It is said that the very latest among the sciences is the Science of
Religion. Without pausing to inquire how far it admits of scientific
treatment, certain reasons which may be urged for the study of the
existing religions of the world will be considered in this lecture. It
must be admitted in the outset that those who have been the pioneers in
this field of research have not, as a rule, been advocates of the
Christian faith. The anti-Christian theory that all religions may be
traced to common causes, that common wants and aspirations of mankind
have led to the development of various systems according to environment,
has until recently been the chief spur to this class of studies.
Accordingly, the religions of the world have been submitted to some
preconceived philosophy of language, or ethnology, or evolution, with
the emphasis placed upon such facts as seemed to comport with this
theory. Meanwhile there has been an air of broad-minded charity in the
manner in which the apologists of Oriental systems have treated the
subject. They have included Christ in the same category with Plato and
Confucius, and have generally placed Him at the head; and this supposed
breadth of sentiment has given them a degree of influence with dubious
and wavering Christians, as well as with multitudes who are without
faith of any kind.
In this country the study of comparative religion has been almost
entirely in the hands of non-evangelical writers. We have had "The Ten
Great Religions," from the pen of Rev. James Freeman Clarke; "The
Oriental Religions," written with great labor by the late Samuel
Johnson; and Mr. Moncure D. Conway's "Anthology," with its flowers,
gathered from the sacred books of all systems, and so chosen as to carry
the implication that they all are equally inspired. Many other works
designed to show that Christianity was developed from ancient sun myths,
or was only a plagiarism upon the old mythologies of India, have been
current among us. But strangely enough, the Christian Church has seemed
to regard this subject as scarcely worthy of serious consideration. With
the exception of a very able work on Buddhism,[1] and several review
articles on Hinduism, written by Professor S.H. Kellogg, very little has
been published from the Christian standpoint.[2] The term "heathenism"
has been used as an expression of contempt, and has been applied with
too little discrimination.
There is a reason, perhaps, why these systems have been underestimated.
It so happened that the races among whom the modern missionary
enterprise has carried on its earlier work were mostly simple types of
pagans, found in the wilds of America, in Greenland and Labrador, in the
West Indies, on the African coast, or in the islands of the Pacific; and
these worshippers of nature or of spirits gave a very different
impression from that which the Apostles and the Early Church gained from
their intercourse with the conquering Romans or the polished and
philosophic Greeks. Our missionary work has been symbolized, as Sir
William W. Hunter puts it, by a band of half-naked savages listening to
a missionary seated under a palm-tree, and receiving his message with
child-like and unquestioning faith.
But in the opening of free access to the great Asiatic nations, higher
grades of men have been found, and with these we now have chiefly to do.
The pioneer of India's missions, the devoted Ziegenbalg, had not been
long in his field before he learned the mistake which the churches in
Europe had made in regard to the religion and philosophy of the Hindus.
He laid aside all his old notions when he came to encounter the
metaphysical subtleties of Hindu thought, when he learned something of
the immense Hindu literature, the voluminous ethics, the mystical and
weird mythologies, the tremendous power of tradition and social
customs--when, in short, he found his way hedged up by habits of thought
wholly different from his own; and he resolved to know something of the
religion which the people of India already possessed.
For the benefit of others who might follow him he wrote a book on
Hinduism and its relations to Christianity, and sent it to Europe for
publication. But so strong were the preconceived notions which prevailed
among his brethren at home, that his manuscript, instead of being
published, was suppressed. "You were not sent to India to study
Hinduism," wrote Franke, "but to preach the Gospel." But Ziegenbalg
certainly was not wanting in his estimate of the chief end in view, and
his success was undoubtedly far greater for the intelligent plan upon
which he labored. The time came when a change had passed over the
society which had sent him forth. Others, less friendly than he to the
Gospel of Christ, had studied Hinduism, and had paraded it as a rival of
Christianity; and in self-defence against this flank movement, the
long-neglected work of Ziegenbalg was brought forth from obscurity and
published.
It is partly in self-defence against similar influences, that the
Christian Church everywhere is now turning increased attention to the
study of Comparative Religion. In Great Britain a wider interest has
been felt in the subject than in this country. And yet, even there the
Church has been far behind the enemies of evangelical truth in
comparing Christianity with false systems. Dr. James Stalker, of
Glasgow, said a few months since that, whereas it might be expected that
the advocates of the true faith would be the first to compare and
contrast it with the false systems of the world, the work had been left
rather to those who were chiefly interested in disparaging the truth and
exalting error. Yet something has been done. Such men as Sir Monier
Williams, Sir William Muir, Professors Rawlinson, Fairbairn, and Legge,
Bishop Carpenter, Canon Hardwick, Doctors Caird, Dodds, Mitchell, and
others, have given the false systems of the East a thorough and candid
treatment from the Christian standpoint. The Church Missionary Society
holds a lectureship devoted to the study of the non-Christian religions
as a preparation for missionary work. And the representatives of that
Society in the Punjab have instituted a course of study on these lines
for missionaries recently arrived, and have offered prizes for the best
attainments therein. Though we are later in this field of investigation,
yet here also there is springing up a new interest, and it is safe to
predict that within another decade the real character of the false
religions will be more generally understood.
The prejudice which has existed in regard to this subject has taken two
different forms: First, there has been the broad assumption upon which
Franke wrote to Ziegenbalg, that all knowledge of heathenism is worse
than useless. Good men are asking, "Is not such a study a waste of
energy, when we are charged with proclaiming the only saving truth? Is
not downright earnestness better than any possible knowledge of
philosophies and superstitions?" And we answer, "Yes: by all means, if
only the one is possible." Another view of the subject is more serious.
