of the Veda originated certainly with English scholars. Dr. Mill once showed me the first attempt at printing the sacred Gâyatrî in Calcutta ; and, if I am not mistaken, he added that unfortunately the gentleman who had printed it died soon after, thus confirming the prophecies of the Brahmans that such a sacrilege would not remain unavenged by the gods. Dr. Mill, Stephenson, Wilson, and others were the first to show to the educated natives in India that the Upanishads belonged to a later age than the hymns of the Rig-Veda, and likewise the first to exhibit to Ram Mohun Roy and his friends the real character of these ancient hymns. On a mind like Ram Mohun Roy's the effect was probably much more immediate than on his followers, so that it took several years before they decided on sending their commissioners to Benares to report on the Veda and its real character. Yet that mission was, I believe, the result of a slow process of attrition produced by the contact between native and European minds, and as such I wished to present it in my address at the Oriental Congress.' XII. WESTMINSTER LECTURE. ON MISSIONS.1 Delivered in the Nave of Westminster Abbey, on the Evening of December 3, 1873. THE number of religions which have attained stability and permanence in the history of the world is very small. If we leave out of consideration those vague and varying forms of faith and worship which we 'NOTICE. 1 Westminster Abbey. Day of Intercession for Missions, Wednesday, December 3, 1873. Lecture in the Nave, at eight o'clock, p.m. Hymn 25 (Bp. Heber) From Greenland's icy mountains, Their land from error's chain. What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle; The gifts of God are strown; Bows down to wood and stone. There will be a Lecture delivered Professor Max Müller, M.A. . Wittenberg (p. 50). Can we whose souls are lighted Can we to men benighted The joyful sound proclaim, Has learnt Messiah's name. Waft, waft, ye winds, his story; It spreads from pole to pole ; In bliss returns to reign. Amen. in the Nave on Missions by find among uncivilised and unsettled races, among races ignorant of reading and writing, who have neither a literature, nor laws, nor even hymns and prayers handed down by oral teaching from father to son, from mother to daughter, we see that the number of the real historical religions of mankind amounts to no more than eight. The Semitic races have produced three-the Jewish, the Christian, the Mohammedan; the Aryan, or Indo-European races, an equal number-the Brahman, the Buddhist, and the Parsi. Add to these the two religious systems of China, that of Confucius and Lao-tse, and you have before you what may be called the eight distinct languages or utterances of the faith of mankind from the beginning of the world to the present day; you have before you in broad outlines the religious map of the whole world. All these religions, however, have a history, a history more deeply interesting than the history of language, or literature, or art, or politics. Religions are not unchangeable: on the contrary, they are always growing and changing; and if they cease to grow and cease to change, they cease to live. Some of these religions stand by themselves, totally independent of all the rest; others are closely united, or have influenced each other during various stages of their growth and decay. They must therefore be Ps. 100 (New Version) With one consent let all the earth To God their cheerful voices raise; Glad homage pay with awful mirth, And sing before him songs of praise. Convinced that He is God alone, From Whom both we and all proceed; We whom He chooses for His own, The flock that He vouchsafes to feed. Old Hundredth (p. 21). O enter then His temple gate, And still His Name with praises bless. For He's the Lord supremely good, studied together, if we wish to understand their real character, their growth, their decay, and their resuscitations. Thus, Mohammedanism would be unintelligible without Christianity; Christianity without Judaism; and there are similar bonds that hold together the great religions of India and Persia-the faith of the Brahman, the Buddhist, and the Parsi. After a careful study of the origin and growth of these religions, and after a critical examination of the sacred books on which all of them profess to be founded, it has become possible to subject them all to a scientific classification, in the same manner as languages, apparently unconnected and mutually unintelligible, have been scientifically arranged and classified; and by a comparison of such points as all or some of them share in common, as well as by a determination of others which are peculiar to each, a new science has been called into life, a science which concerns us all, and in which all who truly care for religion must sooner or later take their part-the Science of Religion. Among the various classifications' which have been applied to the religions of the world, there is one that interests us more immediately to-night-I mean the division into Non-Missionary and Missionary religions. This is by no means, as might be supposed, a classification based on an unimportant or merely accidental characteristic; on the contrary, it rests on what is the very heart-blood in every system of human faith. Among the six religions of the Aryan 1 Different systems of classification applied to the religions of the world are discussed in my Introduction to the Science of Religion, pp. 122-143. and Semitic world, there are three that are opposed to all missionary enterprise-Judaism, Brahmanism, and Zoroastrianism; and three that have a missionary character from their very beginning-Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity. The Jews, particularly in ancient times, never thought of spreading their religion. Their religion was to them a treasure, a privilege, a blessing, something to distinguish them, as the chosen people of God, from all the rest of the world. A Jew must be of the seed of Abraham: and when in later times, owing chiefly to political circumstances, the Jews had to admit strangers to some of the privileges of their theocracy, they looked upon them, not as souls that had been gained, saved, born again into a new brotherhood, but as strangers (D), as Proselytes (TρоonλUTO)-which means men who have come to them as aliens, not to be trusted, as their saying was, until the twenty-fourth generation.' A very similar feeling prevented the Brahmans from ever attempting to proselytise those who did not by birth belong to the spiritual aristocracy of their country. Their wish was rather to keep the light to themselves, to repel intruders; and they went so far as to punish those who happened to be near enough to hear even the sound of their prayers, or to witness their sacrifices.2 ''Proselyto ne fidas usque ad vigesimam quartam generationem.' Jalkut Ruth, f. 163, d; Danz, in Meuschen, Nov. Test. ex Talm. illustr. p. 651. 2 India, Progress and Condition, Blue Book presented to Parliament, 1873, p. 99: 'It is asserted (but the assertion must be taken with reserve) that it is a mistake to suppose that the Hindu religion is not proselytising. Any number of outsiders, so long as they do VOL. II. E |