Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-03-25
JOSEPH COOK IN INDIA.

India and as these details nave not yet
appeared in the American press, state
ment of them may interest our readers.
It appears that Cook lectured at Poona to
Hindoo audience, AID that at the close
of his lecture he insisted on reclting the
Lords Prayer. a missionary present re-
marked that it was not desirable to offer
PRAYER before non. Christians, but Cook
persisted, and said that as he had followed
his own way in Bombay he would do SO
here, too. The missionary who had first
spoken manned Rivington) then brutally
observed that to offer prayer IN such an
audience would be casting pearls before
swine" This called cut another mis-
sionarv in defense of the Hindoos, who, as
may easily besupposed, were considerably
incensed at the offensive references to
them. Cook had previously had the
audacity to threaten his audience with the
police in case any of them expressed dis.
approval of his statements, and as freedom
of opinion is permitted in India. this I'M
pudent menace from stranger and an
alien was not calculated to render him
popular. The Chairman advised him not
to offer the prayer, and he then proceeded
to denounce the Chairman, and to declare
that he "set his authority at naught "
The Chairman, an English official of posi-
ton at Poona, then declared the meeting
adjourned, and the audience went away,
leaving Cook tuning on the platform. A
native Poona newspaper observes that
" the whole spectacle was disgraceful to a
"degree, and the meeting dispersed at
"once without Mr.. Cook being allowed to
"pray."
Cook, however, went through India trail.
ing his coat, SO to speak, and he found
plenty of people ready to jump on if.
While at Bombay. and before going to
Poona, he delivered a lecture in which he
fell foul of the Theosophical Society, and
in which he was base enough to revamp
! some stale and exploded ISLANDERS against
Colonel Olcott and Madam Blavatsky. His
treatment of the purposes of the Thee
sophical Society, his vaunts on behalf Of
Christianity, and his hbelous statements
about the founders of the Theosophical
Society, had disagreeable consequences for
him, and in fact compelled his ignominious
and disgraceful retirement from India. In
the first place he received formal chal-
lenge to public debate from the venerable
leader of the Arya Somai, the Pandit Day
anad Sarasvati Swami, who wrote to him as
follows 8" Sir In your public lectures you
have affirmed ~, That Christianity is of
divine origin ~ That it is destined to
" overspread the earth 81 That no other
religion is of divine origin. In reply, /
maintain that neither of these PROPOSE
tons are true. If you are prepared to
&C make them good, and not ask the people
" OF Aryayasta to accept your statements
without proof, | viii be happy to meet
90 you for discussion. / name next Sunday
" evening, ETC." At the same time Cook
received letters from Madam Biavatsky
and Colonel Olcott, demanding the retrac-
ton OF his ISLANDERS, and challenging him to
discussion. But he evidently did not
want any discussion. So long as he could
dogmatize from his pulpit he was ready to
continue the game, but when he was re-
quired to make good his reckless state
msnts he showed himself neither a brave
nor an honorable man.
In a word, he slipped away with a
mean and transparent excuse, and went to
PJona, where more hot water awaited
him, as we have shown. Then Cap
tain Banon, of the British army, took
up the cause of Madam Blavatsky and
Colonel 0lcott, and all three followed Cook
to Poona. Captain Banon at once wr0te
him letter stating the facts, and demand
ing that Cook should meet Colonel Olcott
before the Poona public, and make good
his charges. " If you decline" proceeded
the Captain, 81 shall post you as a coward
&" and slanderer." But Cook did decline.
He could not substantiate the calumnies
he had been so willing to repeat at the in
stigation of some of his cowardly mission.
airy friends, but he was too unmanly to ad.
NIT that he had done wrong. He appears
to have thought that he would be able to
dragon not only the Hindoos and the
British residents, but his own countrymen
in India. and to have ridden through the
lecture field with a loose rein, hitting every
head he saw, whether native or otherwise.
His shameful behavior at Bombay and
Poona, however, completed the ruin of his
never-substantial reputation. 1t is per.
fectly safe assertion that no competent
critic ever rose from perusal of his Boston
Monday Lectures without complete con.
viction that their author was bumptious,
self-sufficient, shallow charlatan, who
possessed no real grasp of any of the
subjects he discussed, but had simply
=" crammed " on them for the purposes of
his lectures. His disciples were the Bos-
ton gobemouches and the intellectual "ten-
" derfeet of the theological seminaries.
He went to India with flourish of
trumpets. He was going to bear down all
opposition. He was going to astonish the
Pandits with the culture of Boston. The
only scintilla of wisdom he showed during
his expedition, however, was in slipping
away from the Saraswati Swami, for the
latter would unquestionably have demol-
ished him so effectually that it would have
been as hard to hold an inquest on the re-
mains as though he had been through
dynamite explosion. Such smatterers and
brawling fellows will do well to keep out of
India, for the Hindoo Pandits are formid-
able customers in controversy, as many
p,eho, IL TokA II, L -