May there not, after all, be danger in the study of false systems? Will
there not be found perplexing parallels which will shake our trust in
the positive and exclusive supremacy of the Christian faith?
Now, even if there were at first some risks to a simple, child-like
confidence, yet a timid attitude involves far greater risks: it amounts
to a half surrender, and it is wholly out of place in this age of
fearless and aggressive discussion, when all truth is challenged, and
every form of error must be met. Moreover, in a thorough study there is
no danger. Sir Monier Williams tells us that at first he was surprised
and a little troubled, but in the end he was more than ever impressed
with the transcendent truths of the Christian faith. Professor S.H.
Kellogg assures us that the result of his careful researches in the
Oriental systems is a profounder conviction of the great truths of the
Gospel as divine. And even Max Müller testifies that, while making every
allowance for whatever is good in the ethnic faiths, he has been the
more fully convinced of the great superiority of Christianity. Really,
those are in danger who receive only the superficial and misleading
representations of heathenism which one is sure to meet in our magazine
literature, or in works like "Robert Elsmere" and "The Light of Asia."
One cannot fail to mark the different light in which we view the
mythologies of the Greeks and Romans. If their religious beliefs and
speculations had remained a secret until our time, if the high ethical
precepts of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius had only now been proclaimed, and
Socrates had just been celebrated in glowing verse as the "Light of
Greece," there would be no little commotion in the religious world, and
thousands with only weak and troubled faith might be disturbed. But
simply because we thoroughly understand the mythology of Greece and
Rome, we have no fear. We welcome all that it can teach us. We cordially
acknowledge the virtues of Socrates and assign him his true place. We
enrich the fancy and awaken the intellectual energies of our youth by
classical studies, and Christianity shines forth with new lustre by
contrast with the heathen systems which it encountered in the Roman
Empire ages ago.
And yet that was no easy conquest. The early church, when brought face
to face with the culture of Greece and the self-assertion of Roman
power, when confronted with profound philosophies like those of Plato
and Aristotle, with the subtleties of the Stoics, and with countless
admixtures of Persian mysticism, had, humanly speaking, quite as
formidable a task as those that are presented in the heathen systems of
to-day. Very few of the champions of modern heathenism can compare with
Celsus, and there are no more subtle philosophies than those of ancient
Greece. Evidently, the one thing needed to disenchant the false systems
of our time is a clear and accurate knowledge of their merits and
demerits, and of their true relation to Christianity.
It will be of advantage, for one thing, if we learn to give credit to
the non-Christian religions for the good which they may fairly claim.
There has existed a feeling that they had no rights which Christian men
were bound to respect. They have been looked upon as systems of unmixed
evil, whose enormities it were impossible to exaggerate. And all such
misconceptions and exaggerations have only led to serious reactions.
Anti-Christian writers have made great capital of the alleged
misrepresentations which zealous friends of missions have put upon
heathenism; and there is always great force in any appeal for fair play,
on whichever side the truth may lie. Where the popular Christian idea
has presented a low view of some system, scarcely rising above the grade
of fetichism, the apologists have triumphantly displayed a profound
philosophy. Where the masses of Christian people have credited whole
nations with no higher notions of worship than a supreme trust in
senseless stocks and stones, some skilful defender has claimed that the
idols were only the outward symbols of an indwelling conception of
deity, and has proceeded with keen relish to point out a similar use of
symbols in the pictures and images of the Christian Church.
From one extreme many people have passed to another, and in the end have
credited heathen systems with greater merit than they possess. A marked
illustration of this fact is found in the influence which was produced
by Sir Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia." Sentimental readers, passing
from surprise to credulity, were ready to invest the "gentle Indian
Saint" with Christian conceptions which no real Buddhist ever thought
of. Mr. Arnold himself is said to have expressed surprise that people
should have given to his poem so serious an interpretation, or should
have imagined for a moment that he intended to compare Buddhism with the
higher and purer teachings of the New Testament.
In considering some of the reasons which may be urged for the study of
false systems, we will first proceed from the standpoint of the
candidate for the work of missions. And here there is a broad and
general reason which seems too obvious to require much argument. The
skilful general or the civil engineer is supposed, of course, to survey
the field of contemplated operations ere he enters upon his work. The
late Dr. Duff, in urging the importance of a thorough understanding of
the systems which a missionary expects to encounter, illustrated his
point by a reference to the great Akbar, who before entering upon the
conquest of India, twice visited the country in disguise, that he might
gain a complete knowledge of its topography, its strongholds, and its
points of weakness, and the best methods of attack.
