as to extend the gift of inspiration to the first Caliphs and to the principal doctors of Islam ; thus they consider themselves pre-eminently orthodox; they possess, however, a liberal school, the Shafites, who admit the possibility of religious progress, and profess, with regard to unbelievers, a toleration based upon universal morality. The Shiites refuse all special authority to the decisions of the Caliphs who succeeded Mohammed ; they proclaim the rights of individual interpretation with regard t© the text of the Koran ; but they seem less strictly attached to Monotheism, inasmuch as they believe in the personification of the twelve principal divine attributes, and count on the advent of the Messiah. It is from their ranks that the Sofis of Persia have sprung, whose Mystico-Pantheistic doctrine is not without resemblance to the Vedantine Philosophy. The Wahabis, who have been called, and not improperly, the Puritans of Islamism, accord authority to nothing beyond the Koran and the utterances of the Prophets; they condemn pilgrimages as well as the worship of saints and holy relics ; and their ideal is the return of the Islamic world to the position it occupied at the death of Mohammed. India scarcely contains more than five millions of Shiites. As to the Wahabis, however small their numbers, they have had more than once to endure the rigours of the English Government in consequence of their fanaticism. Speaking generally, the Islamism of the lower classes is more or less imbued with Hindu superstitions ; among the educated Mussulmans, on the other hand, a certain spirit of liberal- ism prevails, and this has powerfully contributed to the development of the Anjumans. Not only is there to be found among these a most decided taste for the study of the sciences, but also a sincere desire to purify the religion of Mohammed by freeing it from its parasitical excrescences, with a certain religious eclecticism, kept, it is true, within the limits of the sects of Islam. In 1877, for instance, one of the most distinguished Indian Mussulmans, Said Ahmed Khan, a former judge at Benares, founded at Aligurth, a large Oriental college for both Shiites and Sunnites. He was followed in this 302 BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. course by the lamented Salar Yung, the Nizam's Minister, who did so much for the moral and material well-being of the kingdom of Hyderabad. 1 It is difficult to foresee where this movement of intellectual emanci- pation will end. Islamism has to take but a single step to find itself in full sympathy with the Rationalistic Monotheism of the West. But it could not make this advance, which consists in the rejection of the supernatural origin of the Koran, without losing its distinctive characteristic, and so long as it abstains from taking this step forward, neither persuasion nor force will gain an acceptance for it among the masses of the Hindu people — even though we should be called upon to witness the restoration of a vast Mussulman power in India, as Mr. W. S. Blunt predicts.2 Will Christianity be more fortunate? If Christian missionaries were not addicted to hope against all hope, they would have been long since discouraged at the uselessness of a propagandism which, after immense sacrifices and the constant efforts of half a century, has merely resulted in the conversion of a few hundred thousand natives out of a popu- lation of two hundred and fifty millions. This unsatisfactory state of things is admitted by the Anglican Bishops of India, in their collective letter to the English Clergy, of May, 1874. ''There is nothing," said they, " that can at all warrant the opinion that the heart of the people has been largely touched, or that the conscience of the people has been affected seriously. There is no advance in the direction of faith in Christ ; ... the condition is one rather of stagnation." This avowal should not surprise us. When the missionaries begin to teach the Hindus the infallibility of the Scriptures, the Divinity of Christ, or the mystery of the Trinity, they either have to address themselves to the Orthodox, who, possessing analogous dogmas in their own theology, see no reason for exchanging them for beliefs which are more unfamiliar to their race, without being more in har- mony with their reason ; or else they have to deal with Rationalists, who, having outgrown the traditions of Hinduism by means of free inquiry, are anything but disposed to subject themselves to the yoke of a new Revelation. Thus Ram Mohun Roy said that, after giving 1. Garcin de Tassy, Revue de la Litterature Hindoustanie, Annie iSyy. 2. W. S. Blunt, The Future of Islam. London, Kegan Paul, 1882. BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. 303 up the belief in a plurality of Gods or Divine Persons, which is held by several sections of Hinduism, he could not conscientiously and logically adopt an analogous system, however purified it might be. According to writers like Monier Williams and Garcin de Tassy, Indian missionaries, in order to be successful, should be drawn from that enlightened section of the clergy who possess a complete know- ledge of the religions which they are called upon to oppose. But it is just here that the difficulty lies, for the moment the missionary acquires a taste for the study of comparative theology, it is no longer, in his eyes, mere Pagan superstition which he subjects to the criterium of scientific methods, and the end is that he who went out to convert others, returns converted himself. As illustrations of this, take the career of Mr. F. W. Newman in Syria, that of Bishop Colenzo among the Caffirs, and that of the Rev. — Adams in India, to mention merely the most noted cases. The only form of Christianity which succeeds in impressing the Hindu is its moral and humanitarian side. But Christianity, reduced to this element, is scarcely represented by any but the modern Unitarians — that is to say, by Brahmoism with an English name. In perusing the extracts I have given in the course of this work, the reader must have been struck by the resemblance between Brah- moism and liberal Christianity, both in doctrine and history. Certain views of truth which are expressed every day in Unitarian pulpits and in the works of liberal Protestants, might be met with in the utterances of Brahmoists — ^just as passages are to be found in the publications of the Brahmo Somaj which would do honour to the pen of a Channing or a Parker. When Keshub Chunder Sen, and, at a later time, Protab Chunder Mozoumdar, preached in certain Unitarian churches of Great Britain, their hearers, as one of them told me himself, might have easily imagined themselves listening to their customary ministers, who had become slightly Orientalized in manner and expression by a long residence on the banks of the Ganges. Doubtless, there is something both impressive and remarkable in this contact of two currents of religious thought which, having originated in Central Asia and moved in opposite directions with the Aryan migrations five or six thousand years ago, are thus meeting on the common ground of an eclectic and rational faith as the result of a like evo- 304 BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. lution. Still, if this synthetic faith is to spread in India, will it not be in its native form and with its national badge ? Brahmoism has retained the elements which are indispensable for satisfying the traditional exigencies and the characteristic concep- tions of the Hindu genius. I shall restrict myself to mentioning, on this head, the importance which it attaches to the divine immanence, to a recognition of the claims of duty towards all living creatures, to the conviction that the struggle for truth and justice is continued after death, and finally to the influence of an element of the religious life which has almost fallen to a minimum in our Western civilization : the love of God. Whether it be a question of the Adi Somaj, the Sadharan Somaj, or of the New Dispensation, there is unanimity of opinion on this last point. Here is a passage from a somewhat interesting pamphlet dedicated to the English Unitarians by the existing President of the Adi Somaj, Raj Narain Bose, " in the hope of aiding them in some measure, to give to their Church a tone more in harmony with the spirit of Theism : " " If I were to describe Theism in one word, it would be the word love. Theism can be divided into — firstly, a belief in the love of God to his creatures ; secondly, our love of God ; thirdly, doing the work he loves. It was love that created the world. God wanted to diffuse happiness to other beings and he created the world. It is God's love that still preserves the world. It is love of God to man that makes him take personal interest in him. It is love of God to man that entitles him to the appellations of Father and Friend. It is the love of God to man that makes him near and easily accessible to man. It is the love of God to man that leads him to grant prayers and reveal religious truth to him. It is the love of God to man that leads him to promote the progress of his soul in a future state. It is an instinctive love of God that first draws man towards God. It is like the love of the new born insect for the honey in the flower, which it has not yet tasted. It is love of God that makes man per- form the works which God loves. Morality is nothing but love. What does morality say ? Morality says love your neighbours, love your country, love the world, love the right. Love also implies knowledge. As we cannot love a friend if we do not know his merits, so if we do npt know the perfections of God, which constitute his BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. 305 lovliness, how can we love him ? If we do not know what is right, how can we love the right? All religion, therefore, is included in the word love. What is leading a religious life, but leading a life of love, thinking love, speaking love, diffusing an atmosphere of love around us?"i The Constitution of the Prarthana Somaj of Surat declares that religion consists of devotion (bhakit)^ in union with morality (niti) and love (prem). It adds, moreover, that devotion is a combination of faith (erdddhd)i contemplation (prAsand), and virtuous conduct ( saddchdr j."^ Even the Sadharan Somaj, though due to a re-action against the mystical excesses of Keshub, asserts that "the way to salvation is not through Pantheism, which regards sin and misery as delusions ; not through Asceticism, which aspires to uproot the desires and subjugate the body ; but through love, which teaches the soul to seek the will of the Father as the highest good."^ The entire history of the Hindu people bears witness to their invin- cible repugnance to every form of faith which is not based upon an exalted sentiment of Divine love and upon the possibility of attaining to an intimate communion with God : in other words, upon the bhakti and \ki^yoga. But if we are to take into account this double tendency when estimating every attempt made to transform the beliefs of India, we must also admit that the spirit of the age lends itself to other methods and processes, even in the matter of religion and on the banks of the Ganges. Christianity, or, if the expression be preferred, the influence of Christian civilization, has developed in India an element which Mohammedanism was unable to create : a need of intellectual and moral activity, which has also its religious side, revealing itself in missionary, moral and philanthropic efforts, but which readily comes into antagonism with the different forms of con- templation and ecstasy. The doctrine most fitted to reconcile these contradictory elements is assuredly that which would have the best chance of acceptance among the Hindus. 1. Raj Narain Bose, The Hindu Theisfs Brotherly Gift to English Theists. Calcutta, 1 88 1, page i6. 2. Brahmo Year Book for 1882, page 84. 3. Sivanlith Sastri, The New Dispensation and the S&dh&ran Brahmo Sonidjy page 91. See also, on the same subject, an article of the Brahmo Public Opinion^ reproduced by Miss Collet in her Annual for 1880, page 92. W 306 BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. This is a truth which the different sections of Brahmoism have recognized, with varying degrees of clearness. " Communion (yoga)" said The Brahmo Public Opinion on the 26th of February, t88o, in an article dealing more or less with the New Dispensation, " sharpens the eyesight of the spirit. Through it we grow familiar with the veri- ties of the spiritual world ; through it objects of faith become objects of spiritual perception. But communion, if practised as the only means of spiritual culture, begets moral inanity and deadens the active energies of the soul. Like communion, religious frenzy (bhakti) has also its use and its dangers. A state of frenzy can never be the normal condition of the soul. ... It can be, and often is, induced by purely external and adventitious causes. . . . Besides, there is not much connection between such ecstatic display and real excellence of character. In the spiritual culture of a Brahmo, active and prayerful work should form the ground plan, the other two sup- plementing it for perfection." "The ultimate object of religion," says another number of the same journal (January 23, 1879), is to be at one with God, not only in sentiment, but in action, too. We are required not merely to worship, but also to serve God. Love is practical in its nature. If genuine, it must come out in action. Love that is not active is no love at all." It is equally necessary to take into account the changes which the diffusion of Western scientific knowledge will produce m the Hindu mind. Sir H. Sumner Maine said at the University of Calcutta in 1865: "In the fight which the educated Hindu and the Christian missionary wage against error, such success as has been gained, such as will be gained, evidently depends on physical knowledge. . . . Happily some fragment of physical speculation has been built into every false system. Here is the weak point. Its inevitable destruc- tion leaves a breach in the whole fabric, and through that breach the whole armies of truth march in." The different sections of Brahmos have already had an opportunity of showing, by their educational institutions, how fully they have realized the necessity of founding the regeneration of Modern India on the diffusion of scientific knowledge. The cultivation of science is placed by the Brahmo Dharma in the list of duties towards God, and Keshub himself did not differ on this subject from Parker and Emerson. " A Theist," said he, " must love science with warm and BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. 