without noticing all of them, I think I can convince you that on
some points you are labouring under a species of delusion, and
that I shall endeavour to point out. I proceed, then, at once, to
real or very probable matters of fact. A vessel, richly laden and
scantily manned, may sail up the Thames or the Clyde in perfect
safety, even if there are no weapons of defence on board; but if she
were to venture near the coast of some parts of the Indian seas,
her passengers and crew would run the risk of a contest for their
lives and liberty with the savages on shore. If a vessel should be
wrecked on the shores of the once savage, but now Christian islands
of Tahiti or Raratonga, its crew and passengers would be sure of
a kind reception from the natives; while, if a similar disaster
should happen on the shores of the Feejees or of Sumatra, they
would run the risk of being seized and devoured; or, if spared this
fate, would be compelled to live in degradation and misery. Here
are striking contrasts, amongst human beings who are endowed with
the same powers of intelligence and sympathy as ourselves; but to
what singular cause are these to be referred, unless it be to the
influence of the Christian faith, which, you doubt, will work no
beneficial change in the character and condition of man?"
"You strike home now, and I feel I must surrender. But still, while
the diffusion of Christianity may tend to tame the wild savage, and
make him more like a human being, I do not see any necessity for
your missionary labours amongst the Chinese or the Hindoos, who are
highly civilized, and, upon the whole, intelligent. Why should any
efforts be made to dispossess them of their religion, with its rites
and ceremonies, which they inherit from their forefathers?"
"I think that no compulsory efforts should be made to achieve this
end; but I presume you would not think it wrong that our government
should introduce the humane laws of Britain into all her foreign
dependencies?"
"Why, no; such a measure, I think, would be very advisable."
"I thank you for this admission in favour of the necessity of
Christian missions, especially to India, where cruelties are still
practised in broad day, such as we should be apt to regard as
monstrous inventions, fitted only to gratify a morbid appetite for
the horrible, were they not attested by faithful eye-witnesses.
What think you of this specimen? At the annual festival in honour
of Muha Div (the great god), many persons are suspended in the air
by large hooks, thrust through the integuments of their backs,[13]
and swung round for a quarter of an hour, in honour of this deity;
and often over a slow fire. Others have their sides pierced, and
cords are introduced between the skin and ribs, and drawn backwards
and forwards, while these victims of superstition dance through
the streets. Others cast themselves from a stage upon open knives,
inserted in packs of cotton. Sometimes one of these knives enters
the body, and the poor wretch is carried off to expire. If an infant
refuses his mother's milk, it is often hung up in a basket on a
tree, to be devoured by the vultures. This is no criminal offence,
as it would be amongst us, but a ceremonial regulation of their
faith. And in India, the mother often sacrifices her first-born,
to conciliate her guardian deity in behalf of her unborn progeny.
When the child is two or three years old, she takes it to the river,
encourages it to enter, as though about to bathe it, but suffers it
to pass into the current of water, when she abandons it, and stands
an inactive spectator, beholding the struggles and listening to the
screams of her perishing infant."
[13] We find, from a document which has recently come from India
(December, 1856), that some of these cruel rites are abolished in
a few of the provinces; and there is now no doubt but the work of
legislative humanity and enlightened policy having been begun, will
steadily advance, till the triumphs of missionary enterprise in our
Indian empire are complete.
"An order has just been promulgated by the magistrate of Poonah,
under instructions from government, prohibiting hook-swinging and
other barbarous practices throughout the Poonah Zillah. Such a
measure has long been desired by all who wish for the improvement
of the natives. Of old it was believed--or careless and idle minds
found it convenient to believe--that it was dangerous to meddle
with any native practice, however immoral or revolting, that was
connected with or claimed the sanction of religion. But times are
changed, and innovations which might not safely have been attempted
a century or half a century ago, the age is now ripe for.