While all religious teachers must understand their tasks, the need of
special preparation is particularly urgent in the foreign missionary,
owing to his change of environment. Many ideas and methods to which he
has been trained, and which would serve him well among a people of his
own race, might be wholly out of place in India or China, Ram Chandra
Bose, M.A.--himself a converted Brahman--has treated with great
discrimination the argument frequently used, that the missionary "need
only to proclaim the Glad Tidings." He says: "That the simple story of
Christ and him crucified is, after all, the truth on which the
regeneration of the Christian and the non-Christian lands must hang, no
one will deny. This story, ever fresh, is inherently fitted to touch the
dead heart into life, and to infuse vitality into effete nationalities
and dead civilizations. But a great deal of rubbish has to be removed in
heathen lands, ere its legitimate consequences can be realized. And a
patient, persistent study of the false religions, and the complicated
systems of philosophy associated with them, enables the missionary to
throw out of the way those heaps of prejudices and errors which make it
impossible for the story of the cross to reach and influence the
heart."[3] It has been very wisely said that "any fragment of truth
which lies in a heathen mind unacknowledged is an insuperable barrier
against conviction: recognized and used, it might prove a help;
neglected and ignored, it is insurmountable."[4]
The late Dr. Mullens learned by careful observation, that the
intellectual power of the Hindus had been so warped by false reasoning,
that "they could scarcely understand how, when two principles are
contradictory, one must be given up as false. They are prepared to
receive both sides of a contradiction as true, and they feel at liberty
to adopt that which seems the most comfortable. And nothing but a full
exposure of evil, with a clear statement of the antagonistic truth,
will suffice to awaken so perverted an intellect."[5]
The missionary has often been surprised to find that the idea which he
supposed was clearly understood, was wholly warped by the medium of
Hindu thought, as a rod is apparently warped when plunged into a stream,
or as a beautiful countenance is distorted by the waves and
irregularities of an imperfect mirror. To the preacher, sin, for
example, is an enormity in the sight of God; but to his Hindu listener
it may be only a breach of custom, or a ceremonial uncleanness. The
indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as it is set forth in Paul's Epistles, is
to the missionary a union in which his personality is still maintained
in blest fellowship with God, while to his audience it may be only that
out and out pantheism in which the deity within us supplants all
individual personality, and not only excludes all joy, but all
responsibility.
Professor W.G.T. Shedd has clearly pointed out the fact that the modern
missionary has a harder task in dealing with the perversions of the
heathen mind than that to which the Apostles of the Early Church were
called, owing to the prevalence in India and elsewhere of that pantheism
which destroys the sense of moral responsibility. He says: "The Greek
and Roman theism left the human will free and responsible, and thus the
doctrine of sin could be taught. But the pantheistic systems of the East
destroy free will, by identifying God and man; and hence it is
impossible to construct the doctrine of sin and atonement except by
first refuting the pantheistic ethics. The missionary can get no help
from _conscience_ in his preaching, when this theory of God and the
world has the ground. But St. Paul appealed confidently 'to every man's
conscience in the sight of God,' and called upon the ethics and theology
of the Greek and Roman philosophers for a corroboration. The early
Apologists, Tertullian and others, did the same thing."
The testimonies which have been given within the last few years, by the
most intelligent and observing missionaries in Eastern lands, are of
such peculiar significance and force, that I shall be justified in
quoting a few at some length. Rev. George William Knox, D.D., of Tokio,
Japan, in accepting an election to an honorary membership of the
American Society of Comparative Religion, wrote, December 17, 1890: "I
am deeply in sympathy with the objects of the Society, as indeed every
missionary must be. We have practical demonstrations of the value of
research into the ethnic religions. Even at home the value of such
research has already been great, but in these non-Christian lands it is
indispensable. It is true that non-Christian systems, as found among the
people, rarely exhibit the forms or the doctrines which we learn from
books, but I presume the same would be said by an intelligent Asiatic,
were he to study our sacred books and then compare results with much of
the religion which calls itself Christian in the West. And yet for the
study even of the most debased forms of Christianity in South America or
Mexico, let us say, we must needs begin with our sacred books. And so
it is with debased Buddhism in Japan. The Buddhism of Ceylon and of the
books is unknown to this people, and when it is used as the basis of
argument or exposition we do not hit the mark. Yet, after all, our debt
is immeasurable to the societies and scholars that have made accessible
the sources that have yielded at last such systems as are dominant here.
"The study of non-Christian systems is essential to the missionary, even
though he does not refer to them in his preaching, but contents himself
with delivering the Gospel message. And that is the rule with
missionaries, so far as I know. But a knowledge of the native systems is
imperative, that we may properly present our own. Otherwise we waste
time in teaching over again that which is already fully known, or we so
speak that our truth takes on the form of error, or we so underestimate
the thought of those whom we address, that the preaching of the wisdom
of God sounds in their ears the preaching of foolishness. The adaptation
of preaching to the hearers of Asiatic lands is a task that may well
make us thankful for every help that may be furnished us.... The
missionary is far too apt to come from the West with exalted notions of
his own superiority, and with a feeling of condescending pity for men
who, perhaps, have pondered the deep things of the universe far more
than he. Let him really master a philosophy like the Confucian, and he
will better illustrate the Christian grace of humility, and be so much
the better prepared for his work. His study will show him how
astonishing is the light that has shone upon those men whom he has
thought of as wholly in darkness. It will thus show him the true way of
approach, and enable him to follow the lines of least resistance. It
will also reveal to him what is the essential character of the divine
message which he himself bears. He will separate that peculiar and
spiritual truth which is the Word of Life, and will bring it as glad
tidings of great joy. Surely no man can study these ethnic faiths, no
matter with what appreciation of their measure of truth, and rejoicing
in it, without a constantly growing conviction that the one power that
converts men and establishes God's kingdom on earth is the Word that is
eternal, the Son of God. He gathers in Himself all the truth of all the
religions, and He adds that divine Salvation and Life for which all the
nations have waited, and without which the highest and deepest thought
remains unable to bring men into living communion with the God and
Father of us all."
Rev. Martyn Clark, D.D., Missionary of the Church Missionary Society at
Umritsur, India, has given thorough study to the Sanscrit, and has
thereby been enabled to expose the fallacies and misrepresentations
which the Arya Somaj, in its bitter controversy with the Gospel, has put
forth as to the real character of the Vedic literature. No man is better
able to judge of the importance of a correct understanding of the errors
of the non-Christian systems than he. In a letter accepting an honorary
membership of the above-named Society he says: "The object of the
Society is one in which I am deeply interested, and I shall at all
times do what I can to further its aims. I am convinced that there is
much that is helpful to the cause of Christ to be learned in this field
of research."