307 enthusiastic love, for science is God's Scripture, written by his own hand, infaUible and sacred."^ Up to the present Brahmoism has remained faithful to our spiritual and transcendental Theism. But there is no reason why it should not, in imitation of the Unitarian Church, adapt itself equally well to the ideas which tend to predominate in the philosophy of evolution. It must not be forgotten indeed that all our present systems of thought have their equivalents in the ancient speculations of the Brahmans. Before our era, for instance, the Sankhya school taught that the universe had arisen by a gradual evolution, from an incoherent, inde- terminate and homogenous substance, Prakriti^ and had differentiated and developed itself by its own inherent forces. T^his system seems to have been at first Atheistic and Materialistic, and therefore more analogous to the doctrine of Haeckel than to that of Spencer. But the impossibility of explaining the transformation of matter into spirit, led later advocates of this bold speculation to admit the existence of spiritual energies, not to be traced back to the material manifestations of the Prakriti, and which had to be conceived of as uniting with the latter in the evolution of the universe. ^ Then again the difficulty of accounting for the relative and finite without assuming an Absolute substratum led them, as it has led the evolutionists of our epoch, to concede the existence of the Unknowable, the mysterious power from which matter and spirit alike emanate. There is a passage in the Upanishads which describes God as unknown by those who profess to know him, and known only by those who put forward no such claim.3 A profound remark this, and one which even Herbert Spencer himself would not disavow. Does it follow that religion and worship disappear with the possibility of defining the Absolute Being? The Brahmos have resolved this problem which is occupying so much attention in Christian society, and have given it the solution which tends to prevail in the most 1. Essays Theological and Ethical^ page 37- 2. Sdnkhya Tatwa Kanmondi of Vachaspati Misra commences with these words: "The Pratrika is one; it is self-existent and in a state of equilibrium. It is the source and mother of all life. Souls (puroushas) are multiple, uncreated and associated with matter ; after a certain time they quit this material envelope and depart." 3. It was in order to clearly mark the indeterminate nature of the Absolute Being that the Brahmans used the neuter gender in speaking of the Supreme. 308 BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. advanced liberal Protestantism : " In our religious culture, said the Brahmo Public Opinion of the 2nd of January, 1879, we should lay greater stress on the spiritual side of it than on the theological ; in other words we should distinguish between knowing God and loving God. All our attempts to know God, to divine and explain his purposes, to fathom the depths of his wisdom and goodness, are vain and fruitless. But we can always approach him from the side of love. Love is life ; this is rigorously true for our spiritual life. It is, moreover, the Key of Paradise." Doubtless, it is impossible to state with certainty that Brahmoism under one or other of its forms, is destined to become the future religion of India, or even that it is the approaching faith of the en- lightened Hindus, as Sir Richard Temple, one of those best acquainted with the country, has recently said of it.^ But what may be affirmed, as it seems to me, is : first that the reform of Hinduism will come, not from without but from within ; and further, that of all the religious movements observable in India, Brahmoism is the one which seems to most closely correspond with the present direction of Hindu thought. After having thus considered the influence which European thought has been able to exert on the beliefs of India, it would be of interest to inquire, both as regards the present and the future, whether the genius of India is not destined, in its turn, to re-act upon the philo- sophical and religious ideas of the Western world. It is only by way of suggestion that I refer here to individual con- versions of Europeans to the faiths of India. More frequent than might be supposed, on a priori grounds, they none the less form the exception.2 Nor shall I dwell upon the modifications which the direct 1. Fortnightly Review of January, 1883. 2. Garcin de Tassy, who kept an account of these ''perversions," as he called them, mentions the occurrence of seven in 1874 and of nine during 1875 5 among others he refers to the case of an English captain, who had adopted the Mussul- man faith at Bangalore. He also speaks of a young Englishman who had become a Yogui and had placed himself under the spiritual direction of the officiating minister of the Hindu Temple at Mount Jago. {Revue de la Litterature Hindou- stanie for 1874, 1875, 1876.) Less calculated to arrest public attention, but more significant and more numerous are the conversions to the philosophical ideas of India. Speaking from personal experience, I may mention the case of two English officials whose hospitality I shared during my journeys through the interior. Alike BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. 309 and continued contact of native ideas cannot fail to produce on the religious convictions of enlightened and independent minds. But when the problem is considered from a more general point of view, it becomes apparent that even to-day the influence of the two countries has been reciprocal ; and if we see in Brahmoism the Hindu equiva- lent of the views in favour an\ong the more advanced minds of the Christian Churches, it would be unjust to under-rate the influence which has been exercised on the latter by the knowledge of the religious and spiritual systems due to the genius of Oriental peoples. Of all the religious literature of the East, our fathers knew only the rigorously Monotheistic Scriptures of the Semitic peoples — the Bible and the Koran. Suddenly, just where they imagined there was nothing but incoherent superstitions or indecipherable ruins, science began to reveal the profound, consistent, and, in some instances, sub- lime conceptions of the various systems embodied in the sacred books of the Brahmans, the Buddhists, and the Parsis, as well as among the tablets of Egypt and Babylon. Those who have unexpectedly found themselves in presence of the treasures of the Zend-Avesta, the Pitakas, and, above all, of the Vedas, are alone able to understand, from their own feeling of astonishment and admiration, the importance of the possibly unconscious transformation of thought, which the works of Orientalists have produced upon the intellectual and theological con- ceptions of Western society. If we have perchance awakened to activity the dogma of Divine transcendence among the Hindu re- formers, has not India, on the other hand, aided in bringing before the Monotheists of the West the conception of Divine immanence, which restores God to Nature, or rather Nature to God ? Where, in these days, do we find any trace of the cold and abstract Deism of last century, which, after having suppressed miracles, did not know what to do with its Divinity, who was inert and superfluous, having no relation to either nature or humanity? And if, in the majority of modern schools of religious thought, this Deism is replaced by versed in the languages of the country, they had distinguished themselves by pro- found researches, the one on the Buddhists of the Himalaya and the other on the legend of Krishna. At the time when I made their acquaintance, the former a Protestant by birth, had become a disciple of Schopenhauer, if not of Buddha ; the latter, who at first became a convert to Catholicism, had absolutely adopted the Vedantine philosophy of the Bhavagad Gita, which he sincerely believed he could reconcile with Catholic theology. 310 BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. more synthetic and living conceptions, which re-open the fountains of religious emotion while they facilitate the reconciliation, not of science with religion, but of religion with science, is not this change due, in some measure, to that philosophical literature of the East, which is pervaded by so profound a sentiment of close relationship, between the three great factors of the religious idea — God, nature and humanity? Just before leaving Europe on the occasion of his first visit, Protab Chunder Mozoumdar had a long conversation with Professor Tyndall, who had just shocked orthodox England by his open avowal of religious scepticism at the Belfast meeting of the British Association. " Working in the cold light of the understanding," said the eminent English physicist, " we feel here the want of the fire and vigour of the religious Life. This is all but extinct in England. In saying so, and in not accepting it at the hands of those who have it not, I have become unpopular. Let those who have the Life give it unto us. To you, therefore, in the East we look with real hope. Life came from those regions once before, and it must come again." ^ I cannot say whether we are to accept this compliment of the English scientist to the Brahmoist reformer in the light of a predic- tion, but its realization would not surprise those who have studied the present state of India, as well as the general history of religious thought, apart from all sectarian prejudices. Professor Max Miiller has shown in one of his finest works what the religious sentiment of Europe may borrow from India.^ In a work of a more speculative order. Von Hartmann has gone so far as to predict that the religion of the future will be a Pantheistic Monism, which will borrow the conception of the Divine immanence from India, and that of the Divine unity from the Judeo-Christian tradition. " Viewed from the stand-point of religious history," says he, " the aim we propose to ourselves can only be attained by a synthesis of the development of the Hindu and Judeo-Christian religions, in a form which will unite the advantages of these two tendencies of the human mind, and which, by remedying their mutual defects, will also be able 1. Protab Chunder Mozoumdar, Missionary Operations in England, in the Theistic Annual iox 1875. 2. The conchision of the lectures on V Origine et le Developpement de la religion etudies a la lumiere des religions de Vlnde, translation by M. J. Darmes- teter. Paris, Reinwald, 1879, page 327. BRAHMOISM AND THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF INDIA. 311 to replace both, and to thus become, in the proper sense of the word, a universal religion. Such a Pantheistic Monism, whose metaphysical foundations are in perfect harmony with reason, would lend itself, in other respects, to the liveliest action on the religious sentiment, and would thus give to morals a solid vantage-ground more nearly allied to what is called religious truth than anything to be found in any other system."! This truth Brahmoism thinks it has found, or is at least assured of its discovery, and its various Churches, however divided they may be among themselves, are agreed in accepting the words of Protab Chunder Mozoumdar, when he says, in his apology for the New Dispensation, "We have not now a doubt in our minds that the religion of the Brahmo Somaj will be the religion of India — yea, of the whole world, and that those who really care for God, for piety, for purity, for human brotherhood, for salvation and for eternal life, will have, in one way or another, under one name or another, to accept the faith and the spirit that a merciful God is perpetually pouring into the constitution of our Church."^ Without professing to share this absolute confidence, which is the gift of faith, we may nevertheless come to the general conclusion that, if the Hindu spirit continues to advance along the lines now forming its course, the world will yet witness more than one curious inter- change of religious, as well as of moral and scientific ideas, between the two great branches of the Aryan race. Was it not from analogous interchanges between the ancient Pantheism and the Semitic Mono- theism in the crucible of Neo-Plationism, that Christianity itself took definite form in the second century of our era ? If India helps us to pass through the religious crisis which is now troubling society, and it is perhaps in a condition to do this, it will have deserved well of all those who are interested in the harmonious development of civilization. 1. Von Hartmann, La Religion de PAvenir, ch. ix. M. von Hartmann has subsequently developed the same idea in his work, Das Religiose Bewustsein der Alenscheit im Sttifengang seiner Entwickelung. Berlin, 1882, i vol. 2. Brahmo Year Book for i88i,page 137. Protab Chunder Mozoumdar visited England again during the summer of 1883, when he preached in several Unitarian Churches with the same acceptance as at the time of his first visit. In truth the position he has taken up belongs less to the New Dispensation than to the general principles of Brahmoism, in other words, to Transcendental Theism. