The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-04-21
easily klndled in thc mlnds Of the ignorant and

lS.
| unhappy being as well she may be. She strug-
| giles to conciliate. forced, fixed smile is ever
upon her face when that face is seen by others. In
her growing anxiety she naturally redouoles
whose sight she dwells, and whose money
she dresses When the hour comes, hope she
will be mercifully judged, for she has already
expiated the venial sin of Welding to a tempto-
ton which only very superior woman-one
really honest and thorough-bred-c have re-
sisted. IL is probable that she now regards the
wearing of those tremendous costumes merely
rs her contribution towards house<eepinp MS
though she said to her husband. 'You keen
down the men by muzzling the press and flatter-
ing the army, and III fool the women by wear
ing costumes" that ever struck envy to the
female heart.
We make the following extract from the
paper on "Brahmanism:"-
India has been a land of mystery from tbe
earliest times. From the most ancient days we
hear OF India as the most populous nation of the
world, full of barbaric wealth and a strange
wisdom. 1t has attracted conquerors and has
Deen OVerrun by the armies of Semiramis Darius
Alexander; by Mahmud and Tamerlane and Nadir
Shah; by Lord Give and the Duke of Yelling
ton. These conquerors, from the Assyrian
Queen to the British Mercantile Company have
ONerrun and plundered India, but have left IL the
same unintelligible, Interchangeable, and marvel
GUS country as before 1t is the same land now
which the soldiers of Alexander described the
land oil grotto-temples dug out of solid porphyry:
world; of social distinctions fixed and permanent
as the earth ITSELF of the sacred Ganges; of the
IDOLS OF Juggernaut, with its bloody worship
the land OF elephants and tigers; of fields of rice
ana groves of palm; of treasures filed with
chests of gold, heaps of pearl, diamonds and
incense But above all, it is the land of unintel-
hglble systems of belief, of puzzlng incongrui-
ties, and irreconcilable contradictions.
The HindoOs have sacred books of great anti
qulty, and rich literature extending back
twenty or thirty centuries; yet no history. no
chronology, no annals. They have q philosophy
as acute and profound and spiritual as any in
tne world, which is yet harmoniously associated
with the coarsest superstition. With a belief so
abstract that 1t almost escapes the grasp of the
most speculative intellect, is Joined the notion
that sin can be atoned for by bathing in the
ranges or repeating text of the Veda. With
an ideal pantheism resembling that of Hegel is
united the opinion that Brahma and
silva can be driven from the throne of
the universe by any one who will sac
rlhce a sufficient number of wild horses. To abb
stract ones self from matter, to renounce all the
of the senses, to macerate the
body, is thought the true road to felicity; and
nowhere in the world are luxury and licentious-
ness and the qualification of the appetites carried
so far. Every civil right and privilege of ruler
and subject is fixed in code of laws and body
of jurisprudence older far than the Christian
era, and the object of universal reverence:
but the application of these laws rests
tsays Rhode) on the arbitrary decisions Of the
sovereign. The constitution of India is there
fore like house without foundation and with
out roof. 1t is a principle of Hindoo religion
not to Kill worm, not even to tread upon II
blade of grass for fear of injuring life, but the
torments, cruelties, and bloodshed inflicted by
Indian tyrants would shock Nero or Borgia.
Half the best informed writers on India
will tell you that the Brahmanical religion is
pure monotheism; the other half as
confidently assert that they worship
million gods Some teach us that the Hindoos
are spiritualsts and pantheists Others that their
idolatry is more gross than that of any living
people.
: Is there any way Of reconciling these incon-
sistencies? If we cannot find such an eXplana-
ton there is at least one central point where we
may place ourselves; one elevated position from
which this mighty maze will not seem wholly
without plan. In India the whole tendency OF
thought is ideal, the whole religion pure spirit
ualism. An ultra, One-sided idealism is the cen
trail tendency of the Hindoo mind. The God OF
Brahmanism is an intelligence, absorbed in the
rest of profound contemplation. The good man
of the Nedas is he who withdraws from an eVh
world into abstract thought.
Nothing else explains the Hindoo character as
this does. An eminently religious people, 1t is
their one-sided spritualism, their extreme ideal
ism, which gives rise TO all their mcongrultles.
They have no history and no authentic chro-
nology, for history belongs to this world, and
chronology belongs 10 time. But this world and
time are TO them wholly uninteresting; God and
eternity are all in all. They torture themselves
with self-infiicted torments; for the body Is the
great enemy of the souls salvation, and they
must beat it down by ascetic notifications. But
asceticsm, here everywhere else, tends to self
indulgence, since one extreme produces another.
In one part of India, therefore, deVOtees are
swinging on hooks in honor of silva, hanging
themselves by the feet head downwards, over
fire. rolling on bed Of prickly thorns, jumping
on couch flied with sharp knives, boring holes
in their tongues and sticking their bodies full
of pins and needles, or perhaps holding the arms
over the head till they stitten in that position.
Meantime, in other place, whole regions are
given over to sensual indulgences, and compa-
nies of abandoned women are connected with
different temples, and consecratc their gains to
the support of their worship.
AS one-sded spiritualism will manifest itself
in morals in the two forms of austerity and
sensualty, so in religion it shows itself in the
opposite direction of an ideal pantheism and II
gross idolatry. Spritualism first fills the world
full of God, and this is true and Christian
view of things But IL takes another step, which
is to deny all real existence to the world and SO
runs into false pantheism. 1t first says, truly,
There is nothing trihOuH God" 1t next says,
falsely, There is nothing but God" This second
step was taken in India by means of the doe
delusive shows which spirit assumes. For there
is nothing but spirit which neither creates nor
| is created. neither acts nor suffers, which
| cannot change, and into which all souls are alb
! sorbed when they free themselves by meditation
| from the belief that they suffer or are happy,
that they can experience either pleasure or pain.
| The next step is to polytheism. For if God
neither creates nor destroys, but only seems To
create and destroy, these appearances are not
united together as being the acts of one Being,
Dnt are separate, independent phenomena.
when you remove personality from the con-