Rev. H. Blodgett, D.D., veteran Missionary of the American Board in
Peking, in accepting a similar honor, says: "My interest in these
studies has been deep and growing. It is high time that such a society
as you represent should be formed. The study of Comparative Religion has
long enough been in the hands of those who hold all religions to be the
outcome of the natural powers of the human mind, unaided by a revelation
from God. It is time that those who believe in the revelation from God
in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament founded upon the Old,
should study the great ethnic religions in the light derived from the
Bible."
Rev. James S. Dennis, D.D., long a Missionary of the Presbyterian
Mission in Beyrout, Syria, says in the same connection: "The great
missionary movement of our age has brought us face to face with problems
and conflicts which are far more deep and serious than those which
confront evangelistic efforts in our own land, and it is of the highest
importance that the Church at home should know as fully as possible the
peculiar and profound difficulties of work in foreign fields. These
ancient religions of the East are behind intrenchments, and they are
prepared to make a desperate resistance. Those who have never come into
close contact with their adherents, and discovered by experience the
difficulty of dislodging them and convincing them of the truth of the
Gospel, may very properly misunderstand the work of the foreign
missionary and wonder at his apparent failure, or at least his slow
progress. But I wonder at the success attained in the foreign field, and
consider it far more glorious and remarkable than it is generally
accounted to be. A fuller acquaintance with the strength, and resources,
and local éclat, and worldly advantages of these false religions, will
give the Church at home greater patience and faith in the great work of
evangelizing the nations."[6]
A specific reason for the study of the non-Christian religions is found
in the changes which our intercourse with Eastern nations has already
wrought. With our present means of intercommunication we are brought
face to face with them, and the contact of our higher vitality has
aroused them from the comparative slumber of ages. Even our missionary
efforts have given new vigor to the resistance which must be
encountered. We have trained up a generation of men to a higher
intellectual activity, and to a more earnest spirit of inquiry, and they
are by no means all won over to the Christian faith. And there are
thousands in India whom a Government education has left with no real
faith of any kind, but whose pride of race and venerable customs is
raised to a higher degree than ever. They have learned something of
Christianity; they have also studied their own national systems; they
have become especially familiar with all that our own sceptics have
written against Christianity; still further, they have added to their
intellectual equipment all that Western apologists have said of the
superiority of the Oriental faiths. They are thus armed at every point,
and they are using our own English tongue and all our facilities for
publication. How is the young missionary, who knows nothing of their
systems or the real points of comparison, to deal with such men? It is
very true that not all ranks of Hindus are educated; there are millions
who know nothing of any religion beyond the lowest forms of
superstition, and to these we owe the duty of a simple and plain
presentation of Christ and Him crucified; but in every community where
the missionary is likely to live there are men of the higher class just
named; and besides, professional critics and opposers are now employed
to harass the bazaar preacher with perplexing questions, which are soon
heard from the lips of the common people. A young missionary recently
wrote of the surprise which he felt when a low caste man, almost without
clothing, met him with arguments from Professor Huxley.
Missionary Boards have sometimes sent out a specialist, and in some
sense a champion, who should deal with the more intelligent classes of
the heathen. But such a plan is fraught with disadvantages. What is
needed is a thorough preparation in all missionaries, and that involves
an indispensable knowledge of the forces to be met. The power of the
press is no longer a monopoly of Christian lands. The Arya Somaj, of
India, is now using it, both in the vernacular and in the English, in
its bitter and often scurrilous attacks. One of its tracts recently sent
to me contained an English epitome of the arguments of Thomas Paine. The
secular papers of Japan present in almost every issue some discussion on
the comparative merits of Christianity, Buddhism, Evolution, and
Theosophy, and many of the young native ministry who at first received
the truth unquestioningly as a child receives it from his mother, are
now calling for men whom they can follow as leaders in their struggle
with manifold error.[7]
Even Mohammedans are at last employing the press instead of the sword.
Newspapers in Constantinople are exhorting the faithful to send forth
missionaries to "fortify Africa against the whiskey and gunpowder of
Christian commerce, by proclaiming the higher ethical principles of the
Koran." Great institutions of learning are also maintained as the
special propaganda of the Oriental religions. El Azar, established at
Cairo centuries ago, now numbers ten thousand students, and these when
trained go forth to all Arabic speaking countries.[8] The Sanskrit
colleges and monasteries of Benares number scarcely less than four
thousand students,[9] who are being trained in the Sankhyan or the
Vedanta philosophy, that they may go back to their different provinces
and maintain with new vigor the old faiths against the aggressions of
Christianity. And in Kioto, the great religious centre of Japan, we find
over against the Christian college of the American Board of Missions, a
Buddhist university with a Japanese graduate of Oxford as its president.
In a great school at Tokio, also, Buddhist teachers, aided by New
England Unitarians, are maintaining the superiority of Buddhism over
Western Christianity as a religion for Japan.[10]
Another reason why the missionary should study the false systems is
found in the greatly diversified forms which these systems present in
different lands and different ages. And just here it will be seen that a
partial knowledge will not meet the demand. It might be even misleading.