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. In beginning this work, I at first described how the moral and spiritual emancipation of which Luther gave the signal in his first cry of revolt against Rome, came into collision in England with the popular life of the day, and even with the motives which had led to the reform effected by Henry VIII. I showed in the second place how these obstacles were gradually smoothed away, partly by the natural and legitimate development of the Protestant principle, and partly by the intellectual and political influences at work in secular society. The reader was also enabled to follow the course of that evolution which manifested itself in turn by the progress of religious neutrality in civil legislation, of Rationalism in the prevalent modes of thought, and of liberalism in the constitution of the Churches. Is it t9 be inferred that the existence of religion is threatened by this general repudiation of theocracy? I have shown that though certain sects in the Protestant Churches pride themselves on ignoring the discoveries of science and the aspirations of their age, and though others persist in seeking the means of reconciling the data of science with the belief in miracles by means of specious compromises, on the other hand, a large number of religious people and many congrega- tions have been able to meet all the claims of the modern spirit, without breaking the continuity of religious thought. This extension of the theological horizon, which is taking place more or less in all sections of Christendom, open to a modification of their dogmas, is specially manifest in those Churches which rest, not upon uniformity of beliefs, but rather upon identity of sentiment. It is the Unitarian Church which perhaps offers us the most perfect type of the latter condition. Anglo-Saxon Protestantism might be compared, indeed, to the division of an army which is executing a forward march. Day after day the main body pitch their tents on the very spot occupied by the advanced guard the night before, and this interchange of position is so fully maintained between detachment and detachment that at length the rear-guard takes up the position evacuated by the centre. Each corps loses as a matter of course a few stragglers on the march, 314 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. and sometimes also a few scouts ; but while the latter disappear from the field of battle, the former simply increase the strength of the columns immediately in their rear. Thus the relative positions remain unchanged, although the entire division keeps advancing nearer and nearer its goal. As we have seen, this progressive movement has not been restricted to the limits of liberal Protestantism, but has manifested itself beyond the pale of Christian communions in a two-fold direction — the one religious the other philosophical. In the first place, the progressive elimination of dogmatic elements has produced a " free religion " after creating a " free Christianity," on the basis of a distinction between religious sentinient and religious belief, to be henceforth regarded as absolute. Sometimes, as in the case of Mr. Moncure D. Conway's congregation, this radical concep- tion assumes the form of an aesthetic worship rendered to the human ideal. At other times, as among the Free Religious Congregations of the United States, it tends to practical applications and religious reform. Regarding it in this latter aspect, we have stated the results it is attaining, from a theoretical point of view, in the Comtist scheme of worship, as this is organized in London; and from a practical stand- point in the recently-formed " Societies for Ethical Culture " in New York, Chicago and Boston, which are already surrounded with insti- tutions making them true Churches of humanity. It should be remarked, moreover, that when in our day it is a question of carry- ing out some common philanthropical or moral aim, even the most creed-bound sects put aside their differences in order to unite, not only among themselves, but even with Agnostics and sceptics. In the second place, the rejection of a supernatural Bible has brought Theists of Christian antecedents into union with the eman- cipated minds of Jewish and Hindu origin. When it is remembered that this Theism rests on principles long since accepted as the essence of natural religion — in other words, the existence of God, the immor- tality of the soul, the imperative authority of the moral law and the spiritual value of personal piety, it would appear that we must really have found the final expression of religion, the supreme synthesis of all the reforms carried on in the name of reason and conscience. Thus we can hardly fail to be astonished that only some few isolated SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 315 congregations, such as Mr. Voysey's in' London and Mr. Samuel Johnson's at Lynn, U.S., should have sprung from this school. Nor will this surprise be diminished when it is remembered that Theism, more or less the result of reflection, constitutes to-day the dominant faith of the enlightened classes in England and America. It is because Theism is above all things a personal faith that we meet with this result. With some, it represents merely the spiritual residuum left after the progressive elimination of orthodox dogmas. With others, it is the direct product of the intuitive method brought to bear upon the materials furnished by consciousness. But in the one case as well as in the other it leads to isolation rather than to religious grouping. As to the Theists who feel the need of spiritual fellowship, they often find sufficient to satisfy this without leaving the historic Church in which they have been brought up, as happens at times among the advanced Unitarians, the liberal Friends, the Reformed Jews, and even with certain sections of the Congrega- tionalists and Presbyterians. It is only in India that pure Theism has produced a whole net-work of fervent congregations ; and this result is doubtless as much due to the mystical temperament of the Hindu race as it is to the successive failijre of all attempts to regener- ate the old native creed. Transcendental Theism, which seemed about to endow America with a new religion half a century ago, would have merited this bril- liant success had it been merely a question of the elevation of its principles and the fruitfulness of its teachings. But, like German Idealism, whose most mystical tendencies it represented, this move- ment, which Parker and Emerson rendered illustrious, fell a victim to its own excesses the very day it encountered its old adversary. Sensationalism, supported this time by the marvellous discoveries of the positive sciences. It is difficult to predict where victory will ultimately declare itself, in this conflict between the two philosophies which have always struggled for the mastery in the human mind. Rendered more circumspect by their reciprocal vicissitudes, they both seem to be approaching a common stand-point to-day, possibly with a view to making a permanent compromise, by the adoption of some system which, while it admits that positive knowledge is limited to the 316 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. phenomenal world, shall proclaim the absolute existence of a tran- scendent Reality. This double thesis, it should be added, was long since adopted by Kant, and the success of the works which the centenary of the illustrious German philosopher has called forth, seems to indicate that his school after sustaining, without submission, one of the most violent assaults known to the history of philosophy, is still capable of resum- ing an ascendency over modern thought, or at least offering a starting point for some new synthesis of the Universe, in conformity with our present scientific knowledge. It is the Critique of Pure Reason which directly inspires an influential section of the so-called Agnostic school, and it is perhaps owing to its having sounded in time a retreat upon Kant, that English Theism has not shared the fate of American Transcendentalism. If we seek to ascertain what modern criticism has not been able to shake in the sphere of the super-sensible, we shall hardly find more than can be summed up in the four following propositions : — (i) The positive existence of a Supreme Reality which reveals itself in consciousness but which transcends all definition. (2) Our constant state of dependence upon this Reality, in which we live, move and have our being. (3) The certainty that this Power manifests its action by fixed and general laws. (4) A connecting link of some kind between this action and the tendency which prompts us to do our duty. The reader must not mistake the scope of this enumeration. It assuredly falls far short of the principles generally looked upon as the essence of natural religion. It fails, indeed, in my opinion, to embody all the beliefs which are to be reconciled with the existing affirmations of science. I have not made, for instance, any allusion in it, to the continued existence of the soul, although that hypothesis, as Mr. James Sully formally asserts, has not been rendered untenable by all the attacks of positive science. Even more, it seems difficult to accept the last two propositions without deducing from them, as a corollary, the existence of a mysterious end towards which, not only humanity, but also the whole economy of Nature is tending — whether we employ the term Final Cause or not, to indicate this goal. But I SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 317 make no claim whatever to utter the last word of science in its bear- ing on religion ; my object has simply been to summarize the truths relating to a super-sensible order of things, which may be looked upon as generally admitted by contemporary scientists and thinkers in, at least, the Anglo-Saxon world. Now — apart from the advocates of the old physiological Materialism, who are every day becoming more rare, and the small sceptical school entrenched within the universal Phenominalism of Hume, together with the group of orthodox Positivists who systematically refuse to discuss the question of the Unknowable — it may be affirmed that these four propositions are accepted by all who are in any way capable of exercising an influence on modern culture, from the liberal theologians of the Anglican Church and of the Dissenting sects to the evolutionists in harmony with Spencer and the critical thinkers of the Kantian school. We may see in them, therefore, not the faith of to- morrow, but its first outlines, the indestructible basis of every edifice of religious thought, the crypt, " still so narrow and obscure" in which Professor Max Miiller shows us the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Mussul- man, the Jew, and the Christian, each bringing the truest and purest elements of his creed to serve as materials for erecting the Church of the future. Even now, the Churches are not alone in furnishing either materials or workmen for this process of reconstruction. For though in the course of this volume I have been compelled to register the blows dealt by contemporary science at the old mode of argument in support of spiritual religion, I have also been able to relate the happy efforts of the Anglo-Saxon mind, either to strengthen the foundations of rational theology by new arguments, or to find fresh sources of religious inspiration in the harmony of the cosmos and the mystery of the Unknowable. It is not merely Christian ministers such as Dr. Martineau, Mr. Savage, Chadwick and Heber Newton or leaders of Free Congregations like Voysey, Conway, and Potter, or, indeed, literary men such as Prof. Seeley, Mr. Graham, Matthew Arnold, &c., who have devoted themselves to this task. It is also the principal representatives of English science from Darwin to Herbert Spencer, with Wallace, Jevons, Tait, Balfour Stewart, Tyndall, and Dr. Car- penter — those whom preachers sometimes treat as Atheists as well as those who glory in the profession of Christianity. 318 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. " There is no more remarkable feature in the philosophy of our day, wrote Prof Fairbairn in the Contemporary Review of July, 1881, than its endeavour to baptize its highest ideals in the emotions or even enthusiasms of religion, to penetrate its ultimate doctrines with something of the Theistic spirit and power. This, perhaps the most common and characteristic tendency of all our modern systems, is due to many causes — to the nobler and more reverent spirit of the age ; to the sense of weakness deepening in man, with his growing consciousness of the immense energies he has, but the still immense work they have to do ; to the larger sense of humanity that marks our culture, making men sensitive to human misery, conscious of a kinship with the suffering millions that have suffered in the past ; to the new feeling of the omnipotence of the order that reigns around us, the almightiness of the law that binds into an ordered and organized universe the infinitude of material atoms and the multitude of spiritual units, each by itself so feeble and wayward, but altogether so mighty and glorious. But, however the tendency may be explained, it is there, urging men of all systems to find a symbol or substitute for Deity, a field and law for religious emotions." Mr. O. B. Frothingham indicated the same tendency in the United States, when he said in the preface of his Freedom and Fellowship in Religion : " The destructive period is about passed by ; the constructive period has begun. In science the greatest men are distinguishing themselves by positive generalizations. In philosophy, the lines are converging towards certain central principles. . . . For a long time yet the relentless armour must be worn ; but sentiment and imagination, recovering from the shock occasioned by the fall of their old idols are rallying courageously to do their part in peopling the new heavens with worshipful ideals and clothing in robes of glory the august forms which the seraphs at the gate of knowledge allow passage to the upper skies." There is in all this a sort of second edition of the intellectual phenomena, which occurred at the time of the Antonines. In a parallel of this kind it is, of course, necessary to take into account the special characteristics of each epoch. Ancient civilization was all at the surface ; it was not based upon a co-ordinated sum of positive knowledge ; it did not extend down to the humbler classes by the SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 319 intervention of popular education ; it was restricted to a small area of the globe and therefore liable to be destroyed in any social cataclysm of a partial or local character. It might be compared, indeed, to a fine majestic oak which yields to a few strokes of the axe, applied to its roots. Our civilization, however, rather resembles those banyan trees of India, whose branches reach down to the soil and put forth rootlets which give rise to new trunks, so much so that to cut down a tree it would be necessary to uproot a forest. Then again printing and, above all, journalism, have wholly changed the conditions of religious propagandism. Controversy has reached new strata of society, and it has become more difficult to close the ears of the pious* world to any storm of criticism which may be raging beyond the pale of the Churches. Superstitions, again, have to run the risk of being tested in the light of thought, and impostures of being exposed before they have had time to crystalize into legends and dogmas. On the other hand, religious proselytism has seen its sphere of action increased tenfold, and the journalist tends to replace the missionary.! But all these social differences only serve to render more striking the analogy, if not of the facts and doctrines at least of the situations and tendencies, between contemporary society and the Pagan world during the first three centuries of our era. Then, as now, the old popular theology had been superseded by the progress of reason ; a natural reaction had led to the successive predominance of the sober and correct Deism of Cicero ; the Material- ism of Epicurus as sung by Lucretius ; and the system of humanitarian morality of which the Stoics made themselves the brilliant interpreters; it might have been supposed that Scepticism was about to gradually invade all classes of society. But after having measured the in- sufficiency of purely negative solutions, the best minds found themselves once more, by a sort of fatality, in the presence of the enigmas of the Sphinx, which has devoured so many religions and philosophies ; the I. In 1783, eleven years after the death of Swedenborg, two clergymen, who had been converted by the study of his works, inserted an advertisement in the English newspapers, soliciting the co-operation of those willing to join them in founding the New Jerusalem Church. Such was the commencement of Sweden- borgianism, which now reckons some thousands of adherents in Europe and America. 