The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-28 00:00:00

Triple Idol being, symbolically, a dim shadowing forth
of the holy belief of Christians in the mystery of the
adorable Trinity. The One Supreme God expressed
under the sacred word Om bearing the triple names
of—Brahma the Creator, of Vishnou the Preserver,
and of Siva, or Chirem, the Destroyer. Yet from this
central core or heart of the national creed of Hin-
dostan diverge caprices of the imagination or of the
passions so wild and portentous in their extravagance
that, as the rev. author hints with an evident shudder
of abhorrence (p. 16), " some of them are such as
decency will not allow the mind to rest on for an
instant !" As, in one instance, let us say, is notice-
able even upon the borders of Palestine, in the
loathsome and degrading adoration of the Ansayrii !
The gross aggregate of the various divinities of Hindo-
stan amounting to such an almost inconceivable
multitude of false gods as-33,000,000 ! Neverthe-
less, so calmly, so equably does the mild-eyed Chris-
tian missionary here view all these unreasoning
phantasies of Pagan unbelief, that he gently refers
(p. 21) to the morality of the Sacred Books of the
Hindoos as higher than might be supposed, nay, as
in several respects approaching to the Christian
law ! Prayer, he evidently takes pleasure in re-
marking, is required by them—prayer, fasting,
works of benevolence, patience in suffering ! And
of the religion (so called) of which he speaks thus
dispassionately and magnanimously, he is neverthe-
less constrained to say elsewhere (p. 24) that it
authorises, nay for that matter even encourages a
licentiousness so frightful that he will not venture
to speak of it—adding, howbeit, with an awful em-
phasis, " But this, we may say, that nothing in the
annals of Heathen Greece or Rome, nothing
among the practices of the early heretics exceeded
it." Besides the Brahminism of India to which all
this more particularly relates, the other religions
of that country are here also touched upon and
incidentally delineated. Buddhism, for example,
the sect called Djainas, the followers of Newik, and
finally, Mahommedanism. Interspersed among the
population of Hindostan, it is here remarked that there
are a casual sprinkling of Parsees, the followers of
Zoroaster, and—yet more sparsely scattered over the
length and breadth of the Indian peninsula—a few
thousand Jews ! Descended from Shem are these
Hindoos, according to a popular tradition, and
strange is it to find that amongst them there is
record of a distinct prophecy of an expected
Saviour, " a prophecy containing the very name of
JESUS," and " one certainly," says F. Strickland
(p. 28), " more ancient than the coming of our
Lord." As to the position occupied by the
Madura Mission, relatively on the one hand,
to Paganism, or Brahminism, meaning idolatry,
and on the other hand to the divine doctrines, ethics,
morality, and theology inculcated by Christianity—
it is important to take notice, first of all, of our
author's conviction, avowed in so many plain em-
phatic words, that, there, " theinfluence of Pagan-
ism is on the wane," and then to couple with that his
record of the fact, drawn from his own individual ex-
perience and personal observation, that, there, simul-
taneously, " the number of Catholics is rapidly, and
in some districts sensibly, increasing." To those
who would dip yet further into the lucid current of
this clear and flowing narrative, we must now
content ourselves with earnestly commending the rest
of the remarkable volume here submitted to our consi-
deration. And we aro fain to do so all the more
earnestly from our conviction that these pages are
fraught with instruction for others (for other mis-
sionaries even we will say) than such as are to be
found more particularly among the author's co-
religionists. The effect of it, as a whole, we are here
almost tempted to remark is as the echo of a clarion
sounded from afar off by the lips of a Xavier or of
a Robert de Nobili. It seems to bring within the
range of our vision, and that, moreover, at the ex-
tremity of no very remote perspective, the advent of
the time when India—no longer given up to a hide-
ous jumble of idolatries—shall take its place among
the nations of Christendom.