Buddhism, for example, has assumed an endless variety of forms--now
appearing as a system of the baldest atheism, and now presenting an
approximate theism. Gautama was certainly atheistic, and he virtually
denied the existence of the human soul. But in the northern development
of his system, theistic conceptions sprang up. A sort of trinity had
appeared by the seventh century A.D., and by the tenth century a supreme
and celestial Buddha had been discovered, from whom all other Buddhas
were emanations. To-day there are at least twelve Buddhist sects in
Japan, of which some are mystical, others pantheistic, while two hold a
veritable doctrine of salvation by faith.[11]
China has several types of Buddhism, and Mongolia, Thibet, Nepaul,
Ceylon, Burmah, and Siam present each some special features of the
system. How important that one should understand these differences in
order to avoid blundering, and to wisely adapt his efforts! In India,
under the common generic name of Hinduism, there are also many sects:
worshippers of Vishnu, worshippers of Siva, worshippers of Krishna.
There are Sikhs, and Jains, and devil worshippers; among the Dravidian
and other pre-Aryan tribes there are victims of every conceivable
superstition.
Now, a missionary must know something of these faiths if he would fight
with "weapons of precision." Paul, in becoming all things to all men,
knew at least the differences between them. He preached the gospel with
a studied adaptation. He tells us that he so strove as to win, and "not
as those who beat the air." How alert were the combatants in the arena
from which his simile is borrowed! How closely each athlete scanned his
man, watched his every motion, knew if possible his every thought and
impulse! Much more, in winning the souls of darkened and misguided men,
should we learn the inmost workings of their minds, their habits of
thought, and the nature of the errors which are to be dislodged.
But how shall the false systems of religions be studied? First, there
should be a spirit of entire candor. Truth is to be sought always, and
at any cost; but in this case there is everything to be gained and
nothing to be lost by the Christian teacher, and he can well afford to
be just. Our divine Exemplar never hesitated to acknowledge that which
was good in men of whatever nationality or creed. He could appreciate
the faith of Roman or Syro-Phoenician. He could see merit in a Samaritan
as well as in a Jew, and could raise even a penitent publican to the
place of honor. It was only the Pharisees who hesitated to admit the
truth, until they could calculate the probable effect of their
admissions.
The very best experience of missionaries has been found in the line of
Christ's example. "The surest way to bring a man to acknowledge his
errors," says Bishop Bloomfield, "is to give him full credit for
whatever he had learned of the truth."[12] "What should we think," says
a keen observer of the work of missions--"what should we think of an
engineer who, in attempting to rear a light-house on a sandbar, should
fail to acknowledge as a godsend any chance outcropping of solid rock to
which he might fasten his stays?"[13]
But in urging the duty of candor, I assume that an absolute freedom from
bias is impossible on either side. It is sometimes amusing to witness
the assurance with which professed agnostics assume that they, and they
alone, look upon questions of comparative religion with an unbiased and
judicial mind. They have no belief, they say, in any religion, and are
therefore entirely without prejudice. But are they? Has the man who has
forsaken the faith of his fathers and is deeply sensible of an
antagonism between him and the great majority of those about him--has he
no interest in trying to substantiate his position, and justify his
hostility to the popular faith? Of all men he is generally the most
prejudiced and the most bitter. We freely admit that we set out with a
decided preference for one religious system above all others, but we
insist that candor is possible, though an absolutely indifferent
judgment is out of the question. Paul, who quoted to the Athenians their
own poet, was fair-minded, and yet no man ever arraigned heathenism so
terribly as he, and none was so intensely interested in the faith which
he preached.
Archbishop Trench, in discussing the exaggerations from which a careful
study of the Oriental religions would doubtless save us, says, "There is
one against which we are almost unwilling to say a word. I mean the
exaggeration of those who, in a deep devotion to the truth as it is in
Christ Jesus, count themselves bound, by their allegiance to Him, to
take up a hostile attitude to everything not distinctly and avowedly
Christian, as though any other position were a treachery to his cause,
and a surrender of his exclusive right to the authorship of all the good
which is in the world. In this temper we may dwell only on the guilt and
misery and defilements, the wounds and bruises and putrefying sores of
the heathen world; or if aught better is brought under our eye, we may
look askant and suspiciously upon it, as though all recognition of it
were a disparagement of something better. And so we may come to regard
the fairest deeds of unbaptized men as only more splendid sins. We may
have a short but decisive formula by which to try and by which to
condemn them. These deeds, we may say, were not of faith, and therefore
they could not please God; the men that wrought them knew not Christ,
and therefore their work was worthless--hay, straw, and stubble, to be
utterly burned up in the day of the trial of every man's work.
"Yet there is indeed a certain narrowness of view, out of which alone
the language of so sweeping a condemnation could proceed. Our allegiance
to Christ, as the one fountain of light and life for the world, demands
that we affirm none to be good but Him, allow no goodness save that
which has proceeded from Him; but it does not demand that we deny
goodness, because of the place where we find it, because we meet it, a
garden tree, in the wilderness. It only requires that we claim this for
Him who planted, and was willing that it should grow there; whom it
would itself have gladly owned as its author, if, belonging to a happier
time, it could have known Him by his name, whom in part it knew by his
power.
"We do not make much of a light of nature when we admit a righteousness
in those to whom in the days of their flesh the Gospel had not come. We
only affirm that the Word, though not as yet dwelling among us, yet
being the 'light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,'
had also lighted them. Some glimpses of his beams gilded their
countenances, and gave to these whatever brightness they wore; and in
recognizing this brightness we are ascribing honor to Him, and not to
them; glorifying the grace of God, and not the virtues of man."[14]
In marked contrast with this, and tending to an extreme, is the
following, from the pen of Bishop Beveridge. It is quoted by Max Müller,
in the opening volume of "The Sacred Books of the East," as a model of
candor.