320 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. insoluable problem of origin and end, the disquieting questions of evil, of duty, and of destiny. Then, as now, there were champions of the past who attempted to justify the belief in revelations, prophecies and miracles by an appeal to the native incapacity of human reason. There were others again, who, more intelligent in their Conservatism, sought to reconcile the old forms to the new ideas by means of an ingenious symbolism. This solution, which was specially the work of the Mysteries, seemed calculated to make every one satisfied with a religion possessed of neither Bible, Councils nor Pope. Still it failed, as, according to the sincere avowal of Dean Stanley, the attempts to reconcile the letter of Revelation with the discoveries of science have failed in our own day. Looking at the question from another point of view, the knowledge of foreign systems of faith and worship — which, in reproducing itself in our day, has so largely contributed to the extension of our theo- logical horizon — had produced in the Roman Empire an Eclecticism eminently favourable to new metaphysical and religious conceptions. Not that it created many new forms of faith ; Paganism, at the time of Alexander Severus, was sufficiently broad to open its Pantheon to all the gods. But under cover of old traditions, and often within the shadow of ancient sanctuaries, new theological ideas tended, as they do to-day, to direct to worthier objects that reverence which was no longer given to the old divinities. Meanwhile, there was being developed in the lowest strata of society, a fermentation of religious sentiment which, finding its ancient chan- nels obstructed, now over-flowed in some popular eccentricity — now assumed the form of a vague philosophical Mysticism. It was the same " hunger for spiritual food," to use the expression of an Ameri- can observer,! which is showing itself to-day even in the populations of the Far West, and which so often assumes there the form of a belief in Spiritualism. Besides, whether we consider the calling up of spirits, the prophetic mutterings of a few eccentric heretics, or the extravagances of the Salvation Army, it suffices to glance at such works as Heterodox London^ by Maurice Davies, New America^ by Hepworth Dixon, or simply the miscellaneous reports of the Press I. See the passage which refers to the annual meeting of the Free Religious Association in 1881. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 321 in the two hemispheres, in order to see that the Anglo-Saxons have no cause to envy the Syrian miracle-workers or the Egyptian Theo- sophists. The wonders wrought by the medium, Slade, are quite on a par with those of Simon the Magician. The badge adopted by Joe Smith has not found less sincere adherents than the Sybilline literature, and "General" Booth has made more recruits than Alexander the Paphlagonian or Apollonius of Thyana. It might be supposed, indeed, if we confined our attention to these superficial aspects, that while religions pass away superstitions remain. Happily, the analogy is not restricted to these lower manifestations of religious activity — the mere dross of the transfusion being effected in religious beliefs. There came a time, in the life of the ancients, when the old philosophical schools of Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus ceased to satisfy the requirements of criticism as well as the needs of faith. Stoicism, after finishing its work of intellectual sanitation and of humanitarian propagandism, found itself, like the school of Littre and Mill to-day, insensibly absorbed by systems of thought which were more complete or at least bolder in their claim to interpret the universe. Now, the philosophers of that epoch had so refined away the idea of God, by attempting to reduce it to the idea of Absolute and of Substance, that they had dug an impassable abyss between man the Author of things. After the Judeo-Alexandrians, who had made of the Divinity a pure spirit, came the early Neo-Platonists, who declared this supreme principle to be above intelligence, as indeed superior to life and motion, and therefore beyond and above all conception. They admitted, however, that man, as a finite being, could enter into union with God by the self-obliteration of voluntary renunciation, and they sought, in the Oriental theory of emanation, which explained nature by the fall of spirit into matter, the meta- physical bridge so much needed to cross from the Unconditioned to the finite, from pure spirit to the phenomenal world. But their suc- cessors taught that God is as inaccessible as He is ineffable. Towards whom then could the prayers of the masses or the smoke of the sacrifices ascend ? Who then remained in the height of the heavens to respond to the aspirations and to sympathize with the anguish of the human heart? As all communication with the Un- knowable was now cut off, search had to be made for a mediator or X 322 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. * " second God." Each brought his Demiurgus. The Greek and the Persian offered to the masses the Sun, under the form of Apollo or of Mithra. The Egyptians turned to their god Hermes ; certain Jews suggested the Wisdom of the Eternal. Simon of Gitto proposed his Helen. Philo put forward \hQ Logos ; the Apostle Paul the Christ of the Nazarenes, and the Evangelist John these two conceptions united. The reader knows the result of this competition, which decided for a period as yet incomplete, the religious destiny of Western civilization. Now, here again, after the long slumber of the Middle Ages, modern criticism has resumed the work of ancient philosophy. For a second time human reason has striven to reduce God to the concep- tion of an indefinable and inaccessible existence, without attributes common to the phenomenal world, and destitute of all possible rela- tion to the human mind. Hence speculation has hastened to begin a search for some intermediate agency to fill the void which the soul seems to hold in horror. Herbert Spencer admits that men will always have recourse to symbols to represent the Unknowable. But he abstains from pro- posing or recommending any. The Unitarians would retain a mediator in the person of a Jesus modified according to the demands of critical thought.^ The Transcendentalists of Europe, America, and India trust to conscience, which they regard as representing the Divine Word in man. Professors Tait and Balfour Stewart, returning by the path of science to a sort of Neo-Platonism, suppose that between God and the world there exists an invisible and eternal universe, of which phenomenal nature is in some measure a transitory materialization. Keshub Chunder Sen seemed inclined to resuscitate the doctrine of the hermetic chain which made all great reformers special mes- sengers of the Divinity, and his disciples of the New Dispensation appear to follow him in this tendency. Felix Adler and Moncure D. Conway offer for the veneration of their followers the ideal which the human mind forms of absolute perfection. I. This is only true of the older and more conservative school of Unitarians. — Translator, SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 323 Finally the orthodox disciples of Comte reserve their homage for Humanity personified in its noblest types, and if the majority of Comtists refuse to express an opinion respecting the existence of a Supreme Reality, some among them, in imitation of Mr. W. Frey, claim to reconcile their creed with the philosophy of evolution, by making the Great Being Humanity the minister and mediator of the Unknowable. Now we might be tempted to see in these views the last gasp of a dying religion. But he who studies them closely and impartially will not fail to recognize in them the first signs of a new faith. If there rs any conclusion to be drawn from the present work it is that religion is neither dead nor dying in the Anglo-Saxon race ; but that on the contrary, it has never been more tenacious of life nor more fruitful, and perhaps never nearer an entirp renovation. Does it follow from this that we are even now in possession of the formula of this regeneration, and that in order to find the needed organism we have only to look round among the Churches which have sprung from the Rationalistic movement and select the one best fitted to absorb and outlive its rivals ? Logic and history alike bid us be on our guard against so hasty a conclusion. If it had been a question of fixing upon the form of religion destined to take the place of Paganism, when, about the middle of the first century, the Government of Tiberius expelled from Rome, as Sueto- nius tells us, the disciples of one Chrestus, who had created a disturb- ance in the Jewish quarter, some would have doubtless turned their eyes towards the Academy or the Portico ; others would have men- tioned the Mysteries of Isis, Eleusis or Mithra; a certain number would have suggested the philosophical schools of Rome and Alex- andria ; and the most daring spirits would have perhaps alluded to the Dualism of Persia or the Buddhism of India. No one, however, would have fixed upon a miserable handful of Jewish innovators, disowned by their fellow-countrymen ; or even, somewhat later, would have turned to those alleged Atheists who were beginning to attract the attention of the police by their mysterious meetings in the sub- terranean vaults of the imperial town. With all deference to human pride, be it said, everything in nature is of humble origin, and no one can say to-day whether the uncon- 324 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. scious mission of the publicans and fishermen who grouped themselves around a sweet and mystic idealist on the shores of Lake Tiberias eighteen centuries ago, will not be renewed to-morrow in our midst by some band of Spiritualists holding their stances in a recess of the Rocky Mountains ; by some gathering of enthusiasts discussing Socialism in a back parlour in London ; or by some confraternity of ascetics meditating, like the Essenes of old, on the miseries of the world in a jungle of Hindustan. Perhaps' their only need would be to find another Paul on the road to Damascus, in order to enter upon the ways of the age under his direction. Powerless as we are to predict the name or even the form of the religion of the future, can we not at least conceive of the needs it must satisfy and the tendencies to which it will have to adapt itself ? As early as the first century of our. era, an impartial observer could have predicted with certainty that the approaching system of religion would have to manifest the sentiments of humanity, fraternity and universal charity ; that it would have to preach gentleness, humility and continence, with a scorn for riches and pleasure ; that it would have to emphasize the promises of a future life as a recompense for the ills and injustices of the present ; and, lastly, that it would have to re-act against the old anthropomorphic theogonies, by presenting for the adoration of men a God who should be Spirit, Purity and Love. To-day those aspects of the Divine which seem to specially attract us are Science, Law, Harmony, and consequently Justice : The faith of the future will have to take note of the movement which has pre- vailed in the realm of science ; it will have to adapt its theology to the ideas of immanence, continuity and uniformity in the order of the universe. But a religion is not merely the dramatized reproduction of a cosmical system. From -the very fact that it is a reflex of the ideal, it also represents a reaction against the moral imperfection of the environment in which it exists. Thus Christianity has looked upon matter with an excess of scorn : the coming faith will have to rehabilitate the Beautiful, sanction all rational pleasures and re-establish the communion of man with nature. Our metaphysical speculations have long turned the attention of the highest and most generous minds from the consideration of social SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 325 problems : the new faith will have to relegate the contemplation of super-sensible things to the second rank, in order to concentrate the chief activity of society upon the amelioration of the present world. Our positive sciences tend more and more to the crushing of the feeble by the strong in the struggle for existence : the faith of the future will have to react against this apotheosis of force and to establish on a religious foundation the rights of the individual. Our economic science has not answered to the hopes that our fathers for a while cherished : the future faith will not only have to present us with its solution of the problem of evil, but it must likewise provide us with a remedy, so that more justice may be brought into the relations of men. If in developing these indispensable elements of a progressive and harmonious culture, this faith succeeds in retaining the principles of sincerity, spirituality, and fidelity to duty, together with the devotedness and enthusiasm which have constituted the glory and led to the success of its predecessor, why need we concern ourselves about the name and the symbol under which it may be manifested in order to secure the peace of the human soul and the regeneration of the world ! INDEX INDEX. Abbot, F. E., his propositions at Syra- cuse, 1 86. His editorship of The Index ^ 187. His secession from Unitarianism, 194. His pamphlet, 212. His sermons, 220. His idea of God, 221. Academy of Concord, Description of, 210. Its Hegelianism, 213. Acontius, J., his list of doctrines, 18. His synthetic method, 24. Adams, President, his reference to the extension of Unitarianism, 160. Adams, Rev. W., his religious meetings in Calcutta, 233. His adoption of Liberal Christianity, 303. Adesh, a theory of inspiration, 261. Keshub Chunder Sen's use of it, 269. A doctrine of the New Dispensation, 285, 286. Adi Somaj, its opposition to the Hindu Marriage Act, 249. Chunder Sen's secession from it, 261. The faith of, 284. Its belief in the infallibility of the Vedas, 295. Its agreement with the other Somajes, 304. Adler, Felix, his presidency of the Free Religious Association, &c., 191-195. Reference to his opinions, 205. The beliefs of his followers, 210. His views of morality, 216. His belief in the Absolute, 221. Advaita, the doctrine that the world ex- ists in God, 227. Adventists, believers in the second com- ing of Christ, 77. One of the Ameri- can sects, 205 (note). Affirmation Bill, Mr. Gladstone's, 34. Agnostics and Agnosticism, a negative school, 4. Its development from Uni- tarianism, 6. The origin of the word, 47. Their presence in Parliament, 73. Their estimate of science, 145. Its relation to Spiritualism, 201. Ahmed Khan, his judicial position at Benares, 301. Akbar, The syncretism of, 231. His comprehensive aims, 288. Akhai Kumar Datta, his editorship of a Hindu journal, 238. Alcott, A. B., his connection with the Transcendental Club, 174. His special work, &c.,. 