"Another barbarous custom, also prevalent at Jejooree, is
interdicted by the proclamation of Mr. Davidson. A man runs a sword
through the fleshy part of his leg for about a foot, and, drawing
it out, sprinkles the blood on the entrance of the temple. For this
feat he receives large free-will offerings; and the right to perform
it is vested, as a valuable privilege, in a body of about fifteen
families, to each individual of which it comes round once in about
six or seven years. These men, however, long ago declared that they
would be glad to discontinue the practice (which some think is a
remnant of the rite of human sacrifice) if their incomes could be
assured to them."
"I would have all these cruel rites and ceremonies put down by the
force of law; which, of course, would supersede the necessity of
your missionary enterprise."
"As experience is a safe guide in the settlement of doubtful
questions, a reference to it, on the present occasion, will
supply palpable evidence that the labours of our missionaries
in India have been of great importance and value, both to the
natives themselves, and also to the government, by facilitating
the introduction and peaceable establishment of a humane policy.
The history of their labours proves that they were not visionary
speculatists, but sober-thinking men, who knew and realized the
fact, that wherever Christianity prevails it uniformly conduces to
the progress of mankind;--that it communicates that just manner
of thinking upon the most important subjects, which, extending
its influence thence to every department of speculative and
moral truth, inspires a freedom of inquiry, and an elevation
of sentiment, that raises its disciples immeasurably above the
level of unassisted nature. This great historic truth gave them
confidence in the prosecution of their herculean labours. Let me
now notice what they have already accomplished, and that without
creating any popular disturbances amongst the natives, thus
falsifying the predictions of their opponents, who, from the press
and in both houses of parliament, were accustomed to say, that the
safety of our Indian possessions was endangered by the presence
of our missionaries there; and that our Indian empire would be
irrecoverably lost if any legislative measure were introduced
to suppress or control the superstitious customs and rites of
the natives. In the first place, the missionaries have given us
correct information on all matters relating to the Hindoos--their
worship, and its various ceremonies--their character, and social
habits; and thus, by an accumulation of authentic facts, they have
disproved the statements of our popular writers, that the Hindoos
are not only an intelligent, but a very virtuous people; and that
their religious rites and services, though novel and repulsive
to Europeans, are both chaste and humane. Since the missionaries
exposed this deception, which had been so long practised upon us, no
one has ventured to eulogize the virtues, or defend the religious
practices of the Hindoos. In the second place, they established
schools for the education of the youth of India, both male and
female; and thus they have succeeded, to a very considerable extent,
in diffusing both scientific and biblical knowledge, which is
noiselessly but effectively rescuing them from the dominion of the
debasing ignorance and superstition under which their forefathers
had been living from time immemorial. And no one doubts, who is at
all conversant with the present state of things in India, but the
rising generation will far surpass any preceding one, in mental
acuteness, in knowledge, and in moral character. In the third place,
by their writings, their preaching, and their intercourse with the
natives, they have proved useful pioneers in clearing the way for
the peaceable introduction of the laws promulgated by the British
government for the suppression of many of those cruel practices to
which I have already alluded. In the fourth place, without employing
any undue modes of attack and exposure, they have succeeded, to a
very considerable extent, in shaking the confidence of the Hindoos
in the truth of their national faith; and a powerful conviction is
impressed on the Indian mind--an impression which is becoming deeper
and deeper every day--that the days of their mythology are numbered,
and that ere long its humiliation and subversion will be achieved.
And, in addition to these proofs and indications of their success, I
have to report another of their triumphs, and that refers _to your
own fraternity_--the conversion of many of our own countrymen, who,
on their settlement in India, became first speculative, and then
practical unbelievers--rejecting, as visionary or fabulous, the
faith of their early training, and often distinguishing themselves
by their virulent hostility to the Christian missionary and his
labours; but who now zealously co-operate with him in his exertions
to spread the knowledge of the way of salvation."