"The general inclinations which are naturally implanted in my soul to
some religion, it is impossible for me to shift off; but there being
such a multiplicity of religions in the world, I desire now seriously to
consider with myself which of them all to restrain these my general
inclinations to. And the reason of this my inquiry is not, that I am in
the least dissatisfied with that religion I have already embraced; but
because 'tis natural for all men to have an overbearing opinion and
esteem for that particular religion they are born and bred-up in. That,
therefore, I may not seem biased by the prejudice of education, I am
resolved to prove and examine them all; that I may see and hold fast to
that which is best.... Indeed, there was never any religion so barbarous
and diabolical, but it was preferred above all other religions
whatsoever by them that did profess it; otherwise they would not have
professed it.... And why, say they, may you not be mistaken as well as
we? Especially when there are, at least, six to one against your
Christian religion; all of which think they serve God aright; and expect
happiness thereby as well as you.... And hence it is that in my looking
out for the truest religion, being conscious to myself how great an
ascendancy Christianity holds over me beyond the rest, as being that
religion whereunto I was born and baptized; that the supreme authority
has enjoined and my parents educated me in; that which everyone I meet
withal highly approves of, and which I myself have, by a long-continued
profession, made almost natural to me; I am resolved to be more jealous
and suspicious of this religion than of the rest, and be sure not to
entertain it any longer without being convinced by solid and substantial
arguments of the truth and certainty of it. That, therefore, I may make
diligent and impartial inquiry into all religions and so be sure to find
out the best, I shall for a time look upon myself as one not at all
interested in any particular religion whatsoever, much less in the
Christian religion; but only as one who desires, in general, to serve
and obey Him that made me in a right manner, and thereby to be made
partaker of that happiness my nature is capable of."[15]
Second, in studying the false systems it is important to distinguish
between religion and ethics. In the sphere of ethics the different
faiths of men may find much common ground, while in their religious
elements they may be entirely true or utterly false. The teachings of
Confucius, though agnostic, presented a moral code which places the
relations of the family and state on a very firm basis. And the very
highest precepts of Buddhism belong to the period in which it was
virtually atheistic. Many great and noble truths have been revealed to
mankind through the conscience and the understanding, and these truths
have found expression in the proverbs or ethical maxims of all races. To
this extent God has nowhere left himself without witness. But all this
is quite apart from a divinely revealed religion which may be cherished
or be wholly lost. The golden rule is found not only in the New
Testament, but negatively at least in the Confucian classics;[16] and
the Shastras of the Hindus present it in both the positive and the
negative form. And the still higher grace of doing good to those who
injure us, was proclaimed by Laotze, five hundred years before Christ
preached the Sermon on the Mount.
The immense superiority of the ethical standard in Christianity, lies in
its harmony and completeness. Confucius taught the active virtues of
life, Laotze those of a passive kind; Christianity inculcates both. In
heathenism ethical truths exist in fragments--mere half truths, like the
broken and scattered remains of a temple once beautiful but now
destroyed. They hold no relation to any high religious purpose, because
they have no intelligent relation to God. Christian ethics begin with
our relations to God as supreme, and they embrace the present life and
the world to come. The symmetry of the divine precept, "Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself," finds
no counterpart in the false religions of the world. Nowhere else, not
even in Buddhism, is found the perfect law of love. The great secret of
power in Christianity is God's unspeakable love to men in Christ; and
the reflex of that love is the highest and purest ever realized in human
hearts.
Thirdly, the false systems should be studied by the Christian
missionary, not for their own sakes so much as for an ulterior purpose,
and they should be studied in constant comparison with the religion
which it is his business to proclaim. His aim is not that of a savant.
Let us not disguise it: he is mainly endeavoring to gain a more thorough
preparation for his own great work. The professional scholar at Oxford
or Leipsic might condemn this acknowledged bias--this pursuit of truth
as a means and not as an end--but if he would be entirely frank, he
would often find himself working in the interest of a linguistic
theory, or a pet hypothesis of social science. It was in this spirit
that Spencer and Darwin have searched the world for facts to support
their systems.[17]
I repeat, it is enough for the missionary that he shall be thoroughly
candid. He may exercise the burning zeal of Paul for the Gospel which he
proclaims, if he will also exercise his clear discrimination, his
scrupulous fairness, his courtesy, and his tact. Let him not forget that
he is studying religions comparatively; he should proceed with the Bible
in one hand, and should examine the true and the false together.
Contrasts will appear step by step as he advances, and the great truths
of Christianity will stand out in brighter radiance, for the shadows of
the background. If the question be asked, when and where shall the
missionary candidate study the false systems, I answer at once; before
he leaves his native land; and I assign three principal reasons. First:
The study of a new and difficult language should engross his attention
when he reaches his field. This will prove one of the most formidable
tasks of his life, and it will demand resolute, concentrated, and
prolonged effort. Second: In gaining access to the people, studying
their ways and winning their confidence, the missionary will find great
advantage in having gained some previous knowledge of their habits of
thought and the intricacies of their beliefs. Third: The means and
appliances of study are far greater here at home than on the mission
fields. A very serious difficulty with most missionaries is the want of
books on special topics; they have no access to libraries, and if one
has imagined that he can best understand the faiths of the people by
personal contact with them, he will soon learn with surprise how little
he can gain from them, and how little they themselves know of their own
systems. Those who do know have learned for the purpose of baffling the
missionary instead of helping him. The accumulation and the arrangement
of anything like a systematic knowledge of heathen systems has cost the
combined effort of many missionaries and many Oriental scholars; and
now, after three generations have pursued these studies, it is still
felt that very much is to be learned from literatures yet to be
translated. Such as there are, are best found in the home libraries.