180, 181. His neo-Pytha- gorean views, 210. Alexander the Great, The victories of, 41. Alexander the Paphlagonian, The adhe- rents of, 321. Alexander Severus, The opinion of, in relation to universal religion, 288. Paganism in his time, 320. Alexandria, The school of, and its doc- trine of pure spirit, &c., 321-323. Allah, The edifices devoted to the wor- ship of, 226. A personal God, 233. Alliance, Evangelical, its growing liber- ality, 80. Anabaptists, The persecution of, in the sixteenth century, 19. Their oppo- sition to ecclesiastical functions, 21. Their origin, 82. Their exclusion from New England, 157. Anjumans, semi-religious societies of In- dia, 297. Their development, 301. Antinomians, their exclusion from New England, 157. Apollonius of Thyana, The followers of, 321. Arati, The celebration of, 287. Arians, the progress of their ideas, 19. When first known in England, 82. Their views of Christ, 85. The Hindu form of the doctrine, 274. Aristotle, The influence of, 52. Dedi- cation of a month to him by Comte, 132, His large views of religion, 288. The school of, 321. Army, Salvation, The practices of, 5' Its band, 15. Its various divisions, &c. , 58, 59. Its adherents drawn from the lowest classes, 75. Its extrava- gances, 320. 330 INDEX. Arminianism and Arminians, The doc- trines of, 19. Relation to Unitarian- ism, 93. Antagonism to Predestination , 160. Doctrines of, held by the Camp- bellites, 205. Antonines, thd intellectual condition of their age, 318. Armstrong, Rev. R. A. , The sermon of, 89. Arnold, Dr. , The influence of, 64. His views of Sacred History, 65. Arnold, Matthew, his definition of God, 9, 50. His views of the functions of a Church, 69. What he sees in the Unknowable, 220. His relation to the new school of thought, 317. Articles, The Thirty-nine, when formed, 16. The doctrines of, 66, 67. How accepted by Chillingworth, 71. The probable disappearance of, 72. Arya Somajes, their belief in Vedaic in- fallibility, &c., 294, 295. Aryans, the two branches of family, 7. Conception of neo-Platonic Word, 169. Races of India, 227. Their genius, 236. Their ancient sacrifices, 275. Their migrations, 303. Assises, Francis of, his place in the Comtist ritual, 135. Association of Cojtgregational Ministers at Brooklyn, their resolution, 207. Atheists, their place in Mr. Gladstone's classification, 4. Excluded from Par- liament, 33, 73. Relation to Herbert Spencer's doctrine, 43. Their doc- trines in the last century, 84. The profession of, a crime, 159. Relation to Spiritualism, 201. The pessimistic, in India, 236. Mysticism of, in In- dia, 299. The ancient systems of, 307. Atmiya Sabha, a religious society formed by Ram Mohun Roy, 233. Bacon, Lord, establishes the experi- mental method, 23. Baltimore, Lord, founded Maryland, 159 (note). Bancroft, his Histoiy of the United States, 156 (note). His relation to Transcend- entalism, 180. Baptists, the sections and numbers of, 58, 59. Their position and churches, 75' Gradual change of old congrega- tions, 93. Their relative importance in America, 203. Barth, A., quoted from, 283, 297, 298 (notes). Bartol, C. A., his Transcendentalism, 174. Beecher, Rev. H. Ward, his salary, 202 (note). His liberal teaching, 205. His popularity, 206 (note) . Estimate of his heresy, 207. His speech at the banquet given to Herbert Spencer, 218. Beesley, Professor, a champion of Comt- ism, 136. His views of the future of society, 137. Bellows, Rev. Dr., his desire for union, 185. Berkeley, Bishop, his work of emancipa- tion, 22. Bernard, Claude, the place of his teach- ings, 214. Besant, Mrs., her connection with The Freethinker, 32 (note). Bhagavad Gita, The poem of, 229. The philosophy of, 309 (note). Bhakti, The doctrine of, 229. The school of, 247. Bharat Assam, a boarding-house founded by Chunder Sen, 251. Bharatbharsia Soma], the name for the Soma) of India, 244. The Secretary of, 245. Its Church, 247. Its orga- nization and minister, 248, 250. The congregations affiliated to it, 254 . The unity of the, 255. The progress of the, &c., 261-292. Bhils, The spirit of reform among the, 298. Biddle, John, his heretical views, 82. His death, 83. His idea of Christ, .85- Bisbee, Mrs. Clara, her religious work, 188. Black, Dr. Patrick, one of Mr. Voysey's Committee, 112 (note). Blavatsky, Madame, her connection with the Theosophical Society, 296. Blount, his teaching, 24. Blunt, Mr. W. S., Prediction of, respect- ing Mussulman power, 302. INDEX. 331 Bolingbroke, Lord, The natural Mono- theism of, 24. Booth, " General," his statement, 75 (note). His recruits, 321. Bruno, The religious susceptibilities of, 143 (note). Buddhism and Buddha, his relation to Moses, &c., 185, 187. Mr. Potter's reference to, 191. Rise of, 227. In- carnation of, 228. The difficulties of, 229. The adherents of, 232. The social insurrection of, 243. The sects of, 250 (note). Numbers in India, . 300. Existence of, in the time of Christ, 323. Bowring, Sir J., his connection with Mr. Voysey, 105, 112. Bradlaugh, his statement about the Freethinker, 32. His exclusion from Parliament, 34, 97. Editor of the National Reformer, 148. Brahm or Brahma, The sleeping states of, 41. The neuter of the name, 234. Brahma-Dharma, means, "the rule of Theism," 238, 239. The saving truths of, 245. The eclecticism of, 257-271. Its claims, 275. Brahmans, their privileges, 227. Their adoption of Buddha, &c., 228, 229. Ram Mohun Roy's reference to, 232. Their position in the Brahmo Somaj, 234. The tradition of the, 243. Their opposition to reform, 249-253. The societies of the, 297. Their sacred books, 309. Brahmoism and Brahmoists, The different schools of, 2. Sympathy for among the Transcendentalists, 202. Their worship, 226. Their numbers, 235. The constitution of, &c., 238 (note), 239. Their divisions, &c., 244-294. The utterances of, &c., 303-311. Brahmo Somaj, its origin, 234. Loses its leader, 235. The new comers to, 236. Breaks with the tradition of Hinduism, 238, 239. Social reforms of the, 241-255. The anniversary of the, 259. Its danger, 263. The crisis, 265, 266. Brahmo Somaj, of Southern India, its devotional readings, 293. Brahmo Public Opinion, the principal organ of Brahmo movement, 292. Its reference to the New Dispensation, 306. Its views of religious culture, 308. Brahmostab, a Brahmoist festival, 246. Conference at time of the, 25*3. Bridges, Dr., his connection with Comt- ism, 133. Bright, John, The Parliamentary strug- gles of, 120. British and Foreign Unitarian Associa- tion, The Scotch correspondent of, 78. The annual sermon of, 94 (note). When founded, 96. Reprints life of Ezra Stiles Gannett, 161 (note). An- nual meeting of, and Dr. Putnam's address, 220. British Secular Union, its formation, 148, 149. Brooke, Stopford, his change to Unita- ianism, 93, 94. Brownson, Orestes, The religious changes of, 174. Biichner, his Materialism, &c., 219. Butler, Bishop, supported a liberal the- ology, 25. Byom, Sar, its philosophic Nihilism, 299. Calvin, Calvinism, reference to by John Hales, 19. The central doctrine of, 28. Its Puritan baldness, 62. Re- habilitated by Professor Drummond, 67 (note). Held by the Baptists, 75. Insists on the humanity of Jesus, 85. God of, 108. The principles of, in the United States, &c., 155-165. Is los- ing its dogmatic authority, 181. Im- possible to be reconciled with evolution, 218 (note). Campbellites or Disciples, The liberal movement of, 205. Carlyle, the influence of his writings, 27. Teaches German Idealism, 30, 31, 163. Taine's reference to, 36. His saying about Dr. Newman, dT^. Re- ligious susceptibilities of, 143 (note). Influence in India, 257. Carpenter, Dr., his British Association address, 49. His relation to the new theology, 317. • 332 INDEX. Carvakas, The Materialistic philosophy of, 299. Castelar, his belief in religious recon- struction, 3. Chambers, his Vestiges of Creation, 37. Calas, pro-totypes of, in New England, 158. Catholicism, the desire to retain it in English Ritual, 16. Number of ad- herents, 59. No halting place between it and irreligion, 63. Persecution in New England, 157. The power of, 195. Relative importance of in United States, 203. Seeks to enlarge its in- fluence, 207. Mention of by Chunder Sen, 277. Chadwick, J. W., his definition of Chris- tianity, 195. Value of his lectures, 220. His position, 317. Chaitanya, his efforts to reform Hindu- ism, 229. The followers of, 247. Brahmoist estimate of, 257, Invoked in imagination, 280. Formerly reviled, 285. Channing, Dr., The words of, 20. His influence in the Unitarian Church, 86. His estimate of dogma, 95. Ezra Stiles Gannett, a disciple of, 161 (note). His position and work, 162-164. The sermon of, at Baltimore, 174. His power as a writer, 303. Channing, Rev. W. H,, the Transcen- dentalism of, 174. His lectures, 21 1. His fidelity to the Transcendental school, 213. Charles the First, The fall of, 17. Cherbury, Lord Herbert of, the father of English Deism, 24, 25. Chib Chunder Seb, the contemporary of Ram Mohun Roy, 292. Child, Lydia, her Transcendentalism, 213, Chillingworth, a founder of the Latitu- dinary party, 19, 20. His view of clerical subscription, 71. Christ, The traditional, 26. Redemp- tion by the blood of, 61. The super- natural, 74. The Divinity of, 83, 85, 302. The miracles of, 84. Theistic view of, 88-90. Mr. Conway's esti- mate of, 126. Name of, omitted by Comte, 132. The pre-existence of, 168. The nature of, 174. The moral teaching of, 185. The disciples of, and free inquiry, 186. Relation of teaching to the doctrine of evolution, 217. Accepted by the Vishnuites as the last incarnation of their god, 228. Regarded as a reformer, 258. Chunder Sen's opinion of, 273, 274, 277. How honoured, 285. Preached as the Divine Word, 322. Christians, The, a Protestant sect, 74, 161. Christians of the New Connection, 205. Celsus, his attacks on religion, 178. Christadelphians, a sect who deny the Trinity and the immortality of the soul, 77. Referred to by Mr. Spears, 205 (note). Chubb, one of the Deists. 24. Church, Anglican, its signs of progress, 6. Attitude towards Rationalism, 21. Coleridge takes orders in the, 26. Subject to the state, 31, 32. The oath of adherence to, 34. Description of, 59-74. Secessions from, to Unitarian- ism, 83, 84. Mr. Voysey's expulsion from, 108. The persecutions of, 157. Church for Foreigners, founded by Cran- mer, 18. Church of Scotland, the baldness of, 62. The Free Kirk secession from, 76 (note). Address by a minister of, 79. Church, Greek (in London), its symbol- ism, 14. Church, Episcopal (in Ireland), its sup- pression of the Athanasian Creed, 72. Its resources, 74. Church, Episcopal (in the United States), its rejection of the Athanasian Creed, 72. Its adoption by the higher classes, 195; Church, Reformed Episcopal, its exten- sion in England, 61. The schism of in America, 205. Cicero, the Deism of, 319. Clarke, James Freeman, his acceptance of German Idealism, 174. Cleanthes, the religious aims of, 288. Cobbe, Miss F. P., her representative position as a Theist, 30, 31. Her opinion of the Reformed Jews, 118, 119. INDEX. 333 Cobden, The Parliamentary struggles of, 1 20. Colenzo, Bishop, his acquittal by the Privy Council, 64, 71. His sincerity, 64. His conversion to liberal opinions, 303- Coleridge, The early career of, 26, 27. His Transcendental teaching, 30, 31. The doctrine of the Trinity re-habili- tated by, 63. His liberal influence in Anglicanism, 86, Influence of in the United States, 168. Influence of, in India, 257. Coleridge, Lord, his reference to Mr. Bradlaugh's trial, 32. Collet, Miss S. D., the historian of Brah- moism, 226. Her remembrance of Ram Mohun Roy, 234, Her estimate of Theism, 242, Her reference to Hindu hymns, 247. The Year Book of, 251. Her description of the activi- ties of a Somaj, 254. Thinks that fer- vour saved Brahmoism, &c., 261, 262. Opposes Keshub, 281. Believes that the old divisions are being healed, 294 (note). Article re-produced by, 305 (note). Collins, a member of the Deistical school, 24. Comtism, Comte, his opinion of the power of passion, 10. His philosophy, 39. The Worship of Humanity es- tablished by, 129-145. Marriage cere- mony of, 151. Relation to Religion of Ethics, 194. M. Littre and the doctrines of, 210. The aims of, 288. Its chances of success in India, 298. Its relation to the Philosophy of Evo- lution, 323, Condillac, The Sensationalism of, 36. Congregationalists, The, their numbers, 59. The historical descendants of the old Independents, 53. Constitution of their churches, 158. Their relative importance in America, 203 (note). Their progress «represented by Henry Ward Beecher, 218, Attitude of the advanced to the old dogmas, 315. Confucius, The enlightened views of, 288. Congreve, Dr., his adoption of Comte's religious system, 133. The liturgy of, I34> 135- Rejects the authority of M. Lafitte, 136. Constant, Benjamin, his works read in America, 168. Conway, Moncure D., his opinion of the Ritualists, 62 (note). His contribution to the Index, 65 (note). His chapel licenced for marriages, 115. His theo- logical opinions and position, 119- 128. The practical teaching of, 146. Form of worship in the congregation of, 314, 322. The free congregation of, 317. Clair, Rev. G. St., The transition state of, 93- Cooper, John, The Unitarian teaching of, 83. Copernicus, The cosmogony of, 28. Coquerel, Athanase, his Free Christian sympathies, 95. Corrano, Antoine, his rejection of the Trinity, 19. Cosmas, The curious views of, 28. Cosmism, The Divinity of, 3. The des- cription of, 205-221. Courtauld, Samuel, his connection with Mr. Voysey, 112. Cowie, T. H., his decision as Attorney- General of India, 248. Cranmer, Archbishop, invites scholars to England, 18. Crompton, H., his championship of Comtism, 136. Cromwell, his treatment of Biddle, 83. Couch-Behar, The Maharajah of, marries Chunder Sen's daughter, 264, 265. The personal merits of, 286. Curteis, Rev. Canon, The Boyle lectures of, 70 (note). His part in the Spencer- Harrison controversy, 143 (note). Cousin, The writings of, in America, 168. / Dalton, The study of, in Boston, 214. Darmesteter, J., his translation of Max Miiller's lectures, 310 (note). 