not be accused of saying either too little or too much? In A.D. 800 the Double Procession was as much a burning question as the Homoousia in 324are, therefore, both Channing and Dr. Döllinger to be anathematised now? Brahmoism may not be like the religions of old, but must the religions of the future be like the religions of the past? However, I do not wish to draw Mr. Lyall into a theological argument. His estimate of the real value and vitality of Brahmoism may be right-mine may be wrong. His presence in India, and his personal intercourse with the Brahmos, may have given him opportunities of judging which I have not. Only let us not forget that for watching the movements of a great struggle, and for judging of its successful issue, a certain distance from the field of battle has its advantages also, and that judges in India have not always proved the best judges of India.

One point, however, I am quite willing to concede. If Brahmoism and similar movements may be considered as reforms and resuscitations of Brahmanism, then I withdraw my expression that Brahmanism is dead. Only let us remember that we are thus using Brahmanism in two very different senses-that we are again playing with words. In the one sense it is stark idolatry: in the other, the loftiest spiritual worship. The former asserts the existence of many personal gods: the latter shrinks even from the attribute of personality as too human a conception of the Highest Spirit. The former makes the priest a kind of god on earth, the latter proclaims the priesthood of all men; the former is guided by scriptures which man calls sacred, the latter knows

of no sacred oracles but the still small voice in the

heart of every man. The two are like two opposite poles. What is negative on one side is positive on the other; what is regarded by the one as the most sacred truth is anathematised by the other as deadly

error.

Mr. Lyall tell us of Ghási Dás, an inspired prophet, who sojourned in the wilderness for six months, and then issued forth preaching to the poor and ignorant the creed of the True Name (Satnám). He gathered about half a million people together before he died in 1850. He borrowed his doctrines from the well-known Hindu sect of the Satnâmis, and though he denounced Brahmanic abuses, he instituted caste rules of his own, and his successor was murdered, not for heresy, but because he aped Brahmanic insignia and privileges. Mr. Lyall thinks that this community, if left alone, will relapse into a modified Brahmanism. This may be so, but it can hardly be said, that a reform the followers of which are murdered for aping Brahmanic insignia and privileges represents Brahmanism, which Mr. Lyall defines as 'the broad denomination of what is recognised by all Hindus as the supreme theological faculty and the comprehensive scheme of authoritative tradition to which all minor beliefs are referred for sanction.'

When I spoke of Brahmanism as dead, I meant the popular orthodox Brahmanism, which is openly patronised by the Brahmans, though scorned by them in secret. I did not, and could not, mean the worship of Brahma as the Supreme Spirit, which has existed in India from the time of the Upanishads to the present day, and has lately assumed the name of

Brahmoism—a worship so pure, so exalted, so deeply human, so truly divine, that every man can join in it without apostasy, whether he be born a Jew, a Gentile, or a Christian.

That many antagonistic forms of religious faith, some the most degraded, others the most exalted, should live on the same soil, among the same people, is indeed a disheartening truth, enough almost to shake one's belief in the common origin and the common destinies of the human race. And yet we must not shut our eyes to the fact that amongst ourselves, too, men who call themselves Christians are almost as widely separated from each other in their conceptions of the Divine and the Human, in their grounds of belief and in their sense of duty, as, in India, the worshippers of Ganesa-the god of success, with four hands and an elephant's head, sitting on a rat-on one side, and the believers in the true Brahma, on the other. There is a Christianity that is dead, though it may be professed by millions of people; but there is also, let us trust, a Christianity that is alive, though it may count but twelve apostles. As in India, so in Europe, many would call death what we call life: many would call life what we call death. Here, as elsewhere, it is high time that men should define the exact meaning of their words, trusting that definiteness, frankness, and honesty may offer a better chance of mutual understanding, and serve as a stronger bond of union between man and man, than vague formulas, fainthearted reticence, and what is at the root of it all, want of true love of Man, and of true faith in God.

If Mr. Lyall imagined that the object of my Lec

ture was to discourage missionary efforts, he must have found out his mistake when he came to read it as I delivered it in Westminster Abbey. I know of no nobler life than that of a true missionary. I tried to defend the labours of the paternal missionary against disparaging criticisms. I tried to account for the small success of controversial missions, by showing how little is gained by mere argument and casuistry at home. And I pointed to the indirect missionary influence exercised by every man who leads a Christian life in India or elsewhere, as the most encouraging sign of the final triumph of a pure and living Christianity. It is very possible, as Mr. Lyall says somewhat sarcastically, that 'missionaries will even yet hardly agree that the essentials of their religion are not in the creeds, but in love; because they are sent forth to propound scriptures which say clearly that what we believe or disbelieve is literally a burning question.' Mr. Lyall, consider love of man founded on love of God nothing but 'flat morality,' must have forgotten that a Higher One than they declared that on these two hang all the law and the commandments. By placing abstruse tenets, the handiwork of Popes and Councils, in the place of Christ's teaching, and by making a belief in these positive articles a burning question, weak mortals have driven weak mortals to ask, 'Are we Christians still?' Let them for once by observation and experience' try the oldest and simplest and most positive article of Christianity, real love of man founded on real love of God, and I believe they will soon ask themselves, When shall we be Christians at last ? '

But those who, with

109

XIV.

LECTURE

ON THE VEDAS OR THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE BRAHMANS,'

Delivered at the Philosophical Institution, Leeds, March, 1865.

I HAVE brought with me one volume of my edition of the Veda, and I should not wonder if it were the first copy of the work which has ever reached this busy town of Leeds. Nay, I confess I have some misgivings that I may have undertaken a hopeless task, and I begin to doubt whether I shall succeed in explaining to you the interest which I feel for this ancient collection of sacred hymns-an interest which has never failed me while devoting to the publication of this voluminous work the best twenty years of my life. Many times have I been asked, But what is the Veda? Why should it be published? What are we likely to learn from a book composed nearly four thousand years ago, and intended from the beginning for an uncultivated race of mere heathens and savages,

-a book which the natives of India have never published themselves, although, to the present day, they profess to regard it as the highest authority for their

1 Some of the points touched upon in this Lecture have been more fully treated in my History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature. As the second edition of this work has been out of print for several years, I have here quoted a few passages from it in full.