Let us for a few moments consider the question how far those who are not
to become missionaries may be profited by a study of false systems. To a
large extent, the considerations already urged will apply to them also,
but there are still others which are specially important to public
teachers here at home. Dean Murray, in an able article published in the
"Homiletic Review" of September, 1890, recommended to active and
careworn pastors a continued study of the Greek classics, as calculated
to refresh and invigorate the mind, and increase its capacity for the
duties of whatever sphere. All that he said of the Greek may also be
said of the Hindu classics, with the added consideration that in the
latter we are dealing with the living issues of the day. Sir Monier
Williams, in comparing the two great Epics of the Hindus with those of
Homer, names many points of superiority in the former.[18] It is safe to
say that no poems of any other land have ever exercised so great a spell
over so many millions of mankind as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, of
India, and no other production is listened to with such delight as the
story of Rama as it is still publicly read at the Hindu festivals.
Of philosophies, no system of India has approached so near to veritable
divine revelation as that of Plato, but in variety and subtlety, and in
their far-reaching influence upon human life, the Indian schools,
especially the Vedanta, are scarcely excelled to this day. And they are
_applied_ philosophies; they constitute the religion of the people. Max
Müller has said truly that no other line of investigation is so
fascinating as that which deals with the long and universal struggle of
mankind to find out God, and to solve the mystery of their relations to
him. Unfortunately, human history has dealt mainly with wars and
intrigues, and the rise and fall of dynasties; but compared with these
coarse and superficial elements, how much more interesting and
instructive to trace in all races of men the common and ceaseless
yearnings after some solution of life's mysteries! One is stirred with
a deeper, broader sympathy for mankind when he witnesses this universal
sense of dependence, this fear and trembling before the powers of an
unseen world, this pitiful procession of unblest millions ever trooping
on toward the goal of death and oblivion. And from this standpoint, as
from no other, may one measure the greatness and glory of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ.
To my mind there is nothing more pathetic than the spectacle of
world-wide fetichism. It is not to be contemplated with derision, but
with profoundest sympathy. We all remember the pathos of Scott's picture
of his Highland heroine, with brain disordered by unspeakable grief,
beguiling her woes with childish ornaments of "gaudy broom" and plumes
from the eagle's wing. But sadder far is the spectacle of millions of
men made for fellowship with God, building their hopes on the divinity
dwelling in an amulet of tiger's teeth or serpent's fangs or curious
shells. And it ought to enlarge our natures with a Christ-like sympathy
when we contemplate those dark and desperate faiths which are but
nightmares of the soul, which see in all the universe only malevolent
spirits to be appeased, which, looking heavenward for a father's face,
see, as Richter expressed it, "only a death's head with bottomless,
empty sockets" instead of a loving smile.[19]
And what a field do the greater but equally false systems present for
the study of the human mind and heart! How was it that the simple nature
worship of the Indo-Aryans grew into the vast deposit of modern
Hinduism, and developed those social customs which have become walls of
adamant? How could Buddhism grow out of such a soil and finally cast its
spell over so many peoples? What were the elements of power which
enabled the great sage of China to rear a social and political fabric
which has survived for so many centuries? How was it that Islam gained
its conquests, and what is the secret of that dominion which it still
holds? These surely are questions worthy of those who are called to deal
with human thought and human destiny. And when by comparison we find the
grand differentials which raise Christianity infinitely above them all,
we shall have gained the power of presenting its truths more clearly and
more convincingly to the minds and hearts of men.
There are some specific advantages flowing from the study of other
religions of which I will give little more than an enumeration.
1. It impresses us with the universality of some more or less distinct
conception of God. I am aware that from time to time explorers imagine
that they have found a race of men who have no notion of God, but in
almost every instance subsequent investigation has found a religious
belief. Such mistakes were made concerning the aborigines of Australia,
the Dyaks of Borneo, the Papuans, the Patagonians, and even the American
Indians. The unity of the race finds a new and striking proof in the
universality of religion.
2. The study of false systems brings to light an almost unanimous
testimony for the existence of a vague primeval monotheism, and thus
affords a strong presumptive corroboration of the Scriptural doctrine of
man's apostasy from the worship of the true God.
3. The clearest vindication of the severities of the Old Testament
Theocracy, in its wars of extermination against the Canaanites and
Phoenicians, is to be found in a careful study of the foul and cruel
types of heathenism which those nations carried with them wherever their
colonies extended. A religion which enjoined universal prostitution, and
led thus to sodomy and the burning of young children in the fires of
Moloch, far exceeded the worst heathenism of Africa or the islands of
the Pacific. The Phoenician settlements on the Mediterranean have not
even yet recovered from the moral blight of that religion; and had such
a cultus been allowed to spread over all Europe and the world, not even
a second Deluge could have cleansed the earth of its defilement. The
extermination of the Canaanites, when considered as a part of one great
scheme for establishing in that same Palestine a purer and nobler faith,
and sending forth thence, not Phoenician corruption, but the Gospel of
Peace to all lands, becomes a work of mercy to the human race.
4. The ethics of the heathen will be found to vindicate the doctrines of
the Bible. This is a point which should be more thoroughly understood.
It has been common to parade the high moral maxims of heathen systems as
proofs against the exclusive claims of Christianity. But when carefully
considered, the lofty ethical truths found in all sacred books and
traditions, corroborate the doctrines of the Scriptures. They condemn
the nations "who hold the truth in unrighteousness." They enforce the
great doctrine that by their own consciences all mankind are convicted
of sin, and are in need of a vicarious righteousness,--a full and free
salvation by a divine power. My own experience has been, and it is
corroborated by that of many others, that very many truths of the
Gospel, when seen from the stand-point of heathenism, stand out with a
clearness never seen before.