334 INDEX. Darwin, The hypothesis of, 37, 38, 40, His action against the persecution of the Jews, 80 (note). His sympathy with Mr. Voysey, 112. His new views of religion, 317. Darwin, Erasmus, a member of the Voy- sey Committee, 1 12, Dawson, Mr. George, The transition stage of, 93. Davies, Maurice, his description of heter- odox congregations, 67, 320. Dayananda Sarasvati Sivami, The mis- sionary labours of, 295. Dean, Rev. Peter, his confession of faith, &c.,88, 92. Debendra Nath Tagore, his personifica- tion of the Brahmo movement, 231. The tendencies of, 236, 237. Throws overboard infallibility of Scriptures, 238. Compared with Keshub, 241. His preaching by example, 243, 244. Visits Chunder Sen, 282. His con- nection with the Adi Somaj, 292, 293, 295. Deism, Deists, of the 1 8th century, origi- nated with Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 24, 25. The writings of, largely sold, 84. Descartes, The disciples of, 28. A month dedicated to, by Comte, 132. Dharma Sabhas, The object of, 297. Dial, The, the organ of the Transcend- entalists, 174. Dissenters, The persecutions of, 22. Helped to overthrow the Stuarts, 32. Formerly excluded from Parliament, 34. The Christian Standard, an or- gan of the, 67. Their legislation for the Church, 73. The denominations of, 77. The trust deeds of, 80. The theological progress of, 317. Dix, Rev. William, the large salary of, at New York, 202 (note). Dixon, Mr. W. Hepworth, his estimate of the Spiritualists, 200, 320 Dollinger, Dr., The position of, in the Old Catholic party, 62 (note). Dourga Das Ray, The ethical views of, 286. Drummond, Professor, The theological views of, 67, 68 (note). Dwarka Nath Mitter, his championship of Comtism, 298. Dwarka Nath Tagore, the father of Deb- endra Nath Tagore, 235. Dordrecht, The Council of, 19. Edward VI., The reign of, 18. His hos- pitality to the Italian and Spanish Protestants, 82. Elizabeth, Queen, The Calvinists in the reign of, 21. Puritan movement in the reign of, 155. Eliot, George, her estimate of James Thomson, 147 (note). Emerson, The religious susceptibilities of, 143 (note). His comparison of super- stition and principle, 149 (note). His opinions and influence as the *' Prince of Transcendentalists," 170-173, 315. Both a philosopher and poet, 180. His Christianity contested, 185. His con- nection with the Free Religious Asso- ciation, 202. Heard in the Academy of Concord, 211. His prediction of a religious interregnum, 212. His defi- nition of God, 221. Emory, Professor, one of the Transcend- entalists, 211. Encampment of Christian philosophy. The, at Greenwood, 211. Epicurus, The doctrines of, 227. The Materialism of, 319. The philoso- phical school of, 321. Falkland, Lord, his house like a univer- sity, 19. Fairbairn, Professor, The opinions of, 318. Feuerbach, his Atheism, 36.- His attacks upon religion, 178. Fichte, The subjective Idealism of, 167, 168. His definition of religion, 214, 215. Firmin, Thomas, his love of Socinian ideas, 83. ♦ Fiske, Professor, develops the synthesis of evolution, 214. His conception of God, 221. Foote, his imprisonment, 32 (note). INDEX. 335 Fox, W. J., the minister of South Place Chapel, I20. His hymns, I2i. Suc- ceded by Mr. Conway, 127. Francis, Professor, a Transcendentalist, 174. Free Religious Association, formed by Mr. Abbot, 186. The object of, 187. Its propagandism, 188. Comparison with Society for Ethical Culture, 191 ; with Unitarianism, 194, 195, Its re- port, 197. Its relation to Spiritualism, 201. Its Committee, 202. Its work, influence, &c., 211-219. Free Christian, the movement, 194, 195. Free Church of England, numbers forty congregations, 61. Free Church of Scotland, The formation of, 75- Free Religious Congregations at Provi- dence, 189; at Florence, 215 (note); at New Bedford, 214 ; at Dorchester, 188. Freie-Religiose Gemeinde, formed by the Germans, 200. Frey, W., his attempt to reconcile the doctrines of Comte and Spencer, 140- 146, 323. His non-dogmatic Comtism, 210: Frothingham, O. B., the historian of Transcendentalism, 169. President of the Free Religious Association, 187. His estimate of the Spiritualists, 200. His speech, 219. Value of his lectures, 220. His views of the constructive period, 318. Froude, Mr., his part in the Tractarian movement, 62. Fuller, Margaret, carries Transcendent- alism into criticism, &c., 180, 212. Furness, W. H., a Transcendentalist, 174. Gannett, Ezra Stiles, his opinion of Dr. Ware, 161. The biography of, 207. Gannett, W. C, his father's biographer, 161 (note). His opinion of Channing's Baltimore sermon, 162, 174. On the Committee of Free Religious Associa- tion, 202. His views of science and religion, 219-221. Garcin de Tassy, The reference of, to Ram Mohun Roy, 231 (note), 234, 235 (note). Reference to his work on Hindustan, 296, 302 (notes). His views of missionary work in India, 303. His account of the "perversions" from Christianity 308 (note). Garfield, Mr., the candidature of, 206. Gibbon, the last of the Deists, 25. Guizot, his estimate of Mr. Fox's elo- quence, 120. Gladstone, The Right Hon. W. E., his description of the various schools of religious thought, 4. His Affirmation Bill, 34. His estimate of the religious value of Mr. Spencer's philosophy, 45. Glanvil, one of the Latitudinarian party, 22. Glassites, The, their holy kiss, 77. Goethe, The scientific hypothesis of, 37. The religious susceptibilities of, 143. Gotheil, Dr., a liberal rabbi, 195. Gouri, a Hindu divinity of marriage, 267. Graham, W. , his remarkable work, 50. Sees in the Unknowable an ordaining Power, 220. The broad views of, 317. Grandier, Urbain, a prototype of New England persecution, 158. Guebres, Islamism has borrowed from the, 231. .Haeckel, The scientific faith of, 143 (note). The doctrine of, 227, 307. Hales, John, brought liberal opinions to England, 19. Hall, Rev. E. P. , his translation of Bonet- Maury's work, 19. Hall, Rev. John, The salary of, 202 (note). Hamilton, Sir W., his doctrine of the Unknowable, 40. Hari, a Hindu divinity of marriage, 267. The god who blots out sin, 275, 276. Harris, Prof., edits \}siQ. Journal of Specu- lative Philosophy^ 211. Harrison, Frederic, President of the London Positivist Society, 136, 137. His views of the evolutionary philo- sophy, 138. Controversy with Herbert Spencer, 139-143 (note). 336 INDEX. Hartley, his influence on Priestley, 85. Harte, Bret, The stories of, 120. Hartmann, Von, his definition of re- ligion, 10. His prediction as to re- ligion in the future, 310, 311. Hawthorne, his power of psychological analysis, 181. Hegel, Hegelianism, The doctrine of, 36. Expounded at Concord, 211, 213. Henry the Eighth, progress of thought since his reign, 5. The ideas of his time, 17. The reform effected by, 313- Hebrews, The Monotheism of, 29. Herder, The works of, studied in America, 168. Hepworth, Rev. G., his religious conser- vatism, 194. Higginson, Colonel Wentworth,his Tran- scendentalism, 174. Preaches in Mr. Conway's chapel, 122. His connec- tion with the Free Religious Associa- tion, 202. His fidelity to old beliefs, 213. Hinkley, Rev. F. A., examined as to the nature of **Free Religion," 189. His view of God, 215 (note). Hinduism and Hindus, The mysticism of, 7, 259. The monuments of, 173. The faith of, 191. The idols of, 226. The intellectual character and vitality of, 227, 228. The temples of, sacked, 230, The superstitions of, 231. The practices of, 243, 248. Marriage among the, &c., 249-281. Its possible absorption of Brahmoism, 291. The Rationalism of, 294. The movement of thought among, 297. The religious character of, 299. Sects of, &c., 300- 303. The lofty sentiments of, &c., 305-309. The emancipated minds of, 314. Relation to other faiths, 317. Hobbes, destroys foundations of religion, 22. His theory of the Church, 31. The Materialism of, 36. The critic- isms of, 209. Holyoake, Austin, The death of, 148. Holyoake, G, J., aids in founding Na- tional Secular Society, 148. His preaching in Unitarian pulpits, 150, 195. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, a writer and humorist, 180. Homa, the sacrifice of fire, 266. Chun- der Sen's observance of, 275. Hooker, his work of emancipation, 22. Hopps, Rev. J. P., The special services of, loi (note). Howe, Mrs., her lectures at Concord, 211. Hugo, Victor, a vice-president of the British Secular Union, 150. Humanitarians, The, a description of, 114-I17. Hume, his universal scepticism, 25, 36, 317. The life of, 51. The philo- sophic nihilism of, 299. Huxley, his lay sermons, 46. His ar- ticle on Evolution, 51. His description of Positivism, 131. The scientific faith of, 143 (note). His works read in Boston, 214, Idealism, German, taught by Coleridge, 26. Its effect in England, 30, 64. Produces the Transcendental school, 170. See Transcendentalism. Independents, their demand for religious freedom, 21. Their support of Crom- well in the amnesty to Biddle, S^. See Congregationalists. Independent Religious Reformers, their lifeless Theistic services, 1 14. Indian Reform Association, founded by Chunder Sen, 250. Ingersoll, Colonel R., his extreme utter- ances, 204. Incarnation, The dogma of, 27. Irvingites, The, their symbolism, 14. Their churches, 77. Islamism. See Mohammedanism. Jackson, Dr., succeeded by Dr. Temple, 65. Jacobi, The doctrine of, 167, His works read in Boston, 168. Jacquemont, Victor, his description of the English, 226. Jaina, The, religion, 250. James the First, Persecutions in the reign of, 156. INDEX. 337 Jamblicus, a thinker in antiquity, 288. Jatkarma, a form of thanksgiving, 245, John, St., the Evangelist, his Logos doctrine, 322. Jevons, his relation to the newer thought, 317- Johnson, Samuel, the individualism of, 174. His church at Lynn, Mass., 213, 315- Jones, Dr., his lectures at Concord, 211. Jones, Rev. Jenkins L., edits Unity, 197. Jouffroy, The vi^orks of, in America, 168. Jourgi, a reformer among the Bhils, 298. Jowett, Prof., his connection with Essays and Reviews, 65. Jews, Reformed or Progressive, the doc- trine of, 117-119. Their attitude to- ward the' past, 199. The Theists among, 315. Judas Iscariot, Parker's reference to, 176. Jumpers, The eccentricities of, 14. Kabir, substitutes a spiritual faith for Vedas and Koran, 230. The enlighten- ment of, 288. Kant, The theory of, 27. Theistic school traceable to, 31. His relation to the doctrine of evolution, 36. The reli- gious feelings of, 143 (note). The school of, 165, 184. Combats nega- tive psychology, 167. His teaching the basis of Transcendentalism, 174, "^n^ 316. The postulates of, 192. The doctrine of, 285. Karvuna Chunder Sen, the sonof Keshub, 283. Kaspary, Joachim, the leader of the Humanitarians, 115, 116. Keble, his connection with Dr. Pusey, 62. Keene, Mr. G. H., his article in The Calaitta Review, 295. Kegan Paul aids Free Christian move- ment, 95. Kemp, his connection with The Free- thinker, 32. Kempis, Thomas a, The spiritual power of, 99 (note). In great favour with orthodox Comtists, 134 (note). Keshub Chunder Sen, his communica- tion with the Transcendentalists, 202. Personifies Brahmoism. 231. Changes Brahma-Dharma into a religion, 239. His family, 241 . His views of Theism, 242. Dines with Debendra and loses caste, 243. A similar violation of caste and the secession of, 244. Is made Secretary of the Bharatbharsia Somaj, &c., 245-263. His daughter's mar- riage, &c. , 264-269. His New Dis- pensation, &c., 273-289. The old congregation faithful to, 292. Changes occasioned by death of, 294 (note). His preaching in Unitarian churches, 303. His relation to the doctrine of the hermetic chain, 322. Kingsley, Canon, The sincerity of, 68. Koran, Passages from, in the Sacred Anthology, 121. Kabir's treatment of, 230. The Monotheism of, 233. The religion of, 300, 301, 309. Sup- posed origin of, 302. Krishna, his worshippers, 229. Temple dedicated to, 231. The legend of, 309 (note). Krishna Bihari Sen officiates at marriage of Keshub's daughter, 266. Kuenen, Professor, Banquet to, 65 (note). Represents school of modern Protest- antism in Holland, 91. Laboulaye, Ed. , quoted from 1 59 (note). His opinion of American Democracy, 160. Lafitte, P., accepted as leader by Comt- ists, 133. His authority rejected, 136. Labarre, a prototype of New England persecutions, 158. Lamarck, The hypothesis of, 37. Laplace, The generalizations of, 28. Laugel, M. Aug., his reference to Herbert Spencer, 45, 46, 138 (note). Laveleye, Emile de, his views of Ameri- can Democracy, 160. Lecky, W. S. H., The opinions of, 22, 49 (note). His reference to the Ration- alists, 130. His reference to religious liberty, 84. Leibnitz, The doctrine of, 36. Leroux, Pierre, The system of, 115. Y 338 INDEX. Lewes, G. H., The writings of, in America, 214. Lindsey, Rev. Th., his leaving the Es- tablished Church, 84. Littre, The opinion of, 8. The Positive school of, 138, 210, 321. Locke, his explanation of mental phe- nomena, 23. The Sensational school of, 24-26, 29. Influenced by preju- dice, 85. Priestley a disciple of, 8$. The theology of, 164. The philosophy of, 184, 185. Lollards, The old leaven of, 16. Attempts to connect Unitarianism with the, 82. Lily Cottage, The ashes of Chunder Sen deposited in, 283. Longfellow, his place in American litera- ture, 170, 181. Longfellow, Samuel, The hymns of, 174. His fidelity to old opinions, 213. Low, A., The profession of faith of, 185. Lucretius, the Materialism of, 319. Luther, The Reform inaugurated by, 16, 313- Lyell, Sir Ch. , his service to science, 28. The funeral of, 65. His sympathy with Mr. Voysey, 105, 112. Lytton, his rule in India, 252 (note). MacDonald, Rev., The liberal opinions of, 78. Madhava, an Indian reformer, 229. Maine, Sir H. Sumner, his bill relating to Hindu marriages, 248-250. His speech at Calcutta, 306. Man, Singh, The Rajah, 231. Mansel, Dean, referred to by Mr. F. Harrison, 142 (note). Mariano, the higher thought of, 3. Martineau, Dr. James, a Unitarian, 3. Quoted from, 29, 30, 54. Compared with Dean Stanley, 66. His opinion of existing theological changes, 78. Reference to works of, 86, 87 (notes). His "Ten Services," 91. 