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... | Our brilliant but slightly erratic friend, the former secretary of the National Insurance Convention, Henry S. Olcott, has been made Samaja. At the last meeting of the Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj of Aryavart, Hierophant Olcott in the chair, the question of the late amalgamation of the Theosophical Society with the Arya Samaj of Hindostan was called up and it was agreed to print an appeal to the American people on behalf of the body. The chief of the Arya Samaj, the Swamee Dyra Nand Saraswati, Pandit of Bombay, has had translated from Sanskrit the rules of the society with which the Theosophists have united. This work has been done by Shyamaji Chrisnavarma. These recite that the four texts of the Vedas shall be received and regarded as containing within themselves all that is necessary to constitute them an extraordinary authority in all matters relating to human conduct. In the metropolis of every country there must be a principal Samaja. The United States will have in New York Samaja Olcott, Pandit, to rule over it in matters of faith. At the celebration of a marriage, at the birth of a child, or the solemnization of a funeral, as well as when any member is highly benefited, it is expected that a gift of money will be made to the Samaja. | ||
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... | {{Style S-Small capitals|To the Editor of The Sun}}—''Sir'': The frequent appearance of articles and paragraphs in the daily papers is presumptive evidence that the public takes some interest in the doings of the Theosophical Society and its officers. Permit me, therefore, to set right an error for which you are responsible, and which has just come to my notice. You say that I have “been made Samaja” by the “Pandit of Bombay,” Chief of the Hindoo Arya Samaj. You might as well say that by the Professor of Boston Judge Daly had been made American Geographical Society, or Mr. Vanderbilt New York Central. “Samaja” is the Sanskrit equivalent for “society,” and Samaj is the same word with the elision of the final vowel. There is no such person as “Pandit of Bombay.” The Arya Samaj, or Fraternity of Aryans, is, under direction of its chief—the Swamee (Holy Man) Dya Nand, one of the profoundest scholars and saintliest characters of our epoch—engaged in a warfare against idolatrous Brahmanism. It is translating the original Vedic books, aiming to restore the pure theism of the Aryans, founding schools, establishing newspapers, and using every endeavor to do away with the corruptions of primitive religion which forty centuries of priesthood have foisted upon the people. | ||
Upon comparing notes with our Indian correspondents, we Theosophists found that the Samaj and our young Western society were teaching identical doctrines and arrayed against identical antagonists—an unspiritual, bigoted, sensual priesthood. The proposal made by our Eastern brethren that our two societies should amalgamate our forces was favorably received. We organized a Vedic section of the Theosophical Society, under the title of the T. S. of the Arya Samaj, and large numbers of the first native scholars of India have been admitted to our fellowship. | |||
A like affiliation with the Ceylon Buddhists, headed by the world-famous Sumangala, President of the Pali College, High Priest of Adam’s Peak, is in progress. Correspondence looking to like results is going on with influential Parsis and Jains. | |||
Observe, therefore, that for the first time in history the work of resistance against religious dogmatism, and of spreading throughout Christendom the exact truth about the primitive faiths and philosophies, is being pushed under the joint direction and fraternal coöperation of Oriental and Western societies. That such unity is possible must be ascribed to the fact that throughout all the “heathen” world Christian theology and scholarship are regarded by truth seekers as the enemies of truth. | |||
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|Henry S. Olcott}} | |||
New York, Oct. 8. | |||
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... | For hundreds of years the Occidental World has been unceasing in its efforts to convert the heathens of the East to the Christian faith. Millions of treasures and thousands of lives have been expended in this propagandism, and in spite of much that is discouraging in the past and comparatively little that is hopeful in the present, all the different branches and sects of the Christian Church, with insignificant exceptions, are to-day as zealous as ever in the work of heathen conversion. | ||
No religious contributions are more regular and very few are larger than those collected to pay the cost of carrying the Gospel to heathen lands. Christian missionaries are scattered throughout the East, the Bible has been translated into nearly all the tongues of the world, the prayers of myriads of the faithful ascend to heaven for the success of the efforts at heathen evangelization, and the theological seminaries have constantly in training recruits for the foreign missionary field. | |||
Doubtless progress has been made in the work since the Church first undertook the tremendous task of converting the heathens. The reports of the foreign missionary societies present encouraging facts and stimulate the religious to further self-sacrifices, to the end that the ancient faiths of the East may be broken down and the purer truths of Christianity substituted for them. But it cannot be denied that so far not even the outworks of heathendom have been taken by the army of Christian missionaries which has steadily assailed them from the early days of the Church up to the present moment. In the Indies Brahmanism still has more followers than Christianity, and the Oriental mind turns away from the religious teachings of the West. | |||
Our missionaries to India, China, and Japan do not go to rude and unlettered peoples, like the Fiji Islanders, or the African savages, or the Sandwich Islanders, as they were a hundred years ago, but to races who have a developed creed and who can give a reason for it, a creed which has many learned expounders and deft logicians to defend it. They are, therefore, unless they are very clever men, sometimes actually beaten in the argument with the heathens they set out to convert, and are driven to their wits’ ends to save themselves from appearing to need conversion to Brahmanism, instead of having a superior religion of their own to offer. It is very great folly to send a dull and stupid man, a minister who is not bright enough to get on at home, to convert the Oriental heathens. They are pretty sure to be too sharp for him. | |||
Our missionaries, no matter how learned and how devoted, suffer under many disadvantages in trying to propagate Christianity in the East. It is up-hill work with them from the start and all through. They must be content with accomplishing comparatively little, and yet keep alive the zeal of the faithful, who send them out in ignorance of the difficulties of the task of supplanting a faith so old, and so deeply rooted as that of Brahmanism. | |||
But hard as the work now is, and expensive as it has always been, it seems it is hereafter to be made more arduous and more costly. The heathens are about to gain recruits from the West, who, instead of conducting a defensive warfare, will at once throw their columns against the walls of Christianity itself! We are informed that Hierophant {{Style S-Small capitals|Olcott}} and Mme. {{Style S-Small capitals|Blavatsky}}, the Theosophists, are now packing their trunks preparatory to a pilgrimage to India, there to challenge the Christian missionaries to debate the respective merits of Brahmanism and Christianity! | |||
The intelligence is the more startling because the Hierophant has lately been received into the Brahmanical sect, and is now Pandit of New York, and Madame {{Style S-Small capitals|Blavatsky}}, who has long been known as an out-and-out Brahmanist, with a contemptuous opinion of Christianity, has set her heart on overthrowing the Bible and substituting the Vedas in the United States. The Pandit {{Style S-Small capitals|Olcott}} has all the fire and zeal of a new convert, and Mme. {{Style S-Small capitals|Blavatsky}}’s mind is an arsenal of arguments which can | |||
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