"To you, these doings of your missionaries are splendid triumphs in
confirmation of the Divine origin of that faith, which restricts
the bestowal of a state of future blessedness to the comparatively
few who believe in Jesus Christ; but to me they appear nothing
more than the natural consequences of a well-concerted attack on
a long-established and nearly worn-out order of things, which we
know invariably results in dividing popular opinion. On all such
occasions _Divide and conquer_ is the motto, and when this is done,
then the pruning off from the old stock of belief and opinion,
and the engrafting on the new one, is an operation as natural as
it is easy. Human nature is given to change; the love of it is an
essential element in our mental constitution, and nothing is more
common than going from one extreme to another, or more likely than
the change from Brahminism or Buddhism to the faith of Christianity."
"And from Deism to Christianity also, as I have shown you. Hence,
to quote your own words, I indulge the hope that you will become a
believer, if we have patience."
"A possible event, on the assumed correctness of your hypothesis, as
then I may be operated on by some Divine influence, which I shall
have no power to withstand; but on my own supposition, as remote
from possibility as the junction of the antipodes."
"We shall see. You have already advanced some way in the right
direction. But to return to India. Here is a fact, which was
not publicly known amongst us, till it was reported by our
missionaries--that one whole tribe in India has uniformly destroyed
every female child born amongst them, so that they have been obliged
to take their wives from the tribe next in rank to them. On one
occasion a father's heart recoiled when the emissaries of murder
demanded his daughter; and he repelled them from his presence. Her
life was spared, and she grew up tenderly beloved by her parents;
but the sight of a girl rising to maturity in the house of a
Rajpoot, was so novel, and so contrary to the customs of the tribe,
that no parent sought her in marriage for his son. The grief-worn
father, suffering under the frowns of his own tribe, and trembling
for the chastity of his daughter, and the honour of his family, bore
her off to a pathless desert, where, with his own hand, he slew her,
leaving her body to be devoured by wild beasts."
"Horrid! horrid! Such transactions as these, if true and believed,
are enough to rouse popular indignation against our government
for not adopting some prompt and severe measures to prevent their
repetition. I would annihilate the whole tribe, rather than suffer
such inhuman monsters to live on earth."
"You then would recommend a wholesale massacre to save a few lives;
while I would advocate the introduction amongst them of a pure and
humane faith, which teaches and enforces the relative obligations of
parents and children as they prevail amongst ourselves. This sense
of relative obligation, and the social improvement which necessarily
follows it, Christianity, by its mild and persuasive influence,
has already succeeded in establishing in the cannibal islands of
the South Sea, and also, to some extent, amongst the natives of
civilized India. Christianity can do, and I have no doubt will do,
for India what she has done for Britain--subvert her idolatry,
with its cruel and obscene rites, and raise up an enlightened and
renovated native population, who, with gladsome voices, will sing
the song of Bethlehem, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace, good-will toward men' (Luke ii. 14)."
Mr. Gordon, on rising to take his leave, said, "Well, there is no
denying the fact, that the world is in a sad disordered state;
and if you think you can improve it by your missionary labours, I
will not impeach the benevolence of your motives, though, without
hesitation, I may predict the failure of your sacrifices and
exertions."
"But, Sir, you must acknowledge that it is more honourable to fail
in the cause of philanthropy than to make no effort."
"This honour, I believe, is in reserve for you, though I must say
you merit one more brilliant. Go on, my dear Sir; but don't be
too sanguine. Utopia I know is very rich in splendid scenery, but
unfortunately it partakes much of the nature of the mirage. Good
night; with many thanks for all your good wishes."
A RENEWED ENCOUNTER.
The night before I left London, Mr. Gordon again called, and, after
some desultory conversation, our attention happened to be directed
to the book entitled _No Fiction_, which was lying on the table.
This led to a somewhat sharp and lengthened encounter.
"I dipped into that book," said Mr. Gordon, "the other day, and it
gave me some amusement, as the tale is made to appear a very natural
one. Its author narrates and sketches extremely well, for a divine,
and it is highly creditable to his talents, which must certainly be
of a superior order."
"Yes, Sir, he is quite a superior man. There is one paragraph of his
tale to which I should like to direct your attention, and which, by
your permission, I will read to you."
"Read on, Sir, and I'll give all due attention."