105. Interest in "Free Christian" movement, 95. Channing's letter to, 170. A leader in the new theology, 317. Materialism, Materialists, a monistic sol- ution of the world, 52. Relation to Spiritualism, 201. Quarrel with re- ligion, 214. Remain Idealists in India, 299, The old physiological, 317. The, of Epicurus, 319. Maximus, of Tyre, his Platonic philo- sophy, 1 1 . The enlightened opinions of, 288. May, Thomas Erskine, his history, 26, 32 (notes). Medard, St., The contortions of, 14. Methodists, The, their numbers, 59. The origin of and condition, 74, 75. Mr. Conway's connection with, 1 19. Re- lative position in America, 203. Move- ment of thought among, 205. Miall, Rev. W., connected with " Free Christian" movement, 95. Middleton, The liberal theology of, 25. Mill, J. Stuart, The psychology of, 39, 40. Positivists of the school of, 119, 138. His modification of Posivitism, 133. The school of, 321. Milton, The theological opinions of, 84. Missions, Christian, in India, their want of success, 302. Mohammed, Mohammedanism, the spirit of, 14. Mussulman inspiration from, 144. Compared with Buddha, «S;c., 185, 187, 257. An Asiatic faith, 191, 251. Accepted Christ as a prophet, 277. Chunder Sen and the name of, 280. The position of in India, 300-305. Moses, Mr. Conway and name of, 126. Comte and name of, 132. Compared with Mohammed, &c., 185. Ram Mohun Roy's veneration for, 233. Chunder Sen and name of, 280. Moleschott, his words and influence, 219. Monotheism, The natural, among the Deists, 24. The introduction of among the Hebrews, 29. Among reformed Jews, 117. The strict, of the first Evangelists, 169. A return to, 221. The rigid, of the Mohammedans, &c., 230 et seq. Of the West, 309. The Semitic, 311. Montaigne, The statement of, 3. Montefiore, Claude, his article, 1 17 (note). His opinions of reformed Judaism, 118. INDEX. 339 Montesquieu, his estimate of religion in England, 152. Moravian Brethren, their numbers, 77. Morrison, J. Cotter, The Comtism of, 136. Mormons, The, the places of worship of, 77. Morse, Rev. Dr., his charge against liberal ministers, 162, Mott, Lucretia, the Transcendentalism of, 202. Miiller, Prof. Max, his reference to Indian faiths, 228 (note), 310. His sympathy with Chunder Sen, 281. His opinion of the common basis of religions, 317. Mussulmans, The Deity of, 226. Claimed the body of Kabir, 230. The Indian, 301. Namkaran, The choice of a name, 245. Nanak Shah, his efforts at religious re- form, 230. The services of, 257. National Secular Society, The Free- thinkers of, 298. Native Marriage Act, passed to satisfy the Brahmos, 250, Keshub's disregard of, 264. Nava, Bidhan (The New Dispensation), reference to, 238 (note). The syn- cretism of, 273-289. Relation to the Sadharan Somajes, 293, 294. Descrip- tion of, by the Brahmo Public Opinion^ 306. Chunder Mozoumdar's apology for, 311. Doctrine of hermetic chain in, 322. Neal, his history referred to, 17 (note). Newman, Cardinal, one of the Trac- tarians, 62. Enters the Roman Church within ten years, 63. Opposes per- secution of the Jews, 80 (note). Newman, Prof. F. W., a representative of Theism, 30. Joins Unitarian As- sociation, 87. The career of in Syria, 303- Newton, The generalization of, 28. The theological opinions of, 84. The mind of, 178 (note). Newton, Rev. Heber, his admiration of Emerson, 172. The new views of, 317. Northbrook, Lord, his estimate of Brah- moism, 252. Ochino, Bernard, The proscription of, 18. Olcolt, Col. H., his connection with the Theosophical Society, 296, 297 (note). Old Catholics, mentioned by Mr. Glad- stone, 4. Owen, Robert Dale, his connection with the Free Religious Association, 202. Paganism, ancient, The believers in, 4, 48, 49. Mr. Savage's definition of, 218. Its comprehensiveness in the time of Alexander Severus, 320. The place of, 323. • Paine, Thomas, his influence in America, 209. Paley, the liberalized theology of, 25. The teleological combination of, 39. Pantheism, Pantheists, The negative position of, 4. A form of, held by Servetus, 18. The^ Brahminic, 41. The hour of, struck, 48. Its philo- sophic conception, 52. Idealistic, held by advanced religious teachers, 88. Emerson's, 171. Hindu, 227-233. Chunder Sen's estimate of, 260, 274. Opinion of, by Sadharan Somaj, 305. The ancient, 311. Parker, Theodore, from John Robinson to, 160. His Transcendental opinions and teaching, 174-185. Church erected to memory of, 214. Chunder Sen, and 280. The eloquent pen of, 303. His position in the Transcendental move- ment, 315. Parsees, the differences of, with Brah- mans, 249. But few in number, 300. The sacred books of, 309. Parris, George Van, The martyrdom of, 19- Pasteur, a vice-president of the British Secular Union, 150 Pattison, Mark, his description of the Positivist service, 135. Paul, St., compares the earth to a taber- nacle, 28. The writings of, 194. His bearing towards the Athenians, 113. 340 INDEX. Quoted from, by Mr. Conway, 121. Comte's use of name, 132. His view of Christ, 322. Another needed, 324. Pease, Mr., The election of, 34. Peculiar People, The, their notoriety, 77. Penn, William, his charter, 159. Philo, The Logos of, 322. Picton, J. Allanson, The opinions of, 97 (note). Pierpont, John, his Transcendentalism, 174. Pillon, M., his description of the hymn to Varuna, 237 (note). Plato, admired by the Transcendenta- lists, 174. The school of, 321. Playfair, his influence on the interpreta- tion of Genesis, 28. Plymouth Brethren, The, their exclusive claim, 77. Potter, W, J., is made secretary of the Free Religious Association, 187. His religious opinions, 190, 191 (note). Comparison of words with Mr. Bee- cher's, 205. The followers of, 210. His estimate of the future, &c., 213- 215. The lectures of, 220. His defi- nition of God, J2 1. His Free Congre- gation, 317. Prakriti, the primordial substance of things, 307. Pramada Dasa Mittra, Prof., his defence of Vedantine philosophy, 299 (note). Prarthanas Somajes, their aim and posi- tion, 293, 305. Presbyterianism and Presbyterians, in Elizabeth's time, 21. Their numbers, 59. The Calvinism of, 76. Progress among, 78, 205. Their part in the overthrow of Charles the First, 156, Relative position in America, 203. Resemblance to neo-Brahmos, 245. The advanced, 315. Pitakas, The literary treasures of, 309. Prescott, The Transcendentalism of, 181. Priestley, Dr., his views of Revelation, 85. The sensational theology of, 185. Pritchard, Andrew, one of Mr, Voysey's committee, 112. Proclus, The great religious aims of, 288. Protab Chunder Mozoumdar, his mess- ages from the Transcendentalists, 202. His description of Theism, 241. Of the Brahmostabs, 246. Complains of Keshub's tendencies, 263. Explains the New Dispensation, 275, 287, 311. His claim, 294 (note). His preaching in England, 303. Conversation with Tyndall, 310. Puranas, the popular Bible of the Hindus, 237- Puritans, The, their looking to the primi- tive Church, 85. In New England, 155, 160. Mr. Potter's Church and the, 190. Influences unknown to, 206. The, of Islamism, 301. Pusey, Dr., his name associated with Tractarian movement, 62. Putnam, Dr., the address of, 220. Pym, his view of Church and State, 17. Pythagoras, admired by Bronson Alcott, 174. Quakers, or Friends, The, their opposi- tion to ecclesiasticism, 21. The per- secution of, 32. The affirmation of, 34. Their numbers, 77. Their colon- ization of Pennsylvania, 155. Ex- cluded from New England, 177. The liberal position of, 187, 202, 315, Queensberry, Lord, the connection of, with British Secular Union, 150. Quinet, Edgar, his opinion of the Brah- mans, 237. Raj Narain Bose, his ability, &c., 293. President of the Adi Somaj, 304. His work, 305 (note). Ram Mohun Roy, the founder of Brah- moism, 226. His descent, labours, and character, 231-235. Nature of his organization, 236. His family similar to Chunder Sen's, 241. The work of, &c., 291-293. His statement respecting Christianity, 303. Ramanda, the philosopher, 230. Ramanuja, a Hindu Reformer, 22^. Ramsey, Mr., his connection with The Free-thinker^ 32 (note). Rawlinson, Mr. G. F., his statistics of Catholicism, 63 (note). Rawson, Mr. L., the Free-thinkers' Re- port, 201 (note). INDEX. 341 Renan, Ernest, The constructive ten- dency of, 3. His lecture, 90 (note). The religiousness of, 143 (note). A Vice-President of the British Secular Union, 150, Renouvier, The constructive tendency of, 3. Reville, Albert, An article by, 64 (note). His opinion of Calvin and the Divinity of Christ, 85. Reynolds, The work of, 69, 70 (note). Ripley, George, The Transcendentalism of, 174. His fortune spent, 181. The fidelity of, to old opinions, 213. Ripon, Lord, The rule of, in India, 252. Robespierre, The failure of, 25. Robinson, John, his address to the first emigrants, 156. The continuous de- velopment from, 160. Rosencranz, Professor, The death of, 211. Rothschild, Lionel de, his election an- nulled, 34. Rousseau developed Deism in France, 25. Sabellius, The opinions of, 18 (pote). Sacchidananda, the Vedantine Trinity, 279. Sadhuran Soma], A description of, 238 (note). The secessions of, 269, 291. The constitution of 270. Takes up cause of true Brahmoism, 273. A critique of Keshub by the missionary of, 284. Its congregations, 293. Agree- ment with the other Somajes, 304. SafFord, Mary A., a ministress, 194. Salar Yung, his good influence, 302. Salter, W. , his work for the Society of Ethical Culture, 194. Sandemanians, see Glassites. Sankhya, The school, 307. Sargent. John J., connection with Free Religious Association, 202. Savage, Rev. M. J., his Unitarianism, 3. The broad views of, 195, 202. His desire to harmonize religion and evo- lution, 214-221, 317. Shelley, The religiousness of, 143 (note). Schelling, his theory of the Trinity, 64. His philosophical ideas, &c., 167, 168. Schiller, his estimate of scepticism, 150 (note). Schliermacher, The works of, in America, 168. His ideas of religion, 167. Secularists, Secularism, The negative position of, 4. The rudimentary wor- ship of, 6. The aims and character of, 147-152. Their opinions in India, 298. Seekers, The, their anti-ecclesiasticism, 21. Seeley, Professor J. , his work, "Natural Religion," 47. The stand-point of, 49. Seneca, The enlightened aims of, 288. Schopenhauer, The opinions of, adopted, 309 (note). Servetus, Michael, his heretical views, 18, 19. Sent to the stake, 67 (note). His idea of Christ, 85. Shafites, a school of Islamism, 301. Shaftesbury, Lord, The natural Mono- theism of, 24. Shakers, The, see Jumpers. Shiites, a Mohammedan sect, 300, 301. Shakespeare, The works of, 41. Mr. Conway and the name of, 126. A Comtist month dedicated to, 132. Schradha, a Hindu funeral service, 245. Schunemann-Pott, his interest in Free Religion, 202. Sidgwick, Professor, The opinions of, 53. Sikhs, The, their origin, 23 1 . Their pre- sent character, 3CX). Simon the Magician, The wonders wrought by, 321. Siva, the god personifying destructive agencies, 234. The trident of, 280. Sivanath Sastri, The New Dispensation described by, 270, 277, 305 (notes). His description of Keshub, 284. Slade, The wonders wrought by, 321. Smith, Joe, The badge of, 321. Society for Ethical Culture, formed by Mr. Adler, 191, 192. Its aims, 193. A branch of, at Chicago, 194. Its practical stand-point, 314. Socinianism, Biddle and the doctrines of, 82. Dangerous to preach, 84. Forms one extreme of Unitarianism, 89. Readily followed Arminianism, 160. Sofis of Persia, 288. Their Mystico- Pantheistic doctrine, 301. 342 INDEX. Sonnesheim, Rabbi S. W., connects Free Religion with Reformed Judaism, 200. Souni Sar, its philosophic Nihilism, 299. Southcote, Johanna, The believers in, 77. Spears, Rev. Robt., The Unitarian Mar- tyrology published by, 82. The origin of half the Unitarian Churches accord- ing to, 93. His estimate of the Ameri- can Churches, 202, 205. Spencer, Herbert, his conception of an omnipresent Power, 8, 50. Identifies "force" and "energy," 36 (note). The philosophical system of, 39-46. All our conceptions symbols, according to, 71, 322. The writings of, 88. His belief in the kinship between man and the Unknowable, loi. Positivists hostile to the writings of, 138-145. His doc- trines developed by Professor Fiske and Mr. Savage, 214-220. His philosophy not materialistic, 307. Views of the evolutionists in harmony with, 317. Socrates, use of name by Mr. Conway, 126. By Chunder Sen, 280. For- merly reviled by Christians, 285. Spiritualism and Spiritualists, their con- nection with the Free Religious As- sociation, 187. Their numbers, &c., 200-202. The statement of a, 212. Spinoza, The religiousness of, 143 (note.) Stanley, Dean, his words at Sir C. Lyell's funeral, 65. Opinions of, com- pared with Dr. Martineau's, 66. The sincerity of, 68. The liberality of, 79, His sympathy with Mr. Voysey, 112. His generous opinion of Chunder Sen, 281. His reference to the reconcili- ation of science and revelation, 320, Stebbins, G. B., his statement about Spiritualists, 201. Stephen, Fitzjames, introduces "Brahmo Marriage Act," 249, 250. Stewart, Balfour, his return to neo- Platonism, 50, 322. The large views of, 317. Stansfield, Judge, a supporter of Mr. Voysey, 112. Stephens, Sir James, his part in the Spencer-Harrison controversy, 143 (note). Strauss, the naturalistic idealism of, 214. I Suetonius, his allusion to the Jewish quarter in Rome, 323. SufBeld, Rev. R. R., his sermon : "Why I became a Unitarian," 99. Sully, Mr. James, his article on evolu- tion, 50-54. Sumner, Charles, The Transcendentalism of, 180. Sunnites, The, their allegiance to the Sultan, 300. Their views of inspira- tion, 301. Swedenborgians, their congregations, 79, Origin of the, 319. Tabernacle Ranters, Theeccentricity of, 14 Taine, M., his description of Deism in France, 25 (note). Traces present current of thought to Germany, 36. Tait, Prof. P. J., The neo-PIatonism of, 50, 322. A representative of English science, 317. Tattva Bodhini Sabha, a Brahmoist as- sociation, 235, 238. Tayler, J. J., his work referred to, 17, 21, 29, 30 (notes). Dr. Martineau's introcfuction to the work of, 54. Work referred to, 78, 82 (notes). Taylor, Rev. J., The advanced opinions of, 92. Taylor, Jeremy, his connection with the Latitudinarian party, 19, 20. Temple, Dr., a writer in Essays and Re-- views, 65. The sincerity of, 68. Temple, Sir Richard, the reference of, to Hindu sects, 294, 308. Test Act, The, its injustice to Dissenters, 34. Theism, the eclectic of India, 6. The school of in England, 30, 2>T, 257, 288, 316. Rejected by Spencer, 43, 45. The principles of, and evolution, 50. A vague form of, accepted, 55. Mr. Voysey's, 107, 117. Mr. Con- way's advance beyond, 120. The great axioms of, 169, 314. Mr. Adler accepts foundation of, 192. Protab Chunder Mozoumdar's description of, 242. The Sadharan Somaj and, 270. Described by Raj Narain Bose, 304. The Transcendental, of Brahmoism, 307. A personal faith, 315. INDEX. 