The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1897-10-08


ceases to turn. The mystical syllables
are no longer muttered. No longer are
charms resorted to for compelling the
| help of the gods. No longer do young
men seek to become holy by following
| the example of Buddha, who deserted
his wife and infant child to seek for
enlightenment and salvation. In place
of all these forms and ceremonies
comes a practical worship in which
emphasis is placed on daily life. The
essence of religion is no longer incense
but service; not separation from the
world. but a loving life in it. The re-
ligion of the realistic optimist, Christ,
is substituted for that of the idealistic
pessimist, Buddha.
VI. The great deficiency of all the
ethnic religions, however, is not so
much their lack of ideals, but of power;
they have neither the doctrine nor the
experience of the Holy Ghost, and con-
sequently they know nothing OF the
repentance or conversion. Now these
are pivotal in the attainment of the
highest and noblest living, and even
/ for the attainment and realization in
actual life of the other ideals of the
ethnic religions. In the gift, therefore,
of the Holy Spirit, Christ, in most
vital respect, fulfills the native relig-
ions. He enables them to realize their
own ideals. What the world needs to-
day. heather and Christian alike, is
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But
this comes from and through Christ,
and from Christ alone.
have spoken of the native religions
of Japan as preparing the way for the
coming of the Kingdom of Christ to
the Japanese in the same way as the
Jewish religion prepared the way for
Christs coming to the Hebrews of old.
l wish to be clearly understood. The
evidence is conclusive that the pre-
Christian development of the ethnic
religions, whatever the land or people,
is not for a moment to be compared
with the pre-Christian development of
the Hebrew religion. Gods providence
over the Hebrew people, and his self
revelation to the Hebrew prophets,
were unique. Nowhere among Bud
dhists or Confucianists, or Hindus or
Parsees, or Greeks or Romas, with all
their attainments, intellectual and eth
ical, do we find the Nea of ethical Mo-
notheism. This was the great, the vital
revelation to the Hebrew prophets.
They saw that the Lord of all the
earth is a righteous and impartial God;
that history is not aimless, but rather
that it is the working out of the plans
of God in the establishment of his
kingdom; that history has profound
moral meaning.
It was this perception that lifted the
Hebrew above every other religion and
made it unique This was the peculiar
preparation among the Jews for the
coming of Jesus the Christ, which no
other nation has ever had. On the
revelation of a righteous God in his
tory Jesus founded the still higher
and more vitalizing revelation of this
same God as a supreme loving father,
with all its corolaries. 1t is the union
of these two vitalizing ideas that to-
day is lifting men and nations to high
er planes of thought and life. 1t is
this double revelation that has made
men free in the truth, and which has
Sn1 l0ICllOOll anu liz
civilization. 1t is this same conception
of God and his universe that Japan
needs today for the sure foundations
for her rapidly charging life. With
her new development, new and deeper
religious needs are arising. In Christ
alone can they be supplied.
If all this is so, then we of Christian
lands have a message for Japan and
for all the orient of priceless value.
Without it her own highest welfare is
impossible Indeed, it is already be-
coming manifest that the civilization
of Christendom, with its intense in
dustrialism and individualism, but
without the Christian gospel and the
Christian spirit, is cruel curse to the
peoples of the orient. 1t blasts and its
blights. 1t multiplies temptation and
crime, and sin. Science and civilization
destroy superstition indeed, but they
leave empty, aching hearts. They leave
no object to worship. For materialism
is alone possible to highly developed
but Christless civilization. 1t destroys
belief and hope and comfort and peace.
Christ and his truth are the only sufi-
cient remedies for the evils of modern
civilization Christ fulflls all their
noblest visions. In him they are learn
ing to see Confucius and Mencius and
Buddha transcribed and idealized.
In Christ and his gospel, therefore,
we who profess ourselves to be his
disciples have a message which it is
both our duty and privilege to pro-
claim to all, even to the most cultured
of the classes of the orient; for we
preach not destruction, but fulflment
o, that all Christians might realize
how vital is this gospel to the welfare
both of individuals and of nations, and
might with boundless enthusiasm both
live it in its fullness themselves, and
also take up the duty and the privilege
of sending it speedily to all parts of
this suffering, sin-cursed world.
1t is indeed, as Christ said, 81 came
not to destroy, but to fulfill"