I then read as follows:--
"I have often been delighted," said Douglas, "in reading the
accounts of the power of religion on the minds of children; but
this is the _first_ instance which has fallen beneath my own
eye. What a religion is ours! How great--and yet how plain! It
is so sublime, that it rises beyond the conception of the most
enlarged mind! and so simple, that it brings home its lessons to
the bosom of a little child! The elements of the gospel, like
the elements of our nourishment, are adapted to the endless
varieties of age, and character, and circumstance, throughout
all the human race."
"And this appears," said Lefevre, "to be a feature in our
religion which distinguishes it from all false religions. As
far as I am acquainted with the subject, no one of the pagan
systems _could_ have been rendered universal. They all received
their character from national prejudice, national policy, and
predominant national vices."
"Yes," rejoined Douglas, "and as, in their own nature, they
were not adapted for the benefit of mankind as such, so their
great teachers discovered an indifference to the bulk of the
human race, incompatible with everything which deserves the
name either of religion or morality. With haughty pride they
exulted in their own wisdom, and looked down with scorn or
ridicule on the folly of those who were not initiated into
their false philosophy. Man scarcely deserved their notice,
but as he claimed the proud titles of rich, or wise, or noble;
and women and children were utterly abandoned to ignorance and
wretchedness. Jesus, our blessed Saviour, was the first Master
in religion who opened the door of knowledge _to all_--who
carried his instructions and his tears to the cottage of _the
poor_! This appears to me to involve a powerful evidence of the
truth of Christianity, that may well perplex and confound the
hosts of infidelity. I have more than once thought that the
psalmist must have referred to this use of the subject, when
he said, 'Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast
ordained strength, because of thine enemies: that thou mightest
still the enemy and the avenger.'"
"This passage, if I remember rightly," Mr. Gordon remarked,
"refers to a tale very similar to your story of _The Woodman's
Daughter_; but I must confess, with all due deference, that I see
nothing very remarkable in it; and how you can think of adducing
it as an argument in favour of the Divine origin of Christianity,
rather surprises me. Children, we know, are imitative. They take
the manners, the habits, and the tones of their parents and
teachers; and if they should adopt their sentiments, feelings, and
expressions, it certainly ought not to be considered remarkable. But
yet I should like to hear how you contrive to connect such a fact
and the divinity of the gospel together."
"Such a fact, Sir, proves that the Christian religion is adapted
(as we may fairly presume it would be, if of Divine origin), to the
moral condition of man, irrespective of his age--of the strength
or weakness of his intellect--or the peculiar shades of his moral
character. To suppose that this adaptation is by accident, would be
no less objectionable than to conclude, with the sceptics of the
French school, that it is by chance we see, hear, and speak. If you
are prepared to admit that the marks of contrivance, which we can
easily discover in the construction and organization of our senses,
supply us with a legitimate argument in favour of the existence
of a God, by whose power and wisdom this organization has been
arranged, I cannot conceive how you can avoid admitting the marks of
contrivance which we can as easily trace in the Christian scheme of
salvation, as conclusive evidence in favour of its Divine origin."
"O Sir! it has been invented by a few crafty men, who wished to
display their skill at the expense of our credulity, and they have
done it most dexterously. They were certainly adepts in invention."