343 Theophilanthropes, The, the compre- hensive aims of, 103. Theosophical Society of New York, The, its claims, 295. Of India, the pro- pogandism of, 297. Thomson, James, his description of Secularism, 147, 149 (note). Tiberius, the government of, 323. Tindal, The natural Monotheism of, 24. Tocqueville, The prediction of, 221. Transcendentalism, The phase of, passed through in America, 6. Name given by Americans, 165, 257. The des- cription of, 168-185. Represented in the Free Religious movement, 202. The happy influence of, 213, 285. The method of, 288. The fate of, 316. Its trust in conscience, 322. Trinity, the dogma attacked in Italy, 18 (note). Omitted by Antoine Corrano, 19. The theory of, and Coleridge, 64. Dean Stanley and Dr. Martineau's view of, 66. Unitarian revolt against, 81, 161. The Vedantine, 277. The mystery of, 302. Tri-Pitaka, the teachings of, 297, 309. Tubingen, The school of, its negative criticism, 29, Tudor, Mary, The Protestants proscribed by, 21. Tyndall, Prof., his estimate of the re- ligious question, i. The Belfast ad- dress of, 46. His sympathy with per- secuted Jews, 80. His description of Emerson, 172. Influence of, in Amer- ica, 214. His conversation with Chun- der Mozoumdar, 311. His large views, 317. Tulloch, Principal, the work of referred to, 20 (note). Underwood, Mrs. Sarah A. , her view of religious speculation, 210. Underwood, Mr. B. F., an editor of the Index, 187. The Agnosticism of, 195. His views of the spread of the evolu- tion doctrine, 214. Unitarian General Conference, held at Liverpool and Birmingham, 97. Unitarian National Conference in Ame- rica, its concession to Universalists, 1 86. Messrs. Potter and Abbot's secession from, 194-196. Unitarianism, Unitarians, Mr. Glad- stone's classification of, 4. The origin of, 22. Passed through by Coleridge, 26. The profession of, a blasphemy, 32. The numbers of, 59. Represented at the banquet given to Professor Kuenen, 65 (note). The position of, 67, 77. General description of, 81- 102. The methods of, 126. The growth and character of, in America, 161 -i86. Its relation to the Free Re- ligious Association, 194-198, 202. Its revolt against orthodox dogmas, 221, Rev. W. Adams converted to, 233. Chunder Sen's reference to, 277. Its relation to Brahmoism, 303. Its un- dogmatic church, 313. The advanced, 315. Their view of Jesus, 322. Universalists, The classification of, 4. Their doctrine, 77, 161. Upanishads, religious readings from, 233, 235. The authors of, 288. Vachaspati Misra, his philosophy, 307. Vallabhacarya, a Hindu reformer, 229. Vedanta, The Pantheism of, 227. Its two doctrines, 233. The adherents of, 296. Vedas, Mr. Conway's extracts from, 221. The hymns of, 227. Their esoteric texts, 234. The direct breath of God, 236. Women according to, 249. Chunder Sen's reference to, 281. The infalli- bility of, 294. The traditions of, 297. The treasures in, 309. Vicence, an association in Italy, 18. Vishnu, Buddha an incarnation of, 228. The worshippers of, 229, 231. Per- sonifies the world's preservative forces, 234, 237. Chunder Sen's early worship of, 241. Hari, a personification of, 275. The worship of, 276. The ec- lecticism of, 277. Voltaire, carries Deism into France, 25. His reference to English sects, 57. Use of name by Mr. Conway, 126. The criticisms of, 209. Voysey, Rev. Ch., The Theism of, 3. His Church and teaching, 104- 113. 344 INDEX. His retention of prayers for Queen, &c., 121. His Church compared with Mr. Conway's, 127. The isolated position of, 315. The large views of, 317. Wahabis, a Mussulman sect of recent ori- gin, 300, 301. Walker, James, The philosophical views of 168. Wallace, his theory of natural selection, 37, 38. A representative of English science, 317. Walters, Rev. F., his address on the pro- gress of Rationalism, 79. The views of, 92. Ware, Dr., his position in Harvard Uni- versity, 161. Wasson, his fidelity to Transcendent- alism, 213. The writings of, 220. Watts, Ch,, The secular liturgy of, 150. Webster, Daniel, his position as an ora- tor, 181. Weiss, John, his Transcendentalism, 174. His connection with the Free Religious Association, 202. Welchman, The heresy of, 82. Wesley, John, The influence of, 26. The Methodists sprang from, 74. The hymns of, 99. The God of, and Mr. Voysey's services, 108. Wette, De, The writings of, studied, 168. Whitfield, The influence of, 26. Whittier, The poetry of, 180. Wicksteed, Rev. P. H., his translation of Dutch works, 91. Wightman, The martyrdom of, 19. Wilberforce, his connection of Armini- anism with Deism, 160. Williams, Professor Monier, The opin- ions of, referred to, 227, 229, 296, 303 (notes). His description of Hinduism, 228. His estimate of Ram Mohun Roy, 232. Williams, Roger, founds the State of Rhode Island, 159, 189. Williams, Roland, The sincerity of, 68. Winnebrenner, John, The followers of, 205. Wise, Rabbi Isaac, his connection with the Free Religionists, 202. Woolston, The natural Monotheism of, 24. The loss of his Fellowship, 84. Wordsworth, The religiousness of, 143. The Transcendentalism of, 168. Wycliff, The aspirations of, &c., 16. Yoga, The teachings of, 262 (note), nature and influence, 305, 306. Its Zend Avesta, readings borrowed from, 245. The treasures of, 309. Zoroaster, his equality with Moses, &c., 185. The religion of, 300. •^ Of THE '^ \ OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE WORK IN THE ORIGINAL. LIBRAIRIE EUROPEENNE C. MUQUARDT MERZBACH & FALK, EDITEURS LIBRARIES DU ROI ET DE S. A. R. LE COMTE DE FLANDRE 45, RUE DE LA REGENCE, A BRUXELLES. u Evolution religieuse OONTKMPOEAINE CHEZ LES ANGLAIS, LES AMERICAINS So LES HINDOUS PAR Le COMTE GOBLET D'ALVIELLA Professeur d'histoire des religions a 1' University de Bruxelles OPINIONS OF THE PRESS, " Will be read with interest both in England and in America." — The Athenceum. "A careful and interesting book." — Saturday Reveiw. "His study of the various divisions of religious England was evidently intel- ligent, close and liberal." — British Quarterly Review. "The best summary of Brahmic history accessible to non-Oriental readers and marked throughout by an earnest desire to present a faithful picture of the reality." — Miss S. D. Collet, Modem Review. "A minute yet vivid picture."— C/^rw/z«« Life. "Worthy of the highest praise, rich in instruction and very interesting." — Inquirer. " Elaborate, comprehensive, accurate and impartial." — Rod. Suffield, Chris- tian Herald. "The first of its Vwi^r —The Jewish World. "The author possesses surprising knowledge." — The Nation^ of New York. *' Strong in statistics and other details, rich in original generalisations and lucid conceptions, and singularly tolerant, devout and hopeful in its spirit, the book must be read carefully from beginning to end, in order to gain any fair idea of its rare merit." — Boston Index. "Of deep interest to the philanthropist and ^\x^&l.''— Boston Commonwealth. "Lucid, genial, altogether fine and fascinating."— N. Oilman, Christian Register:' IV. * ' A really valuable contribution to the history of modern thought ; especially welcome to the Indian reader for the light it throws on the religious evolution actually occurring in our midst, but which we, therefore, do not properly appreciate." — Times of India. ' ' We conclude with the hope that some able writer would translate the book into English and unfold its perspicacity and its beauty to everyone of our readers." Indian Messenger. ** Tells us all we want to know on the subject." — The Liberal, of Calcutta. " Les chapitres sur le rationalisme americain et sur le rationalisme hindou, outre ce qu'ils contiennent de renseignements qui seront pour le lecteur europeen de veritables revelations, sont en meme temps autant de chapitres de critique et de philosophic d'une grande portee qui constituent des a present, comme on dit, des documents du plus rare interet pour I'histoire religieuse contemporaine." — Revue des Deux Mondes. " Montre que les questions d'histoire contemporaine, quand on salt se degager des passions de parti et les remplacer par la haute curiosite d'un esprit desireux de comprendre, prennent un interet et une signification qu'on ne leur soup9onnait pas. Cette etude de la religion contemporaine, saisie dans les tressaillements de sa vie quotidienne, est d'une haute portee." — Maurice Vernes, Revue de Vhistoire des religions. *' C'est, si je ne me trompe, le premier travail d'ensemble qui ait encore ete fait sur ce grand mouvement, et il est trace avec une ampleur de lignes, une intelligence des nuances, une clarte et une simplicite de vues que la critique religieuse de nos jours semblait avoir oubliees." — ^James Darmesteter, Revue critique d'histoire et de litteratttre. **Personne ne s'est mieux rendu compte de la gravite de la crise at de I'effet produit sur notre generation par les resultats acquis de I'immense mouvement scientifique de notre siecle." — E. de Pressens]^, Revue politique et litteraire. " Expose avec une lumineuse clarte I'etat religieux de I'Angleterre et de I'Amerique. Aucun ecrivain fran^ais n'a mieux trace, sans confusion, avec un ordre logique et facile k retenir, ce tableau charge de tant de details." — E. Pousset, Polydidlion. •' Recit fort instructif." — A. Boyenval, La Reforme sociale. **A le rare talent d'exposer brievement, clairement les differents systemes philosophiques ou religieux sans les mutiler." — La Renaissance, organe des Eglises reformees de France, "Impossible de faire preuve de plus d'objectivite, de plus de largeur et d'im- partialite." — Albert Reville, Correspond, parisienne de la Flandre liberale. " L'impartialite de la critique indique assez que les faits ont ete bien observes et sincerement exposes." — 'Kov'KE.i., Journal des Economistes. "Destine a rendre un grand service a I'oeuvre de synthese et de reconstruction apres laquelle, bien que peu d'esprits en aient conscience, I'humanite entiere aspire." — Ch. Fauvety, Bulletin de la Societe scientifique cV etudes psychologiques. "Plein de faits, ecrit sans parti pris, avec une grande elevation et dans une methode toute scientifique." — La Nouvelle Revue. **Tres important ouvrage." — Revue britannique. "D'une incontestable utilite." — Journal des Debats. "Du plus haut interet pour tous ceux que preoccupe le meme probleme de la conciliation de la religion et de la raison." — Journal de Geneve. V. " Interessant, riche de faits, d'un style anime," — Gazette de Lausanne. "C'est ici un livre pour le grand public, non pas seulement pour les savants." — Jean Reville, V Alliance liberale. "Sera lu par tous les esprits eleves auxquels I'histoire du rationalisme religieux ne peut etre indiflferente." — Independance beige. *' Ce livre est d'une utilite singuliere et dans notre pays il peut rendre de grands services." — Flandre liberale. "Ouvrage serieux et considerable." — La Gazette. "II n'y aura qu'une voix pour admirer la lucidite de I'exposition et la solide facture d'un style eminemment approprie a I'expose philosophique et religieux." — Echo dti Pa7'lement. ** Attachant, suggestif, sincere et bien ecrit ; tous ceux qui voient dans Tavenir religieux de I'humanite un interet primordial ont quelque chose a y apprendre." — Athenceum beige. "Marquera une date dans I'histoire des idees religieuses de notre temps." — La Chronique. " Dans des voyages reiteres en Angleterre, aux Etats-Unis et aux Indes, I'auteur s'est mis en communication avec les chefs des principales sectes religieuses de ces pays. Ses observations personnelles lui ont permis de communiquer a son livre cet interet vif et piquant d'une description faite d'apres nature." — La Revue catholique. "Ce livre est un des meilleurs ouvrages d'histoire religieuse qui aient paru en ces dernieres annees. Ecrit dans un style excellent, correct, elegant et d'une tres belle allure." — E. de Laveleye, Bulletin de V Academie royale. " Ce qui ressort du livre avec une clarte sans egale c'est que la religion n'est pas par essence refractaire au prcgres." — H. Pergameni, VAvenir. " Par son attrait de nouveaute, par le talent d'exposition de I'auteur, par I'ele- vation et la sincerite de pensee qui y eclatent a chaque page, il laissera une trace profonde." — La Meuse. *' Quel tableau instructif, attrayant! "—Journal de Liege. "Oeuvre d'un ecrivain et d'un penseur." — Organe de Mons. "Tous ont quelque chose a apprendre dans ce livre." — Gazette de Charleroi. " Tres-interessant ouvrage." — Professor C. P. TiY.!.^^ Manuel de rhistoire des Religions, 2eme edition. " Beau livre." — A. Barth, Bulletin des Religions de Pinde, 1885. " Pages eloquentes." — Professor J. Bonet-Maury, Etude sur Akbar. " Man darf das hohe Verdienst des Verfassers nicht verkennen."— ^//^. Zeitung des fudenthums. " Alle Schilderungen bieten uns deshalb ebenso zuverlassiges als schwerzugang- liches material flir die neueste Kirchengeschichte. — Literarischen Centralbldtter." "La erudicion del libro es vasta y el talento conque esta escrito inne gable." — Revista Contemporanea, de Madrid. " Rivela grande attitudine, ingegno e studio non commune." — B. Labanca^ La Ctdtura, de Rome. " Een merkwaardig boek." — Het Vaderland, de La Haye. 14, Henrietta Street, Covent Gardejt, London; 20, South Frederick Street, Edinbdrqh. CATALOGUE OF SOME WOEKS PUBLISHED BY WILLIAMS & NOEaATE, Agnostic's Progress, An, from the Known to the Unknown. 268 pp. Crown 8vo, cloth. 5^. Atlantis, the Kew ; or, Ideals Old and New. Emanating from the Masters of Man belonging to the Great Eaces, who conducted the past Course of the Civilization, Culture and Education of Humanity. By a Disciple of Buckle. Crown 8vo, cloth. 45. 6 ~0 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH L. ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. ^ AN DEPT. am rv ^Iin31i98i ..7 x: 5-Cflt- 16 j R N'5gT^^ JOt S 1 ,gg, LD 21-100m-8,'34 I O OW I M^U '} G^