The sun., 1894-09-09

/
and familiar with the language snd the litera
ture Of the Tamil-speeking races, we ma
be tolerably sure that he would no
| regard those races as children Of utter dark
ness. Can the teachings Of Christ be presented
| as new and dark sayings TO q people, for ex
| ample, who have lived for centuries believing
| and repeating such = quatrain as this, which
| ind ss No. 80 Of the Ealadiysr7 when th'
fruit Of our deeds Is come the fool sighs heavily
and all his soul dies out but those who renec
and say IL is the retributive desert Of old &C
tlons, will pass beyond the bound Of llfe's per
plexitles To them devotion 10 virtue opens tn,
door Of escape" Or this, which Cachauthau, q
hero Of ancient days among the Csivites, on
the point Of losing his kingdom and his life
says in an archaic Tamil poem to his beloved
Queen, whom he is sending TO place Of safety
death and birth, too, are the fruit of mems
deeds; go, ton. are prosperity and adver-
sity. This is the natural course OF
things" And what would such a
thinker as Emerson have said Of this quatrain,
No. 35 Those who have pressed tho SUI
gar cane. and drawn the precious juice, will suf-
fer no grief when the heaped-up refuse burns;
those who have toiled and gained the true fruit
Of embodied existence. will feel no panRs when
the death Of tho body comes" IL Is recorded
that Christian teachers from Alexandria and
ready acceptance on the west coast Of southern
India from a people familiar. long before their
coming, with such teaching ms this NO 800 of
the Naladiysr! This day dost thou say, or
that day2 What day7 oh. question not the
time. Bethink you that death stands walt
ing ever behind you. Put away from you
now every evil thing, and with all your might
embrace the teachings OF virtue"
The essence of tho Caivan faith, which
runs through all these quatrains, and has
affected for centuries the life of the Tamil
speaking races. is an absolute belief in immor-
tality. II is the Caivan faith that life, once
given, endures forever, not unconscious, but con-
scious. One Of the oldest Of these Caivan qua
trains mo. 80 in chapter third thus deals with
the ties OF human life: "Unasked men como,
appear in the home Of their kinsmcn. and then,
unasked, silently depart, As the bird silently
deserts the tree in which It's nest still remains
and wings Its way afar OF, men depart, leav-
ing but their body with their friends" The
human body. indeed regarded as n temporary
habitation only of the immortal soul, Is treated
in the quatrains with an ascetic sJernness. not
to say contempt. worthy Of the most morbid Of
the most early Christian Anchorites. There
is perpetual reference In the Caivan
religion and philosophy TO the soul. or the mind.
the one positive reality Of the universe. which
must have fitted the Tsmil-speaking races for
centuries past 10 welcome and understand not
only the spiritualism Of Christianity. but the
of Greece. Character and the mind
appear in these quatrains as dom
mating all the accidents of circumstance and of
existence. Take this quatrain, No. PAS: Even
close to the seashore. ofttimcs sweet waters
spring up: and ofttimes on the hillside the
waters gush out, acrid and briny. Thus men are
not always as their race is. Oil Lord OF tho