"I know that this is a favourite opinion with you Deists; but I do
not think that you can support it. How came these men to devise a
scheme of religion which is so admirably adapted to the moral state
of man? From whence did they gain their information? They tell us
that they wrote under the dictation of an infinitely wise Spirit,
and, in common fairness, their testimony ought to be admitted;
and, I think, a candid examination of what they have done, and the
style in which they have done it, will satisfy us that they are
truth-speaking men. I form my judgment on this point as I should on
another somewhat analogous to it. If, for example, I saw an epic
poem equal to that of Virgil or Milton, or a treatise on logic
superior to that of Dr. Watt's, written by a boy of ten years of
age; and, if on expressing my astonishment and admiration, he
should say--'The writing, Sir, is mine, but nothing more--I wrote
from the dictation of Wordsworth and Whately,' I should at once
believe him, from a consciousness of his incompetency to produce
such compositions by his own unaided powers. So with the sacred
writers. We know that, with very few exceptions, they were unlearned
and ignorant men, and their contemporaries who knew them spoke of
them as such; and yet they have surpassed all other men in the
science of moral and spiritual truth. In confirmation, too, of this
internal evidence of the truthfulness of their testimony, that
they wrote under the dictation of an infallible Spirit, we find,
on examination, that the various parts of their comprehensive, yet
minute theory, are in perfect harmony with each other, while, at
the same time, the theory itself is admirably adapted to the moral
condition of humanity. The marks of contrivance are too obvious to
allow us to refer the arrangements to chance, or the mere skill of
man. For our guilt, it provides a propitiatory sacrifice, whose
blood cleanses from all sin--for our depravity, it provides a
renovating influence, by which, we are made partakers of the purity
of the Divine nature; regarding us as oppressed with cares and
sorrows, it animates us with exceeding great and precious promises,
by which we are enabled to put our trust in God, and thus rise above
the trials of this life; and, viewing us as panting for immortality,
it unveils futurity, and delights us with the sublime vision of
endless happiness."
"To you, who are initiated into a firm belief of the Divine
origin of Christianity, this apparent adaptation of it to our
moral condition and necessities, and its revelations of a future
state of happiness, must appear as the consummation of wisdom
and benevolence. But I cannot resist the impression, that it is
to the activity of your imagination you ought to attribute this
correspondence, rather than to any actual fact; and that you are,
at least so I think, unconsciously beguiling yourself with pleasing
anticipations which will all prove visionary."
"The gospel, Sir, is a living reality, and it works moral wonders."
"I don't quite comprehend your meaning."
"I mean, that it answers the purpose for which it was intended, or,
in other words, it does the moral work which is ascribed to it,
and does it effectually; this I can prove by an appeal to living
testimony. Hence, when it is received by faith, it _does_ give peace
to a wounded conscience; it _does_ infuse a renovating power, by
which man becomes a new creature, in his moral principles and social
habits; it does administer the most soothing and strengthening
consolation to the child of sorrow, and it animates the dying
believer with the hopes of a blissful immortality. These are moral
facts which the experience of myriads can attest."
"Yes, I see how it is; the imagination traces a correspondence
between its own impulses, and aerial flights, and the component
parts of your scriptural theory; and you very naturally think that
you would be robbed of an inestimable treasure, and the world at
large sustain an irreparable loss, if your theory of faith should be
exploded as a worn-out relic of an antiquated superstition."
"But, after all you say against the Christian faith, I do not think
you would vote for its expulsion from the earth, even if you thought
you could succeed in effecting it; and I will tell you why. Its
expulsion would be as great a calamity to the moral world, as the
total disappearance of the solar light would be to the physical--we
should at once relapse into a state of profound ignorance on
all the important questions which relate to God, to our origin,
our immortality, and our destiny. We should then find ourselves
groping about, like the ancient heathen, amidst vain and foolish
speculations, striving to unravel the mysteries of our nature, and
finding no resting-place for our troubled spirits. I have often
thought, when musing on such a fearful occurrence, what an awful
gloom would spread over the world if we knew that the fatal hour
was coming, when, by some supernatural process, all our knowledge
of Jesus Christ, and the design of his mission and death, would
suddenly pass away from human recollection; and when every leaf in
our Bible, and of all other books referring to him, should become
as blank as they were before they were printed--leaving us, like
the doomed spirits of the infernal world, without a Saviour, or any
promise of mercy."
"_You_ would anticipate such a strange event with sad and awful
forebodings. The disappearance of Jesus Christ from your theory
of belief would be to you, and to all of your way of thinking, an
irreparable calamity; though I must confess, that I cannot account
for the hold he keeps on your imaginations. To me, this is a mystery
which deepens in profundity the more I try to fathom it. His very
name appears to be a charm, and of more than magic power."