The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-12-01

the helpless, proceeding wholly repug-
nant to the feelings OF Hindus." In Or
der to keep children out of the hands OF
the missionaries, the Hindus have In
feeble way started some orphanages OF
their own, although they otherwise
would show little compassion for their
suffering countrymen.
Recently a number of girls in Pundi-
ia Ramabai's Home for Widows have,
through her personal influence ana eX-
ample been led to accept Christianity
and. be baptized. This aroused storm
of opposition among the Hindus, and
the Pundita was denounced as Wolf
in Sleeps clothing. An editor wrote:
The Home is a snare spread for gain
ing the desired object of Christianity,
and Pandita is a wolf in the hide of
sheep watching slowly and carefully
upon the innocent widows, running them
forever. What will be the future lot of
these poor girls?" The Hindu reform
ers rightly answer that the widows
cannot be blamed for preferring reli-
gion Of love like Christianity to one
which makes their lot so hard as does
Hinduism. .
The, Christian missionaries in India
are generally accused by the Hindus OF
bigotry. Here is specimen: THE
grievous blunder of the Christian mis-
sionary movement lies in the fact OF
dogmatic aggressiveness, a spirit of an
tagonism towards all other religions,
which soon graduates into bitter de-
nunciation. But it is useless to
preach these elementary truths to our
Christian missionaries. The failure OF
their missions makes them rather sour
tempered and prevents them from look
ing at things from the correct stand
point"
The reason for this accusation of big
otry is that the missionaries present
Christ as the incarnation Of God and
the one divine Savior of the world.
This the Hindus do not like. They say
1--WE have our inearnations and Chris
tians have theirs. The Christian incar-
nation differs somewhat from ours, but
the general object of incarnations is
practically the same, hence there is no
reason why we should give up our own
and accept Christ alone" Even an en-
lightened man like Mozoomdar says,
MANY eduated Hindus honor the char
acter of Christ and really love him, but
| their repugnance to- what Is known as
popular Christian theology is COM
plete." BY this theology he means the
divinity Of Christ and the atonement.
| If this is bigotry, 1 don't see how we
are going to help being bigoted. The
Hindus would be willing to add Christ
| to their pantheon or put him on level
with Buddha and other religious teach
ers. Hinduism has hitherto been able
to swallow up every form of religion
with which it came into contact. 1t has
been omniverous. 1t is now trying the
same process on Christianity. VIII it
succeed?
The Brahmo Samajists claim that
they in common with the Unitarians
and Universalists of the west have got
the great liberal faith Of the future.
But to call Brahmoism an eclectric sys-
| tenn, and say that 1t has drawn the
money of truth from every religion, is
not truthful statement. Rather it has
| drawn wholesale from Christianity and
| then tried to find these same truths
| elsewhere. Practically it is compro-
| mise between Hinduism and Christian
| ity. With the present reaction towards
| Hinduism, it is becoming more Hindu
| and less Christian in the mass of it's
members. 1t depends for it's life on the
| work of the missionaries, for the more
Christian truth spreads, the greater will
be the number of those who fall into its
ranks.
1t is a study to observe the effect of
Christian preaching on the Hindus. If
we hint at the evils of caste or the de-
grading effect of idolatry, they say,
'fYou would point us out our supersti-
lions and show what mischief they
| bring upon us. You would throw dirt
on us to induce us to join your ranks.
| You rather ALLEVIATE our sympathies by
| this course of policy. One great defect
that we find in you as class, and
which makes us rather resent your ad-
vice from time to time, is that you are
| often dogmatic in your assertions.
| Thus you maintain that there is truth
and nothing but the truth in Christian
ity, whereas there is hardly any parti-
Gle of truth in other religions You as
sumo that you have come to know all
the unscrutable ways of the Almighty,
| which after all feeble mortal can never
aspire to do, and you try to correct the
| defects in other religions from your
own standpoint, supposed to be invul-
nerable.''
Even in the case of so broad minded
and sympathetic "a presentation of
Christianity as that made by DR. Bar
| rows, prominent native editor re-
| marks, "These lectures were one and
all rhetoric and nothing else. They
| were luminous with learning but no
one need think anything Of them, and
as to the dogmatic assertion of the SUI
perior merits Of Christianity which DIR.
Barrows made, why even a converted
native street preacher Of that religion
could have sufficed very well, and there
was nolneed for learned divine being
specially sent from America for that
purpose"
Thus the effort was made to be1ittle
and minimize the effect Of these lee
lures (This was by the same editor
who has been arrested for seditious
writing.) When mems hearts are evil
and they prefer darkness rather than
light, they will not accept the truth no
matter in what an attractive garb it be
presented. One effect of presenting the
gospel is to harden the hearts of the
hearers and in my missionary expert
ence 1 have often thought of the COM
mission of Isaiah, where he was told to
go and make the heart Of the people
fiat and their ears heavy and shut their
eyes, so that they could not understand
the truth. 1t is a terribly discouraging
H.