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vol. title: Vol Four of The Theosophical Society of The Arya Samaj of Arya-wart vol. period: Sept 1878 – Sept 1879 pages in vol.: 350 |
< The Theosophical Society (continued from page 8-236) >
secret convictions were at variance with at least the extreme views set forth in his speculations. Through going materialists and Pantheists have admitted the work of Christianity for the regeneration of the world. While this is the case some American gentlemen in the face of Christendom and enlightened modern thought stultify and disgrace themselves by their unnatural pretentions and blasphemous statements. If they had retained their reverence for Christ and the Bible, they might have had some hopes of success; but as it is, they ought to remember that India is quite ahead of them, that India wants some thing better, something purer. There was a time when the Brahmas themselves made a good deal of useless noise about the Vedas, but they have subsided. Further accession of light and may we not say, moral development, have taught them that the Vedas cannot claim that authority which was at one time claimed for them. As for pure monotheism of the Vedas it is a pure myth, and the highest teaching of morality and true religion, it is a complete failure. If the religious consciousness of India be taken into account, then, India does not want the principles of this strange compound of paganism and atheism. Christianity alone has shown the union of the human soul with God possible and every other system of faith which runs counter to this must be leading the soul away from God, and the consequence in the long run is, that the end is atheism i.e. a life without God.
Truth must commend itself to every right minded person. People may not entertain and may make mistakes about the whole teaching of the Bible, in reference to what may be called the distinctive doctrines of the Bible, but who shall undertake to describe the moral degradation of persons who can see nothing good in the Bible and in Him who is the “Desire of nations” and the ideal of Humanity and who moreover have not the eyes to see what Christianity has wrought in this world. These men have expressed their desire of extirpating Christianity. This is more than the gates of hell have been successful in doing.
Those who can think and talk of the Bible and Christianity in the way these Americans have done must be, we reiterate, a degraded humanity. How they managed to sink so low in the scale of moral and spiritual being must be a sadly interesting study for metaphysicians. To think of men who were once we suppose Christians engrafted with Him who is the life of Humanity and the hope of all the ends of the earth, now setting at the feet of Indian Jogis to learn or rather unlearn all that they once learnt, is very sad indeed.
These men will have as their public utterances show any thing but christianity. But they will do well to ponder on the origin, the growth and the beneficial effects of Christianity. They will do well in their calmer moments, when existence assumes a little more seriousness and solemnity, than it seems to have as yet done in regard to them, what the world would have been religiously, intellectually and politically without the Bible. Those who speak disparagingly of the Bible ought to remember that the Bible is not only a blessed Book but our Book. It is the universal applicability of the scriptures which has held spell-bound the heart of nations in a way in which no single book has ever held men before. The words which had come from the prophets of the despised Israel have been the life-blood of the world’s devotion. In the words of a scholar and a divine the Bible has been to the world what no other book has ever been to a nation. States have been founded on its principles, kings rule by a compact based on it. Men hold the Bible in their hands when they prepare to give solemn evidence affecting life, death and property; the sick man is almost afraid to die unless the Book be within reach of his hands; the battle-ship goes into action with one on board whose office is to expound it; its prayers, its psalms are the language which we use when we speak to God; eighteen centuries have found no holier, no diviner language. There is no new religious idea given to the world, but it is merely the development of something in the Bible, the very translation of it has fixed language and settled the idioms of speech. Germany and England speak as they speak because the Bible was translated. It has made the most illiterate peasant more familiar with the history, customs and geography of ancient Palestine than with the localities of his own country. Men who know nothing of the Grampians, of Snowdon, or of Skiddaw are at home in Zion, the lake of Genersareth or among the rills of Carmel; the orator holds a thousand men for half an hour breathless,—a thousand men as one, listening to his simple word. But this word of God held a thousand nations for thrice a thousand years spell-bound, held them by an abiding power, even the universality of its truth; and we feel it to be no more a collection of Books, but the Book.
A man who possesses any sense of the sublime and beautiful must recognise in the above a true representation of the facts of the case. There must be something radically wrong and corrupt in the moral nature of that man who cannot respond to those words. We say must, because the eternal laws of right and wrong must demand our assent and approval.
In the face of these facts, which have been to some extent recognised even by the non-christian populations of India, what can be the moral states of these men who fail to see any good point in Christianity and the Bible, and whose avowed object is to do away with Christian Missionaries who have wherever they have gone been the messengers of peace and pioneers of civilization.
A man or a woman who pretends to some education and who can say that India owes every thing to the British Government and not to Christianity must have lost his or her senses outright. This is the conclusion we have come to about the new theosophical society.
Day of Intercession for Missions
The subjoined letter to the Clergy was issued early in the month by the Bishop:—
My dear Brethren,—The Bishops assembled at Lambeth in 1878 have issued a Recommendation that the Tuesday before Ascension Day should for the future be observed as our Annual Day of Intercession for Foreign Missions, instead of S. Andrew’s Day. It is desirable that a single day should be observed by the whole Anglican Communion. And moreover Rogation-tide being set apart by the Church as a season of fasting and prayer for special blessings, I entirely concur in this Recommendation.
I have therefore to make the following suggestions:—
I. That on “Rogation Sunday,” the fifth after Easter, you should address your congregation on one or two of the following subjects:—
1. The efficacy of Intercessory Prayer in general, and especially of prayer for Christian Missions.
2. The claims of Missions on the support of the Church.
3. The supernatural character of the Gospel Revelation as entrusted to the Church, and its claim to supersede all other religions.
4. Apathy regarding Missionary work a scandal to the Church and the world.
5. Christ the Light of the world.
II. That on that day, or on the Tuesday, or both, you should solicit the contributions of your people for Mission work.
III. That on the Tuesday you should celebrate the Holy Communion, and invite the communicants to Special Prayer for Missions.
IV. That at any hour which you may deem suitable, on the Tuesday you should hold a Special Service of Intercession for Missions.
Along with, or soon after this, you will receive a paper containing suggestions for such special services, and an outline of a form which I propose to sanction in the Diocese for use at the discretion of individual clergymen.—
Authorised for use in the Diocese of Bombay.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
A selection of Psalms, taken from under two at least of the following heads:—
I. Christ the King of Humanity.
Antiphon.—His dominion also shall be from one sea to the other, and from the flood unto the world’s end.
IV. The invitation of the Church to the heathen.
Ant.—Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King.
V. False religions and the true religion.
Ant.—But thou, house of Israel: trust thou in the Lord.
VI. Lamentation of the Church over her Negligence.
Ant.—My confusion is daily before me; and the shame of my face hath covered me.
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Editor's notes
- ↑ Day of Intercession for Missions by Mylne, Louis George