Many prudential reasons like those which we have given for the study of
false systems by missionaries, pertain also to those who remain at home.
Both are concerned in the same cause, and both encounter the same
assailments of our common faith. We are all missionaries in an important
sense: we watch the conflict from afar, but we are concerned in all its
issues. The bulletins of its battle-fields are no longer confined to
missionary literature; they are found in the daily secular press, and
they are discussed with favorable or unfavorable comments in the monthly
magazines. The missionary enterprise has come to attract great
attention: it has many friends, and also many foes, here at home; it is
misrepresented by scoffers at our doors. The high merits of heathen
systems, set forth with every degree of exaggeration, pass into the
hands of Christian families, in books and magazines and secular papers.
Apostles of infidelity are sent out to heathen countries to gather
weapons against the truth. Natives of various Oriental lands, once
taught in our mission schools perhaps, but still heathen, are paraded on
our lecture platforms, where they entertain us with English and American
arguments in support of their heathen systems and against Christianity.
Young pastors, in the literary clubs of their various communities, are
surprised by being called to discuss plausible papers on Buddhism, which
some fellow-member has contributed, and they are expected to defend the
truth. Or some young parishioner has been fascinated by a plausible
Theosophist, or has learned from Robert Elsmere that there are other
religions quite as pure and sacred as our own. Or some chance lecturer
has disturbed the community with a discourse on the history of religious
myths. And when some anxious member of a church learns that his
religious instructor has no help for him on such subjects, that they lie
wholly outside of his range, there is apt to be something more than
disappointment: there is a loss of confidence.
It is an unfortunate element in the case that error is more welcome in
some of our professedly neutral papers than the truth: an article
designed to show that Christianity was borrowed from Buddhism or was
developed from fetichism will sometimes be welcomed as new sensation,
while a reply of half the length may be rejected.
There is something ominous in these facts. Whether the secular press
(not all papers are thus unfair) are influenced by partisan hatred of
the truth or simply by a reckless regard for whatever is most popular,
the facts are equally portentous. And if it be true that such
publications are what the people most desire, the outlook for our
country is dark indeed. The saddest consideration is that the power of
the secular press is so vast and far reaching. When Celsus wrote, books
were few. When Voltaire, Hume, and Thomas Paine made their assailments
on the Christian faith, the means of spreading the blight of error were
comparatively few. But now the accumulated arguments of German infidels
for the last half-century may be thrown into a five-cent Sunday paper,
whose issue will reach a quarter of a million of copies, which perhaps a
million of men and women may read. These articles are copied into a
hundred other papers, and they are read in the villages and hamlets;
they are read on the ranches and in the mining camps where no sermon is
ever heard.
It is perfectly evident that in an age like this we cannot propagate
Christianity under glass. It must grow in the open field where the free
winds of heaven shall smite and dissipate every cloud of error that may
pass over it, and where its roots shall only strike the deeper for the
questionings and conflicts that may often befall it. Error cannot be
overcome either by ignoring it or by the cheap but imbecile scolding of
an ignorant pulpit.
I cannot express the truth on this point more forcibly than by quoting
the trenchant words of Professor Ernest Naville, in his lectures on
"Modern Atheism." After having admitted that one, who can keep himself
far from the strifes and struggles of modern thought, will find
solitude, prayer, and calm activity, pursued under the guidance of
conscience, most conducive to unquestioning faith and religious peace,
he says: "But we are not masters of our own ways, and the circumstances
of the present times impose on us special duties. The barriers which
separate the school and the world are everywhere thrown down; everywhere
shreds of philosophy, and very often of very bad philosophy, scattered
fragments of theological science, and very often of a deplorable
theological science, are insinuating themselves into the current
literature. There is not a literary review, there is scarcely a
political journal, which does not speak on occasion, or without
occasion, of the problems relating to our eternal interests. The most
sacred beliefs are attacked every day in the organs of public opinion.
At such a juncture can men, who preserve faith in their own souls,
remain like dumb dogs, or keep themselves shut up in the narrow limits
of the schools? Assuredly not. We must descend to the common ground and
fight with equal weapons the great battles of thought. For this purpose
it is necessary to state questions which run the risk of startling
sincerely religious persons. But there is no help for it if we are to
combat the adversaries on their own ground; and because it is thus only
that we can prove to all that the torrent of negations is but a passing
rush of waters, which, fret as they may in their channels, shall be
found to have left not so much as a trace of their passage upon the Rock
of Ages." The fact that Professor Naville's lectures were delivered in
Geneva and Lausanne, to audiences which together numbered over two
thousand five hundred people, affords abundant proof that the people are
prepared to welcome the relief afforded by a clear and really able
discussion of these burning questions. In the ordinary teaching of the
pulpit they would be out of place, but every public teacher should be
able to deal with them on suitable occasions.
In a single concluding word, the struggle of truth and error has become
world-wide. There are no ethnic religions now. There is Christianity in
Calcutta, and there is Buddhism in Boston. The line of battle is the
parallel that belts the globe. It is not a time for slumber or for mere
pious denunciation. There must be no blundering: the warfare must be
waged with weapons of precision, and then victory is sure. It is well if
our missionary effort of a century has drawn the fire of the enemy; it
is well if the time has come to hold up the truth face to face with
error, and to fight out and over again the conflict of Elijah and the
Priests of Baal.